Glass-Walled Cabin

My latest publication, “Glass-Walled Cabin” has appeared on The WiFiles. As is my custom, I devote a post to the story to share with readers what went into the writing process.

The WiFiles publishes fiction with a paranormal bent. That fits the horror genre particularly well since few people take sasquatch seriously. To write a story like this, however, requires some first-hand experience. At least in my case it does.

Many years ago I went to visit a forest ranger fire spotter in a lonely observation tower in the northwest United States. Most people are aware that the western part of this country suffers from perpetual drought, making the mountains, especially in summer, a potential tinderbox. The fire spotter had to live in this glass-walled cabin for four months at a stretch. Short visits were okay, but long-term guests would be a distraction.

Climbing to the tower meant hiking to the top of one of the tallest peaks in the area. And you also had to know the ranger. The first thing that struck me was how incredibly alone this guy was. He had to be okay in his own head. You need to look out through the glass constantly. If you can look out, others can look in.

Horror, for me, takes place in isolated locations. I’m not the kind of guy who has lots of friends, but I know the necessity of reaching out when trouble strikes. So the aging protagonist finds himself isolated in a fire tower. Instead of preventing a fire he finds himself on the inside of a cage.

Are sasquatch real? I don’t know. Taking aside the pranks there seems to be some reasonable evidence. While today’s eyewitnesses tell of seeing one, the miners in Ape Canyon in 1924 claimed to have been attacked by a whole tribe of them. I took this story, modernized it, and brought one man alone to face the fear that others claim doesn’t exist.

Without having traveled to this region myself, however, I doubt I would’ve felt compelled to write such a story. For me, horror begins with personal experience.

Comments

Working Through It

The thing about being a working writer is you don’t have time. Between working nine-to-five and trying to eat and sleep, and write, of course, the week is shot. Weekends are spent doing the errands that you can’t do during the week. I should probably have known better than to join a local writers’ group. Their meetings, although only once a month, are all-day affairs on a Saturday. I generally don’t have all day Saturday to spare. I work all week and I need groceries and the occasional Target run. And I haven’t yet learned to go a week without eating. This is actually the third writers’ group I’ve joined. One was not too far from home, but not terribly helpful. They met on Saturdays, but in the morning only. Nobody seemed interested in what I was writing, so I stopped going. The second one was about an hour away. They also met on Saturdays. Their big thing was having lunch together after the meeting. ...

Patterns

There’s a pattern I’m noticing. For fiction publishers. Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle. Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers. The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in. That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested. I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns. This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses. I check many lists. What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic. It’s literary but it’s weird. Publishers don’t know what to do with it. If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered. Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...

Creative Righting

Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world. That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week. That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press. The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor. She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher. I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions. I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor. That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it? You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify. It’s got speculative elements to it. ...

K. Marvin Bruce

Search This Blog