Autumn: A Time of Change

Judging by the dreary, rainy, lovely (and I write that with no sarcasm what so ever) weather out side, it is fall. The transition time between two of my favorite seasons, summer and winter. A lot of changes take place during the fall season: leaves change color, it gets colder and daylight savings time ends. 

You don't look like your picture!

 Halloween is the highlight of fall, where people, young and old, dress up in costumes and enjoy themselves. I dressed up at Nick Fury, much to the delight of my children’s friends. I wore a Nick Fury badge around my neck and as I was signing in to the school, the security guard remarks “You don’t look like your picture,” to which I replied “Look at it with one eye.” Rimshot!!


I must say, however, my most favorite part of fall is watching the leaves change from green to gold and red during the season in New Jersey. It is such a beautiful display that makes up for the wacky hurricane weather: some days are 70 degrees, other days are cold, wet and rainy.


Enjoy fall - it’s your wonderfully temperate walk into winter…depending of course, on where you live.

Now, a word from our sponsor…..


Reluctant Magic - A Short Story
Not only does “Reluctant Magic” take place during the fall season, it is also a book about transition. Kami is a gifted witch who shuns her gifts because of the reputation of her mother, who was a not-so-good witch. Her story opens after the mysterious death of her abusive husband. Kami has come to terms with her solitary existence, busying herself with running her yarn shop and taking of her two cats. (Of course, a proper witch has cats, right?). However, she didn’t bet on a bull on the run changing her quiet life. I don’t want to write anymore, but check out the short story, if you’ve a mind to.

Interested in anything else I have to say?  You can check me out at The Sultry Scribe or here:

The Anticipation Versus The Bang

There's a famous Alfred Hitchcock quote that sticks with me every time I write a horror story: "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." The man could not have been more right, especially when it comes to dark fantasy when it mixes with horror. Obviously this applies to the horror genre, building up the atmosphere until the scary monster leaps out from the shadows onto their victim, but with dark fantasy there always seems to be more in the way of atmospheric scares than splatterfest gore.


Think of any scary story you've ever read. Imagine reading it alone at home one night. You're unable to go outside because there's a huge thunderstorm crashing around your house. Thunder and roaring winds make the windows rattle and the blinding lightning is making you blink, your eyes seeing the shadows take new, towering shapes.

You shift on your couch and try to make yourself more comfortable, wrapping your blanket around you as though it will protect you from whatever tricks your mind is playing. You tell yourself that it's just a stupid storm, and go back to your book. In it, the main character is moving toward the attic to find out what they heard. Their hand is shaking on their flashlight, their footsteps creaking the on the attic stairs. Past the wooden groans and their pounding heart, they hear the raspy breathing coming from the attic. Your own pulse begins to quicken. You know something is up there, and you want to tell them to turn around. But they won't. The storm rages beyond you. 

The character enters the attic. They step onto the floorboards and see nothing, but the tortured breathing is louder than ever. It's coming quicker, moving from shadow to shadow. Your mind is telling the character to run back down, but they take another step. The trap door slams shut behind them. They spin around, choking on their scream, and lift their flashlight when they see–

The door of your house slams open. You jump and scream, the book flying out of your hands as you whirl around–

And see your husband standing there with a bewildered look on his face.

Not a true story, but I had you going, didn't I?

While I was writing my latest Mocha Memoir novella, Hotel Hell, I focused on heightening the tension. The story revolves around a young man named Milo who searches for his missing fiancee, only to come across a hotel with dark, disturbing secrets. Concentrating on the creepiness of the hotel was key. Adding in little situations where Milo and the readers know something isn't right, but they can't figure out what. Even when I was planning the story, I knew I had to write it as though the hotel itself was a character with a mystery, and that its employees were just as terrifying as the building itself. Creating the horrors inside the hotel was the funnest part, and I think it made the impact of the climax so much more frightening. It's amazing what you can imagine if you take an ordinary object, and twist it into something that Neil Gaiman would create.

For me, dark fantasy and horror tend to go hand in hand, as they both concentrate on the anticipation of the danger. Both genres want to set off warning bells in your head, even though you're dying to turn the page and see what lurks behind that corner. They feed each other, one building on fear in the readers heart through romantically twisted scenarios while horror weaves itself into the cracks, like glowing red eyes through the slits of your closet. Don't worry– I'll save that story for another time. 

Happy Halloween! 

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Amy Braun is an aspiring urban fantasy and horror author addicted to monsters and mythology. When she isn't writing, she's reading, watching movies, taking photos, or gaming. She was the recipient of April Moon Books Editor Award for "author voice, world-building and general bad-assery" in 2014.

Her current work includes the novellas Call From The Grave, Needfire, and Hotel Hell, and has short stories in the Lost In The Witching Hour anthology (Charlatan Charade) and AMOK! (Dark Intentions And Blood). She also has two more short stories that will be featured in two different anthologies, as well as her first full length novel releases in 2015. More information on these releases and Amy can be found online through her blog, Literary Braun, or followed on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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A New Kind of Scary #Dark Fantasy #Halloween

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A New Kind of Scary

by Marcia Colette

I love this spooky time of year because I grew up on this stuff. But, wow, have things changed. Sadly, Hollywood seems to think that grossing us out is the best way to garner a scare. Honestly, spew-fest of blood and guts will only make me turn the channel. Not because I get grossed out the easily, but rather, more blood splatter doesn't mean better entertainment. It just means the screenwriters don't have much of a plot. On top of that, we get our usual TSTL characters and the one chick who always seems to survive no matter what.

One of my favorite shows on TV is the Walking Dead. Yes, there's that gross-out factor I just spoke of, but this is different. It's not the apocalypse that draws me in--honestly, it can be centered around any apocalyptic event (volcano, floods, ragweed, etc.). It's the relationships among the survivors and their reaction to their situation that keeps me glued to the screen every week. That's smart TV, and why I can overlook the gross-out factor.

One of my least favorite shows on TV is Once Upon a Time. I thought introducing the Frozen characters might actually make me want to watch more, but it hasn't. If anything, I just don’t care enough about the characters to stay tuned in every week. There's magic and mayhem, which make such a perfect combination, but unfortunately, the suspense isn't suspenseful enough for me.

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My biggest guilty pleasure on TV is Teen Wolf. Yes, I said it. For some reason, it's like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of Millennial Generation, only darker. A regular high school of horrors. The suspense is up there and whatever you think is going to happen next, think again. It's probably going to be worse.

But if I had to go with one show that is the epitome of dark fantasy, it's Sleepy Hollow. I can't tell you how refreshing this show is. Just like my first trip to Washington D.C., I never had an appreciation for history until I saw it. This is like a glimpse in the scary past of American history coupled with biblical elements. It's perfect. For me, anyway.

Do you have any TV shows that bring out the dark fantasy in you? I can, but I want to hear from you.
Oh, and if you haven't heard, my latest release The Portal Guards is going on a review tour tomorrow.
There's a nice prize attached, too.

Thanks for stopping by!
If you want to know more, come find me here...and on my blog.

About Marcia Colette

Website |  Blog | Facebook | Twitter(@MarciaColette) | Goodreads

Bestselling author Marcia Colette didn’t discover her love for reading until her late teens when she started reading John Saul and progressed to works by Bentley Little, Stephen King and Laurell K. Hamilton. Her reading tastes convinced her to write paranormals where curses cause people to shift into spiders, psychotic and telekinetic mothers are locked away in attics, and murderous doppelgangers are on a rampage. Let's not forget about the hunky werecheetah coalitions who live throughout North Carolina. As long as she can make it believable, that's all that matters.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Marcia now lives in North Carolina with her mom and beautiful daughter. They’re not raising zombies in the backyard. There aren’t any hellhounds living in the den, only a rabbit and a cockatiel. So where she gets her ideas is as much a mystery to her as anyone else.

The best place to find her--when she's not stirring up trouble--is on her blog where she loves connecting with readers.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark #amwriting #DarkFantasy #Writing

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Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

by Rie Sheridan Rose

Whether you write fantasy, science fiction, horror, or even romance, you come to a point where you have to decide what type you will explore within your genre. Some people are most comfortable with the comedic slant. Others, write lush, epic work full of emotion and description, but barely touching on the dark side. Don’t be afraid of the dark.

Everyone experiences fear, anger, pain and other darker emotions—why should you suppress them? Having a world with none of the deeper, darker aspects of emotion is flat and one-sided. Everything needs at least a touch of darkness.

And exploring the dark side can be fun. As I said, everyone has those emotions…so, why not put them on paper? After all, that’s a lot more socially acceptable than acting them out in the real world.

Taking “what if?” and applying a coat of darkness to it has the potential to be very liberating. It can allow you to slip into the mind of a serial killer without needing to actually be one. It can give depth to the depiction of a dragon. The denizens of an alien world will be more rounded with psychology that isn’t tempered by human goodness.

I challenge you. Write something dark. It can change your outlook on the craft—and no one says you have to be dark all the time.

Stories can save your soul

When the princeling was about 4, he started having horrible nightmares. I mentioned that we could go somewhere in our dreams and meet.

And thus, the candy garden bloomed again.

Fountains spilling Skittles, a Sprite stream filled with Swedish Red Fish and gummy sharks. You get the idea. I wrote a flash fiction story about it. The Princeling adds to it, or subtracts, depending on his current likes. He is now 8.

When I was in the hospital in June, he was with my sister in law. In talking on the phone with him, he asked me, sobbing, where to meet him that night. “Do you want to go to the candy garden?”

Sniffling, he replied: How about a candy ocean? The sand is sugar, and….

And we were off. Something amazing happened that night, something amazing that touched my soul in a way no other story that I ever have come up with has.

The Candy Garden is imprinted on my son’s soul. And when we’re separated, he knows, deep down inside, that he can go there and find his mom. It’s an avenue for our creativity to go wild, together, but more than that… It brings my child comfort.

So yes, one story can make a huge difference. Even if it’s a one off, a way to sooth a child at bed time. It can grow, it can morph and take on a life of it’s own… And can feel like a warm hug on a dark and scary night when you’re miles from your mommy.