Dark places.

The more I write--and oh yes, I've been writing--the more I feel like I'm descending into a cave. I'm exploring the darkest places. The darkest ideas. They're part of this story, and therefore they're also part of me.

Sometimes I'm actually depressed because of it. If you hang around in the dark long enough, your eyes get used to it; you sometimes forget what the light looks like. While I'm generally a reasonably happy person (at least for a twisted writer), even in my happy moments lately I feel like there's perpetually this gnarled, sinister hand touching my elbow, beckoning me to places that most people simply don't go.

But I have to go to these places. For the good of the story. And to some degree for the good of me. Annoyingly self-analytical me.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." --Nietzsche