Confessions of my Past, Present and Future
by
Christina Bergling
The Past
My literary past, the origin of my love of horror
belonged, without a doubt, to R. L. Stine. I was infatuated with and collected
the Goosebumps series.
Somewhere in
my basement, this collection lurked in the dark for my children to grow old
enough (until I began working on this feature and went and dug them out to
wallow in memories).
From The Curse of
the Mummy’s Tomb to Be Careful What
You Wish For to The Cuckoo Clock of
Doom, I devoured these books as soon as I lay hands on them. Usually, I
would sprint through the length of the story in a single sitting. Then I read
them over and over until I owned the next one. I occupied the protagonist’s skin;
I lived in the world inside those pages. Simply, the books consumed me.
The Goosebumps
series established a special place in my heart and in my mind. Even as I grew
older, it lingered. R. L. Stine had a series for “older” children, Fear Street, and while I did enjoy the
books, the connection was not the same. There was something special about the Goosebumps books, either in how they
resonated with me or in the place I was in when I met them.
My infatuation with the Goosebumps books did coincide with the discovery of my love for
writing, both around fourth grade in elementary school. I blazed through every
book I could get my hands on, and if I enjoyed it, I would read it over and
over until the pages wore thin. Goosebumps
offered a safe mixture of the Halloween,
mild horror, and macabre I was learning that I loved. I found myself writing
stories reminiscent of the style and singing the pen name C. M. Bergling.
The inspiration I drew out of the Goosebumps book was horror in the everyday. In each book, R. L.
Stine crafted fright and unnerve out of the mundane everyday situations of my
age group. A Halloween costume, piano lessons, the school auditorium. These
things were familiar, things I could relate to and that were also in no way
innately terrifying. The talent and the draw was transforming these innocuous
elements into something heinous, haunted, or villain.
Reading these books made me look at my daily life
differently, caused me to imagine the horror living below the veneer of the
normal sunny world. Anything could be made scary, and that opened my writing
world to limitless possibilities.
Just writing this minute glimpse into my past had me
digging through the basement to unearth my box of Goosebumps books to give to my daughter, who is still only four and
may not even end up liking horror. The nostalgia at glancing over the cover art
and smelling those pages was palpable. When I touched the books again, I was
eleven years old, curled up on the hideous floral couch in our living room,
listening to my mother clean the kitchen. The memories remain vivid, clearly
reiterating what an effect this series had on me.
The Present
Unfortunately, my present has not allotted any time for
reading. At all. Ever since I had two babies and added the career of published
author to my existing day job, my reading ingest includes board books, Disney
princesses, and Dr. Seuss. I could write (at length) about my children’s books
preferences as to which do not feature an airhead princess or a moron farm
animal and which teach my children something I might actually want them to
emulate and which do not make me want to kill myself. Yet the children’s genre
is not one I would consider influential on my brain as a reader or my own
writing.
I truly miss reading. The void has left part of my mind
dormant and a part of my soul vacant. Reading has been an integral part of my
life since I learned how to decode the symbols on the page. There simply are
not enough hours in the day. Yet, for now, my own writing and my young family
take priority. Instead, I will identify the paradigm-shifting books I read in
my adulthood.
I have always enjoyed Stephen King, from my youth spent
picking through the local library to the present on the glowing screen of my
Kindle. I do not care that he has ascended to household name and pop fiction. I
do not care that he so often takes his plot one step too far at the end. He
lures me into unnumbered other worlds, and I consider that a consistent
success.
His definitive work for me, the novel that impacted me and
my own writing, was Gerald’s Game.
This book had me wrapped around the cover with a white knuckle grip; I could
gnaw on the suspense between my clenched teeth.
Gerald’s Game taught me that nothing has to happen to create fear;
sometimes terror exists in the void and in the quiet. The prose also conveyed
that just being trapped could be the most debilitating scenario.
King lived inside his narrator’s terrified mind, and the
psychological flow of that approach mesmerized me. I found myself there with her,
handcuffed to the bed inside her skin, just as terrified as her thoughts I was
reading. This reading experience greatly influenced my much later work The Waning.
Richard Matheson was a horror master long before I was
even born. However, I did not finally read I
Am Legend until I was an adult. While the story arguably defined both the
post-apocalyptic and zombie genres when it was published, by the time I read
it, it redefined these saturated and played out genres for me.
I Am
Legend, simply put, is brilliant. The entire story,
particularly the ending, left me stunned, mystified, and completely sated. For
me, reading it after a volume of horror, zombies, vampires, and the like before,
it turned my beloved genres on their side, showed me an alternative approach to
the mainstream. This perversion of the expected inspired me greatly on Savages. I Am Legend influenced both the
premise and the approach to that work.
(artist credit: Phil Beachler
http://graphicssmith.wordpress.com)
The Future
Honestly, I do not know what my reading future holds. I
do not know that I want to know; that might taint the surprise. The surprise is
what I ultimately pursue, the new and unexpected, the genre and mind bending. I
do know that I hope to plunge myself back into that rich and expansive world as
soon as possible. Perhaps I can travel for work and secure hours alone on a
plane with my Kindle. A mother can dream!
I imagine that I will continue to linger in the genre
that I love. I believe horror will always own real estate on a special part of
my heart; I will always be drawn to the darkness and fascinated by the fear. Horror
keeps my life in perspective by reminding me how ugly things could be, and
horror also comforts me as it speaks fluently to the dark part of my mind
always crouched in the corner out of sight. I will always want to balance along
the sharp edge of my threshold.
What I need, however, is something new in this realm.
Evolution of the genre is what I will be questing after in those pages. I want
my mind cracked open and my perspectives realigned again and again.
More than ingesting new and brilliant horror, I hope to
further contribute to the genre. With Savages,
I attempted to spin the mainstream premises of the apocalypse and zombies. With
The Waning, I delved into the
psychology of someone both held hostage and tortured. I plan to continue to
venture in different directions, digging alternative worlds out of my brain.
Horror and psychology are usually the common elements in my work, yet I always
intend to approach them from new and divergent angles.
For the currently untitled book I am presently working
on, I plan to examine the horrors of online dating and how such an unnatural
pair bonding approach might drive someone to murder. I want to develop my
style, expand my horror to encapsulate relatable and emotional circumstances
(of a non-horror nature).
My own psychology will probably continue to be what
terrifies me most, so I will most likely continue to be drawn to psychological
horror. There is no hell like the hell of the mind, no horror like the horrors
of ourselves. The most terrifying thing will always be ourselves, whether
individually or as a species. Our entire world is filtered through our minds;
our reality is constructed within our heads.
There is no escape if that filter
is infected or broken; there is no rescue from ourselves. That dependency is
what makes psychology so terrifying for me. One day, I will write about my own
mental horrors, attempt to paint with the colors of my own lens.
(artist credit: Sari NeoChaos https://www.facebook.com/chaostudios)
You can buy any of Christina’s books here.
You can read my review of Savages here.
You can read my review of The Waning here.
If you would like to help support Confessions of a Reviewer,
then please consider using the links below to buy any of the books
mentioned in this feature. This not only supports me but also lets me know
how many people actually like to buy books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Assent Publishing brought her back to her art publishing her debut novella, Savages, to be followed by a second, The Waning. Bergling is a mother of two young children and lives with her family in Colorado Springs.
And for more about Christina, visit her site or find her on social media:
Website - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads - Amazon Page
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