InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I need scizzors!"

Authors Introduction: This is an essay I wrote for classmates.com magazine, I am not sure if this would get in or not but I thought, "fuck it." This might be too bizarre for them because of some of the humor I use. This is very laced with a lot of black humor, so if there is somone I offended with this -- it isn't intentional. I hope it isn't too bizarre for them. This is as normal as I get but then again, coming from me that does disturb some people. This is something that the copyright symbol on my profile is designed for. I wrote this between working on Quakes and Storms and the new story I am planning to send to another magazine. They (Classmates.com) required the story to be under 5000 characters, I hate when they get like that because I can easy hit the 3000 word mark. I wish they allowed for a 3000 word short story because I could easy make this into something that long. Pay attention kiddies, this is as close as I get to being G rated.

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Class Reunion came and past,
from a Horror Writer’s point of view.
WRITTEN BY NICKOLAUS ALBERT PACIONE,
GLENBARD EAST HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 1994

Well it was a year ago when I went to my class reunion, I never expected the reception I got with the reunion. I never expected a few coming up and apologizing for the hell they put me through, but that was the case here. Especially with the book out there.
          I thought of it going into a Twilight Zone episode so to speak, or so to say. But no matter here I am at the reunion, copies of my books on hand well only one copy and a demo CD of a friend’s industrial band. They never expected a guy with really long black hair with a leather jacket walking into the place because the Nickolaus Pacione they remember was the nerdy kid with the haunted eyes. I sometimes feel like that character in Stephen King’s story, “THE BODY,� being the main character was a writer and his best friend suggested to him if he was hard up for material he could write about his friends.
          Then again, after all the years of being the kid they made fun of – becoming a horror writer was something they never expected. Though one said, “Why doesn’t this surprise one bit?�
          Though I will go into some detail but not a lot, it was strange getting in touch with a few writers on Classmates.com. Though I knew a few people for a long time, but they never expected me to become a writer. The reunion wasn’t all that bad in fact I had a lot of fun and managed to get my friend’s demo played. Coming in from the gothic subculture, it seems to be a whole different world and sometimes it isn’t expected. I learned to expect a lot of the unexpected because of the various web sites I am active with. I started to enter this occupation not knowing many writers but coming into it I ended up publishing at least five writers from the class of 1994 and 1995.
          At first I was the person everyone made fun of for owning Stephen King novels, but here I am now writing something that will turn a few heads here and there especially since I had a morbid curiosity about death and mortality. That fascination with the darker side of life, and basically there was no turning back from there. It started with the encouragement of a classmate at the age of 19, then after the layoff of a factory job the writing thing became more serious. So a lot changed after 10 years, then I was made fun of – now I get dirty looks for challenging some known authors. It is a rite of passage in the underground when it comes to this kind of fiction; there will always be someone who will be gunning for you because of something you’ve written. I am sure some of you who wrote in the school paper can relate to this, and so can a lot of these who’ve been labeled outcasts or as pariahs. So coming from someone who was made fun of for most of their life, you learn to develop a thick skin –– the conditioning is there for an author in the field of Speculative Fiction. Falling into a level of writing the fiction that is just beyond an amateur.
          So when it came time to go to the class reunion, there are a lot of things racing in your head at once. And if you’re a horror writer, you come up with this macabre little things that can or may happen when you’re there. Such as the former prom queen becoming the real life version of a circus show freak, or the former football star flipping burgers at a McDonald’s. Or they come in with a missing arm or a leg – maybe still bleeding too. All the things that made them perfect and popular in high school turning them into the loser, and the ones they picked on in school because they were in a special education class now creating weird fiction. I want to say exactly what I am thinking here, but I have to keep in mind this is a family magazine. Though as I go on, when I called to confirm my reservations at the Class Reunion – I didn’t release how my name goes around, the operator actually recognized me from my story on the Horror Magazine, THE HOUSE OF PAIN.
          A class reunion for a writer can be either their best friend or their worst enemy, especially when it comes to authors of speculative fiction. Though some of the most macabre ideas can come out of high school, and this is always the case with some writers. Though it is hard to keep in touch with everyone from a class reunion, even though you run into a few of them at a Haunted House somewhere on Halloween. Though some people hook up at reunions, though not always the case – sometimes you will find an author you knew from your past, and one might not know you’ve be sharing a table of contents with them or doing your book cover for you.
          It is always different when it comes to everyone else’s class reunion though but when it comes to your own – always expect the unexpected. Especially when reunions will have a mortality wall, what that means is for the students who didn’t live to see their reunion for some odd reason. I am not making a joke here, just that I have the imagination that falls into the strange and macabre. That’s what happens when one hangs around with other horror writers who are even sicker in nature. Moral of the story is this, go into a reunion with an open mind – because one might never know if an old enemy might actually apologize. This is the case here when I went to my reunion – I won’t mention their name here but I want to say thank you for the apology.