Writer's Block...or The Curse of the Intrepid Story Teller

*peeks in, runs and jumps over the back of the couch, lands with limbs akimbo and pillows flying*

SuP people.  I’m just up, sipping hot chocolate and watching the new adventures of pippie longstockings.  I love this movie.

Pippie harkens me to my childhood daydreams and those childhood day dreams keep me entertained so much that …OH SHIT THEre IS A SPIDER….

Ok, SORRY! I forgot there was a spider right there in this movie…. What was I saying?

Childhood day dreams and… oh, now I remember. My daydreams keep me so nicely entertained that I forget to do what I’m supposed to be doing. 

Well, its not that I forget, I just have writer’s block.

No writers block is the same as another’s. though we all have commonalities.

Me, I’m one of those “everything is a block  type of chics.

I’m much more of a story teller than a writer anyway.   The prospect of wrangling the words in my mind into acceptable grammatical order is daunting even for the most technically trained editor.

Multiply that by a billion for me and you have what in my case is the most epic study in stage fright ever known to any writer ever.

I’d much rather TELL  you a story that put it to paper.

And then there’s the other things. Life, Drama. Illness and distractions and well there you have it. My drive to WRITE is on the back seat, but alas all of those are excuses that I use to cover the big excuse…fear.

That stage fright is just a big ole case of fear. Performance anxiety if you will.

Will it be entertaining, Will my editors revolt and vow never to work for the publisher again.  Will it be good enough to stand up next to my peers, will it be good enough to be pirated, How much can I make before it hits the black market ( hey I got real tangible worries aka BILLS). Have I typecast myself into a genre.  Is Nicole Givens kurts going to  make me walk the plank for consitantly being late late late.

SO, I bake another cake, whip up another meal, surf the net watch tv sleep

Anything other than write.

And I entertain you with as many anecdotes as I can…because I’d rather tell  a story for free than charge for a story and not get paid.

But like all writers, I  eventually get over myself long enough to finish something ….its just not going to be today. Today I’ll have to attended the business of moving…I hate that… but I’m excited.

Having said that, I’m taking my Hot Chocolate back to the couch and hopefully going to sleep. Before I get caught.

I promise, I’ll be closer to on time next month…. And what with a move and yet the need for a new daytime job…you know I’ll have something worth telling. 

ps I'll give the person who knows the name of this font a big round of applause-- and maybe something else. 

Answer in the comments!'

Drea!

Everyday Horror...

With Halloween in the air, our thoughts turn to horror.

It takes many forms.  The supernatural.  Dark musings of spirits, ghouls and the walking dead.  In my short story "Hellshift," horror takes the form of alien abominations on a distant planet in the far future.  In "Blood of the Chosen," my contribution to "In the Bloodstream," horror manifests as an ancient demon.

But, in many ways, the most compelling form of horror is the everyday sort.  The kind that can actually happen in the real world.  Case in point:  The popular dark film "Prisoners."

Granted, this film is hard to categorize.  Some might not classify it as horror.  It's a small town mystery about two children who disappear.  (Now, that's a horror that stalks this world, and our nightmares every minute of every day.)  "Prisoners" is part horror film, part mystery, part morality play and part thriller.

The setting... one of the most important elements of horror... is just right.  Grim, rainy skies over lonely roads and dark forests.  The theme of the movie is evil.  The kind that terrifies us most.  The kind that threatens to destroy our world, and our souls.  What the film reminds us is that evil isn't just an enemy at the gates; it's what we see hiding behind our familiar faces when we look in the mirror.  It's what turns good people into the monsters they fear.

The protagonist is a basically good man, but his view of life is ruled largely by fear.  He's a survivalist, and he's teaching his son to be the same way.  He sees the apocalypse just 'round the next corner, and he plans to be ready for it.  But, when the unthinkable happens, it happens in a way he didn't expect, and he's devastated.  One of his children disappears, and when the police come up empty, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

The only suspect in the case is a young man who is retarded and childlike.  The face he shows the world is one of angelic innocence.  But, is that evil we see behind his large, seemingly vacant eyes?  Is that darkness skulking at the edges of his soft voice and whispered secrets?  The enraged, desperate father does what almost any man in his place would do.  He acts on the obvious assumption and employs increasingly unspeakable violence in trying to force the truth from the boy he's sure has taken his child somewhere.  Even as he devolves from hysterical parent into monster, increasingly sadistic and ghoulishly inventive torture devices springing from his ingenuity as he turns an abandoned building into a chamber of horrors, a part of him tries to hang on to the values... indeed, to the very humanity that we see slipping away.  The ultimate horror isn't the young man he's torturing... the real monster is inside the enraged father, eating away at his soul, a bit of him dying with each scar he inflicts on a suspect who may or may not be guilty.  The vigilante father represents all of us, our collective soul at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib.  His driving force is primal animal instinct.

His antithesis is the police detective methodically, meticulously picking away at the edges of the case, using his reason to probe his way through a dark, baffling maze of a mystery, at the heart of which is an evil so much larger, more pure, calculating and inhuman than even the darkest imaginings of the vigilante father.  The detective has a blasted, hollow look in his eyes.  He's seen far too much evil.  It seems to have left a part of him dead inside.  Yet, he survives by following the rules, and not surrendering to evil's tempting lure of vengeance.  The rules and logic are all he has left, it seems.  To his adversary, the vigilante, those were the first two things to go.

The mystery is intricate.  The premise and the solution are not really that far removed from the kind of Hollywood horror we all know to be a dime a dozen.  But, what makes this movie infinitely superior to that dreck is not that the twists and turns of the mystery or the who dunnit aha! moment is all that much more clever than run-of-the-mill movie horror; it's that the film seems more real.  No ominous mood music or machete-wielding serial killers leaping out of dark closets; no cheap gimmicks or needless gore.  Just the straight, cold facts.  The film has an almost documentarian style that pulls you in at the outset and holds you right to the end.  No tricks needed; just cold, raw fear.

There's a moral, of course, and a pretty heavy-handed one at that.  But, it's woven into the plot artfully enough to work.  In the end, we find the evil in the last place we expected to look.  Hiding behind the seemingly commonplace and innocuous, using the different ones as diversions.  Mostly, though... we find it inside ourselves.

In the Bloodstream: An Anthology of Dark Fantasy and Horror with an Introduction by Eden Royce

We Invited you to try something new...

Blurb: The love of horror is like a virus.

It gets into your bloodstream, causing an insatiable hunger for more. There is no cure, only the ability to soothe the craving until the need—once again—grows too great. And you crave:

• Urban legends that are sickeningly real.
• Attempts to cheat death that don’t quite succeed.
• Creatures with power over this world and the next.
• Twisted desires of the flesh that must be met no matter what the cost.

Just in time for Halloween and all its thrills, “In the Bloodstream” brings together some of horror’s most imaginative new writers. These thirty-one short stories will infiltrate your system and leave you wondering about that creaking outside the door, while satisfying your need for the darkly disturbing.
At least for now…
Satisfy your horror cravings by purchasing a copy today.
http://mochamemoirspress.com/bloodstream/

It's the monster mash!!

This is going to be a short post as I'm on my way to partake in a day of bacchanalian extravaganza while wine tasting with friends. I of course have a great deal to celebrate as my collection of spooktacular shorts has been completed! Life is life and found a way to grind down my capacity to achieve my 31 stories but I would not be thwarted, and completed 13 instead. I'm quite excited by my collection and ever hopeful that next year I'll get back to 31, but in the meantime I'm still able to give treats to you lovely tricksters!

Janet

Ask not for whom the cursor flashes: or times up day! if tomorrow never comes

·                   CLICK HERE FOR TODAYS THEME MUSIC

·                  *Peeks around the corner, scopes out the room, steps on the stage and makes way center front.  Shields eyes from the glare and asks the stage manager to dim the foot lights and bring up the spot light.  House lights drop and music begins softly.*

Today is national Times up day.  The day when we’re supposed to think of all the things we would do and say if it were our last day.   I had intended to blog on time. I even wrote one, but decided it just wasn’t what I really wanted to say.  Then today …today so many things came together that made me think about what I’d do or say if I knew that today was the last day I’d have in this life… in this realm. If tomorrow I didn’t wake up. Or I woke up  in another …space.

Actually, my little brother started the ball rolling by asking several days ago. “what would you do if you knew today was your last 24 hours.”   I answered. Live… just live, and tell people I loved them. I wouldn’t rush about as if I were lost and trying to get things in. As much as I’d like to do certain things…if I knew for sure I was dieing I wouldn’t waste a moment trying to do crazy things. I’d simply slow down and enjoy what is here and now. I’d say a lot of I love yous and I’m sorries. And I’d laugh. I wouldn’t tell people I was leaving. I’d just soak it all up.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE MUSIC

But three days past after I answered and I thought more about the things I want to do…say before I leave this earth.  Here in the living I hold my tongue ( oh hush y’all know I don’t say EVERYTHING that spings in my head) a lot.  I understand that even the sharing that I’ve done in the past makes some people uncomfortable.  As much as I  “tell” there is so much more that I don’t. I learned early on that if I share “enough” I don’t have to share the rest. What I share is designed and strategic. 

But if today were the very last day on this earth for me…in this life there is so much more I’d like to share…to say.

There are people that I’d write lengthly letters to. There are books and books and books of stories I’d tell. Words, never spoken…would be written.  I’d let the alphabet flow from the ends of my fingers and on to the page up until the very last second in the last minute. Like the mighty, flooding Mississippi…the words would fill the pages, breeching levies and washing away dams.  Tearing down walls and  carving through the scar tissue of emotional wounds. Dark and murky and dangerous and unrelenting they would crash like waves against the shores.

I’d tell secrets in the form or an anecdote. I’d clean closets and air laundry all with a smile through salty tears that blinded me from seeing the pain on the page.

I’d rage…rage rage rage like worst storm ever  and then as I struggled to slow my self….savor those last breaths, I’d be still again. Listening only to the beat of my heart and click of the keys and the rasp of air leaving lungs..never to return again.

I’d select all then hit delete… and just as I’ve lived this life…I’d take away all that hurt, anger and pain. I’d tuck it right back into that little box and store it away.  I’d shore up the river and protect those living on its banks with a soft smile.

I’d watch the cursor blinking against the blank page.  Once … twice… three times. Flashing like a quite metronome reading the beat. Waiting for the song of words to join in tempo.

I’d watch, tasting last breaths so sweet. And  shuddering through tears I’d say…In my life… I LOVED YOU MORE….

And when they lower me in the ground…body in repose and spirit free, you yes you would know that seven words spoke volumes, sang songs, told tales.

Some where in a hidden library in a locked away vault all those things never said….never written…knock like a tell tale heart….waiting for me to expound and let them free…

But the cursor will only flash.  And you will know, it flashes for thee.

*tears flow freely unchecked over a wavering smile...spot light clicks of, heels click softly, fading into the distance, house lights come up and butter flies swarm the the theater... stage manager announces  " Miss Riley, Will return next month...fashionably late...unless you know..we can convince her to be on time*