Happiness Anxiety: How the Pursuit of Happiness Can Bring Us Down

Anxiety comes in many shades:

  • General Anxiety Disorder
  • Social Phobia
  • Agoraphobia
  • Specific Phobias
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Panic Disorder.

Between these hues are even more subtle tones.

I’d like to explore two of the tones between General Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia. One is called “status anxiety,” a form of anxiety experts are starting to recognize, and the other is a term I call “happiness anxiety.”

What is Status Anxiety?

Status anxiety is the fear of how our social status is perceived by our community. Author Alain de Botton coined the term “status anxiety” in a book and a documentary film of the same name.

Our anxiety over our status is why we project success, confidence, and happiness when we don’t feel it. We believe people will treat us with more respect if we exude these traits. We may not feel successful, but we know the best way to get there is to fake it until we make it. It’s why we collect status symbols to show off our value.

In and of itself the Apple Watch is a glorified fitness tracker, but as a material merit badge that slick LCD watch face tells the world we’ve got money to spare.

De Botton claims status symbols, like the Apple Watch, extend beyond our fashion sense into the items that adorn our homes, the degrees we’ve earned, our career titles, our social network notoriety, the relationships we’re in, and the meaningful milestones we’ve gathered through the years.

De Botton believes our endless quest for treasures and trophies is actually a hunt for love and approval and our anxiety over status will persist long after our animal needs are met.  Continue reading Happiness Anxiety: How the Pursuit of Happiness Can Bring Us Down

Drew Chial’s Halloween Short Story Showcase

Here is a sampling of my finest short horror stories and Halloween posts to get you in the mood for the season.

The Smilers: A Horror Story About Happy People

The Smilers Logo

A story about pleasantry pushing pod people in the spirit of the Twilight Zone.

The Inspiration Killers: A Story about Monsters that Prey on Creativity

Shadow Play

What if there were evil spirits that targeted artists?

I Am Fire: A Story about a Game of Truth or Flare

6. Man Made of Fire

Why you should never call a teenage witch a basic bitch.

Shop Dropping: A Spooky Story about People Who Put Things on Retail Shelves

Infinite Book

What happens when a clerk follows a shoplifter to find they were leaving mysterious items behind?

Death Hacks: Tricks to Make Your Afterlife More Fun

Ghost Portrait

Pro tips on how to get the most out of being a ghost.

#Unblessed: A Scary Story Told 140 Characters At a Time

Unblessed

Read a cursed man’s final 40 tweets.

Slender Man’s Rival

Slender Man
Slender Man

When the internet gave birth to Slender Man it gave birth to something else as well.

The Haunting of My Love Life

Bleeding Heart
Bleeding Heart

A short story about when haunted house builders go too far.

The War on Halloween

2. Hands Up

You’ve heard of the War on Christmas, but have you heard of the War on Halloween? This is a letter from a concerned demon.

The Monster Mashup: Classic Monsters Gone Wrong

Frankenstein's Monster
Frankenstein’s Monster

Can I turn four classic monsters into the butt of the same dirty joke? You bet I can.

The Monster Mashup Part 2

Nosferatu
Nosferatu

What happens when you take modern monsters out of their element? Something totally wrong. Enjoy.

Words Of Discouragement: 29

For when you’re tired of platitudes and want a little attitude.

Murder

Continue reading Words Of Discouragement: 29

Barkley Carver, World’s Most Prolific Hack Writer, Teaches the Craft

Become the Supervisor of Your Own Fiction Factory

Anyone can be an author. It doesn’t matter your age, academic background, or nationality, you have what it takes to write the great American novel.

Forget what you’ve heard. You don’t need to be born to successful writers with roots in New York or Los Angeles, you don’t need a knack for grammar, talent, or luck. You just need to learn the tricks of trade from a master of the craft.

Barkley Carver, pilot, and credited author of 15 books to debut on the New York Times bestsellers list, reveals his winning formula for franchise fiction (for the first time under his current pen name). In this online class, he guides you through every aspect of writing a serviceable novel, from finding cold cases to base your mysteries on to getting New York’s Department of Health to grant you access to the divorce records so you can see which publishers are on the rebound. Continue reading Barkley Carver, World’s Most Prolific Hack Writer, Teaches the Craft

Words Of Discouragement: 28

For when you’re tired of platitudes and want a little attitude.

Movie Trailer
Continue reading Words Of Discouragement: 28

How Branding Can Help and Hinder Your Writing

Branding Defined with Artists in Mind

When you hear the word “branding” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

I see a portfolio pounding professional power-walking around a boardroom table. Over their shoulder is a screen with a venn diagram. It features an infographic, a polar chart, and a pie chart overlapping each other. The speaker jabbers in jargon, traces hieroglyphic stats with a laser pen, and high fives their colleges right across the cheeks.

“It is mission-critical for our business to leverage strategic bleeding edge synergizing techniques to push the envelope outside the box if we hope to achieve vertical growth.”

At least that’s what I imagine when I hear the word branding. As a fiction writer, I figured branding was a word marketers used to inflate the importance of advertising, but it turns out it’s relevant to what I’m doing.

Put simply, branding is the thing that lets customers know what to expect from businesses, products, and even entertainment.

Put even simpler: branding = expectations

Just like in the corporate world, fiction brands let audiences know what to expect, and just like in the corporate world, a handful of brands have a monopoly.

This is why iconic characters enjoy so many reinventions, fiction franchises outlive their originators, and big name authors can pass work to ghost writers. People don’t want to waste hard earned money on bad entertainment. Brands appear to eliminate that risk.

If you want a steamy romance about an untamable Harley driver with borderline disorder just look for the lathered abs on the cover. If you like psychological thrillers about scandalous women, find a book with the word “girl” in the title. If you want a mystery about women who went missing while running, find a book with a foggy forest on the front.  Continue reading How Branding Can Help and Hinder Your Writing

Words Of Discouragement: 27

For when you’re tired of platitudes and want a little attitude.

Mediocraty
Continue reading Words Of Discouragement: 27

Why I had to Unplug through this Summer of Static

The information age is both a blessing and a curse for writers.

The tools we use to find our audiences can also drain our creative energy. The twin punch combo of the 24-hour news cycle and social media can knock us out. It’s part of the reason I took a break from blogging, posting on Facebook, and tweeting.

If the internet is a series of tubes it felt like they were all carrying, to quote W.P. Mayhew from Barton Fink, a “raging river of manure.”

This election cycle has dialed the national discussion up to eleven. Everyone is pounding on their keyboards with the caps lock on, but let’s put a pin in that politically polarizing conversation and acknowledge how draining the news can be even when Trump isn’t stealing headlines. Continue reading Why I had to Unplug through this Summer of Static

Words Of Discouragement: 26

For when you’re tired of platitudes and want a little attitude.

Love what your write
Continue reading Words Of Discouragement: 26