Here’s to 2023…
2022 was a big year for me
I signed with an agent; finished another novel; added a new fuzzball to the family; and had a major breakthrough in my day job.
There were some lows in there too, of course:
My precious Aussie passed away in June after 14 beautiful years. I resumed more personal and professional responsibilities than initially expected. We had some major not-so-great medical news.
All of that being said, 2022 will likely be one I look back on with gratitude, especially given how 2020 and 2021 had panned out.
As I stand looking around at 2023, I’ll admit that the road ahead makes me a bit nervous.
It feels as though unknowns lurk around every corner. Change is on the horizon, but I don’t know how difficult the path from here to that place will be. It’s easy to shrink back from that because well, it’s scary not knowing where to put your feet next.
Every New Years, I draw a large tarot spread to give me some food for thought as time marches on. Each time, one or two overarching themes emerge.
For instance, last year, the two areas to focus on were 1) accepting that finances could be tight, and 2) finding community. As I bumbled my way through 2022, these themes stuck in the back of my mind and served as positive reminders whenever I was feeling stressed: ‘accept that the landscape is what it is for now; find your community.’
This year, one gigantic focus rose from the spread: Face and Embrace your Fear.
Yeah… not exactly what anyone wants to do. At the same time, I’ve seen this coming for a while. One of my common complaints to my partner is indeed “I feel like I’m scared all the time.” From medical issues to bills to career paths to even how well I clean my house, I can work myself into a panic over a million things each day.
But how far does fear actually get a person? Unless they do something with it, not very. You can allow fear to push you into a corner where you crumple under its weight, or you can use the emotion to drive you for change. Either way, the fear is there whether you choose to confront it or not.
There’s a reason why I write horror
—well, many reasons, obviously.
However, the more I’ve given it thought, the more I’ve come to believe that I write horror primarily because it allows me to face, process, and share my fear with others in a controlled environment. I craft the narrative; I see the path through the woods and know where I’ll arrive in the end. I’m the one that guides the reader through the nightmare. Horror is the one place where I can control fear.
It makes sense, then, that my newest project is quite literally about characters forced to confront their fears in order to control it and save themselves.
As I’m continuing to channel my own anxiety through my fiction in order to regain some sense of control, it’d probably do me some good to actually examine what it is I’m afraid of. Is it the fear of instability? The fear of loss? The fear of failure? Further, why am I afraid of these things? To uncover that is to get at the core of horror and what makes humans tick.
So, here’s to the frightful adventures ahead in 2023!
Here’s to better understanding myself; better accepting and integrating what I find lurking in my own shadows; better horror writing; and most importantly, better healing in the end.
May you all have a wonderful and creatively weird new year!
~Allison
