Tobin's Brain Sewage

  Somewhere just before the end of 2024, I was doing my daily scroll through my various social media accounts. And I was on a lot of them: Facebook. Instagram. Threads. Bluesky. TikTok. Slasher. I don't know if LinkedIn counts, but I'd dumped that one a month before. Anyway, I was going through the accounts, and I honestly can't even tell you which platform it was, which post did it, or the ridiculously stupid response that I read, but I remember stopping and thinking, What am I doing? This is such a waste of time. Because, also as usual, I should have been writing, but instead, here I was, unable to ignore the notifications, the checking of likes, of responses, the constant influx of information. I should have been writing. But instead, I was sacrificing my own projects for other people's thoughts. And I realized, right at that moment, that I'd had enough. I was done. I literally spent the next hour jumping through all the hoops of all the social media platforms, s...

  This is something I've been trying to write about for five months. I have, in fact, started, then erased, three other attempts at this point, so let's see how far I get with this one. Back toward the beginning of November, 2024, I attended the Horror Readers' Weekend in New York, in the hills of Bear Mountain State Park. It was a three day event, and I have to say, in the months leading up to it, I was extremely excited. It was my first appearance as a horror author both outside of Ontario and outside of Canada. I decided to drive. It was only about eleven hours, and I don't mind driving. I got to listen to a few audiobooks on the way there and back, including the Alex Van Halen BROTHERS memoir, then DEENA UNDONE by Debra Every, then the first half of THE FISHERMAN by John Langan. On the way home, I finished off Langan's novel, then a couple of Stephen King shorter works (MORALITY and UR). So, I was in the company of some really fun and interesting authors while i...

To paraphrase the song "Love Is In The Air" popularized by John Paul Young (and apologies to the original writers, Harry Vanda and George Young)... Inspiration's in the air, everywhere I look around Inspiration's in the air, every sight and every sound And I don't know if I'm being foolish Don't know if I'm being wise But it's something that I must believe in There's a story that I relate in Volume One of my UGLY STORIES ABOUT TERRIBLE PEOPLE DOING HORRIBLE THINGS collection, regarding a story called "Three Lock Box" where I had a vague notion of a story about some weird, approaching cosmic horror, and the vague idea of a blind guy somehow involved. It was nebulous, and there was no real story there. When I have a loose sketch like that, I've learned to just hold on to it, revisiting it every so often, and keeping myself open to any other elements that might work. The next thing that happened was that I saw a post from someone abo...