Fear

I haven’t been keeping up with blogs well because I’m very busy working on a 2000 word article on “Fear” for a Mental Health reference book. You’d think a horror writer would be perfect for such an article, but it’s not about my “thoughts” on fear, or about anything to do with writing horror fiction. (I have plenty of thoughts on those.) It’s about the physical and mental attributes that accompany fear, and how these are controlled in the brain. I’m enjoying it, but am finding it fairly effortful. I know the general physiology but there are a lot of details that I need a refresher on. Just below is the abstract of the piece, which will give you an idea of the focus.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion that occurs in response to an immediate and identifiable threat, usually of an external nature. It includes physiological elements such as increased heart rate and muscular tension, behaviors such as running or hiding, and hormonal changes like the release of epinephrine (adrenaline). It should be differentiated from “anxiety,” where the threat is only anticipated and is often not specifically identifiable. Fear is largely adaptive, in that it prepares us for immediate danger, while anxiety is maladaptive, in that it occurs to threats that cannot be controlled or avoided.

To bring this post around to writing, though, I’ve seen other writers talk about the internet and how it can distract one from writing. I agree that one can get caught up in surfing and lose sight of your writing goals, but--for me--net access has become extremely important to my productivity and the speed with which I can complete projects. However, this is true only for nonfiction. I just finished two other nonfiction articles and I had the net up almost the entire time while I was writing them. I was able to fact check at a click of the mouse, and was able to access journal articles and historical documents galore to give me just the details I needed when I needed them. My productivity level with nonfiction is three or four times what it was before I had regular net access. I would have had to spend a lot more time in libraries and ordering material through interlibrary loan. That time now is spent in actual writing.

With fiction, however, I tend to write away from the net. Oh, I find it helpful on occasion to quick check facts online about sailing ships, or weapons, or various props that are used in my story, but fiction is not primarily factual. Stories need mood and atmosphere, and the net can’t give me that. Also, fiction is hard, harder to me than nonfiction, and when I get to a sticking point on a story I can so easily allow myself to “see if there are any comments on my blog,” or “check my email.” This is the death knell for “flow.” A sticking point in nonfiction can be broken by more research. A sticking point in fiction usually can’t, because it’s not about the facts but about the “feel.”

How about you? What’s your take on the net and writing. Helpful in all cases? Harmful? Or is it different for different forms of writing?
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Lost Days.

Is it already Saturday? How time flies when you have electricity. I remarked to Lana during the “Lost Days” as we refer to them, how slow time seemed to move when we had no computers, no telephone, no internet, no TV, and when we couldn’t even get out of our own yard. I read during those days, read and sweltered and occasionally grilled something on the barbecue. I wouldn’t mind a little bit of that slower pace sometimes, but only if it can come with AC at the same time.

Lana is still uploading videos from the Lost Days so I won’t steal that thunder. I’ll post here when they’re ready. The process is slow.

In other items, I finally managed to respond to my Google Reader feeds yesterday. When I got back online I found 198 posts waiting for me, and in a moment of “Oh my God, I can’t do this,” I hit “mark all as read.” Sorry about that, and about the great posts I'm sure I missed. But sanity required it. I’m still behind but I’ll start getting caught up today, and will resume making individual responses to comments on my own posts.

I’ve got to get started quickly, however, on three new reference articles for a book on mental health. I’ve got new pieces to do on the topics of “fear” and “transvestism,” and have to update an entry on Neuropsychology. I sent in a list of ten topics I’d be willing to work on, chosen from their master list of topics, saying that I only wanted three assignments total. This is the three.

The “fear” one is a natural for me since I’m interested in horror fiction and have given presentations on fear and horror before. And since I’m a biological psychologist, the neuropsych one is straightforward. I threw the transvestism topic in as a possibility because it’s something I don’t know much about, but I find it interesting as a disorder since the act of cross-dressing is so prevalent in our society. It seems like every TV sitcom has had some episode where a guy dresses as a woman and everyone laughs. I’m not quite sure why. I don’t know if they still do it, but there used to be a group of male Washington Redskin fans who dressed as really “ugly” women for the games. My tiny hometown of Charleston, Arkansas even has a “womanless beauty contest.” And, of course, in New Orleans there is Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence, both of which involve extensive costuming and cross-dressing.

I’ve already learned that the term “transvestism” was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910 in Germany. Hirschfeld had several things working against him during the later Nazi period and had to flee the country. He was Jewish, gay, a cross-dresser, and a foot fetishist. Worst of all, he was a medical doctor.

Finally, one book I read during the Lost Days deserves special mention. This is Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale. What an excellent action horror novel. It’s one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Great characters and action mixed with atmospheric horror and vicious vampires. I’ve read one other horror novel by Martindale, Where the Chill Waits, and it was even better. I’m reading a third one by Martindale now, and have a fourth one ready. That’s apparently all he wrote. One rather odd thing I’ve noticed about Martindale is that he, more than any other writer I’ve ever read, reminds me of my own writing style. I’m talking about the style I used in Cold in the Light particularly.

All right, time to make the Google Reader rounds.
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