FEARLESS FRIDAYS – Mike Grosso faces his fear of heights

“FEARLESS FRIDAYS is something new for 2015. During our big scary debut year, many of our members will be facing their biggest fears and posting about the experience on Fridays.”

Most of my fears connect to an event. A huge spider para-trooping onto the back of my neck at age four, for instance, gifted me with eternal arachnophobia.

My fear of heights, however, connects to nothing. I’ve never been attacked by a mountain or dangled out of an airplane to get me to spill the beans.

My fear of heights is without reason. It does not negotiate.

It cohesively fits the medium of nightmares. Take any awful thing your brain can imagine during the twilight hours, and top it off by strolling off a ledge and waking up in a cold sweat. A perfect ending to a horrible narrative.

It ruins a lot of fun things, like roller coasters and pretending to be tough. I’m forty-five minutes away from Six Flags Great America, but I’ve only been on the Giant Drop once, and only because my friends made me. My eyes were closed the entire time, except for a peek at the Chicago skyline the moment my plummet began and my horror movie scream shot across the sky.

“Man, did you hear that girl screaming her head off?” one of my clueless friends said. I’ve never forgiven him.

The good news is taking on your fear of heights (AKA acrophobia) is surprisingly fun, especially when you’re an El ride away from the Sears Tower (I won’t call it Willis) and its terrifying Skydeck.

It didn’t help that I’d read an article about the protective coating cracking.

It didn’t help that I had no change of pants, and Macy’s on State Street doesn’t have a bargain bin.

It didn’t help that 103 floors up (1,353 feet) is really freaking high, enough to make the world turn upside-down in my head.

But I did it anyway… because writers need to be brave.

Becky Wallace is up next. Her amazing debut, THE STORYSPINNER, releases in March, but she’ll be scaring herself silly much sooner than that – two weeks from today, on Friday, January 16, to be exact.

Mike Grosso writes, teaches, parents, and plays a variety of instruments at all hours of the day for all possible reasons in Oak Park, Illinois, where he lives with his wife and two-year-old son. He loves coffee, teaching, writing, reading, and making lots of noise with whatever objects he can find nearby. His debut contemporary middle grade novel, I AM DRUMS, will be released by Egmont USA in September 2015. Until then, you can follow his journey to publication at mikegrossoauthor.com or by following him on Twitter.