Today I'd like to welcome Johnny Worthen, author of the new occult thriller, Beatrysel, which is available now, and which is ideally suited for Halloween-season reading, if I do say so.
I'm halfway through it myself (already I sense a glowing review coming on), but in the meantime, I've asked him to share what scares him most and how it influences his writing, and he has gamely obliged.
The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - What Scares Me
I don’t write about what really scares me. I can’t. I can only circle it and dance around it. I poke it with a stick from a distance. I shout at it in metaphors and mirrors.
I do this because I cannot put a name to it. The fear, the primordial ooze in my gut that stirs and bubbles up, is difficult to identify. It is so dark and so base that beyond a grunt or a scream, any other description is too flowery and portioned. “Fear” will have to do.
I know some of its minions, mortality, disappointment, rejection, betrayal, failure. These are but shadowy representatives of the deeper whole of that ooze. Blessedly the ooze uses these agents to vex me and here, since I have names, I can hope to overcome them. Once banished, I can examine the corpses and understand something of the ooze and write about it.
Oh there are other things, tangible things that fright me. Serial killers and climate change, social collapse and asteroids, but these things are beyond me and strangely, less terrifying. No, it is the ooze that worries me.
In Beatrysel, I struggled with the armies of the ooze. I wrestled with jealousy there and loss. Love and hate - the foundations of emotion. I brought in murder and possession, damnation and death. I mapped some of the ooze with Magick and approached its western borders and boundaries.
I gathered some insight, some intel for the brain, but the power of the ooze is unimpressed. It is the darkness behind the eyes, the ancestral shadow before language, the fear of nothingness, the terror of it all. Its full power is still unmeasured.
When I meditate upon the concept of fear, follow it through the doors of Magick and imagination, I sense it, but I have not approached all the way. I am not so brave.
I do this because I cannot put a name to it. The fear, the primordial ooze in my gut that stirs and bubbles up, is difficult to identify. It is so dark and so base that beyond a grunt or a scream, any other description is too flowery and portioned. “Fear” will have to do.
I know some of its minions, mortality, disappointment, rejection, betrayal, failure. These are but shadowy representatives of the deeper whole of that ooze. Blessedly the ooze uses these agents to vex me and here, since I have names, I can hope to overcome them. Once banished, I can examine the corpses and understand something of the ooze and write about it.
Oh there are other things, tangible things that fright me. Serial killers and climate change, social collapse and asteroids, but these things are beyond me and strangely, less terrifying. No, it is the ooze that worries me.
In Beatrysel, I struggled with the armies of the ooze. I wrestled with jealousy there and loss. Love and hate - the foundations of emotion. I brought in murder and possession, damnation and death. I mapped some of the ooze with Magick and approached its western borders and boundaries.
I gathered some insight, some intel for the brain, but the power of the ooze is unimpressed. It is the darkness behind the eyes, the ancestral shadow before language, the fear of nothingness, the terror of it all. Its full power is still unmeasured.
When I meditate upon the concept of fear, follow it through the doors of Magick and imagination, I sense it, but I have not approached all the way. I am not so brave.
About Beatrysel
Unsatisfied with the ancient grimoires, the Magus made his own. Unsatisfied with the ancient demons, the Magus made Beatrysel. She was a creature of love, but there is no love without hate, no light without darkness, no loyalty without betrayal. And demons covet flesh.
Johnny Worthen's novel Beatrysel is a modern Faust tale set in the American Northwest where the cold winter rain melts the barriers between what is real and what is more real.
Beatrysel is a terrifying journey through modern metaphysics, High Magic and ancient religions where secret dreams turn to nightmares when Will becomes Form. Power-hungry magicians, serial killers and scorned lovers must contend with the power of the most beautiful and dangerous Magick in creation -- for Beatrysel is a creature of love.
You can find out more at www.beatrysel.com,
Johnny Worthen's novel Beatrysel is a modern Faust tale set in the American Northwest where the cold winter rain melts the barriers between what is real and what is more real.
Beatrysel is a terrifying journey through modern metaphysics, High Magic and ancient religions where secret dreams turn to nightmares when Will becomes Form. Power-hungry magicians, serial killers and scorned lovers must contend with the power of the most beautiful and dangerous Magick in creation -- for Beatrysel is a creature of love.
You can find out more at www.beatrysel.com,
About Johnny Worthen
Johnny Worthen is a lifetime student of the occult. Raised in a secluded suburb of Salt Lake City, he gravitated to the more obscure paths of spiritual knowledge. He is a Freemason, twice Past Master of his Lodge, youngest ever at the time.
From the University of Utah Johnny received degrees in English and Classics with a Master’s Degree in American Studies. He married his junior-prom date and together they have two sons.
After many varied and interesting careers, Johnny writes full time now. He is the author of a popular blog, The Blog Mansion. Besides Beatrysel, Johnny has four other novels under contract for publication in 2014 and beyond.
You can find him on his website, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, and email him here.
From the University of Utah Johnny received degrees in English and Classics with a Master’s Degree in American Studies. He married his junior-prom date and together they have two sons.
After many varied and interesting careers, Johnny writes full time now. He is the author of a popular blog, The Blog Mansion. Besides Beatrysel, Johnny has four other novels under contract for publication in 2014 and beyond.
You can find him on his website, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, and email him here.
