I write within a genre (well, two actually… horror and fantasy) and that brings with it a number of advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages tend to be the way people look at me when I tell them I write horror, and start to shuffle backwards and check for hairs on my palms or the bloody axe half-hidden behind my back, and the reaction from many “mainstream” publishers and agents who look at you as if you might grow a second head at any moment (horror? Do people still read that stuff?) and cast their eyes around wildly for something, anything they can press into use as a makeshift crucifix to ward you back to the dark shadows you obviously emerged from.
On the counter side is the fact that working within a genre means there is an identifiable group of other people who are doing the same thing. I have just returned from the World Horror Convention (WHC) and although I have previously attended one day conventions and workshops this has been a different experience for me. Here is a group of people who are passionate about the genre in which I write. People who understand when I wax lyrical about a piece of cover art by Steve Crisp (this man virtually drew my library!) or meet the author of a book I enjoyed years before.
Before I attended the WHC I expected to enjoy the experience, what I hadn’t appreciated was how important it would be. This is a group of people who understand what is happening within the genre publishing industry and actually shape what is going to be coming out in print for the next few years. I have no doubt that amongst those conversations at the bar and in the corridors there are deals being done and relationships being forged and strengthened that will bear literary fruit.
For me, I have come away knowing a few more people than I already did, a renewed understanding that it’s okay to want to be a published novelist (and that yes, it’s a crazy ambition, but it’s not an impossibility), a clearer understanding of where I am with my writing career and what I need to do next to progress it, more books than my little arms could cope with on the train home, and a stunning piece of Steve Crisp artwork. Not a bad result for a long weekend in Brighton.
