Deeply sorry for that, but I had an edit that desperately needed finishing, and there was a holiday, and…one excuse after another.
I don’t have any pictures for you today, but I did want to pop in and say that I HAVE been cleaning today. First I broke down an immense number of boxes that somehow had accumulated over the summer, and now I am sorting through lots of memories to see which are worth preserving. I’ve already tossed out a bag of broken, ripped, and trashed things.
You can’t see a world of difference yet, but every little thing helps. Particularly when you are a pack-rat living with a minimalist!
I am very pleased with my progress so far today, but it is time to get back to work. 🙂
This year has been a bust for me in so many ways. Not getting to conventions and getting the burst of inspiration and aspiration that comes from meeting new people and talking to fans has really been weighing me down. But we can’t just stay in stasis forever.
It’s time to move forward.
In anticipation that conventions (or at least some sort of show…) will return in some form, I have ordered things for my table next year. A new chair…some promo items for the new series that will hopefully be debuting…appropriate masks…
Miss Priss even approved them.
This year has been like one long vacation as my husband worked from home…but I am ready to get back to work!
How about you? Are you looking forward to seeing Fred and Kevin’s book come out? (My final run-thru edits in process…)
And hopefully, Jo has gotten bored of her vacation too! November is coming…
Hey horror fans! My name is Lee Andrew Forman, and I’m primarily a horror and dark fiction writer. First, I’d like to thank Rie Sheridan Rose for hosting me on her blog, The Rogers-Vincent Home for Wayward Spirits and Bar-B-Que Grill! Next, I’d like to talk a little about my latest book, The Bury Box.
The Bury Box is an exploration of death through the eyes of a child.
As a young boy, I found myself delving deeply into the macabre. Much like Reggie, the main character in the book, my natural tendencies were a bit on the strange side. As a child, I was consumed by the thought of death; what was it, what did it mean, and what happened after a person died? The idea of a body being put into the ground intrigued me to no end. Because I was so young, I hadn’t grasped the terms coffin or casket yet, so I called them exactly what they were, bury boxes.
When I started writing horror, I had a driving need to explore that childhood curiosity which had followed me all my life. And while my book is fiction, there are grains of truth between the pages; some of what takes place in Reggie’s world actually happened. With those things in mind, my journey into The Bury Box began.
Over the course of 7 years or so, I’d find myself putting my current writing project on hold and tapping out a few pages of the story that had been chasing me for so long. Eventually, I realized that I was spending more time with this manuscript than any other writing project. The story was telling me it was time, and I needed to get it out and share it with the world. While that might sound a bit dramatic, keep in mind I am a writer, and prone to living through my words as much as in the ‘real’ world.
My hope is that I’ve managed to convey not only the fear and anguish of those much earlier years, but also to take you, the reader, down a path you might not be expecting. I know I wasn’t expecting the story to veer in the direction it did, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.
Thank you, Rie, for hosting me on your blog, and I hope your readers are as fascinated with bury boxes as I am.
It was a lovely break from blogging, but I am back at it. Still not writing much, but I have been really busy!
While I haven’t been writing, I have finally been pushing through to get the edits finished for the next Horrified Anthology. I’ve been struggling with this for months, but now the corner has been turned, and the end is in sight. Just waiting for the last few approvals and then it is off to formatting.Â
The cover is based on another of the amazing images of Stefan Keller care of Pixabay.
I am very proud of it, and I’m sharing it here for the first time except for the authors…
This is going to be a great anthology. I think you will like it. This is my fifth anthology for Thirteen O’ Clock. There are that many again in the queue, so I have a long way to go!
I’ve got a lot of other projects on my plate, so we’ll see how quickly everything comes together as the world is finally starting to look ahead to normal again.
Fashion in the 1870’s was in a state of flux. (Isn’t fashion always changing?) Skirts were narrowing and the fabric was moving to the back of the skirt instead of the sides.
A fashionable lady–like Leonora or Aunt Emily–would be up on the most current styles, and dress accordingly.
Jo and Fred would not. They are not up on the current styles. They go for comfort. Jo is not one for stays. Fred is much more practical too. They are more likely to be found in a simple bodice and skirt.
Alistair is seldom dressed for the board room either–though, as a professor, he is sure to wear a jacket and tie in classes. In the warehouse, he’s in shirt-sleeves and a lab coat.
Kevin is much more likely to be in a suit, as he is in a professional position. As a detective, he would not be in a uniform, but Sergeant Doyle would be.
We’ve talked a bit about where to submit horror, and some inspirations from folklore, but horror is all around us. (Just look at the headlines…)
Keep a notebook of ideas with you at all times. Whether it is a small physical notebook; a larger spiral; or an app in your phone like Notebooks Pro or Evernote. Have sections for names–both for characters and creatures; settings–like haunted houses you might read about or abandoned asylums; and bits of plot that might occur to you.
You can add other sections as you see fit. Folklore that strikes your fancy. Photographs that inspire you. Song lyrics or poems that create an appropriate mood. Textures, like fabric swatches, that bring in a tactile element.
You never know what will create the moment you are looking for to move along the story. Write down your nightmares. Scribble bits of conversation. Always be collecting those bits of inspiration. You never know when you might need just that one little spark you found last year.
Horror is all around you. Keep your eyes open for it.
In writing, especially a novel, it isn’t likely that everything you want to say is linear in time. It MIGHT be…but there is a good chance that you want to tell something that happened in a characters past–or flash forward to what might be in their future.
Getting this back (or forward) story into the book without bogging it down can be very difficult. It’s a fine balance to walk.
Lately, I have been binge-watching Orange is the New Black, as I’ve mentioned before. One of the things that makes this show so fascinating is the weaving in of the back story. You eventually see what brought most of the regulars to be where they are now. And it is done subtly and smoothly without slowing down the action. I’ve also just finished watching Babylon 5, and it features several scenes going the OTHER way, with flash forwards and premonitions. Again, they are handled subtly and without disrupting the flow.
Now, of course, these are both examples of media productions rather than static words on the page, but I think that by studying good examples like this we can learn to incorporate the time slips into writing.
I am not advocating a lot of flashbacks–they can really irritate some readers–but getting the information out of the past and into the present can be done many ways:
My husband’s favorite way is through dialog. Have the character whose past you want to explore relating the story to an interested party.
Have the character looking through a scrapbook or diary and remembering the incidents documented within.
Have two OTHER characters discussing the past.
Or, if absolutely necessary–in extreme moderation–have an actual flashback.
Going forward, there are also multiple options:
Have the character dream about something that later comes true.
Have a fortune-teller relate a vision of the future.
Have an ancient prophecy foreshadow the character’s path.
The important thing is not to disrupt the forward flow of the story with a break for time travel–past or future. The time jumps need to be seamlessly woven into the action so that no one realizes they’ve been elsewhere until they look back on your genius. 😉
Maybe I should re-arrange the order of the week’s blogs, because Monday’s I seem to have no energy at all. I can’t motivate myself to do anything. But I did get a bunch of new bookmarks made. I need to get them listed in my Etsy shoppe now, because the only way to make money is to get more stock.
But the thought of that work is making my brain freeze. I don’t know if it was too much weekend or what. I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep, but that isn’t going to happen yet.
To be honest, I can’t even think of anything else to write about today. Maybe I will come up with something by the end of the week like last time…
Here are a few of the bookmarks already listed, in case you are interested:
I will be adding more listings as I get the energy–including some Halloween themed pieces. 🙂
Think of all the roads Think of all their crossings Taking steps is easy Standing still is hard Remember all their faces Remember all their voices Everything is different The second time around
–“You’ve Got Time” by Regina Spector
I asked my husband today if he was ready to watch the final season of Orange is the New Black, because it was yet another of the series we have started and not finished. He suggested I could start it over instead…
And, since I have no problem rewatching things I’ve already seen, I thought that was a great idea because it would give me a change to reconnect with the characters before we got to the new episodes (well, relatively new…new to us.)
The theme song takes on an entirely different meaning when you go back through the series. Everything IS different.
You don’t have all the big surprises–because even I can remember the major revelations, but there are a lot of “Oh, yeah…I remember that” moments. The acting is still incredible, the characters are all still memorable, and the way the writers dole out backstory is still really phenomenal, as you find out bits and pieces of all the roads that brought the inmates to Litchfield.
And now, you can greet the characters as…well, maybe not friends, for the most part, but acquaintances you are happy to see again. Their tragedies bring sorrow, their triumphs a sense of hope.
I don’t want to spoil a first viewing for anyone, so I don’t want to give details of action, but there really are some amazing performances involved. It is worth watching the series just to see the way Uzo Aduba lights up the screen as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren. Taryn Manning’s Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett is the girl you love to hate, but learn to sympathize with as you find out more about her. Yael Stone’s Lorna Morillo and her wedding plans… And, of course, Kate Mulgrew is brilliant as “Red.” (These are just my favorites, but all of the women–and the men, to a lesser extent…they don’t have as much screen time–are excellent.)
I watched the first four or five episodes today as I was working on a project, and I am very glad to know that I have enough to keep me busy for a week or two. If you haven’t gotten to know these women, I highly recommend it. As a writer, I am really getting inspired by the way the characters develop.
(I don’t have a measure for this one…handcuffs, maybe? Whatever it is, I give it 4 1/2.)
I decided to try and do the post I missed for Monday since I had a cleaning project today that was small, but significant.
I am really excited about my current crafting project, and I want to make it into something financially worthwhile (relatively) despite Newell reminding me that I always get excited at the beginning of a project, and then it tapers off to disinterest.
I’ve put way too much into this one to let that happen this time, but I had one problem–what do do with my tools to get them all in one place, accessible, and portable. I needed a tackle-box (my preferred tool box) but I’ve already spent more than I should getting supplies…
So…
I decided to re-purpose one that I already had. After all, it had been sitting in the bottom of the linen closet for seventeen years, and not really utilized much before that… Every now and then I would open it for a peek inside, sigh heavily, and close it up again. It was originally my make-up box from my years in community theater, but I haven’t set foot on stage in at least a quarter century, so it was time to let go.
For one thing, theatrical make-up doesn’t keep any better than the commercial stuff, so it was unlikely that any of it was hygienically safe to use. There was, however, a lot of it. Much of which had melted into the box.
The first order of business was to throw everything out that was unusable. In this case, it was everything except some brushes and some application instructions.
I don’t know why I had one plastic ear…
After everything was emptied out, it was easier to see just how daunting a clean-up it would be.
Those brightly colored sections were melted greasepaint. Not easy to remove. (Unexpected Pro Tip…lubricant can help dissolve stuff like that…)
After several episodes of an Orange is the New Black binge, and half a roll of paper towels, not to mention several wash cloths…
…I had this result:
There are still a few streaks in the grooves here and there, but I am calling it done. After all, they add a nostalgic whiff of greasepaint and bring up fond memories.
It looks like I should have plenty of room for my tools. At least for now.
I feel really good about this project for a lot of reasons. Now to get back to setting it up.
Rie Sheridan Rose 