I have a campy YA horror novel that is struggling to find a home. The market isn't as strong for YA horror as it is for say, contemporary romance. I know what you're thinking--but what about authors like R.L. Stine or Stephen King? Darling, they are outliers. Sometimes when I go to ALA or other conventions and ask publishing houses about current YA horror that I should have on my radar, they're not as quick to have recommendations for me as they are for other genres. Not always, of course. Sometimes they grace me with a zillion recommendations and it's love[...]
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writing
2 Wednesday Addams, the Headless Horseman, and Velma from Scooby Doo walked into a horror convention. They walked with me from the parking garage to Spooky Empire, along with gender-swapped Beetlejuice and more than one Pennywise. Sam from Trick r Treat greeted me when I walked in. I love Sam, and Halloween was only a few days away, but I had a writing panel to catch. Spooky Empire started in 2003, and it’s grown to be one of the largest horror conventions in the nation. The self-proclaimed ‘dark side of Comic Con’ is held in Orlando, Florida nowadays[...]
Stephen King was a gateway to horror for me. I grew up loving monster movies and doing school reports on Edgar Allen Poe and the Salem witch trials. Then, at ten years old, my uncle took me to see The Shining. I pestered my mom until she let me read her movie tie-in paperback, and I was captivated. I’d never read anything like Stephen King before. I fell completely into the worlds he built. The scenery surrounded me; his characters felt like people I knew. In the whirl of supernatural beings and evil forces, Stephen King’s stories felt more rea[...]
As a writer, many of my stories start from a tiny little seed of an idea planted in my brain. Imagine these little tidbits, coming from various places, fermenting and growing in the depths of my brain until they start to germinate and sprout into something creepy. That's how my story, Flowers for the Dead, came to be. HOW IT STARTED One of my favorite things to include in my stories? Superstitions. Folk Lore. Strange and arcane beliefs that inspire people to do some curious things. Some of these ideas seem not so strange. But others? They make you wonder ho[...]
Hello fellow horror fans. Today we're visiting the deep end of the swimming pool. Let's shimmy up to the edge, our toes curling around the lip of cement that separates us from the water, and peer down into the murk and what lingers there. It's been some time since I've tried to put one of these posts together, and there's a good reason for that. Let's call it the separation of church and state; art and presentation; craft and identity. I'm at DragonCon this weekend, surrounded by a hoard of seventy thousand like-minded individuals who are, cumulatively, wilder a[...]
Hello, Darlings!! I am SO thrilled to have our very own Horror Twins, Brian LeTendre and Jolene Haley, on the blog today! They graciously let me feast on their brains about their books, both past and upcoming. So I'll stop boring you and just hop right in! How did you two start writing together in the first place? Brian: I was lucky enough to participate in a few of the Pen & Muse writing showcases (Dark Carnival and Haunt), and I was a big fan of Jolene's because she's such a positive force in the writing community. I asked her to be a gu[...]
Hello Kittens, I want to play a game. I've auditioned for a few IP projects lately. While none of them have panned out, writing something that was spawned in someone else's brain has resulted in a huge boost in my creativity. So much so, that I want to try it out with you. Yes, you, sitting there, idly reading this post, perhaps on the train on your way to work. I want you to create your own twisted, demented little story off the following prompt. I will think of something fantastic to send my favorite contributor. **Spoiler alert - i[...]
Hello Kittens! Happy Halfoween! In honor of this spooky celebration, here is one of my favorite kill scenes, from one of my all-time favorite movies, Thir13en Ghosts. (It's not Halfoween if someone isn't getting bisected) While I was drumming up ideas for my blog post, I kept thinking of the fact that we're halfway to Halloween. It might just be me, but I feel like everything is "halfway" lately. My kid is always halfway clean. I'm halfway done the laundry (meaning it's sitting in the washer, slowly drying). My jobs are halfway done at work. The bottle[...]
Hello Kittens, I remember the first time I set foot into the land of Twitter. There was a hashtag going on, one I thought was absolutely brilliant. #SixWordStories People from all over the world were tweeting their stories, a good chunk of them plays on perhaps the most well known six-word-story of all time: Like...come on. Hemingway is so good he can slaughter your soul in six effing words. He is such a legend. The idea of a six word got me thinking about how important words are, and how we sometimes use way more than we should. I know that my own fi[...]
Alright guys, we’ve finally made it to the final stretch! We’ve finished 3 weeks of writing furiously and we’ve got just one week left to finish it out. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had a LOT of feelings so far in this process. There’s been a lot of: And also some: and: There’s even been a little: But the best parts have been: And those are the parts that make this whole thing worth it. If you’re like me you’ve still got quite a bit of writing left to do, but you can see the finish line out there in the distance. Any[...]