For Those About to Rock
Coming soon: Horror Rocks, a horror flash fiction series inspired by rock songs.
Spooky season is almost here, but when you have several anxiety disorders, isn’t it always spooky season?
And what is scarier than deadlines?
Welcome to Horror Rocks
What is it?
Horror flash fiction, loosely inspired by rock songs.
1000 words or less — they can be read in the time it takes to listen to a song. You can even listen to the song that inspired it, I will update the playlist.
When?
Starting in October, every weekend, a new little fucked up story.
Until October of next year, if I can. That’s the challenge!
Why?
Because I want to
, and there’s no one to stop me. Being an adult is wild and amazing.
To fight the scarcity mindset
. “Maybe this idea is good enough to be published in a real lit mag. What if I can’t come up with something else as good?” But creativity begets creativity and all that. Let’s go!
To see if I can
. Recently, I was telling a friend “I don’t know if I’m actually able to write horror.” While I was working on a story about a stripper eating the arm of her client with her vagina teeth. Can I come up with 57 stories between now and October 31st, 2025, though? Maybe, maybe not.
Only one way to find out!
I will do my best to entertain you as I learn my way around flash fiction.
To not be precious
about my writing. Not that it’s a huge issue, but still enough sometimes to stop me. “What if this is really bad?” Well, what if it is?
If I’m writing one story per week, not all of it is going to be great.
And? Nobody dies.
Probably.
To embrace that I’m a genre writer
. After all, it’s the name of this space. Related to that:
To reject elevated horror
. Not the works, mind you — some of my favourite movies are considered elevated horror. I hate the concept, though, because it shows such contempt for the genre as a whole, and I hate snobbery as much as I love horror.
Here, we are classless.
Depraved.
We go low.
We do debased horror.
How?
Trigger Warning? I don’t know her.
So, this is a blanket warning: while I try not to be an asshole, horror, by definition, deals with unpleasant topics. So it might, at some point, deal with something that could be triggering to you. If that’s a risk you’d rather not take, that’s totally understandable - you can keep reading Rhymes with Genre and unsubscribe to Horror Rocks.
Want to read Rhymes with Genre but not Horror Rocks?
Fair, and doable! Horror Rocks is a section of Rhymes with Genre. Here’s how to unsubscribe from a section only (or email me: RhymesWithGenre@substack.com).
I hope you’ll change your mind! If you do, how to (re)subscribe to Horror Rocks.
Here’s the playlist. It will grow every week.
Rock on!