The Werewolf Principle- Part One of Five

Writers rarely listen to werewolves, and it's our loss.

While it's true that this may be in some degree be blamed on the rather limited range of sounds they are capable of producing (they howl well and are not bad snarlers), it's also a fact that when the full moon rises resplendent above the dark clouds to grace the the evening sky like the queen of the night that she is, writers hide behind their computers.

Embarrassing, isn't it? 

Granted no one wants to step out on a night where their neighbors may or may not be transformed into hideous were-beasts, but no one ever did or ever should assume that being a writer is safe.

In fact, being a writer is dangerous work.

And, like the werewolf, writers live out their lives under a gypsy curse.

But if it doesn't show up on Google, you probably never heard about it.  I'll explain later in this short series why we were cursed, which gypsy cursed us and all the details of how the general public can protect themselves from were-writers.

We all know how to break a were-writer.  It's not silver bullets.  You know better than that.

You want to know how to stop a were-writer?  Just don't respond to any their requests for you to "like" their newest release.  Nothing weakens a writer more than no one responding to their latest effort.  It's like pounding a stake through their heart while they're in a garlic sauna.

It's the in between magical strictures that we need to pay attention to.  Like this one:

Writers look like everyone else.  Sometimes not as good.

How were you supposed to know that the 73 year old woman with hair in her ears has been writing the lusty, bawdy, rowdy adventure-fantasy you've been loving your whole life?  Gag, as the late Janice Joplin said, is just another word for nothing left to puke.

See that scrawny little guy walking down the aisle at work, the one who looks like he's been beaten like a rented mule.  Bench presses less than the average two liter diet drink.  Sounds like a cricket on coke when he talks.  Yep he's the one.  He writes science fiction that can bend your mind.  He has dreams more muscular than an Olympic wrestler.

What happens to the old lady and and the scrawny little guy to make them write like that?

Metaphorical full moon, that's what.

When the conditions are right, they let their inner animal free and then.... look out!!


They're beyond human.  They're were-writers.  They turn into writing animals.

It's an ugly scene, as though all their pent-up sexuality, their need to dominate and every creative ambition they've ever repressed gets covered with wild hair and they literally snarl their way through their manuscript.

But not every night.  Only the nights when the conditions are right.

And wouldn't you like to know how to tell when the conditions are right?