Category: in the book(s)
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What lurks in the fog?
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Fog: “a weather condition in which very small drops of water come together to form a thick cloud close to the land or sea, making it difficult to see” Cambridge Dictionary Not long after I graduated from university, I worked on a funded project at a horticultural research station that…
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Creating cursed places – inspiration from Dark Shadows
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“If I could speak the language of rabbits, they would be amazed, and I would be their king. I would be kind to my rabbit subjects. At first.” Rajesh Koothrappali, Big Bang Theory Have you ever played a Simulator game? One where you create a community, placing homes, stores, a…
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The Lovecraft Legacy
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“…he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror.” The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft We’re going to begin April/Halfoween with a creeping whisper rather than a bang. There are authors who’ve created…
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Irish travel: inspired by books
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When I turned the final page of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wanted to crawl back inside. While the books are overly-descriptive for some people, I found the details of Middle Earth so fascinating that I couldn’t get enough of them. I wanted to visit Middle Earth, follow…
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When life mirrors my books!
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My hubby, along with a number of people I know, isn’t a particular fan of vegetables. He’ll eat them under sufferance because he knows they’re good for him, and because I won’t let him eat just meat, potatoes and gravy all the time. So I can only imagine his reaction…
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Inspired by Ancient Mythology
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Along with the eerie literature and movies that were big influences for me as a child and early story-teller (Edgar Allan Poe, The Twilight Zone, etc.), I also grew up on what I loosely call ‘sword-and-sandal’ movies. Officially, the term ‘sword-and-sandal’ refers to a popular genre of Italian knock-off movies…
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Plotting a novel old-school – Excel spreadsheets are still alive!
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“It’s alive! It’s alive!” cries Dr. Frankenstein cries in the classic 1931 movie. I was starting to feel like his creation, plodding away with my Excel spreadsheets to plot out my novels, when I came across something that made my little old-fashioned heart beat again. Excel, the clunky, cumbersome software…
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Fun with Podcast Interviews
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“She finds out that a lot of our Earth history isn’t necessarily what we have been led to believe.” Author How do you talk about yourself? When I was invited to be on a podcast featuring indie authors recently, the first thing I did was research into how not to…
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Novel Writing Month lives on
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Here I am, once more sitting with my laptop, a mug of one of my favourite teas, Milk Oolong, ready to hand, as I commit words of horror to ‘page’. Twenty-six years ago, a freelance writer named Chris Baty started NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with just 21 participants. Originally…
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New and revisited horror trends – Happy Halloween
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The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. H.P. Lovecraft The Horror genre is having a moment – or several, if you consider its split personality. Some of it is old, a lot new, but all…