I've met a whole new family while working in France - other English assistants who I love! The other day (er, um okay like 2 weeks ago) we were having our weekly Bachnalian Society Wine Night (complete with mayhem and foolishness) and one of the girls started asking me about my Creepy Troublemakers shirt (The Troublemakers are a group of people in my MFA program) and so I was explaining the origin of Creepy Bill and why he wasn't creepy enough to write horror. And she said I had nothing to say on the matter because I was clearly not creepy enough to be writing the things that I write. :-)
It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She was referring specifically to a flash fiction I wrote for a school assignment several years ago that was published in the local University's press. (http://web.cortland.edu/writers/lastrun.html). Yes, the story is creepy, scary and all of those other icky emotions we don't want to look to closely at. And while I don't feel the need to justify it, because art doesn't need justification, I will kind of explain the process behind the story, because she asked, and I felt the need to share it all with you.
The parameters of the assignment were to write a story in the second person, which isn't a POV used very often in literature, and to use this POV to make the reader feel ashamed. And in my opinion, the story does just that. I picked the subject matter because it's always been one that horrified and intrigued me. It's like the same morbid fascination some people have with death. We live in a rape culture because the idea of it is so abhorrent to us. So creepy enough or not, I wrote it. (Personally, I find myself to be very creepy - but that's because I live inside my own head, a place that would scare the hell out of anyone else who got a glimpse into it).
At any rate, I feel as if I did my job. When you write something that gives someone else chills, or makes them feel weird, or happy or scared or evokes any other kind of emotion, you've done a good job.
To everyone out in the Bloggerverse - what emotional reactions have you gotten from your readers?
