I don’t know about you all, but I’m feeling it, Conquest, War, Famine, Death. We’ve seen every form of the hammer coming down on mankind these last two years. What does it mean? Are we in an apocalypse, or is one coming? Or will all of the climate change, crazy-ass world leaders, and violence and hate disappear in some miraculous way before the horsemen make an appearance? What if they’re here and we just don’t know it?

Regardless, we plod along with daily life, those of us not touched by tragedy (and those numbers in just two years are staggering). For me, this means writing. I’m grateful to have a happy place to escape to, even if my first book was set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where over a million acres burned thirty miles away the summer I published it.

I couldn’t even breath in my own house while I clicked away on my keyboard and tried not to think of the demise of old growth forests, pioneer towns, and all the animals trapped in the inferno. I dedicated my series to those brave firefighters and citizens battling blazes too hot to control, while the insane university professor started another one right behind them. It was the least I could do.

Many of my fellow indie writers tell fantastic stories with apocalyptic scenes, horror at it’s most grim, with the reaper waiting at the end for the hapless protagonist. I love them, love the thrill of knowing death is around the corner, waiting for the end to see what it looks like, but finding out it’s too late. Then I listen to the news. Our reality these days poses quite a challenge to horror fiction writers, when reality can be truer.

I’ve been dabbling in writing horror myself recently, to stretch my writing muscles, find out if I can go to those dark places in my mind that my pod people stay clear of, ever watchful of the shrouded figure with the scythe.

Maybe the aliens who seeded my mind with them know something I don’t, because they’ve given me characters who wish for happy endings.