User blog:BenFugman/What Are You Afraid of?

I don't expect anyone to read my blog, since I haven't tried to submit a story in a little while. If, however, you have stumbled on this and decided to read it, I want to get an idea of what other people are afraid of, it's something I have a hard time guessing at, because I'm afraid of practically everything. I was going to write down a list of all the things I'm afraid of, but one of the things I'm afraid of is writing long lists. Then I thought, maybe I should make a list of things I'm not afraid of, since that would be a much shorter list, unfortunately for every item I could think of I realized that under the right circumstances I would still be afraid of it. Basically if I tried to make a list of things that scare me I would be here all day writing it, and it would still not be complete. If you want some idea of what the list would look like, just pick up a Webster's dictionary, anything in there that is a noun, verb, or adjective, I'm probably afraid of it. (and the list will still be incomplete by inumerable words and phrases.)

You're probably wondering how I function, if I'm afraid of everything. Well, obviosly there are varying levels of fear. Take for istance, the keys on the keyboard (not to be confused with the actual laptop keys, which I try my best to avoid ever touching with my hands.) I can press the keys on the external keyboard, though I do have to approach them with cautious trepedation, to avoid jaming a finger or any such thing, since hand injuries terrify me. With a little coaxing I am able to make myself press the keys very slowly to get some words written. Then there's the monitor. I can only just clance at it long enough to re4ad one sentance at a time. That is probably part why it takes me so long to write anything.

For another example there are germs, I just make a effort to accept that germs are absolutely everywhere, with no exceptions whatsoever, at that point I just count myself lucky that I can't see them. Mold, on the other hand is visible, as such if I see even a spot off mod on something, I throw it out.

You're probably wondering, why would someone who's scared of almost everything want to write horror? Well, It's like this, I sometimes feel like all I have is my fear, since even things I love frighten me. but at the same time it slows me down, because, when I'm writinging, I frequently have to put myself in the position of someone who is not afraid of, mayby 99% of the things I am afraid of, thus trying to chanel all my fear into one singular focal point. but then, sometimes I need to back up and dilute the concentrated fear. The standard exercise of chanelling my fear into one point is like trying to shannel the Missisippy river (which I have never seen) through the barel of a super soaker, great for demolishing the entire side of a mountain, not so great for making someone feel uncomforable and wet...That's why I want to know what you're afraid of, and how it makes you feel.

I used to have a strong phobia of spiders, the reaction I had on seeing one was akin to reciving a mild electrical shock, followed by that sizzling pulse affect you get when you hold down the button to a novelty shock flashlight, accompanied by nightmarish mental imagery of being engulfed by a tide of spiders. I mostly got over that affect when I met a spider that had an appreciation ov medical cannibis decorating her web with bits of shake I had lost and she had collected alls swinging down to back in the scond hand smoke when I took a hit. that's when I realized that spiders are just like people. Although, that mean that there are evil ones as well as chill ones, as I've been discovering lately with some particularly venemous spiders living in my appartment that have a propenity, I might even say a perversion for biting me in my sleep. Every bite I receive from these spiders  turns into a large welt and the skin around it breaks out in a rash, then, when I inevitably pop the welt it releases a large amount of foul smelling yellowish clear liquid, the the welt will collapse into a brownish crater which remains for weeks and itches constantly producing pinkish clear liquid when agitated. The crater from the bite does not seem to begin healing util the parth of brown skin has been copletely shed away, or removed. These spides seem to be systematic about it too biting me again each time a bite has healed. It makes me feel like I should be afraid of spiders and treat my beddingwith peppermint and tea try oils to keep them away whille I sleep.

Sorry for getting sidetracked there, the point is I don't think I'm a normal person, so I need some help getting a normal persons perspective on fear. Because even looking around me at my fellow patrons at this coffee shop I feel like I'm terrified of all of them, especially the one that are beautiful women. The bizarre abstrakt collage art on the walls makes me feel unnerved, and, as I said. looking at the monitor on my laptop makes me uncomfortable as well, the uheaven grimey gritty brivkwork on the floor... there simply is no safe place to focus my eyes. It's not the same phobia level fear as I once had of spiders, and am developing of apples, but it's like... Oh my god, I wish that lady with the grey/brown clay/mud colored hair woud stop sniffling and caughing, every time she sniffles she has to caugh again, wet choking caughs, it's so unnerving. I don't want to go near her, I'm already too close. If this were a stereotypical creepypast the narator would probably wind up killing her, and then wind up with the germs he'd wanted to avoid. I hate stories like that. I'm afarid of blood, and death. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time getting creepypastas approaved, is because that's the sort of pointless violence people expect and I can't stand it, I can read stories like that and they barely affect me at all, because it doesn't feal realistic to me for someone to just snap and do things like that. Again, I'm not a normal person so maybe my fear enforced conscience is just another one off thing about me, because people do go around commiting random pointless acts of violence on a regular basis. I just can't figure out where they're coming from.

I used to hide behind phoney names and avatars, around a dozon of them. I used to churn out nausia inducing swill where the narator committed random acts of violence and or had similar commited against them, I don't thing I finished any stories from a third person perspective during that time, but I don't like writing that way, I didn't then eaither. I thing that the gorefiction I used to write was only done as a way of being edgy, but being edgy under a moc identity does only so much. I would much rather tell stories where the horror is more subtle but still have the subtle horror element blatantly highlighted by the narator as what they are afraid of at the time, I wind up struggling to keep it fucussed, however, becaus things likea guy glaring at me while watering his lawn or a flickeing streatlight will send me off on a tangent about how much that scares me, in my head, you know... That's part of why my writing is so slow lately because I'm trying to writh characters who are afraid of things now, whereas I used to write characters who weren't afraid of anythig just describing things that are generally unanymously horrific in a very unnatached way, so I was able to churn out splatter horror that has even less value to me now than it did when I was writing it. Writing characters with fears hits closer to home though, and it's very hard for me not to overuse fear related adverbs, you know, the kind creepypasta analysts hate. And so that's where I come across another dificulty how do you show that your narator is afraid without them just bluting out, "I was shared skitless." well that's a bad example because in that instance, if it wereliteral, they could actually soil their pants out of fear, but really that's just gross, so you have to specify that it was out of fear, which brings you back to those despised fear related adverbs. Critics don't much care for phrases that have come to be considdered cliché, such as, "my heard was bounding in my chest." or, 'I could hear my heartbeat" etc. And be wary if you ever metion sweaty palms, weak knees, or heavy arms; using those phrases almost guarantees you'll hear an analyst turn into Marshal Mathers mid sentence.

So, what scares you, and how would you say you were afraid, without ovetly saying you were afraid? Because me, coward that I am, I would just say, "I was freakin' terrified, dog, I got up outa there, and fast."

I was going to add a pictuere to this blog, but apparently the wiki's systen isn't working rigt at the moment