Guest Blog Post - Troy McCombs

I hope all the American Wormies out there had a great 4th! Especially those Boston Red Sox fans out there (ouch!).

Okay, back to the business. Today I got Troy McCombs in the house. He's the author of several e-book releases, including Damaged, The Black Place Inside, The Clown Picture The Music of 1997 and The Graveyard. June 11, 2011, saw the release of McComb's latest, The House on Mayberry Road published by World Castle Publishing. 

Below Troy talks about his love of writing and hauntings. Check it out:

Why do I write? That’s like asking a fish how it swims. I have to write. There’s no other way around it. If I don’t write, I’m not happy. Writing is my way of life.

I started this art form back in third grade when my teacher made us students write a short story for class credit. I thought it sounded fun, but had no idea just how much. From that day on, I knew that THAT’S what I wanted to do with the rest of my earthly life. I was nine then; I’m 31 now. Nothing’s really changed. Today, while most of my peers have no clue what they want to do in their 30’s, I, on the other hand, have always known. I’m very lucky.

Writing, to me, is also very therapeutic. When I get involved with my characters, or action, or plot, or dialogue, the negatives of the real world drift away. Not only that, but since childhood, I’ve always had a crippling social anxiety disorder. Being in public or around  groups of people--I always feel unwelcome. Like the black sheep who doesn’t belong. I even used to have panic attacks so severe, I’d black out. I still have trouble to talking to people I don’t know, and I still don’t like to really leave my house. Creating stories helps me talk, helps me leave. Without it, where would I be?

Horror has always been my forte. I love horror films, horror novels, horror everything. Though I have greatly branched out into other genres over the years, horror still remains my ‘thing’. It doesn’t need to be bloody or violent. It just has to be unique and riveting.

As to where I got the idea for The House on Mayberry Road … the very first chapter. I had the first chapter in my head for some time and thought it would make a great beginning to a story. I wanted to write a haunted house story that really hadn’t been done before. Sure, ghosts can be scary. Sure, demons can be evil or violent. But what if there was something possibly worse than both? Something unidentifiable? Something nobody can begin to understand?

And so, The House on Mayberry Road was born!!