A.C. Cross

I can’t remember a time I DIDN’T like writing. Even as a little kid, I would create little plays with my brother (Scary von Scary and Horror von Horror) to entertain my parents. I tried writing my first ‘book’ in middle school and I look at it once a year to remind myself that evil can exist in physical form

Truth be told, it was almost easier! Rather than saying ‘I need to do this chapter’, it was just one more letter. And, since most letters aren’t super long, that reduced the internal expectation. I had actually written a few bits from it a while back for another possible epistolary thing, so I cribbed some of the biggest gut punch lines and renamed the character’s last name. That helped as well. It definitely requires a rethinking of how you write vs. just what you write, though!

I see the universe that he and others like him (Smith, Howard, Bloch, etc.) created as extremely friendly to author interpretation. There are general internal guidelines and references, but you can incorporate them as you like! Because the premise of the Lovecraft Mythos is so open to what the characters feel, see, and experience, there’s freedom in playing around in the sandbox, so to speak. I did have the general story I wanted to tell, but I saw it as the story melding with the Mythos rather than just ‘using’ it, if that makes sense. I mean, I intentionally dropped many, many little references to the broader universe into the story because that was fun for me.

Make friends. Engage with people on social media – not jerks, but actual people – not to promote yourself but to build relationships. Write as much as you can when you have the time and motivation. Write the story that YOU want to write, not what others expect of you. Don’t let that inner critic stop you from working. Do as I say, not as I do.