How I Got into Writing and the Influence of Edgar Allen Poe

About the Author

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I’ma start with a proper introduction. I’m Nadi Abdi, author of Power of the People: The Demon Cleaner book one. Today, I wanted to talk a little about my journey to becoming a writer. Specifically, when I started writing and the works that informed my style of writing. This will be several parts. There are a lot of different things I want to talk about.

Descent into Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe is what got me into writing. And I couldn’t tell you why. I was about 12 when I read it. I didn’t understand it. I don’t remember it too well. I’d have to read it again as an adult. Of his stories, I remember it the least. Stories like The Tell Tale Heart and Black Cat resonate with me more and are among my favorites, but after I read Descent into Maelstrom, I wrote a short story about a woman who was sleeping in a glass beach house on vacation. During the morning, she was woken up by a tidal wave that spread out over the house and seemed to encompass the sky. At the end, she was drowned when the wave landed.

I went on to write several more short stories, poems, and flash fiction. I discovered Ambrose Bierce, The Grimm Brothers, Shakespeare, and Greek comedy. Growing up in America, there are certain pieces of work you hear about to exhaustion. I thought the Raven and Romeo and Juliett must be over-hyped for so long that I’d refused to read them for years. Finally read them. I love The Raven, but R and J was definitely not their best work. (It was actually the worst, in my opinion.)

The more classic literature I read, the more I found I really enjoyed Poe, Grimms, Bierce, and Greek tragedies. There’s a subtlety to Grimms’ brutality and gore that I love. They were really out here, lopping off heels and toes then rolling on with the story like I didn’t happen. I was listening to one of their audiobooks on Librivox. The reader, (I can’t remember his name, but I really like him) is reading one of their short stories. We come to this part about a girl in the woods who stumbles upon two orcs at a bridge or something. They eat her and we just go on to the next day. I had to pause like, boy, what??? As an adult, knowing what I know now about what that situation may have looked like, it’s crazy to just ease on through that. However, as a writer, that is a tactic that I employ. I may not write out all the details. My work is for an older audience. I’m going to trust you can fill in the gore yourself. For me, I find it time consuming. And if it’s not done well, it will only contribute to confusion.

Also, it was clean, yet sinister. Everything about that scene, though initially focused on the girl, told you everything you needed to know about the orcs. They just went around eating people. And because they’re orcs and oafish, you know it looked like some shit out of Jurassic Park.

The influence of Poe is particularly interesting to me because I was already an avid reader before I got to him. We grew up with books in the house. I had access to several sets of encyclopedia at various levels about various topics. I burned up my library card. We would lay around the living room, reading Calvin and Hobbes. I had read the entire Nightmare Hall series. I was getting into comic books. (I had just discovered the art of Alex Ross, whom I still love to this day and follow on Twitter.) But it wasn’t until reading Poe, that I thought I had an idea that I could write. It’s just wild to me that, of all my other influences, I didn’t pick up a pen until I’d read his work.

And that’s today’s post. Thanks for reading. If you want to read more about the Demon Cleaner, check out the blog here. If you want to read reviews and short stories from Black Women indie fantasy authors, check out that blog here.