October '06
Welcome to my first newsletter, and thanks for checking it out. My goal is to send out 3-4 issues per year, with succinct and useful information on my writing, the horror genre, and other matters of fact and fiction. If at any time you decide you’d rather not receive the newsletter, just click on the “Leave mailing list” link at the bottom of the current edition. I would be honored to get your feedback on either the content or design of the newsletter. I’m always interested in hearing your ideas, so feel free to e-mail me. Once again, thanks for visiting, and enjoy!
MindFlesh Update
October is the month that shooting begins on MindFlesh, the feature film version of my novel, White Light. Robert Pratten, award-winning director of 2004’s London Voodoo, has written a brilliant script adaptation and has done some amazing things with special effects. Although MindFlesh is an Indie film with an Indie budget, filmmaking and special effects technology has advanced to such a degree in recent years that remarkable things can be achieved at little cost. Robert has been working very hard on the film. He’s assembled quite a cast of actors, and a talented production crew, to bring my novel of materialized dreams and obsessed loners to a London setting. Because of the nature of film and budgetary issues, many changes of form and content are made in adapting a novel for the screen. In the case of MindFlesh, Robert came up with some great ideas that I wish I had thought of when I was writing White Light! As of now, shooting is set for the whole month of October, and post-production will occupy much of 2007. There are some great slideshows of the production process, as well as the director's video blog, at http://www.mind-flesh.com/. Stay tuned. . . .
Raptures
The second novel in the White Light Buddhist horror trilogy, Raptures has been in progress since early 2006. Currently at 66,000 words, I am now mapping out chapter nine (out of 12) and plan on having a reader’s draft by December of this year. A final draft is planned for early 2007, with an estimated word count of approximately 90,000. I have learned so much in the writing of this novel that I don’t know where to begin. I think a big part of the learning process for me has been figuring out how not to get bogged down on minutia. I’ve learned how to focus on the general arc of the plot and discovered that “fleshing-out” details come naturally during revision. Interestingly enough, I think I’ve become a more serious writer by holding my writing practice more lightly. It’s almost as if I’ve learned how to de-mythologize the act of writing, relaxing myself in the process and becoming more effective, energetic, and honed. This has been a big revelation for me, and I look forward to learning more as I move toward completion of the first full draft.
Essay: Buddhist Horror
I occupy a rather peculiar niche in life. I am both a practitioner of the Buddha’s insightful and peace-loving dharma, and a devout aficionado of the grotesque, fantastical, and blood-spattered art of nightmares commonly known as horror fiction. Both aspects of my life arose organically and without wilful design. I became a horror writer first — in the late 1980s — for the simple reason that horror allowed me to contact my writer’s voice. I became a Buddhist a few years later, in 1994, for another simple reason: I was tired of my habitual misery. From the very beginning, these two parts of myself had a tense marriage. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness and the ethical precepts sometimes seemed at odds with the almost masochistic delving into the hideous that is standard operating procedure for the horror novelist. Yet both of these things nourished me. My writing allowed me to explore ideas about reality and the world in transforming metaphors that healed me. My Buddhist practice allowed me to soften my identifications and gain more joy from life. Interestingly enough, Buddhism did something else for me: it helped me become a better horror writer. Why? By learning how to stay inside my body through the practice of mindfulness, my investigations into the macabre became more grounded and authentic, and the writing more convincing, and chilling. Inevitably, horror fiction and Buddhism would merge more fully. I began writing Buddhist-themed stories. Both my completed novel, White Light, and my novel-in-progress, Raptures, are works that draw heavily on Buddhist metaphysics.
Over the years my Buddhist friends, bemused and somewhat stunned by my practice of imaginative terror, have asked me, “What is Buddhist horror?” I’ve given this question a lot of thought over the years. I’ve come up with two answers, one philosophical and the other related to the content of my own work. Philosophically, Buddhism and horror share one very important thing in common: both embody a radical skepticism about the nature of so-called “consensus” reality. In horror fiction, when reality is torn apart, our sense of safety is shattered and fear is likely to arise — but we may learn a lot about the world of the mind in the process and have some fun doing it. An English ghost story is a perfect example of this "tearing apart" of reality, as are the "cosmic horror" tales of H. P. Lovecraft. With Buddhist practice, when insight arises fear will result when the ego, desperately holding on to its projections and identifications, recoils at the yawning emptiness before it. In this case, the ego can be trained to release itself and the experience of insight may become sustained. In the case of a really good horror novel, the reader’s imagination about reality may be altered forever and certain aberrant images may burn slowly in his mind for years.
“Buddhist horror” as expressed in my own novels takes this form: people’s dreams, fantasies, and obsessions become physically embodied and follow them around, terrorizing their waking life. It isn’t any ancient demon from “out there” you have to worry about, no space aliens, giant worms, vampires, ghosts, or engineered world-ravaging viruses — it is simply the contents of the human mind given flesh. Now that’s what a Buddhist would find scary. There is in Buddhism the basic teaching that all conditioned things arise from unconditioned Mind — thoughts, dreams, physical objects like ashtrays and planets, concepts, philosophies, viewpoints, farts — they all arise from the primordial emptiness which is reality itself. When beings identify with the conditioned, they suffer. When they let go of such identifications, they can release into the true nature of unconditioned Buddha Mind. Between these two poles (which are really the same, samsara and nirvana being one) a life of struggle and joy ensues. And as long as people are afraid of facing reality — the truth of impermanence and death, the emptiness of all composite things — we will need an art of fear to help us navigate the phases of the path that leads us to knowing who we truly are. Horror is really about being playful with our existential dilemmas, and in a sense, perhaps this describes Buddhism as well. For the moment, this is the best way I know of describing the intersection of Buddhism and horror.
See you next time, and take care.Bill
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