ObscuraJournal 3/10/26

Folks, I don't have to tell you about the state of the world, but as bleak it is, we still need to live, and laugh, and create. We need to push through this darkness and find some joy.

Or, if you're a horror writer, embrace the darkness, attack the page, and get fearless with your fiction.

Admittedly, this has been difficult lately, but mainly due to the daily grind. We've been short-handed at the store because some knucklehead high up on the totem pole decided it would be a good idea to send half of the local store reps to the fucking rodeo two hours away for "visibility". These decisions are typically made by people who have never encountered a customer in their entire lives. So yeah, it has been busy at work, I'm drained when I get home, and days off are spent recharging with occasional writing.

This has given me a chance to think about my WIP ... both of them actually. When I do get to daydream, it's about those stories, and the wheels are spinning. Good things.

I recently saw some hubbub about readers not liking any POV other than first person, even going as far as to apparently confront a writer at a signing and telling them they would never read their books because they're not in 1st person POV. (If this is incorrect, let me know, because like I said, I heard about this, but refuse to dig any deeper.)

If you don't like 3rd person POV, then don't read it. But telling a writer something like that isn't the flex you think it is, and says more about the reader than the writer. What are you trying to accomplish here? Bullying the writer into writing in a POV other than what serves the story isn't going to fly the way you think it will.

Yeah, we like what we like, but we need to also experience other stories, other voices, other presentations, even other POVs.

But hey, people are people, and yeah ... whatever.

peace&love