“They” say, “Write what you know,” and like most “true” statements there are a lot of possible interpretations of that line. I’ve always taken it to mean that you ought to be writing things you know to be true; you know, the way horror writers and filmmakers tell stories about things they know scare them?

They know the story they’re peddling is scary because it is scary to them. Obviously it might not work for others; but nothing you ever do will always work for others, so that shouldn’t be a primary consideration.

Anyway. I’ve been afraid of death-by-falling for most of my life. For most of my life airplane travel felt different, more safe for some reason; I would only really be “afraid of heights” when I was right up at the edge of one. The strange pull one feels at a cliffside, the knowledge that one step more and it’d be too late to do anything else …

Those feelings aren’t what we’re talking about in “Cabin Fever.” Don’t worry, shhh. That’s a secret.