Do Me Good
December 17th, 2006 by 
Rory Harper
I’m ambivalent about today’s post. I fear that it reveals things about me that perhaps shouldn’t be revealed. Especially on such a bright soft Sunday afternoon. It’s a 3 a.m. darkness of the soul post.
One of the bewilderingly many reasons that I quit writing for so long is that my internal critic shut me down, to the point that I couldn’t even begin creative work, much less finish it.
I wrote darker and darker fiction, to the point that I ceased selling what I wrote. Righfully so, I think.
It was a bad decade or two for me. I began to self-censor, as a dysfunctional survival tactic. That’s one of the best ways to kill yourself as a writer.
I’m mostly past that now, so no boo-hoos for me. My life right now is happy, and getting better each month.
‘Do Me Good’ was the last story I had published. It’s such a fucked-up story that one editor rejected it with a scathing critique that made it obvious that he hadn’t finished reading it. When I read it at a con in Oklahoma, several people abruptly left the room in the middle of the session. They came up to me afterward to reassure me that it wasn’t because they thought the story was bad, just that they were getting nauseated.
It ended up being published in the (semi)famous Fall 1993 ‘Death’ issue of the Pulphouse hardback magazine, the last issue they got out before expiring.
As I wrote in my submission cover letter, I’m horrified that I had this story in my head, but rather pleased with its execution. It’s violence-porn, and it’s the most primal, nasty thing I’ll ever write.
And here’s the sound-track to it:
This is the first song I made while I was learning to record at home. It is, of course, supposed to be played loud.
Properly speaking, it should be sung by a woman.
But I don’t think I know any women who would be willing to sing it.
Like I said, I’m not sure that I should be posting these things at EOB. And I’ll pull them down if you guys think I should.
But I’m not self-censoring any more.
At the risk of over-analyzing, I think that putting them here is part of my process of letting go of that time in my life.
(Picture Copyright © 2006 Rachael Harper. Incidentally, Rachael is Awesome.)
“Do Me Good” (the story) and “Do Me Good” (the song and audio recording) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.
Posted in Daily Life, Horror, mp3, Music, Rachael is Awesome, Rory, Writing | 
16 Comments »
December 17th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
I’ve had this song on my iPod for a long time now. Alas, it died today. I suspect a stalking iPod killer got it. I’m not sure if the iPod enjoyed it or not.
Fortunately, I can still listen to it on my computer. For now.
December 17th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
That is seriously dark. And well written. I need to go hose out my brain with soap and water. OK, you get the Disturbed Writer Award for today…
December 17th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
I stopped writing after I got sick two years ago. And it was really hard for me to convince myself that there was any reason to go back to writing. I don’t know why. My family has this myth that I NEED to write, but I don’t. I’m not even sure writing is a good thing.
But like you, Rory, I’m writing again. In part because Bob (my beloved) said to me, ‘Do you have writer’s block?’ and I had to actually say out loud that I wasn’t writing. (And also because the temp agency keeps saying they’ll get me work but they don’t, and I feel useless.) I know how to write, as much as anyone does, I just…don’t.
December 17th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Morgan — Thanks! I always hoped I’d get an award for writing that story! Good news is, I don’t think I have any more like it in me.
Maureen — Virtual hug to you. I don’t know about you, but I’m anxious, angry, and depressed when I’m not creating something. For a long time, that drive got focussed on survival and taking care of Rach as best I could. But I was still pretty miserable, even though raising Rach was a joy.
For me it’s a blunt existential issue — Why are we here? The only answer I know is that we’re here to love and take care of each other and to create.
I just got hung up on having to try to create great things. I’m letting go of that now.
December 17th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Excellent story, but not for the faint of heart. Somewhat gratuitous, but not overwhelmingly so. A vocalization of an original and disturbing thought. However how many readers are willing to ingest new disturbances, much less to pay for the experience? Again, thanks for making it available.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:30 am
Sorry, Rory, hon. I couldn’t get past the first seven or eight paragraphs. Such a weinie…
December 18th, 2006 at 1:12 am
Before I crash for the evening –
Thanks for the comments, ranonymous!
And, Casey, you’re not certainly not the first person to avert from this particular leprotic creature of darkness. I reread it this weekend for the first time in more than a decade. It’s pretty icky.
…But I still like the song. I worked hard on producing it for about six months, and am quite proud of how it turned out on a technical level.
Would have been better if only I could sing, of course.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Rory, you and I talked about this story at length back when you first wrote it — so I won’t do it again here. I’ll just say that I’m glad you’re not self-censoring anymore. (Self-editing = Good. Self-censoring = Bad. A distinction more writers should embrace.)
December 18th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Rory, I read this story early in the morning at 1:30 AM, and was going to make a comment then, but I couldn’t do it. A very disturbing tale, which made me seriously worried about you. I woke up with a nightmare this morning about it. The list of taboos you cover in such a short period make Norman Bates appear sane. But then, I realized your need for catharsis, to get back on a creative track, and dealing with this is a part of your healing. I too have had a serious problem with “art block” recently, and I think it may be due to our age and “is this all there is?” syndrome. Only a story by Joe Landsdale, of which I can’t remember the title, gave me the creeps as bad as this one. And the song was good, and your singing appropriate for the tone of the song, but I wish I would have listened to it before I’d read the story. My perception of it was colored drastically by the sense of dread (and disgust) induced by the story.
December 18th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Wasn’t “The Night We Missed the Picture Show” was it?
That’s the Lansdale story they gets me.
December 18th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
David, you’re right on track with your comments. Like I said, I haven’t read it for more than ten years.
At the time, back then, it felt like a somewhat darker vision than I normally wrote. Now, I look at it, and tell myself ‘Whoever wrote that one is gone. Thank Ghod.’
…Which doesn’t mean that anything I write from here on out is going to be happy bunnies hopping around in the sunny meadow….
December 18th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Just slightly off on the Lansdale title, Steve. It was “The Night They Missed the Horror Show.”
December 18th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
‘swhat I get for not using the tools at my fingertips.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
That’s the Heart song (“These Dreams”?)and dragging-the-not-yet-dead-one story, right?
Just looked at “Do Me Good.” I remember being horrified enough (in a good way) not to finish reading it originally.
Two children later, I’m glad you’re happier.
(And wasn’t #12 always supposed to be the last of the Hardbacks?)
December 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Hey, Ken… On the Pulphouse thing, my memories of details are murky, but I think you’re right that they were planning to transition to magazine format, or go parallel, maybe, with Issue Twelve.
I do remember that there was a period when Pulphouse Publishing was trying to take over the world, seemingly announcing a new project every week. And then it all crashed. Kris wrote about it in the last issue.
She mentioned a lot of factors, but I think they just over-extended and burnt themselves up, the publsihing industry began to consolidate and otherwise change. And we had Bush I’s nice little recession to deal with.
I think I sold them the story in 1989 or so, with planned publication in 1991, but it kept getting pushed back and back.
Dean sent me a note saying that they still hoped to publish the last issue, but that they’d held it so long, and couldn’t make any promises, so I was free to take the story elsewhere.
I replied that I couldn’t imagine any other market that would be even minimally likely to handle a story like that, and to hang onto it as long as they wanted to.
I think they’d already paid me by then, too, so it was a good gesture on Dean’s part.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:53 am
[...] pulled out an old story with the intention of publishing it here, as I did with ‘Do Me Good’. I got to reading it, and then I got to editing it. It tightened up nicely. I think I could in [...]