Hi, L.M., thank you for having me here. Let me tell you, I jumped at the opportunity to guest blog here, then promptly failed to submit anything for over three months… It’s not because I don’t churn out a lot of work. I’m currently publishing a horror novel, Sinister, and a lot of other scary stories at my blog. This is a very productive time for me. Rather, the delay was because I have yet to master the art of 1) Telling people why I’m such a cool writer and 2) Talking about my writer’s life and its ups and downs.

I’m kind of shy. Sometimes people laugh when I confess this because I can appear downright outgoing. But the truth is I’d prefer to talk about anything but myself. Furthermore, my writing life is really perfect. I enjoy the solitude. I enjoy connecting with readers and other writers. I haven’t experienced any of the downsides that other writers talk about. It’s much more fun that manual labor and I hope I get to do it until my last breath. In fact, the only downside to being a writer is that my childhood closet-monster turned writing-nemesis has moved in with me. He’s a 1,500-year-old ghoul named Ghastly.

This ghoul is one mean guy, too. He lives to mess with my head. For example, the other day I was working on this short story and Ghastly came stomping out of the kitchen, beer in hand, and stood behind me in the writing lair. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, if you’re going to hang out here, why don’t you make yourself helpful and clean something.

Ghastly: (grunt of disgust) I’m a ghoul. I don’t do chores.

Me:  This place is a mess. It’s not going to clean itself, you know.

Ghastly: You’re attempts to distract me from my mission are amusing, dear boy.

Me: I’m just trying to get some writing done, Ghastly.

Ghastly: Please, don’t let me stop you. I’ll just stand here and gnaw on you like a vulture on carrion. Now let me see what you’re working. Oh, dear… Are you sure you want to write that story?

Me: What? Yeah, I love this story.

Ghastly: It’s about killer mucus. Do you seriously think anyone wants to read that? Is anyone doing an internet search for stories about killer mucus right now? No! 

Me: I am a horror writer and, come one, killer mucus is pretty horrific. I mean, who hasn’t been ambushed by a cold and wondered if they’re hacking something lethal out of their lungs?

Ghastly: It’s disgusting. You’re going for the gross out instead of good writing. And you call yourself a writer?

See what I’m talking about? It’s damn near impossible to get a decent daily word count in with this guy ratting in my ear. Some days, I admit, he gets the best of me. But I’m learning to manage him; and I bet a lot of other writers are learning to manage their personal Ghastly, too.

If you’d like to battle Ghastly alongside me, or you like being scared to death, give me a click and I’ll do my best to make sure you find victory and that you lose some sleep in the process.  Best, LL

You can also connect with Lake on Twitter.