Given that Terror House has been largely inactive for the past two months, I owe an explanation to everyone as to what has been going on. I intended to publish this on Monday, but I’ve rewritten this multiple times because I wasn’t entirely sure how to word it.
For most of the past year, I’ve been severely depressed related to various goings-on in my personal life, a situation that only got worse at the end of last year, when my savings ran out and I was looking for a new job after my two main freelance gigs at the time ended. I also realistically assumed too much Terror House-related work, which would have been difficult to keep up with even in an ideal situation, and began falling behind on that as well. By the time the new year rolled around, I was thoroughly burned out, stressed out about how I was going to pay my bills, and completely at a loss on how to deal with my situation.
I was able to resolve my financial situation in February when I got a new, decent-paying gig. I was initially planning to take a short break to focus on that before returning to Terror House, but days stretched into weeks and into months as I found it increasingly difficult to get back into the swing of things. I started ignoring emails and messages and not communicating with anyone period aside from a close circle of friends (who I also kept unaware of my emotional state).
To be frank, a small part of me has wanted to leave the Internet for quite some time. I’ve always enjoyed running Terror House, but I’ve become tired of being a public figure. I’ve been writing online in some form or another since I was 21; my entire adult life has been defined by this. I don’t understand why, but over the past year, part of me has gotten tired of the negativity, the scrutiny, the constant churn of drama. I made a conscious decision a year ago to distance myself from my past online behavior and be more positive and uplifting, and even then it seemed like people were intent on dragging me into conflicts that I wanted nothing to do with. I’ve barely even looked at Twitter or other social media since January because I’ve had it with the negativity (and because, at least in Twitter’s case, the site is borderline unusable now).
Writing this down makes me feel idiotic and accentuates how selfish and unprofessional my behavior has been. Virtually all of my problems are either self-inflicted or non-problems. The one actual problem I had—my financial situation—I’ve already resolved. And nobody asked me to do this. I started Terror House in 2018 because I wanted to create a publishing house giving voice to neglected writers. It’s been more successful than I could possibly dream of. Giving up on it because…what, I feel sad? That’s stupid.
And one of the things that helped to snap me out of it was Bryden’s death hoax back in February. His trolling led to countless people actually thinking I’d passed away, numerous tributes on Twitter, my phone blowing up, and one of my friends actually banging on my door to make sure I was okay. The fact that so many people were concerned about my well-being was genuinely touching and gradually made me realize how selfish I was behaving.
To everyone: I sincerely apologize. At bare minimum, I should have stated I needed a break of some kind and/or been more communicative. There was no excuse for just dropping off the face of the Earth.
Terror House will continue. Submissions will reopen in the coming days. Emails and messages will be caught up on if they haven’t already. New books are forthcoming. There will be some internal changes, but if you’re a reader or contributor, nothing will be different.
Thank you for your support over the years.
