Peter Counter

The cure for mail loneliness is a @fangoria.bsky.social subscription.

52. There is a delicious pathos to horror and you can hear it in the song Black Sabbath, when Ozzy sings, "Find out I'm the chosen one... Oh nooooooooo!"

RED X by David Demchuk (Strange Light / PRH, 2021 - 5th anniversary is just around the corner)

Every time I watch No Country For Old Men I remember it's my favourite movie until I watch A Serious Man and remember it's my favourite movie.

can the Trump administration Make Ecstasy Great Again? many longtime advocates are hoping: it can!

Psychedelic Therapy Crashed and Burned. MAHA Might Bring It Back Abuse allegations and infighting helped kill a campaign to legalize MDMA for medical use. Trumpworld is giving the therapy’s advocates hope for a second shot.

Abuse allegations and infighting helped kill a campaign to legalize MDMA for medical use. Trumpworld is giving the therapy’s advocates hope for a second shot. www.wired.com/story/psyche...

51. My most recent nightmare was a minor sleep paralysis episode. But having experienced the phenomenon since I was a child, I've gotten pretty good at knowing when it's happening. Which does nothing in terms of stopping it—nowadays there's just a meta level to the whole affair.

I don't think I've ever kept one of these going beyond 50 posts. But it's very enjoyable! And it's distracting me from my chess addiction, thank God.

50. The first nightmare I remember ever having was inspired by Ghostbusters 2. When I was a child, nothing was scarier than a face pushing out of a painting (or the mural on my bedroom wall).

49. Every now and again I think I should write a second collection of horror essays.

48. The highest praise a horror movie can receive from an audience is a brief and intense reaction of anger followed by an acknowledgement of deep respect and a vow to never watch it again despite understanding its greatness. The original Speak No Evil got this from me, and so did The Medium.

47. P.T. remains, for me, the greatest horror video game experience.

46. In the first two Hellraiser movies, Pinhead and pals are charismatic because there is a strong implication their subjects consent to their ministrations. There's never any real threat with them. Unlike Dr. Cenobite, whose cruelty and sadism violates the vibe.

45. A big challenge with post-apocalyptic horror is illustrating why survival in the wasteland is preferable to suicide.

44. I find the meme of Junji Ito's Enigma of Amigara Fault ("this hole that's made for me") funny, but if I'm in an anxious mood when I see it I get upset because I find the story it's from so deeply disturbing.

43. Horror is an interesting genre because it's one of the only modes of entertainment that entire audiences will refuse to engage with because of how it is supposed to make them feel.

42. I prefer hopeless horror to horror with hope.

Writing my mother's obituary this year was my final gift to her. It helped me and my family grieve.

I am filled with horror over this trend. Imagine treating your recently deceased loved one like a bucket of slop.

41. One of the strangest developments in horror is how YouTube and indie games have given rise to the deep lore horror phenomenon where a text like FNAF is best consumed by watching a stranger talk about everything except its actual gameplay elements.

40. It's really weird to gatekeep anything, but especially horror. What—your ability to recite the character names from all the Jason movies somehow makes you the authority on being scared for fun? I'm not allowed to get goosebumps because I'm disinterested in Martyrs?

"i just use AI for-" say no more, i already think less of you

holy fuck with the fireworks Halifax

talk about a dreamy romance

It's popular these days to encourage other writers to let their darlings live. But I gotta say, if you're not murdering your darlings you really need to put in the work to make them your audience's darlings, too.

🖤🖤🖤🖤

A row of books lined up in front of sun-dappled plants with small purple flowers: The Ministry of Time, This is How You Lose the Time War, Countess, Be Scared of Everything, and Thyme Travellers.

This summer is kicking the shit out of me, but at least I have good books to read!

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
This is How You Lose the Time War, @amalelmohtar.com & Max Gladstone
Countess, Suzan Palumbo
Be Scared of Everything, @peterbcounter.com
Thyme Travellers, ed. Sonia Sulaiman

As @peterbcounter.com says, making a book work is a combination of effort and sacrifice and sometimes those two things are proportionate.

If you can’t fire up readers’ imagination because of all the darlings and their pool and their dessert for breakfast? That’s failure to launch.

That doesn’t mean you have capture EVERYONE’s imagination. But a publishable book should be effective enough to engage a solid chunk of readers.

I sometimes tell people that when I write books, I see the writing as a collaborative process. You don’t need to pander to readers, but writing a book is only one half of the work. You need a reader’s imagination to bring it into the world.

This. If you’re writing for yourself, keep all your darlings, build them a nice house with a pool and dessert for breakfast. If you’re writing for an audience? That’s a two-way street.

A publishing-ready book isn’t just for the author. Mechanically, it needs to work for an audience too.