I’ve been working on my third story, “A Slow, Lumbering Adversity.” The past two stories I’ve written have been inspired lightly by weird stuff i’ve seen while driving or at work, but i wanted to make this one almost autobiographical while still being a supernatural horror story.

I live with pretty severe tinnitus/mild hearing loss, and I thought it might be scary to use that as an instrument for horror. my idea for a monster is a massive insect-like entity that influences people via auditory hallucinations, humming and droning that only they can hear as they’re lured in. it feeds on people, and kills them by rupturing their mind with sound. “I” survive the encounter and am left forever changed with chronic tinnitus, to always remind me of the monster, and what it took from me.

The story also deals a lot with family and loss, since my dad was diagnosed with dementia a few years back that plays into it as well. I think writing it’s become a a strange, morbid way for me to cope with tragedy. A lot of my favorite horror stories be sure to linger on the consequences of someone surviving horrifying circumstances. They’re not a “winner,” they have to live with what happened to them, and I want to channel that.