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My bizarre dreams


I haven’t revealed this to many friends, but the first horror short story of mine that was published was a dream. Almost scene-for-scene, the entire plot was somehow written and directed and screened by my sleeping brain.

Like many, I’ve always avoided spiders. They may be friendly little critters that eat flies, but I avoid them. They creep me out. One night long ago, I dreamed of a colossal alien spider-thing that descended from space in a weird lightning storm. The bloated giant hovered over a Midwestern suburb, and from its hull, hundreds of its long-legged young dropped down on hawsers of webbing. But the beasts had no heads or faces—they were just bodies with legs. To communicate and try to convince humans to submit to the new ravenous overlord, they would decapitate people and stick the heads on their own bodies to speak. 

Crazy, huh?

I’ll sit and work on a plot for hours and then write a story that is rejected time after time. But that one story given to me by a dream was published. I remember waking up in the morning and calling in sick to my hellish call center job just to type the revelation out.

I thought the story was good. After all, thousands of stories were rejected for this particular publication, but mine was selected! After publication, a review claimed my story was well written but had a clichéd plot. I’m still trying to figure out what was unoriginal about it. Darn my clichéd subconscious!

BTW...back issues of the publication are still available. 

WEIRDBOOK # 38

One of my favorite writers is Cormac McCarthy, may he rest in peace. McCarthy was a huge believer in listening to his subconscious mind, and he once told a story about Henry Miller's writing process. He said Miller would get up in the morning and sit down at his typewriter and let his fingers hover over the keys, and he'd cry out in French, “J'écoute!”, which means, “I'm listening.”

Well, I must get back to it. Write on, listen to your subconscious, and remember to shout, “J'écoute!”

-Joe

ALIEN SPIDER CREATURE FOUND ON MARS


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