#FallIntoHorror Guest Blog #2 — Tom Olbert

The Blog Hop is well under way! Today’s guest is Tom Olbert.

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Welcome to Fall Into Horror with Mocha Memoirs Press!

Mocha Memoirs Press is celebrating the new Fall season by showcasing their love of horror and the authors who write it. Please welcome TOM OLBERT as he shares his thoughts on fall and horror.

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WHAT LIVES IN THE DARKNESS?

And fall is here. Only just, but its chill fingers can already be felt creeping up our spines. Before we know it, the leaves will turn, the days will shorten, and the shadow of the equinox will creep in silently in summer’s wake. The time of transition, when, it is said, the veil between this world and the next runs thin, and spirits walk the earth. Time for tales of horror to slip under the wire of our reason and stoke the fires of our nightmares.

Horror takes many forms, both subtle and gross. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves and ghouls. The shadows of arcane superstition that never stop haunting us, even into this digital age. The unknown touching our primal fears from the inky blackness of the dark.

But, there’s another kind of horror, too. The horror of the dark places within the human mind and the dark places buried deep in the human soul, where we fear to look, perhaps even more than we fear the darkness outside. The demons we carry within are the ones we can never escape. Such evil can take many forms. Like the shadowy figure of Jack the Ripper skulking in the shadows of dark, misty, gas lit midnight streets, transcending time and space, a seemingly eternal horror that will always be with us. Because such evil is waiting to be born in the depths of each human soul, and will never die.

In my novella “Black Goddess,” I tried to explore those dark depths we call evil. The evil of the torturer. Of the murderer. The evil of hate and revenge and unimaginable cruelty that defies all reason and devours the soul of both victim and victimizer. Such darkness has been with us from the beginning, in particularly dark chapters of history, taking on forms of evil so pure, so horrific that our darkest dreams pale in comparison.

The eternal question presents itself to a troubled young man who has seen evil up close and intimately: Is evil merely a random perversion of human emotion spawned by violence and chaos, or–is evil a primal force, like a dark infection stealing its way into the human soul, feeding on it from within like a parasite, until nothing beside remains?

The protagonist of “Black Goddess” becomes obsessed with the nature and essence of the evil that has destroyed his life and his faith. His search for answers evolves into a dark quest that is destroying him, little by little. The closer he draws to the dark, forbidden cosmic truth at the heart of the darkness, the more he hungers for it to the exclusion of all else, like a drug addict endlessly seeking his next fix. He has given his life, and possibly his soul to a dark experiment through which he reaches closer and closer to the center of time and space. What will he find at the center of creation? God, or Satan? When he looks into the mirror of the first moment of time, will he find light or darkness at the core of his own soul?

What can any of us expect to find, when we peel back the layers of sanity we show to the world, and face the darkness we carry inside?

BLACK GODDESS

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Comment below and click on the rafflecopter options below for a chance to win the tour prize, a $25 Amazon Gift Card! a Rafflecopter giveaway Continue on with this FALL INTO HORROR. You can join Mocha Memoirs Press authors and share in their love of horror on Facebook. You can also click on the links below to meet other horror authors:


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ABOUT MOCHA MEMOIRS PRESS:

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Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC is a genre-oriented publishing company. Their vision is to provide an outlet for outstanding speculative and romance stories that often fall beneath the radar of traditional publishing houses. They seek to provide quality stories that invigorate the reader’s literary palette like a good, strong coffee. Like great coffee houses, they offer a variety of flavors. They publish stories in the following genres: science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance, including the sub-genres of steampunk, cyberpunk, diesel punk, alternate history, weird westerns, and mash-ups.

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM

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#FallIntoHorror Guest Blog Post #1– S.H. Roddey

If I do this right, I will be participating in the Fall Into Horror blog hop, and you will get to read some awesome guest posts about writing horror. Wish us both luck!

 

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Welcome to Fall Into Horror with Mocha Memoirs Press!

Mocha Memoirs Press is celebrating the new Fall season by showcasing their love of horror and the authors who write it. Please welcome S.H. Roddey as they share their thoughts on fall and horror.

Ramblings of a Horror GeekHaunted.jpg

I watched Hellraiser last night. The last time I sat down and watched that movie was more than ten years ago. And it was quite a bit longer ago that I read the book. I was a lot younger and a lot more impressionable then, and the Cenobytes used to scare the hell out of me. The Chatterer still freaks me out because I used to have nightmares about things that looked like him when I was a kid.

Then I dreamed about killing zombies. It seems whenever these crazy zombie dreams manifest, Selah Janel is always there. Last night she helped me cut down hundreds of zombies while trying to simultaneously rescue someone and get out of a drive-in theater park. Last time we went on an adventure in my dreams, we were looking at buying a house where the groundskeeper was using zombie labor to rebuild an old manor owned by giants.

Don’t ask…I can’t explain any of it.

So at two o’clock this morning I was lying awake in bed, trying to sort out the ramblings of my mind, and this crazy thought appeared in the forefront: I’m a writer. Why not put all these things together and actually make a book out of it? Which meant that at 2:15 this morning, I was sitting in the dark with a notebook and a pen, scribbling down ideas in a vain attempt to create a reasonable plot out of the madness in my head.

By 2:30, I was watching old Peanuts cartoons and wondering exactly where I detoured into left field. I wasn’t always this weird, warped creature. When I was a kid, I was …

Oh hell, who am I kidding? I was never normal.

After the movie last night, my husband and I had an interesting discussion about iconic movie monsters. Nine times out of ten, when I ask someone to name a slasher flick monster, one of six names comes to mind. Let’s review the list, shall we?

Chucky: Okay, so I don’t really consider Chuckie all that “monster”ish. He’s basically Pinocchio on LSD. And a pretty stupid character, in my humble opinion. HOWEVER, when it comes to creeps and chills, he’s definitely up there on the list of horror icons. He’s rude and he’s crass, and there’s not much stopping the director from firing it up with a bit o’ doll-porn in later episodes of the franchise. Not my favorite, but definitely note-worthy.

Michael Myers: He’s not a monster in the sense that the others are, but he’s still scary. When dealing with serial-killing psychos, this name seems to pop to the top quite a bit. I personally enjoy the Rob Zombie remake better than the original even though the story of the original face being a cut-up version of a William Shatner mask makes me giggle with manic glee. Except that the chase scene goes on for about half an hour too long. Plus it was a lot of fun at Fandom Fest a few years ago watching him play pool with Jack Sparrow and the Borg in the bar.

Leatherface: Again with the murderers! Mutated mass murdering psychotic monsters? Yep, you got ’em right here. The movies themselves are a light-plotted bloodbath, yet based on true events. The concept seems to appeal to the masses on a fundamental level, yet I almost find myself pitying Leatherface himself because of his sad, sadistic lot in life. Random yet related: Bob Elmore is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. It’s not every day you turn around to find a real-life movie monster (minus the mask) standing behind you. I’m not a big fan of the gore, but I gained a new respect for the character that day.

Pinhead: See above. Creepy, bizarre, and all around nasty individual. Plus his backstory as a human-turned-monster is interesting. The makeup on this guy is kickass and the character’s personality is one that leaves nothing to the imagination. He’s the ultimate hedonist, presented in a way that you can’t help but love him even as he’s turning you inside out and destroying your soul. Just another reason why I aspire to be Clive Barker when I grow up.

Jason Vorhees: Okay, so he’s one of the big ones that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD knows and adores, but can I just say that I don’t buy it for a second? The original “Friday the 13th” was a great movie because the crazy person wasn’t Jason. However, the story in the first movie created a wholly unrealistic basis for the character that would become the icon for the franchise. JASON VORHEES DROWNED AS A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD, PEOPLE!!! HE CAN’T COME BACK AS AN ADULT MAN WITH INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF MACHETES! Regardless of what I believe, people love him, and the franchise has, in fact, made a ludicrous amount of money allowing him to run around and hack mostly-naked teenage girls to bits over and over again.

Freddy Kruger: Now we’re talking. When I was a kid, Freddy was my big one. He scared me senseless. I still to this day can’t watch Dream Warriors without a chill crawling up my spine. Yeah, the character itself has a few holes in his realism, but the scariest part of Freddy? You can’t kill what doesn’t actually exist. Which is why I have to call bullshit on Jason Vorhees winning that battle. The writer and director failed miserably on that one. But I’m also a little biased, so it’s all good. Well, at least until you hear the knocking and that creepy little voice. “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…”

So in the end what do we take from all of this? Pinhead is freaky and Freddy Kruger is the stuff of which my bad dreams are made. Now tell me, Creeps, who’s your worst nightmare?

HAUNTED

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ABOUT S.H. RODDEY

South Carolina native S.H. Roddey has been writing for fun since she was a child and still enjoys building worlds across the speculative fiction spectrum filled with mystery and intrigue. She brings to the literary world a unique blend of humor, emotion, and wild ideas filled with dark themes and strong characters. She is a voracious reader, wannabe chef, and video game addict with two full-time jobs: administrative professional and mom to human and furry children alike. She also enjoys being married to her best friend and full-time muse. Stalk her at: http://www.shroddey.com http://creepyauthorgirl.wordpress.comhttp://www.facebook.com/AuthorSHRoddey http://www.twitter.com/draickinphoenix


Comment below and click on the rafflecopter options below for a chance to win the tour prize, a $25 Amazon Gift Card! a Rafflecopter giveaway Continue on with this FALL INTO HORROR. You can join Mocha Memoirs Press authors and share in their love of horror on Facebook. You can also click on the links below to meet other horror authors:


This linky list is now closed.

What is a blog hop?
Get the code here…


ABOUT MOCHA MEMOIRS PRESS:

MMP_Logo.jpg

Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC is a genre-oriented publishing company. Their vision is to provide an outlet for outstanding speculative and romance stories that often fall beneath the radar of traditional publishing houses. They seek to provide quality stories that invigorate the reader’s literary palette like a good, strong coffee. Like great coffee houses, they offer a variety of flavors. They publish stories in the following genres: science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance, including the sub-genres of steampunk, cyberpunk, diesel punk, alternate history, weird westerns, and mash-ups.

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM

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Well, Not as Good as I WANTED…But Better That It Could Be :)

I wanted to do a blog post daily, and have something cool to report. Well, that isn’t quite happening, but I still have a clean bathroom. I still have cleaning happening. And BEST of all…look!

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Can you believe that is the same floor as this?

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Lots of work still to do, but baby steps!

And, I have actually gotten some work done in the Office of Dooooom.

I got my Vanity Shelf straightened up:

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And consolidated things at my signing shelves so that I could put up another set of shelves to hold the Conn-Mann dolls and their furniture and make more room on my desk (pics later, I’m tired…;) ) and my writing references.

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Almost brained myself getting that lifted up there…but it will really make things better.

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Okay, So I Have Been Slacking a Bit

I have had two book galleys to go through in the last few weeks, so I have been a bit behind on the cleaning. Not to say that NOTHING is getting done. The cats’ counter is staying clean–see?

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And I have been organizing cabinets more, though I haven’t posted about it:

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More work done in the glassware cabinet. Organized the teas and such better.

DSC04209The spice cabinet had a lot of redundancy and stuff we never or rarely use mixed in with the everyday things.

I rearranged things to use the space more efficiently.

Not a really big change, I know, but something.

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Plus, the almost daily treatments of the shower floor are beginning to show results.

Off to get my car cleaned out and washed for the Con this weekend, but I wanted to post SOMETHING. 🙂

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Little Done Today…but at Least It Was Something

Still not great at the balancing thing, so I only got a drawer done today. One drawer, and it is very hard to see the difference, but it is something. And the reason I didn’t do a lot of cleaning — finishing the galleys for The Nearly Notorious Nun; writing a poem for an anthology; submitting a proposal for an article — those were all GOOD things.

Anyway, here is the drawer, before and after. I also cleared a couple of almost empty boxes out, but that was so little that I didn’t even take pictures…

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cluttered                                                                    at least somewhat de-cluttered

If I get more energy, I will do more. Right now, I am wiped out from the last few days of proofreading. It is amazing how draining that can be.

EDIT: So, I managed to go through another drawer. I’m halfway through the drawers in the kitchen, and about a third of the way through the cabinets. Those are mostly hidden spaces, but having them organized will make it easier to keep the outer surfaces clear too.

Anyway, I got the worst junk drawer organized:

2015-07-16 14.46.54This drawer collects a lot of junk. And a good deal of it has better places to be. I took all the stuff that really didn’t need to be in the kitchen out and left the tools that it might be handy to have close to hand…

2015-07-16 15.15.15It certainly looks neater…

Now I know where a flashlight is if I need it. 🙂

And it even has batteries!

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Real Life Called…

Well, I didn’t get a lot done today, because I got the galley for my new book and I have to get it turned in ASAP.

I did go through the container cabinet and separated out what to toss and what to give to my mom. That was something. 🙂 Still have way too many containers, and trying to decide if I need all of them.

This was organizing, decluttering, and giving stuff away, so I am calling most of the Cleaning Dailies done. I also got bookcases to help with the Office of Doooom, though I haven’t brought them in from the car yet.

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Here are bonus pictures of Alex in his house because he is too cute to live…

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Back on Track

Yesterday was a lovely, lazy day, but I still felt a little twinge in the back of my mind for not cleaning…

But, today, we are tackling more of the kitchen. My goal was to get these counters taken care of:

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But that didn’t prove as easy as it should have been. Lots of reasons, but suffice it to say, I didn’t get everything I wanted to done. Since I have a Poetry Group meeting this afternoon/evening, and Poetry will always trump all, I might not get more done. I DID get the counter to the right of the stove taken care of, as you can see below. (No offense to the wonderful artist who gave us the fish for a wedding present, but I think it is time for someone else to enjoy it…)

DSC04186 This is Newell’s place for wallet, phone, keys and such. Now, he should find things better, I hope…

BTW, I forgot to show my progress on the culling the other day, so here is the glasses cabinet. I don’t know if you can tell a lot about it, but I have an entire box of glassware and dishes for the TPV…

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And this is the first photo from my new phone to be used on the blog. Can you tell the difference from the real camera? I’m not sure I can. No more potato shots!

If I do get more done today, I will update.

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Sometimes Island Reemerges!

On Lake Travis, there is a sandbar that only appears when the lake level drops considerably. It’s been showing a lot of the last few years, but recent rains have covered a lot of it up again.

6863936606_8357f1bf1e_zIf you look closely, you can see it behind the mermaid’s shoulder.

Well, there is an island in our kitchen, as you know if you have followed this blog for any length of time. It is one of my cleaning nemeses…is that a word?

Keeping this island clear is almost impossible for me, but it is one of Newell’s favorite things to have clean. So, today — since I had lunch with my Mom and Dad and therefore had very little cleaning time — I decided to make it my project.

As you can see in the picture on the left, there was a lot of clutter and confusion on the counter top. Now, dishes either washed or washing; mail sorted and either trashed or filed to deal with; towels put in laundry room; and, as usual when I manage to get it neatened up, the kitchen begins to look huge. 🙂

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Looks like the TPV may get a box of dishes this month.  No way two people who never entertain need ALL these dishes:

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Seriously? All that having all these dishes does is make it easier to wait longer before washing them. Getting rid of most of them would free up cabinet space and cut down clutter. I’m going to start pulling them as soon as I finish here…

…and, y’know…I think that will be it for today. I don’t know if that is all five — well, I didn’t get into the Office of Doooom today, so I know it isn’t all five. But it feels like progress. 😉

Here’s a bonus shot of my Papa’s fish…

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Itsy Bitsy Baby Steps…

Today, first steps made into Office of Dooooom. I can’t share all the pictures of it at once. They are too scary…

But I did clear out some packing boxes and trash, organize some books, a few things. I had a plan going into the cleaning session, but midway through, Newell told me I was considering something that would make more work for myself in the long run, so it changed my direction and slowed me down some.

Still, I turned the picture on the left…into the picture on the right. Not done, but it is coming along. I had planned to completely remove that DvD center and replace it with a set of bookcases to hold my stock boxes. Newell convinced me not to lug boxes of books up and down stairs for no reason. Instead, those shelves will go in a corner of the living room, and this unit will catch the overflow from my signed book collection.

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I also managed something that has been bugging me for a LONG time…I almost hesitate to show you these, because then you can see how TRULY bad my house is…but I promised to be honest here, so…

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This is only the first pass on this job, but that was with a lot of scrubbing and Scrubbing Bubbles! It was extra strength, and still not strong enough. I’ve complained here before about the floor. STILL can’t get that pebbled surface clean…no matter how hard I scrub and what with. But the first layer of dirt is off most of the walls. And I will take my blows about how bad it had gotten since I gave up trying… 🙂

So, blog done: Check.

Cleaning done: At least some. Check.

Clutter: Boxes broken down and recycled; books consolidated; broken things tossed. Check.

Disorganization: Got some books organized. Another drawer done. Okay…it wasn’t a LOT of work, but it was something. Check.

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Some work done in my Office: At least a little. Check.

I am feeling cautiously optimistic I will manage to get some stuff done this time. All of it? Time will tell. But at least some.

EDIT: Okay, I just couldn’t stop working today…

Got this straightened up:

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Every little bit helps. 🙂

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Here We Go! Day One Attempting to Follow My New Goals…

Getting a later start than I would have liked, but I DID already wash a load of dishes and clean the sink. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures, so it didn’t happen, right?

So we will start with a general tidy of the Guest Bath. It’s small enough not to be overwhelming, but it definitely needs a bit of a clean.

BEFORE:

picture of Guest Bath

See, it’s tiny…

picture two of guest bath

Just a bit of tidying

Not the best pictures, but I tried. Now, let’s give it a bit of spit and polish, shall we?

Whew. That was actually fun. I think I am pleased with the results. I decided to redecorate a bit, and it helped make things look much cleaner and brighter in there.

AFTER:

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First real sense of accomplishment I’ve felt cleaning in awhile. 🙂

Clutter removal today: I made an appointment for Texas Paralyzed Veterans to pick up on the 25th of this month, and decided to put the candlesticks that were in the bathroom into the donation bags. That counts, doesn’t it? I made a decision and it will clear something away. 😉

Disorganization eradication: Well, that was easy. The drawer with all the cat stuff in it was full of outdated prescriptions and lids for containers that didn’t belong in there. Five minutes, and it was done.

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Now there is a place to put treats where Elf won’t get into them!

And, I admit it, that is the limit to my energy today. I didn’t get anything done on the office…again! But tomorrow, all of my goals will relate to it. I’ve decided. 🙂

So, there we go! Two blogs in a row. How productive of me.

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