A few notes from the Author...

Publicly humiliated

2012-01-29T01:44:00.001-08:00

So almost a month ago I recv’d an email from a blogger who said she saw the book trailer for The Darkness and wanted to know if she could request a paperback copy to review and use as a giveaway on her blog. Sure, I send it off.

About an hour ago I got the most hateful email I have ever gotten from anyone. It was the blogger who requested the book and she out of her mind saying that she does not review books that goes against the grain of her faith. I got to her blog and the 1st thing I see is a copy of The Darkness with pages ripped out burning in her fireplace. Her post was an uncensored version of the email she sent. She has over two thousand followers and there were a lot of comments to her post…

A lot of hateful, racially and religiously derogatory comments. I can not even begin to tell you how upset I am, I feel like I’ve been spit on my stomach hurts and I have been reduced to tears. I tried self-medicating by eating some chocolate cake but its not working because it doesn’t even taste good.
I can’t write anymore because I can’t stop shaking

Sorry for the absence...

2012-01-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

January 22nd 2012 Today’s Horrorscope:
Snakes, scorpions, and spiders – these things are just a few of the dangerous things in life you need not worry about. Deranged surgeons soliciting for a few unsuspecting patients to perform experiments on, however…

Dark days: Wednesday, Thursday

How to survive a horror movie tip # 44:
Stay on the fucking trail!

Happy News Years and sorry for the absence. I’ve been busy, a lot has happened since the last time I touched base with you guys, the 1st this in Artificial Light is now available for purchase! It was released Friday the 13th January 2012…14 days later than the projected December deadline. There are a few little things that I wished I had done differnenty but as a whole I am really happy with the way it turned out.

I’m already starting to get some reviews and so far so good!
http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Light-Spectrum-Trilogy-ebook/product-reviews/B006WHJY0C/ref=cm_rdp_hist_hdr_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13412054-artificial-light-crystal-connor

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/Artificial-Light%2FCrystal-Connor/1108219208

Remember when I lost my mind and accepted a writing challenge in the middle of the rework of Artificial? Well my story “The Christmas Wish” was accepted and the anthology by NorGus press is now available for purchase as well.

I also have a story in Static Movement’s anthology “Sowing The Seeds of Horror.”

I am gearing up to go on another book tour and well as attending two conventions in the next few months. In March I will be in Salt Lake City with Tori Titus as we make it rain at World Horror Con and then I will be at Crypticon in May with Yvette Montoya for some more weather working in the Pacific North West.

As far as writing goes I have already begun working on Shadows but I think I am going to take the rest of January of so that I can recenter myself and let the 3rd story open itself up to me.

I'll talk you guys all later, have a safe week ahead!

The Federal Vampire & Zombie Agency’s (FVZA) legendary Dr. Hugo Pecos

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day: Quisling PRONUNCIATION: (KWIZ-ling) noun: A traitor, especially one who aids in invading enemy.

How to Survive a Horror Movie tip # 50
The full moon is not a good time to go out and "watch the stars in the country".

In his 30-year career with the FVZA, Dr. Hugo Pecos rose from fledgling scientist on the Zozobra Project to directorship of the entire Southwest Region. Dr. Pecos has his done his fair share to rid the country of vampires and zombies. Dr. Pecos agreed to take time out of his very busy schedule to grant me this interview.

Notes From The Author: Thank you Dr. Pecos for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us today. There is a plethora of information on your website explaining the purpose of the FZVA and the type of research that is being conduct at the Santa Rosa Institute. Was there one thing that prompted such an aggressive warning and public awareness campaign or was it a series of smaller events that forewarns of an ominous bigger picture?

Dr. Pecos: The main impetus for my site was the relaxing of regulations governing research of vampire and zombie blood and tissue. There was a stricter level of vigilance in the years after the FVZA was disbanded. Now that we’re 35 years away from that, restrictions have been relaxed and I’m concerned that we could have a problem.

NFTA: While you were employed by SRI you developed a vaccine that brought the vampire population down to acceptable levels. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the populations of both vampire and zombie communities are on the rise. With that being the case do you feel that the FZVA academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, along with FZVA offices around the country should be reopened?

Dr. Pecos: Yes, I do believe there should be, at the very least, one training and recruitment center for the FVZA. There are very unique challenges in combating vampires and zombies, and neither the military special forces or law enforcement are trained for it.

NFTA: Speaking of your tenure at SRI, Dr. Edward Westhead the current director of SRI was one of your students. Did you feel a sense of betrayal when he ended your employment?

Dr. Pecos: There’s no denying it hurts to get replaced, especially when you believe that you are in the right. Dr. Westhead was a good scientist at one time, but I think he got caught up in the politics of SRI. He put personal ambition above all else.

NFTA: I’m currently working on a story called The Lazarus Antidote, which is base wholly on the information from your websites srigenetics.com & fvza.org. Who was the first author or graphic novelist who contacted you in regards to requesting permission to use the information from your websites and how does it feel to know that your work has inspired so many other craftsmen in the genre?

Dr. Pecos: It’s great, I’m very happy to hear about these projects because they build awareness and that’s all I ever wanted with the site. I originally was approached by a movie company called Contrafilm about developing something based on the FVZA. They had partnered with a comic book company called Radical Comics and were looking for a project to team up on. Rather than pitch a story to a studio, they thought it would be better to have a tangible work—in this case a graphic novel—to show the executives. I hope to see more and I’m looking forward to your story. I love the title!

NFTA: Oh my gosh, thank you. I’m really excited (and a little nervous) for you to read my story as well. I was just really inspired when I found your website and just knew that there was a story there. Speaking of which there really is a ton of information on your two websites, how long did it take for you to have enough content to launch the sites?

Dr. Pecos: I believe there were only six pages of material when I launched the site back in April 2001. Over the next six months I kept adding to it and adding to it. I’ve slowed down in recent years, but I could probably keep adding to it for the next 50 years, if I can come up with an antidote to aging.

NFTA: Well I heard that the Santa Rosa Institute is working on that right now, lol just kidding! You have thousands of facebook friends and fans, and your youtube videos are reaching 30, 000 views, and I see at least one FVZA t-shirt or ball cap at every convention I go to. Did you ever image that the FVZA would be so significant in terms of Internet vampire and zombie research?

Dr. Pecos: Initially I wondered if anyone would ever visit the site, but the number of visitors grew steadily over the first year. The Internet has proven to be a great resource for information. Of course, you have to be savvy to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s amazing to think how far zombie and vampire awareness has spread in just the last 10 years. I like to think I’ve had something to do with that, but there are a lot of people out there who are very thoughtful and diligent in their research.

NFTA: Speaking of conventions do you do the con circuit and if so what horror or zombie conventions do you or will be attending?

Dr. Pecos: I don’t like to travel anymore so I haven’t been to any conventions. I was asked to attend the New York and San Diego conventions. Maybe I will make one in the next year or two. They look like fun!

NFTA: They are! Dr. Pecos I cannot begin to thank you enough for your time today and with all the help you’ve provided me in writing The Lazarus Antidote. Before I let you go is there anything else you would like to add, or say to your fans, your opponents, or to Dr. Westhead?

Dr. Pecos: Thank you for helping to spread the word.

Find Dr. Pecos on Facebook!
For more information on the FVZA please visit:
www.fvza.org

For more information on the Santa Rosa Institute please visit: www.srigenetics.com

For more information on Radical Comics please visit http://radicalpublishing.com/

For more of Zombie Girl reviews please visit:
www.youtube.com/user/joyce3187

Challenge accepted!

2011-10-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day: Retrodiction pronunciation: (ret-roh-DIK-shuhn) noun: Using present information to make an assertion about the past; an instance of such an assertion.

How to survive a horror movie tip #16:
Nothing is ever over if it is still night-time!

Ok, so what my idiot ass did in the smack dab ass middle of the final edits for Artificial AND a blog tour was accept a challenge to write a 2,000 to 5,000 word Christmas tell of terror…in just 20 days.

Well, I got it done!

I can only image what my editor is going to do when I present her with this project with its enhanced deadline.

Meanwhile back on the farm I am almost done with The Lazarus Antidote and it’s turning out to be one hellofa story, can’t wait for you guys to read it. Again sorry for the absence been writing like crazy.

The One Star Review

2011-09-24T04:34:00.000-07:00

Word of the day:
Necropolis pronunciation (ne-KROP-uh-lis) noun:
A burial place, especially a large and elaborate cemetery belonging to an ancient city.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 8
Always check the back seat of your car.

I got my 1st “real” one star review today but and I have to tell you it wasn’t very insightful besides I’m not even sure it should be called a review as the reviewer states that the book wasn’t finished.

So I cruised thru Amazon and Goodreads to find & compare other one star reviews because in my opinion if a reviewer doesn’t finish the book then there shouldn’t be a rating or a review but what became unsettlingly clear is that I didn’t find any one star “reviews” what I found instead were some pretty mean and down right nasty comments, and I couldn’t help but wonder why so many people would gleefully leave these types of comments:

“The author and the editor really need to go back to school. Or possibly they are still IN school because I think a 3rd grade student could have done better.”

How does that help? But more importantly …who do you think you are?

“This is just one of these books you knew, going into it, that you were never going to like it, and yet, after you finish it, you remain with a sour taste in your mouth.”

If your going to call your self a “reviewer” basically a book critic and authors are bearing the cost of sending you their book, then don’t you have the obligation to 1 read the book and 2 give it a in- depth, well rounded review?

"One star, because I paid money for this. I'd give it 2 stars if it was free..."

After all the purpose of writing a review/critique is twofold: (1) identify the weaknesses in the piece and (2) offer some constructive advice to the author that might lead to improvement in the story. To just bash the story without providing something useful to the author is not really being professional.

The feedback below is for a short story of mine called The Lazarus Antidote and I am sharing this with you because I think this is what a constructive criticism is supposed to look like:

“As a customer, this wasn't necessarily my cup of tea as far as horror goes, so I'm probably going to be more critical than someone who would specifically be looking for a story like this...I had the same problem with Handling the Undead. I am also pretty blunt, so I hope I don't offend you.

As a reviewer, I thought the two "articles" at the beginning were a nice touch, but too long -- I could see some people wondering when the meat of the story will begin. The further I read into it, the more I liked it...the dialogue helped move the story along. I absolutely love how you divided up the story, instead of traditional chapters! Some other good points: the story is very original, and it looked like you may have actually done some research, instead of just making stuff up out of nothing.

Now, I may sound critical, but despite my personal feelings, I can think of several people who would truly enjoy a story like this, so I don't think you need to make any changes.”

And here is a review for The Darkness that is less than glowing:

“I had the privilege of reading an ARC of The Darkness, by Crystal Connor the other day. It was a slow starter, but I had to find out what was going to happen with Adam, and so it kept me reading until the end.

"I reacted to this book the way I react to some of Dean Koontz's work-one minute I'll be loving it and then a few pages later I've become detached from the story. "I used to call you Mommy." I admit, prior to that sentence I was a little bored.

But suddenly I wanted to know all about this mysterious caller. That caller was Adam. I did have trouble connecting to the characters. We also get a lot of names of colleagues and organizations thrown at us in the beginning of the book, but not a real sense of who anyone is. I think the author did this on purpose-it seems to highlight Adam's early lifestyle, for instance.

We're pages in before we're 'introduced' to our narrator/main character, Artemisia, and I never did get around to liking her. But again, I don't think she was meant to be likeable. I don't always love books of this genre. But that's a personal quirk and shouldn't be reflected on the author. If you enjoy sci fi and horror, there's every chance you'll enjoy this book.”

If you’re going to call yourself a reviewer and you’re reaping the benefits of free books then get off your pretentious high horse and read and review the books and keep your nasty comments out of it. You need to realize that, the NaNoWriMo aside, it takes six months to a year to write a book and that’s before the rework.

If you come across a book you simply cannot finish take it to Half Price Books and trade it in for one you will read. Or better yet, why don’t you write a book and let’s us review it. I promise someone will be just as nice to you as you were when writing a review.

Then you’ll know what it feels like when someone comes along and says this about your work.

“So I'll leave it with one star, because it certainly doesn't deserve two stars. Now it sits in my Bookmooch pile, waiting to be requested so that I can pawn it off on some other unsuspecting fool. Hopefully it will end up somewhere far enough away so that the reader won't try to hunt me down and take revenge on me for the pain I have inflicted on them.”

My Apologies

2011-09-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Word of the day:
Nubile (NOO-bil –byl, NYOO-) adj
1.Sexually attractive (referring to a young woman)
2.Ready or suitable for marriage (referring to a young woman)

How to survive a horror movie tip # 31
If it stars snowing on the inside of your house and the hallway gets real dark … take your dumb ass outside!

I am so sorry about my absence and silence, I’ve got a lot going on and am really busy but in the best way.

For one Artificial Light is almost done (whoo hoo!), I am gearing up to go one another blog book tour and I’ve also started working on the 3rd book in The Spectrum Trilogy =D Oh! A 2nd edition of The Darkness is in the works and I have been confirmed as a vendor at World Horror Con!!!!!

TTYGS

2011-08-16T03:28:00.001-07:00

Testing mobile blog posting

Sent from my HTC smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint!

DVD pick of the week: The Black Death

2011-08-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day: mise en scene
Pronunciation: (mee-zan SEN)
Meaning:
1. The setting of a scene in a play, movie, etc.
2. The setting or background of an event.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 31Remember that dark alleys and basements are under no circumstances "safe zones."

>

Plotline: Set during the time of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England, a young monk is tasked with learning the truth about reports of people being brought back to life in a small village.

Scariness Factor: This movie is not really scary; it’s tense, gloomy, and dreadful. The torture and fight scenes are brutal & realistic and hard to watch.

Gross out factor: On a scale of 1 to 5: 0

Complaints: N/A

High Points: Black Death gets darker and darker the further along the movie goes. This movie is beautifully unsettling, I loved the small cast and all the characters and I am going to watch it again =D

Stars 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Netflix

Psycho Suzie & Friends: Memoirs of a Nightmare

2011-06-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day:
Paleography (pay-lee-AWG-ruh-fee) noun:
1. The study of ancient writings and inscriptions, dating, deciphering, and interpreting them.
2. Ancient forms of writing: documents, inscriptions, etc.
3. An ancient style or method of writing.

How to survive a horror movie tip# 14
Never be with the group who plays vicious pranks on the shy strange new kid, those pranksters will soon meet their doom and often in a horribly gory way.

No, it is not slander if you tell the truth. Especially if you have proof to back it up. Emails are great proof--I keep EVERYTHING.

So shortly after Crypticon I was contacted via facebook from an editor-in-chief from a small local publishing company here in Seattle. After exchanging a few emails I decided I liked this editor well enough and I asked about sending a query letter. The editor suggested that I send over the manuscript so I send an ARC.

After exchanging a few more emails I knew I wasn’t going to be working with this firm after explaining the reasons I chose to decline entering a working relationship this editor became abusive and belligerent which left me thanking my lucky stars that I had dodged such a large bullet. My BFF and I were joking about it and she said “you outta write a book about that.”

I thought it was insanely funny suggestion at the time but now I’m thinking that’s not such a bad idea …

So with that said I am considering a non-fiction publication Psycho Suzie & Friends: Memoirs of a Nightmare: just a simple journal type book of email exchanges with individuals representing four different companies spanning over the last 3 ½ years.

Of course with Artificial Light being near completion this pet project is going on the back burner and I’m in no rush to start a comedic autobiography. I’m not too worried the good thing is I’ll always have more than enough material because most people don’t choose their words carefully or think before speaking. Once you say something you cannot take it back and a lot of people have either forgot or don’t care that emails last forever….

It’s been awhile!

2011-06-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

So sorry to have been gone for so long…it’s been crazy. I need to find a way to stay on of this social media thing.

Over the Memorial Day weekend I attended Crypticon as a vendor and oh dear God I had a flipping blast! I shared a booth with authors Timothy W. Long, and Eloise L Knapp, both of whom I interviewed here on my blog and sold out of all the copies of The Darkness on the 2nd day and Sunday just mere hours after the doors opened I sold my last copy of Strange Tales of Horror. It was an unbelievable weekend.

I think I might be a 3rd of the way through Artificial Light, and I changed the title of book III and a revised, re-edited, and 2nd edition may be in the works for The Darkness!

But wait! There’s more!

I also have a DVD pick of the week for you guys. Whoo Hoo! So. America’s answer to Masters of Horror is called 6 films to keep you awake. I’ve seen all six films and they all kick ass!

Out of the 6 here are my 5 stars:

To Let 5
Carolina and Tony have looked at dozens of potential apartments, and none of them have worked. When their realtor assures them that a newly refurbished and renovated apartment will be a perfect fit, they decide to check it out. Upon arrival, they find an abandoned and decrepit building without any residents in sight. They go up to the 3rd floor and enter the apartment, and find their own belongs already on the shelves.

A Real Friend 5
Ten-year-old Estrella spends a lot of time alone at home...or so it appears to everyone else. Like many children, she has imaginary friends, but hers are a bit different. Her friends are monsters. One day, Estrella makes friends with a new monster, a vampire that seems to be a little more real than the others.

The Christmas Tale 5
A group of children playing in the woods find a woman dressed as Santa Claus who has fallen to the bottom of a well. After some armature detective work they discover their new friend is a thief on the run with a substantial haul. The kids make the trapped thief an offer--her freedom for the money. But some of the children aren't sure that they can trust the thief, and go back on the deal.

The Baby's Room 3 ½
A couple and their newborn arrive at their new home, a beautiful old house that has been renovated to meet their every need. However, there is an entity living in the baby's room, which can be heard over the baby's monitor, and later seen on a closed circuit camera. Is it human, a ghost, or are the tenants simply going insane?

The Specter 4
An elderly writer visits the small coastal village where he was born and raised. He reminisces of his childhood, and the beautiful, mysterious woman he's been unable to forget. As he walks through his old village he catches ghostly glimpses of the same woman, and recalls the dark story of their forbidden love affair.

The Blame 3
Ana, a respected gynecologist, invites a nurse and friend from the hospital (and her daughter) to live with her, and act as an assistant. The house, a section of which is used as a private clinic, is light, cheerful and peaceful. However, something sinister lies beneath the veneer of contentment. Once her new `family' has moved in, Ana reveals that her private practice is in fact an abortion clinic. Soon after strange events begin to transpire.

Well until next time guys!

The Darkness snags two lit. prizes!

2011-05-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

“The Darkness” Two-Time Award Winning Finalist of the 2011 International Book Awards!

Dudes! Yesterday the winners and finalist for the 2011 International Book Awards were announced and I’m super excited to tell you guys that The Darkness is now a two-time award winning finalist!

There is no way that I’ll be able to thank you guys for following me, finding & friending me on Facebook, your comments, your reviews but most of your encouragement and support. From my family, my friends, other authors, and artist I’ve met along the way and to those of you who don’t know me personally there are no words to describe how much that means to me…

Thank you!

It’s a fan letter, I think…

2011-04-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day:
Denouement:
PRONUCIATION: (day-noo-MAHN) noun: The final resolution of the plot of a story or complex sequence of events.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 7
If you find that your house is built upon or near a cemetery, that was once a church that was used for black masses, had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, or had inhabitants who performed necrophilia or satanic practices, move away immediately.

So I wake up this afternoon and find this little note in my inbox, it’s a fan letter, I think…

[Dear Crystal,
Let's stop kidding ourselves. This can't go on much longer. Global economies crashing, nuclear fallout, aliens...something big is sure to happen soon. I have a truck, a gun, and an iron will to survive. So I’ve chose you to keep me company during the ensuing months as well as to help me repopulate the planet when all's said and done. All you have to do is keep our camp clean, cook, provide stimulating conversation, and, naturally, sex. In exchange, you will receive protection from hunger-crazed gangs who haven't bothered to learn how to grow food or live on their own, wolves, zombies, et cetera. You will have access to my library, which I'm keeping as history for the new generations of mankind we will produce. More valuable than anything, you'll have newfound respect, pride, and love as the new Eve! I read this story you wrote called the monster and that’s why I think that you, more than anyone else, deserves to live through the coming disaster. Also, if you have a decent sized dog or large stockpiles of non-perishable food that would be great.
Waiting to hear back from you,
Jxxxxx]

Yeah. Not sure if I should be flattered or frightened, lol. Speaking of the speaking of the apocalypse things are finally going well with The Lazarus Antidote, I’m finally at the place where I am starting to like this story. I put it back on back burner to work on Amber’s New Friend. I’m really anxious to get this story in the hands of my new editor, who fucking rocks btw, because I’m really loving the story but I need to make sure the structure is right and the story flow is easy to follow.

I'm sych'd and gearing up for Seattle's Crypticon which is less than 30 days away, Q the butterflies =D I'm super exicted and hope to see some of you guys out there!

On the dark side of the mountian some changes are on the horizon and I'll let you guys know what it is when it get's a little closer but what I can tell you its gonna be an reenactment of the of gunfight at the O.K. Corral because I’ve basically had it up to here. >=(

I'll keep you guys posted
ttys

DVD Pick of The Week: Movies From Both ends of The Spectrum.

2011-04-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day:
HighfalutinPRONUNCIATION: (hy-fuh-LOOT-n) adjective: Pompous; bombastic.
Also spelled as hifalutin or highfalutin' or hifalutin' or highfaluting.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 23
Stay away from certain geographical locations. Such as: Amityville, Elm Street, Transylvania, Nilbog, the Bermuda Triangle, or any small town in Maine.

I’ve got two movies for you this week, this 1st one was recommended by one on my blog followers and the other comes from one of my favorite production houses After Dark Productions.

1st up:
There’s Nothing Out There!

Plotline: seven kids going to a remote cabin and falling prey to an alien! This time around though, one of the kids knows that they are part of a horror movie and knows exactly what is going to happen next, and of course ... his friends don't pay attention.

Scariness Factor: 0 out of 5 stars, there is nothing remotely scary about this movie and I wouldn’t be surprised if this film was the inspiration Scary Movie.

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: N/A

High Points: The over the top cheesiness, slapstick dialogue, gratuitous nudity and a random cat! I can’t believe I haven’t seen this movie before now especially since it’s considered to be a cult classic.

Personal Commentary: Had I’d seen the trailer for this movie or saw it in a video store I would have passed it up, but after getting way too many emails from the same follower I knew the only way to make the emails stop was by reviewing this movie. I have to say, I’m glad he persisted. There’s nothing out there is a blast to watch!

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Comcast on Demand

Next at bat:
Husk

Plotline: A small group of friends becomes stranded in the country following a horrific car accident, and encounter a psychotic scarecrow while searching for help.

Scariness Factor: 4 Stars out of 5

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: The only thing that drove me mad was the very stupid choices these guys made.

High Points: I almost passed this one up because the all of the synopsis suggests that this is another zombie movie (sighs, eye rolling, and head shakes) it has nothing to do with zombies, it’s more a modern day tale of Cain and Able told with Children of the Corn creepiness.

I really liked how they all started turning on each other when things started going wrong, it wasn’t any of that “I can’t go on, save yourself” crap. Towards the end they tried to regroup but things don’t always go as planned.

Another thing I thought was cool was one of the characters developed a stressed induce ability to have visions of past events and it worked nicely to fill in the back story.

Personal Commentary: I’m not really sure how many times you people are gonna make me tell you to stay out of that damn ass cornfield, since you insist on not listening stop crying about it now … it’s your own damn fault.

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Netflix

A day in the life…

2011-04-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

So an old fling of mine calls me up wanting to know if he can hire my firm as his wedding planner and another author from the same publishing house as mine sends me a facebook message out of the blue asking me if I’m getting any of my royalty checks, that’s funny because I did the exact same thing two weeks ago. And I had to answer him the same way she answered me…by saying no and sending a friend request.

Bad Dreams, A Few Reviews and Current Project: The ramblings of sleep deprived-delusional-insomniac.

2011-04-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Word of the Day:
Lacuna PRONUNCIATION: (luh-KYOO-nee)
noun: An empty space, gap, missing part, an opening. (just like in my mind.)

How to survive a horror movie tip # 7
Anniversary nights of executions, horrible murders, or terrifying rituals should be viewed with fear. Especially on the spot where the event took place. Most especially on even century anniversaries. And certainly if you or a friend is somehow descended from one of the original participants.

Wow, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be a fan of space cadet dingbat (that would be me) super sorry for the absence tons of stuff going on. Today I had to force myself awake from a dream I was having about cupcakes.

I was on trail and the cupcake prosecutor was screaming at me, he said “Is it TRUE Crystal, that you no longer eat cupcakes for breakfast and are now eating APPLES instead?! And is it ALSO true that your even considering TRYING packets of the Breakfast On The Go?!” The courtroom erupted and the honeybun judge was beating the gavel and that’s what helped me wake up because it wasn’t the gavel I was hearing but someone at the door.

And who was it… the Mexican lady selling tamales =/ I am being to think the evils of sugary goodness and saturated fat have joined forces to conspire and sabotage my 50 pound weight loss goal.

So for those of you who also follow me on facebook know that I entered The Darkness into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards and I made it to the 2nd round! The 1st round was judged on the “hook”, and I was super pumped to have made it past that first round! The next round was judged on a 5000-word excerpt, but I didn’t advance…which is fine because after reading some very nasty feedback that a lot of other authors received they can all kiss my ass because that’s not the kind of project I want to be a part of.

Some of the things that were said about my work pissed me off but is nothing compared to what was said about other author’s work. Here’s my “feedback”

[The narrative was hard to follow at times. It jumped all over the place. Some times, it seemed like the writer was going for noir and at other times, cold speculative fiction. Other times, it read like pure pulp fiction. Not sure if that was intended but it seemed haphazard. It creates a feeling of sloppiness and rushed pace of author who does not respect his/her work enough or his/her readers enough to just settle on one style and go from there.

The world building needs more details. There need to be more transitions between info, showing how one thing relates to another. The author needs to spent more time making transitions between scenes. These are the fine points that get a reader interested in a character, the setting and finally the story. This story has much potential but needs work to fine tune the details.]

Ok, so nothing makes me madder than a lazy reader. Out of all the reviews, comments, and emails I received for The Darkness, this person is the ONLY ONE who had troubles following the plot and felt that my world building needs more detail. I’d be willing to bet that this person didn’t actually read those 5000 words but just skimmed thru it. I’ve entered another contest and I promise to keep you all posted…Wish me tons of luck =D

Book II in the Spectrum Trilogy, Artificial Light is moving along beautifully. I have a new editor Stephanie Kinkaid who rocks btw and we’ve already begun the editing, and even though she rocks I have come to the conclusion that I do not like the reworking phase of book writing…dudes it sucks.

Stephanie was interviewed today Lori Titus (another smoking hot Virgo horror writer, like myself) over at Flashes in the Dark Radio here’s the link to the postcast:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashes-in-the-dark-radio/2011/04/17/authoreditor-stephanie-kinkaid

I am working on a story for ...And They All Lived Happily Ever After, called "The Lazarus Antidote" and for some reason I'm having a tough time with it and as of right now its really kicking my ass.

I feel like the pace is not fast enough and there's not enough action so I told myself it wasn't a good story. And then I tried to sabotage my self by asking others to read it so that they could confrim that the story sucks...but here's the thing, so far everyone whose read it LOVES IT. And to tell you the truth I was just looking for an excuss to stop working on it because I'm having such a hard time with it.

I'm not too sure if it's normal for a writer to be so unsure about a project while everyone around them is cheering them on. So I am going to push thru until Friday and then I am going to put it back on the backburner to return to Artificial Light and Amber's New Friend. But what I can say for sure is that I am way happier with what I have now compaired to the very 1st version of this story. I'll keep you all posted.

Oh you guys! Strange Tales of Horror by NorGus Press which features my short story The Monster is now available!! If you click on the book cover on the right-hand side it will take you to Amazon where you can purchase it =D

I have been reading these stories and there pretty amazing, and I have been writing a review for each story and posting them both on Amazon and Goodreads here is the link to the reviews, I have four more I need to post but I will share it will you guys but for now here is the link for what I’ve posted so far:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/145634005

And here another review for Strange Tales of Horror by author Eric Dimbleby which includes a review for “The Monster.”

http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150143503102060

Ok that’s all I have for now…DVD pick of the week coming Wednesday

Shhhhhh! I am now a member of a secret society.

2011-02-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Procumbent
PRONUNCIATION: (pro-KUM-buhnt) adjective:
1.Lying face down; prostrate.
2. Of a plant: Growing along the ground without putting new roots.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 4
If you find a town that looks deserted, it's probably for a good reason. Take the hint & stay away.

Praeclarus Intus Scriptum!
“Excellence in Writing”

FINALLY! I have been accepted and am now a member of “secret society!” We have our own code, motto, pledge, and there’s even a secret handshake! Right now I am just an associate member. I have four more “test” I have to pass, and I will, before I can be considered to walk among the ranks of Full Membership.

I am so gonna bust my ass to make it thru the grueling, near death, don’t look into the light, initiation process because only then will I be allowed to participate in the Midnight Bloodletting Ritual to gain favor of the Dark Nether Demon Sha'Daadicus whose apocalyptic resurrection will bring forth a new age!

I am now a proud member of The Fictioneers, which is a group that promotes a family atmosphere and a strong support system to encourage the authorship of science fiction, horror, and fantasy tales; and also commits to the pursuit of excellence in the writing of fiction of the fantastic. And actually that’s the motto of the “Fictioneers Praeclarus Intus Scriptum,” Excellence in Writing. As you can see I wasted no time slapping our logo up on my blog.

When The Darkness was released I was so excited at the prospect of becoming a member of a writing association I started applying for memberships the day after the book went on sale a month later I was devastated over how pompous and condescending that most of these members and clubs are and I started to think that maybe being associated with these type of writing clubs wasn’t in the best interest for me or my writing.

Last year I attended two of my 1st horror conventions and it was there that I heard for the 1st time the words “independent press” and it didn’t take long before I was wooed. There was no “Now that I am a published author I can’t talk to unpublished wanna be writers, or offer tips on your work” clause it was really quite the opposite.

The 1st person I spoke with via email was author Robert R Best, and when he found out I was about to be published not only did he cheer me on he gave me tons of contact info on where to submit some of my other work. If it weren’t for Robert I would have never met Timothy Long or Jonathon Moon. Thru John I met Jessica, Rebecca & Matt. Tim introduced me to Stephanie. I learned about a group called Black Science Fiction Society at a convention and have meet too many amazing authors and graphic novelist to list.

As a whole the indie writers is not such a secret society…but it’s definitely a society that I am proud to be a member of. For more information about the Fictioneers check us out at:

http://web.mac.com/shadaa1/Fictioneers/Welcome.html

Oh and btw, the whole conjuring up a demon thing isn’t real…or is it?

Haters welcome!

2011-02-02T05:30:00.000-08:00

Word of the day:
Expostulate
PRONUNCIATION: (ik-SPOS-chuh-layt) verb: To reason earnestly with someone in order to dissuade.

How to survive a horror movie tip # 19
Never publicly announce your plans for the future if you make it out alive. It guarantees that you have no future.

H.A.T.E.R.S = Having Anger Towards Everyone Reaching Success

So there was this woman who owns a web-designing firm that I had to take to court last year, and to be completely honest with you I totally forgot who she was until I read the 1 star “review” she posted on Amazon about The Darkness.

If she didn’t have her picture posted to her Amazon page I would have never known who she was. I was laughing so hard when I read it I had tears running down my face and I had to flip thru archived emails because I couldn’t even remember her name.

It’s interesting that someone would be able to review a product without purchasing it 1st, and I know she hasn’t bought a copy of The Darkness because the very last thing that she’ll ever do is put money into my pocket.

It’s really creepy and sad that after all this time she doesn’t have anything else to do but stalk me online and post spiteful little comments, but at the same time, it’s flattering in a twisted little way that someone I’ve completely written off and forgotten about not only still thinks about me but invests the time to look me up and then write a snide little comment.

In a way that I can’t explain I actually like that, I think that naysayers and people who go out of their way to criticize is a truer measure of one’s success. Because if I was working a dead end minimum job, or living out on the streets she wouldn’t say anything, because she’d would be genuinely happy to see me that way…

But I’m not; I am enjoying the benefits of owning my own company, which allows me the time to chase my dream as a writer. The Darkness is my 1st novel and its being warmly received, my short stories are being accepted for publication with two different publishing houses and I am about half way done with Book II in The Spectrum Trilogy.

I am about to start a two-month tour and will be a vendor at a few horror and science fiction conventions. Hopefully there will be more people who publicly display their distain for my success because that will only mean that I am on the right track. So in the words of a famous comedian…

(Warning expletive)

The Beautiful and Very Talented Miss Eloise J. Knapp

2011-01-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Word of the day:
Captious
PRONUNCIATION: (KAP-shuhs) adjective: Having an inclination to find faults, especially of a trivial nature.

How to survive a horror movie tip #22
Do not take “anything” from the dead.

Today where taking some time to speak with Eloise J. Knapp author of The Undead Situation. Eloise’s love for zombie’s started with, of course, George A. Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead, who she was able to meet at Seattle’s 2010 ZomBcon convention. Please heed the Trioxion & Keep Out warning postings and under no circumstances are you to approach the undead! Check your ammo and let’s get to know a little more about my fellow debut author and friend Miss Eloise J. Knapp.

Notes From The Author: Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today, I’m super excited to have you here.How much time passes from the moment that you wake up to the moment you start writing?

Eloise J. Knapp: Sometimes I get up and walk straight to my office, which is great. Then there’s the rough days when I just don’t write.

NFTA: From extremely frightening films like Danny Boyle’s 28 Days later, and Craig Singer’s Perkins 14 to over the top slap stick movies like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, and Andrew Currie’s Fido zombies can be found from one end of the spectrum to the other. Why do you think zombies are such a crowd pleaser?

EJK: Some people don’t like scary movies, some people love them, and some people just want something different. Zombie movies can cover any movie genre out there: romance, comedy, horror, and action just to name a few. When a creature can be in that many types of films there is a zombie movie for everyone.

NFTA: I find that zombie fans are completely different beasts from horror and science fiction fans. They tend to be more lenient about conflicting theories and more forgiving of a weaker story line if there is a lot of gore. I’ve seen some pretty horrible zombie movies, and have stopped reading books after the 3rd of 4th page because the story was so bad. Do you think some artist exploit the fans love, tolerance, and excitement about zombies to produce poor quality material?

EJK: I do think some artists exploit fans. I think they do in any genre to be honest. It’s easy for someone to think, “Hey, teenage girls love vampires. I’m going to cash in on that gravy train and write some cheesy vampire romances.” However, just because a movie or book is bad that doesn’t mean someone purposely created poor material in attempts to make money. Sometimes authors or movie makers don’t have the skills or finances to produce high end work.

NFTA: Culturally, which was conveyed in the Halperin brothers 1932 film White Zombie, zombies are terrifying. In your opinion how did we get from Night of the Living Dead to Fido?

EJK: Film evolves so much over time. Aliens used to be terrifying, too, but now some movies turn them into comedy. I think the transition between NOTLD and Fido came from film makers trying to make something new and establish their place in the movie world. Once one funny zombie flick comes out other developers see it and think, “I can do that, too.”

NFTA: With the overwhelming amount of art, comics, books, and movies and now with AMC’s The Walking Dead TV show, did you struggle to come up with an original concepts material?

EJK: Original concepts material is a complicated subject. Here is a little example, in Day by Day Armageddon he gets a canary yellow Hummer. Then a while later the movie Zombieland comes out and they have a canary yellow Hummer. Was Bourne the originator of this concept and Zombieland used it? Or was it coincidence?

When writing The Undead Situation I felt like (and still do) the ideas are original. As far as I know my characters are unique because I’ve never come across characters like that but someone else probably has. I’m a strong believer in the phrase, “There are no new ideas” but I like to say, “There are rarely no new ideas”.

NFTA: You’ve said that your hope is to offer an alternative zombie world; can you tell us a little bit about The Undead Situation, and how it differs from what we’re use to seeing or reading about in zombie movies and books?

EJK: There isn’t anything wrong with this, but characters in zombie books are relatively weak. They can’t defend themselves, have no weapons, and are bounded by moral obligations that cloud judgment. Even when they do come across some guns, their characters are still emotionally weak and afraid. My primary character doesn’t fall into that category. He doesn’t care about being a good guy and saving those in need. Cyrus doesn’t fear the undead, not really, and certainly doesn’t care about the end of the world. My zombie world also offers fast and slow zombies in a different way other authors portray it (gotta read the book to find out why, though!)

NFTA: The Undead Situation is your 1st book, congratulations! Trust me I know how you feel. From start to finish how long did it take to write TUS and was the journey to becoming a published author everything you hoped it would be?

EJK: I started writing little bits about Cyrus V. Sinclair when I was sixteen. It wasn’t until I was almost 17 that I got serious about turning it into a novel. I finished writing the book mid 2009, put it on Kindle by the end of the year, and in October of 2010 I finished the final edits with Louise Bohmer. So from the idea to the last grammar fix, about 4 years.

I don’t know if it’s everything I’d hoped it would be yet. My book isn’t out and some recent developments (good ones) have delayed the release of the book until next year. As for what I have gone through as an author, I’m very pleased. Working with a professional editor was awesome. I have to say, it was so satisfying to have someone unbiased (not a family member, that is) edit my book. It’s so much better because of it. Jacob over at Permuted Press is a great guy and easy to work with.

NTFA: If you could go back and change one thing in regards to the choices you made and the team that’s helped you get to where you are now, what would that be? And no cheating by saying ‘I wouldn’t change anything’ you really have to answer this question …sorry love.

EJK: I’d change adding fluff to my book. While I was first writing it I’d constantly add to make the book longer. Louise helped me tear that crap out to make the book flow better. It’s shorter now, but I wish I hadn’t fluffed it up to begin with.

NTFA: How much reality goes into your characters, are they your alter ego’s, based on people you know or completely made up?

EJK: Cyrus V. Sinclair and I are very similar. It scares my family and those who have read the book, but almost everything Cyrus does is something I would do during apocalyptic times. I can be a little sociopathic at times and Cyrus truly is one. Some of the other characters are loosely based on people I know while other’s I made up completely.

NFTA: Let’s talk about your marketing and promotional material, which btw is minding blowing! I love your photo’s they look like movie posters. Thanks for signing mine! How did you come up with such an awesome idea?

EJK: Thanks! Photography is another hobby of mine. I’ve been into it since I was about ten. So, love of photography and zombies… when you put them together, I do some cool zombie photos! Ideas pop into my head, usually before I fall asleep, and I execute them quickly while the idea is fresh. I think in terms of scenes like in movies which is why they look like that.

I do all my own graphic design work and am an ace with Photoshop. That helps, too!

NFTA: As far as marketing and promoting which have you found to be more effective, your website or your facebook fan page?

EJK: Probably my FB. Everyone and their mom are on FB so it makes networking easy. It provides more exposure, too.

NFTA: You also gave away about a gallizon t-shirts at Seattle’s ZomBcon, what kind of return did you get on that in terms of facebook fans, and sales and do you see using T’s as standard promotional items?

EJK: Well I’m not selling anything yet, so I don’t know. I’ve gotten about 30 fans since the convention so it was worth something. I designed the shirt myself, researched bulk clothing providers and silkscreening. It all worked out so well I’ll always have t-shirts for promotion. I like to give them away so when my book does come out and I hit conventions I’ll probably do a free t-shirt with book. At least a free print with book because people love free stuff!

NFTA: Speaking of ZomBcon was that your 1st con as a vendor, how much fun did you have and what’s con’s are you planning on attending next year?

EJK: First convention as a vendor and attendee. It was so much work but a ton of fun. I met some crazy amazing people and ended up working with one (Robert Elrod) on a cover! I’m probably going to go to Crypticon and zomBcon again.

NFTA: What would be your specialty in a zombie apocalypse?

EJK: Probably fortifying places to stay. I analyze building’s safety levels for zombie apocalypse and mentally assess how defendable it is and what could be done to strengthen it.

NFTA: So what else do you have planned for all the fans next year?

EJK: My aunt L.J Landstrom and I are releasing a collection of short stories for Kindle around February. Robert Elrod, who I mentioned above, did the cover. The Undead Situation will come out next year as well.

NFTA: In closing is there anything you would like to tell us about, any upcoming appearances, movie deals, or a wedding?

EJK: I’ll probably be at some conventions like I said above and that zomBcon fundraiser this December. Nothing else that big coming up but I update my fan page often with news if there is.

NFTA: Thanks again love for stopping by today it was really awesome chatting with ya I’ll see you in May but talk to you way before then. Ciao

For more information on Eloise J. Knapp please visit: http://eloisejknapp.com/

Be a Fan on Facebook: Eloise J. Knapp-Author

For more infromation on The Undead Situation please visit: http://permutedpress.blogspot.com/2011/01/permuted-press-teams-up-with-audiblecom.html

But his story is 10x better than mine!

2011-01-25T03:53:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Benthic
PRONUNCIATION: (BEN-thik): adjective Of or relating to the bottom of a sea or lake.

How to survive a horror movie tip #10
If you come into possession of a strange old artifact and any exotic person (old wizened oriental, gypsy, Indian medicine man) warns you to do/not do something, do not do just the opposite in order to demonstrate how silly they are.

Last Friday was my virtual launch part for The Darkness, and it was so much more fun and incredible than I could have imaged or hoped for! Here is the link; it’s a two-hour show that flies by, so feel free to come back when you have time to listen to it!

http://http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sol-searching/2011/01/22/sol-searching?a=y

So now that The Darkness is out, and I have been getting some really good reviews, the next step in the process is marketing and exposure. One of the best ways to gain exposure is to enter contest. So I’ve been complying a list of the contests that I qualify to enter and last night I found out a friend of mine has already submitted his story to a contest I was hoping to enter and now I’m super nervous to submit Darkness because his story fucking rocks and is about 10x better than mine, I know its super stupid for me to think that way but I have to be a little realistic.

But on the other hand these are the types of writers that I will be competing against so I might as well stop being such a chicken, and plus you guys all know I start to lose my mind when it comes to entering contest. I submit to editors all the time and I don’t hurl myself from a bridge every time I get a rejection letter so I have no idea why come so unglued when it comes to contests. I have a list of 5 contests that I can enter, and despite my unfounded fear I am going to enter all five of them. What I know for sure is that I don’t suck, so I might have a fighting chance, even against Dave. Ok maybe that was a little ambitious…

So at the end of the week I will be posting an interview with horror writer Eloise J. Knapp and the DVD pick will also be posted by then as well. Enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll talk to you all later!

Buyer Beware!

2011-01-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Ontology
PRONUNCIATION: (on-TOL-uh-jee) noun: The philosophical study of existence and the nature of being.

HOW TO SURVIVE A HORROR MOVIE TIP #15
Go ahead and slap the screaming hysterical girl, she will be the one to distract everyone when there really is danger.

So as most of you know, I customized and purchase this calander to give to the grand prize winner of my launch party

Shorty after posting the calendar on FB I get this raving email from the Zazzle shop owner claiming copyright infringement:

[Crystal,
Before to write to you we informed and consulted our manager and legal office at Zazzle.You are seriously damaging me trying to give away for free my copyrighted images , sticking your name to my logo of graphic studio without any riferiment to me on your Facebook page. You can not do this kind of personal use of my calendar on web.
You bought a calendar, buying a customized calendar don't give the rights to use of my images . You can use your calendar only at your Home .
I Don't permit to publish my images on your personal site . Remove them immediately .
You can not use my copyrighted images and logos for no reason. You can not give away , distribute for free on web or another electronic media , you can not do electronic copies or distribute without expressed permission of me .You have the rights of your words not the images.Buying a calendar do not give the rights of propriety of images. Did you understand ?
You can not get property of Logos , Trademarks sticking your name for your promotion.
You are in a grave infringement of copyright . Unfortunately I see that you don't know the rules of image copyrights. You can not give away as a gift copyrighted images and logos . I repeat you must remove them immediately. After if you like we can find an appropriate and correct mode to support the promotion of your novel with our graphics /images on web. We are also open to discuss about "Caduceus" as cover art image .]

I ignored this email, because for one because if you allow customization of your product thru an online store such as Zazzle you’re basically granting the person the right to use the images, two I have other things to do than try and reason with a person who doesn’t know what there talking about, and three by the wording of his emails it doesn’t seem like English is his 1st language so there’s no telling what could be lost in translation.

So I get two more emails from this guy demanding that I put a link to his Zazzle store on my pix, and finally when he gets no response from me he flags the pix on facebook claiming copyright infringement.

Meanwhile back on the farm … I contacted Zazzle & fowarded the above email and this is the response I got from them:

[Dear Crystal,

Thank you for your email.

I apologize for the response that one of our sellers sent to you. Please be aware that you have done nothing wrong. I believe the seller is misinformed or confused about copyrights. You purchased the product and have every right to give that calendar away as a gift or keep it for your own enjoyment.

Thanks for using Zazzle.com

Best Regards,
Marcos
Content Management Team
Zazzle Inc]

How interesting considering that in his 1st threat to me he claimed to have “consulted our manager and legal office at Zazzle.” I have filed a Copyright Counter Complaint against this shop owner, so the pix of the calendar should be reinstate by Facebook shortly.

His whole deal was he wanted me to tell everybody where I bought the calendar...and I’ll do that now, because from one consumer to another, I cannot in good conscious recommend that any of you spend any money with this shop owner. Even though the work is beautiful the ensuing harassment, ranting and raving is not worth it.

Especially since there are so many other amazing artist on both Zazzle and Etsy who are far more deserving of our hard earned money.

Buyer beware when shopping The art of Bulgan_Lumimi on Zazzle.com

DVD Pick of the week: DeadGirl

2011-01-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Ligneous
PRONUNCIATION:(LIG-nee-uhs)adjective: Having the texture or appearance of wood.

How to survive a horror movie tip #42
If you are lucky enough to, oh, say, knock out a madman with a shovel -- for the love of God don't drop the shovel and run away. You STAY there and BEAT HIS ASS DEAD WITH THAT SHOVEL.

Plotline: Two high school boys discover an imprisoned woman in an abandoned mental asylum who cannot die.

Scariness Factor: It’s too high to measure. Writer Trent Haaga, does not rely on the monster in the closet, or the maniac with the chain saw to draw you to the edge of your seat. What makes this movie so horrific is the fact that the characters of this movie are children and the things that they are doing is mind-numbing.

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: None, this was a pretty smart and original horror flick.

High Points: This could easily fit within the zombie genre. The woman the boys find in the abandoned building is covered with plastic and she’s been there for years … yet she is still alive; however DeadGirl is not about the monster. It’s how she’s victimized.

Personal Commentary: This is an extremely difficult film to watch because the things these kids are doing is mortifying, there are no active adults around, the shallowness of these adolescents moral compasses is terrifying and the entire film is sadly realistic.

Stars: 5 out of 5

Where I rented it: Blockbuster

I found another review!

2011-01-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Orchidaceous
PRONUNCIATION:(or-ki-DAY-shuhs)adjective: 1. Of or relating to orchids. 2. Showy.

How to survive a horror movie tip #2:
When you're searching a house because you think there's something dangerous there, for God's sake turn the bloody lights on!

Check out this review I found on GoodReads!
The Darkness by Crystal Connor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Darkness is a really quick paced Sci-Fi/Horror novel that has a lot of fantasy as well. It was a blast to read. I always root for the villain/monster/bad guy and The Darkness gave me a female super villain that I couldn't get enough of...Artemisia! She's ruthless and vain beyond reason. She doesn't apologize for anything she is the ultimate anti-hero.

There is also a very wicked witch in The Darkness who powers are so great the last place on earth she'll ever be is tied to a burning stake. In a lot of stories I've read that revolve around a very powerful a witch, the witch is always evil, the witch in The Darkness Inanna is indeed evil...but she is not the bad guy. In a nice twist she is actually the hero in this book and that totally caught me off guard and I love being thrown off when I'm reading a book!

I was so stunned at the ending I wasn't really sure what to do, its amazing ending but I didn't see it coming and I was holding my breath for a different ending.

The best part of this book was finding out that there is a sequel! There is a preview of the next book called Artificial Light. It's kinda weird because the review start on chapt 6 but it makes me feel better about the way The Darkness ended because introduces us to some new characters two of them I can't tell you who they are because it won't make any sense until you read the 1st book but there is another witch and a group of knights which makes me believe Artificial Light will have a lot more of a sword and sorcery element to it and that is just fine by me!

Fans of both the Twilight series and Dan Brown and anyone in between will have fun reading this book.

View all my reviews

The End is Near!

2010-12-26T04:22:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Nyctophobia
PRONUNCIATION: (nik-tuh-FOH-bee-uh) noun: An abnormal fear of night or darkness.

How to survive a horror movie tip #9:
If on a stormy night, you find a window open which you thought was previously closed, do not close it. It may be your only way out when whatever has come in through it is chasing you.

With the endorphins from world wide celebration of the birth of Christ for the year 2010 still following thru our veins, many people are now looking at the calendar with trepidation. Why? Because this may very well be the last time, mankind will be allowed such a festival as the fulfillment of Mayan cataclysmic prophecy is now only 725 days away.

What better time to talk about the Apocalypse.

For those of you who hadn’t heard the name Timothy W Long until you went with me on my quest to find Jonathan Moon know that he too has been in hiding due to the release of The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole. As difficult as it was to locate Jonathan, Timothy was actually harder to find. After spending a King’s ransom to a Mexican Coyote and under the threat of being slapped in the face by a Russian Crime Boss Timothy was finally located coming out of an Science Fiction Writers Anonymous meeting.

A burlap sack was placed over his head; he was thrown into the back of a van and brought to this warehouse in a secret location. Understandably he is pissed off and not happy to see me but Vladimir injected him with truth serum and Enrique gave him a hand full of pills and three shot glasses full of tequila so he is starting to calm down...

Notes from the Author: Hey Tim, I’m sorry about all this but since the Church denounced The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole as blasphemous, labeled you and Jonathon heretics and demanded your head on a sliver platter, you haven’t been exactly easy to find. How long do you think this whole exile thing will last and with a $25.99 bounty hanging over your head why would you risk going to a Science Fiction Writers Anonymous meeting, wouldn’t have been safer just to call your sponsor?

TWL: I suppose we can come back once a new religion develops around the ideas founded in The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole. I have always wanted to have a religion and I have always wanted to write a book with a one-armed heroin addicted monkey named ‘fuckin Phil. It seemed like the right time to write it. Well, after I pulled Moon out of that little spot with the Serbians.

NFTA: Speaking of Science Fiction, how many science fiction and horror stories did you write, publish and sale before you started writing almost exclusively about zombies?

TWL: Quite a few. I was hard at work on a noir-ish sci-fi story when I came to the realization that it sucked. Bad. I think I had about 40K words done when I tossed the whole mess.

One of the first stories I sold was titled So Lonely the Stars. I wrote it and had it critiqued by a number of people in a writing class. It was about a group of rotund bugs that spend millions of years trying to find another form of sentient life. They ended up building a super-AI that left the planet to do what the little guys could not. It takes him over a billion years to return. It was one of my first sales and a story I still read from time to time.

Shaun of the Dead is probably my favorite movie, as well as 28 days later. I have always thought zombies were cool. I was surprised to find that there was a whole sub-culture of zombie fanatics on the Internet. I just sort of fell in with them and started cranking out zombie tales.

As far as other published stories. I think I have about a dozen out there on various web sites, webzines and anthologies. They range from weird sci-fi to dark horror.

NFTA: From extremely frightening films like Danny Boyle’s 28 Days later, and Craig Singer’s Perkins 14 to over the top slap stick movies like Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, and Andrew Currie’s Fido zombies can be found from one end of the spectrum to the other. Why do you think zombies are such a crowd pleaser?
TWL: More like a crowd clearer. Ba-Dum-Bah. Everyone fears zombies because they are us. They give us a chance to show the best and worst of humanity from both sides. From a spouse with nothing but murder in her undead eyes chasing you, to group of people holed up with supplies threatening you if you don’t leave.

Zombies are terrific for satire. When I was working on The Zombie Wilson Diaries, I cracked myself up coming up with more and more outrageous situations to put the protagonist in. The guy is stuck on a deserted island with everyman’s dream, a hot girl, . But he can’t do anything because she is a zombie. I may write some sick stuff but I’m not about to have him start doing her. Gross! So instead he spends his days justifying why he keeps her around as she leads him on more and more adventures. All she wants to do is eat him. It is definitely relationship satire.

NFTA: Culturally, which was conveyed in the Halperin brothers 1932 film White Zombie, zombies are terrifying. In your opinion how did we get from Night of the Living Dead to Fido?

TWL: Because we are silly people. Where there is great horror you will find humor. Someone is always going to be the jerk that makes fun of people being eaten. I am happy to be that jerk.

NFTA: What I expect from my horror is to be disturbed beyond sleep, shivering in a corner and shooting at shadows. Among The Living is nowhere near silly, and you get a sense of the tone just by looking at the cover. I was born and raised in Washington, though I have traveled all over the world I always come back home because Seattle is my favorite place in the world. I have a visceral reaction when I see artwork, movies, or TV shows in which the Space Needle is in shambles or being destroyed it’s like being slugged in the stomach. Can we talk a bit about how you came up with the concept of Among The Living’s cover and Jodi Lee the artist who did the artwork for you?

TWL: It was all the idea of Doc Pus over at Library of the Living Dead Press. He told me early on that he had this image of the Seattle skyline in flames. I had a hard time picturing it. Living here can be dark and depressing when the rain doesn’t let up for weeks at a time so it was easier for me to picture the scene as much darker and bleaker. Well he asked Jodi to do the cover and when I got a look at it my jaw hit the ground.

The cover came in second place last year in a contest over on Editor’s and Predator’s. I think we should have won. That cover has sold a lot of copies of Among the Living.NFTA: What’s available on Amazon.com is the revised and expanded edition of Among The Living. Why did you feel the book needed to be expanded and revised and is the original Among The Living available for sale anywhere or is it now a collector’s item?

TWL: When Among the Living came out, Library of the Living Dead was still a very new press. Everyone was excited to get the book in print, me most of all. I had help editing it but once it was out it became apparent that a pro should have stepped in.

I had also tried to keep the original book around the 100K mark and a couple of chapters got cut. I asked the publisher if he would let me do an updated version with a professional editor and he gave me free reign. So with a year of writing experience under my belt, I went back to the manuscript with a scalpel. There is not a single page in the book that wasn’t touched. I updated, changed, and added stuff that I wish had been in the first printing. It took me a month just to go over the manuscript then another month with a top notch editor named Stephanie Kinkaid. She took my scribbles and made them much better.

A lot of people like the character Kate in the book. She is a budding young serial killer with peculiar tastes. I was happy to go back and give her a little more depth and backstory. She really turned into a badass in the book and took to chopping zombies with a pair of Japanese swords like they were fresh tuna. She will play a huge part in the sequel.

I also added a few minor scenes that showed the virus spreading throughout the town. A legitimate criticism of the first book was that it took too long for the zombies to show up. I can understand that because Among the Living is not the typical zombie book. I call it a pre-apocalyptic zombie tale. It is really about the characters in the first few days. The typical zombie book takes place afterwards.

I have about 10 copies of the original Among the Living at home but to be honest I prefer to keep them out of people’s hands. Read the new one and you will read the book the way it was intended to be written. I have even offered to take the old one of people’s hands and cons, and give them a new one in exchange.

NFTA: One of the things I like about Among The Living is how you did the chapters. Instead of chapter 1, chapter 2, and so on you give us the name of the character on the day of the infection Day 0 – Kate. George R.R. Martin does the same thing. Was it you intention from the beginning to use the names of the characters instead of numbers as chapter headings or did it come later as you were writing Among The Living?

TWL: I had two main characters in mind from the start. I wrote them in third person and was pretty happy with their story line but I really felt like the book needed a more visceral point of view. Enter Mike, the newspaper reporter. I tried to write him in third person but I didn’t feel a connection. So I jumped to first person and immediately wondered if I was breaking some writing rules by having multiple viewpoints.

What this allowed me to do was to switch back and forth between characters as I wrote. So I had three distinct stories lines to juggle and a definitive ending point in the distance.

I am a huge fan of Martin and I love his books and the way the viewpoints start with character names. It also makes it a little bit easier on the reader to follow. That way they don’t have to read a descriptive few paragraphs to figure out who is the main character.

Plus people can skip around. “Ah crap, another Mike chapter? I think I’ll read ahead and see who Kate is slicing to pieces.”

NFTA: Barriers Beyond and The Zombie-Wilson Diaries are two more zombie novels that you released this year. With the overwhelming amount of art, comics, books, and movies and now with AMC’s The Walking Dead, a TV show, do you struggle to come up with original concepts and material?

TWL: Not at all. I could write this stuff until the end of time. Half of me wants to do the funny stuff. I love satire and could write that forever and be happy. I also love the scarier stuff. And could do the same. It’s like there are two competing voices up in my noggin and they are duking it out with pogo sticks.

I have a zombie western novella in the works, another comedic piece about some nerdy survivors, plans to do a book involving the porn industry and zombies with another writer … I could go on and on and …

NFTA: I find that zombie fans are a complete different beast from horror and science fiction fans. They tend to be more lenient about conflicting theories and more forgiving of a weaker story line if there is a lot of gore. I’ve seen some pretty horrible zombie movies, and have stopped reading books after the 3rd of 4th page because the story was so bad. Do you think some artist exploit the fans love, tolerance, and excitement about zombies to produce poor quality material?

TWL: In dream land, where I often dwell, I imagine that every artist does their best to create a good story. At the heart of writing, there is a story, if you can’t tell a story, why are you trying to write? We have a million literary writers out of New York that can’t sell 500 copies of their books and they tell a damn good story, right? But someone can write Dawn of the Dead, change the names and add buckets of gore and get it published. Know your craft, cater to your audience, ask for input from your fans, and you won’t produce crap.

NFTA: Including three anthologies and co-authoring The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole just in the last two years there are seven books out there with your name on them. Are you writing full time now?

TWL: Yes. And I also have a full time job.

NFTA: Speaking of The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole and for the simple fact that I had you kidnapped and brought to this warehouse I have to ask you the same question I asked Jonathon. It’s clear that you guys had a blast writing The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, but did you ever think for one moment that the Church and members of the literary community would so vehemently denounce your work? And knowing what you know now, do you think you would have done things differently?

TWL: We pretty much set out to upset every person we could. In fact, I was talking to our editor,Stephanie Kincaid, just the other day. I told her about a new scene I was doing for a possible sequel that involved Noah in hell. She said “I get it. So this is just in case you have not offended everyone in the world?”

I do want to point out that even though some of the material in the book will be considered offensive (like Jesus swilling vodka and redbull while swearing like a sailor), we also kept the book very level headed. There are some very strong dialog scenes between Death and Jesus that people have commented on as being very introspective.

If you hate that kind of stuff, Moon tempers it with a giant shit monster. So there’s that.

NFTA: Jokes aside for a moment, the reviews for The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, hover around the 4 ½ to 5 star range. Most of the reviewers are fans of the bizarro genre and they get it, has TASG received any bad reviews and if so how did you deal with it?

TWL: I don’t know of any bad reviews. I am sure we will get them and to be honest, there is no such thing as bad publicity. The devious part of me has even contemplated sending a copy of the book to a religious group and asking them to protest it. You can’t PAY for publicity like that.

As far as bad reviews go, in general they sting but really, who the hell cares. I know my work won’t make everyone happy. I remember getting a negative review on Among the Living because there were a couple of sex scenes in the book. The reviewer didn’t care about the extreme gore, heads getting lopped off, exploding bodies, or women and children being killed. No, she only cared about the sex.

Not only did I get a chuckle out of the review. I’m pretty sure I had a spike in sales. Hey man, sex sells.

NTFA: Sex does indeed sale. That’s interesting that your reviewer focused only on the sex scenes. I had a reviewer blast me because one of the characters in The Darkness is gay but you don’t find that out until way later and its only in passing. He didn’t mind the illegal research being conducted by rogue scientist and didn’t have a problem with extreme descriptions of the occult, but he wrote a two page, thumbs down, nasty review over 22 words. I was pretty devastated.

TWL: If they don’t like it they can move on to another writer that floats their boat. I wouldn’t be caught dead reading a Twilight book then leaving a negative review because I’m some hoity-toity fucking horror writer. That whole mentality is wasted on me. If you feel the need to leave me a negative review, I hope you are putting that much effort into doing negative reviews of things that matter, like health care or bacon missing from a maple bar.

NFTA: As far as name recognition and of course books sales, how important is it to appear at the Cons and how many do you plain on attending next year?

TWL: It is essential. Not going to cons, even if it is to sit at a table and hand out flies for your work, is just asking to be ignored. You can’t just write a book and put it out there, and expect to sell a million copies. Unless you are Stephen King and have decades of name recognition. You have to promote the hell out of it. Getting out there and meeting fans of the genre leads to lots of word of mouth. Not to mention - book sales.

I love to wander around cons and talk to people, see what they do and then tell them about my books. You never know where it will lead. In the last year, just from cons, I have put my books in the hands of well knows writers, producers, artists, and tons of fans. I have met publishers, other writers and even movie stars that took a moment to pose with my book.

NTFA: How much time passes from the moment that you wake up to the moment you start writing?

TWL: More like how much coffee passes? I have my own measurement of time that doesn’t involve clocks. It involves how much caffeine I ingest. I would say a good two cups is the norm.

I actually have a pretty strict writing time set aside. I spend at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening working on stuff. I have also been known to sit in front of the TV, on a weekend, and write for five hours with occasional bathroom breaks.

NFTA: So what can we expect from you next year?

TWL: Probably sequels. I do have a new trilogy in the works. The first book is done and I am shopping it around right now. I hope to have some good news in the near future.

I am doing a sequel to Among the Living called Among the Dead. I also plan to do another slice of coconut-bra, hula-skirt-wearing, outrageous Zombie-Wilson stuff.
I can’t guarantee all this stuff will be out next year, but I will do my best.

NFTA: It was super good seeing you again, and sorry for the rough abrupt way in which this interview started. Vladimir will take you back to where we took you from but before you go what words of wisdom do you wish to impart to so many newbie writers, who have delusions of grandeur and dream of having the careers of Ben Templesmith, Scott Sigler, or LA Banks seemingly overnight?

TWL: It’s all-good, pretty much like any Friday night to me.

NFTA: Oh my God, LLMFAO!

TWL: Don’t expect it to happen overnight. Those folks are immensely talented but they probably worked their asses off to get where they are. If they didn’t have a ton of stuff out already, they probably spent years getting an agent to look at their work. Don’t expect the fairy tale that shit only happens in books and movies. Expect to start small and STAY small for a while. It is all about getting your work out there and promoting yourself.

Notice I said a keyword there? Yourself. If you aren’t too busy drooling from my boring answers, take that one word to heart. I don’t promote my books, I promote ME! I want people to know me and expect good things when they see MY name on something.

NFTA: Thanks again for your time Timothy. Will I see you at Seattle’s 2011 Crypticon?

TWL: You better believe it! I will be there with my full pimp daddy costume on, trying to sell ice to Eskimos.

For more information about Timothy W. Long please visit:

http://www.zombie-wilson.com
http://timothywlong.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/Crusis

And to purchase the any number of books that Timothy has available please visit:

http://www.amazon.com/Timothy-W.-Long/e/B002JKB6W0/

It’s Gluttony, not Vanity that will send me to Hell

2010-12-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

Word of the Day:
Divagate.
PRONUNCIATION:(DY-vuh-gayt)verb intr.: To wander or digress.

How to survive a horror movie Tip # 47:
If you're black, you will have the best advice, but you will become the scapegoat and die first anyway.

So I took this little stupid test online and the results would be to tell you of which of the deadly sin you would be sent to Hell for. Image my surprise when my results revealed Gluttony.

I laughed it off and posted the test results on Facebook. But then I thought about it, and thought about it and thought about it and then got mad, because surely, if I am to be Damned by committing a mortal sin, Vanity would be the one that does me in.

I absolutely believe in God, so much so that I wear my tattoo heralding my faith like a coat of amour so no I don’t want to go to Hell. But as all of you know the amount of time I spend gazing upon my own reflection would make even Adonis raise an eyebrow. And as most you know due to the removal of my overactive thyroid I have gained about 60lbs this year and am very unhappy about it…

Gluttony.

I called my mom pissed off and in tears pleading my case that I am not a glutton and the weight gain was due to the medication I have to take. Once my mom figured what the in hell I was talking about she agreed with the results.

I was devastated and proclaimed that I was going to the gym and my mom said gluttony does not mean over eating, it means excess.

No it doesn’t!

Yes it does.

Then she went on to remind me that when I bought my 1st high end Japanese import I was working as a union member making a little over $35hr but despite that I went out and got another job, a part time job, so that I could make more money to buy the car faster even though there was nothing wrong with the little American sports car I was driving at the time never minding the fact I was so tired I didn’t even know who I was.

I told her that I didn’t see anything wrong for working really hard for the stuff that you want. She told me it wasn’t the cars, jewels, and shoes that made me gluttonous but my work habit. She told me “that ever sense you were little you have always worked to hard and pushed your to far when there was no reason to do so. You and your sister and brother have always had more than enough, and yet you, by choice, work as if you don’t have nearly enough. You give more than you take, so no I don’t think you’re greedy and though at times your distraction with your reflection is probamatic for the most part it’s endearing. But you body is a temple and you work to hard to get the proper rest and as long as I can remember you’ve always worked on the Sabbath. So yes, Gluttony is correct.”

Wow.

Though I joke about my vanity what my mother said about my Glutton is no laughing matter, so I the New Year fast approaches I will be heeding my mom’s warnings.

Why I love Christmas!

2010-12-20T15:12:00.000-08:00

How to survive a horror movie Tip # 5:
As a general rule, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.

Every since I was old enough to read the bible by myself my favorite book was and still is The Book of Revelations.

For me, being so easily & thoroughly seduced by written visuals, the horrendous monsters described within; the seven headed beast, the seven seals, the four horsemen … along with Doomsday Prophecies, Nostradamus Predictions, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, The Seven Deadly Sins, criminally fanatic followers of faith and hair raising Conspiracy Theories has always been a huge source of nightmares and inspiration.

One of my guilty pleasures during the Christmas and Easter holidays is that The History Channel gives me all the Doomsday, Antichrist, Seven Deadly Sins, and Nostradamus programming that I can stand … and of course I can never get enough!

Working on a new format for the DVD pick of the week.

2010-12-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

Hello peoples =D

So I got a flip video camcorder...Whoo Hoo! When I bought it I thought it was a camera and camcorder but its not so I wasn't really sure what to do or how to use it.

So I am going to work on putting together a DVD pick of the week video, let's see how it works =D

Stay tuned!

Touching Base

2010-12-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey peoples....Happy Holidays!

So I'm getting ready for my launch party which will be Fri, JAN 21st. I'm super excited about it because there are so many kick ass people who are helping me make this a really big event! Because I have friends and family on both sides of the coast and some in between it's going to be held online so that everyone can make it. Here is the flyer for my party!

So I am chipping away at The Lazarus Antidote. This little story was stressing me out a bit but now its opened up a bit and I can see where its going...and I like it. Antidote is the only thing I am going to work on only until the end of the year and then I am going to put it away for awhile if I'm not done by then.

This is a short post I know but just wanted to touch base with you guys to wish you happy and safe holidays and let you know what I was up to.
til next time!

As everyone around me celebrates I'm faking cheerfulness and excitement.

2010-12-08T02:28:00.000-08:00

As everyone around me celebrates my joining the ranks of published authorship I am faking cheerfulness and excitement.

I run a concierges business and people pay me a great deal and trust me with their weddings, events, bank accounts and their children but even if its something as mundane as their laundry there is never, and I mean never, a time when a client of mine is ever wondering what the hell it is I’m doing or not sure about the status of a project or task I’m working on. If there is no bleach to do the whites, I throw in a load of colors and txt my client that I needed to run to the store for blench.

I hate it when I am 40hrs into a job and only two hours away from completion and a client calls to change everything. I hate it! Do my clients know I hate it when they do that? Probably.

Do I tell them I hate it or cope an attitude? Do I bitch and complain about all the time & money that was wasted, or drag my heels or provide poor customer service or provide even worse workmanship? Do I ever ignore a client and do what I think is best (I know he said purple but my favorite color is blue.) Are you fucking crazy? What ever the hell it is I’m doing is not for me …it’s for my client! As long as it’s legal, the only thing I care about is that my client is happy.

Have I and do I make mistakes, or have my word compromised due to outside vendors, shipping times and me just fucking up in general. Hell yes I do, I fucked up a lot of shit in the beginning but you know what, those clients who are no longer receiving services from me are still recommending me to their friends, family, and co-workers. Just last week a woman called me who was referred by a client from when I was 1st starting out that read me the riot act when she cut me lose.

I found out that Darkness was available on Amazon and B&N not from a call from the publisher, but when I was on Amazon looking up someone else’s book and I just happened to type in my ISBN for shits and giggles. Imagine my surprise, when The Darkness, w/o the cover art, the project description, or available to be downloaded to Kindle, popped up as In Stock.

When I clients tells me they need A, B, C, D, & E done they get updates from me at every step and all production stops if things can not be done consecutively until after I TALK to my client just to make sure its ok to proceed and/or to receive alternate instructions.

I shouldn’t have to send 3 emails to ask about anything let alone wait fours days for a response. I should have been be told that the fucking book was on sale, and that it would take both the cover art & Kindle format about 2 weeks before than can be seen and downloaded. I shouldn’t had to ask another author how to set up an profile on Author’s Center and how to opt in for the look inside the book option, I should not be wondering when it will be available on Amazon UK.

I really don’t want to sling mud or air dirty laundry but sometimes its hard not to vent but if I don’t say something to somebody I’ll become belligerent and hostile. Trying to talk to her doesn’t work; trust me I’ve tried a thousand times, for some reason she feels as if she is beyond reproach and only makes things worse.

Every time someone calls, emails, or txt me to say congratulations and to ask how proud I am it only underscores the issues that have yet to be resolved. What I can promise you is this…

Things will be extremely different next time around.

So basically my BFF rocks!

2010-12-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I got an email from another author asking if I could leave a customer review on Amazon, while I'm there I type in "Crystal Connor, The Darkness" just to see what happens...

I was shocked and upset that 1. It is now available to purchase, 2. There was no cover art or book description, 3. It is not available for Kindle, and that if I hadn't of looked I would have had no idea that it is available...

I call my BFF and start complaining and all upset for reasons listed above and all she heard was that it's on Amazon, she gets super excited, she buys the 1st copy and then starts posting that fact on facebook!

Nooooooo! Oh God whhhhhyyyy?!?

I begged her to remove the posts and comments because I didn't want anyone to go to Amazon just the see no image or blank product description. I send an email to my editor and by 1:30 this morning I haven't heard back and text BFF pretty bummed out because I have tons of questions with no answers & BFF knows because of this that I've been in a really bad mood all day.

So what does she do to cheer me up?

She sends me this happy text telling me the pic and descript were up and it's time to start letting everybody know that's it's available on Amazon & B&N!

So I go over to Amazon and guess what I see? Under the cover art I notice her name. She uploaded a customer image on to Amazon (and I think she even wrote the description) I was thunderstruck that she would do that for me and it felt just like a hug and of course I got all choked and up teary-eyed. It was the coolest thing that happened to me today =D

So yes The Darkness is now availble to purchase via Amazon.com and thanks to my BFF both the cover art and synopsis and be viewed as well.

To Sleep: Perchance to Dream. The Mastermind of Nightmares, Mr. Jonathan Moon

2010-12-01T22:56:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the novel The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, was released both authors Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon were accused of high crimes against the Church and had no choice but to flee the country.

Through the use of Geocaching, carrier pigeons and an ouija board I was finally able to catch up to Jonathan. Because he is still in exile I am unable to disclose his location but what I can tell you is that there is not a word in the history of man to explain how hot it is here, the buzzing from the flies is almost deafening and the air smells of sulfur.

Notes from the Author: This little cloak and dagger adventure it took to find you was almost too much for a girl to handle. I’ve become paranoid and delusional and if I hadn’t found you today I would have had a nervous break down. So how long do you think this whole exile thing will last, how in the hell can you sleep in this fucking heat and with all this constant buzzing?

Jonathon Moon: Good to see ya, Crystal! Glad you could make it! Just go with the paranoid delusions and they turn out to really be quite fun. I figure I’ll return to civilization sometime soon…maybe. I can sleep anywhere, anytime…I’m a napaholic. I can fall asleep standing up, surrounded by hellfire, or when shotguns are stuck up my nostrils.

NFTA: I’ve noticed that on your blog you’ve listed your occupation as a Space Bounty Hunter, do you think your work experience in catching criminals is the reason you haven’t been apprehended thus far?

JM: I do. You learn a lot chasing scumbags across distant galaxies. In my travels I’ve learned the Murderous Monk Clan’s Twenty-Seven Commandments, I’ve learned over three hundred and twelve different scams involving everything from dollar bills and space credits to the family guinea pig, and I’ve learned very disturbing ways to smuggle space drugs. The biggest thing I’ve learned is, it is best to hide where no one will want to look for you…except, of course, the most determined interviewers!

NFTA: LOL, well the ouija board was a huge help! In 2009 your 1st book Heinous was self-published through Xlibris, in 2010 your short story Notches on a Tomahawk was featured in the anthology The Zombist: Undead Western Tales, your 1st anthology Mr. Moon’s Nightmares and your collaboration with author Timothy W. Long on the novel The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole are published through The Library of the Living Dead Press and Library of Horror Press both of which are owned by Dr. Pus can you tell us how you became an esteemed author of this publishing house?
JM: Oh, it was easy…I just worked my ass off. Hehehe. I self published Heinous and then found this wonderful, supportive, weird world of independent fiction. I simply jumped in with both feet. I wasn’t pleased with Heinous and I sent a copy to Doc Pus of Library of the Living Dead press He saw through the shitty formatting and my half assed editing to the monster beneath. He dug it and I’m currently re-writing Heinous for him and Library of Horror. You can expect it early 2011, and I’m VERY excited about that!

As far as working with Doc and his Library imprints I really just let my work do the talking. Doc has been a supportive fan since he read Notches on a Tomahawk and our relationship has only grown the longer we have known and worked with each other. I sent him Mr. Moon’s Nightmares just as Tim and I started working with each other on Apoc and, as completely different as M.M.N. and TAASGH are, he loved them both. I’ve since had a story The Fear Vs The Need accepted in the first Fearology and taken on a few extra duties. Doc has put me in charge of his Library of Bizarro Horror and it has been keeping me good and busy. The first title I’ve been working on for the imprint is the Houdini Gut Punch anthology I’ve put together. It should be live sometime this week! I’ve got a few really cool things cooking with the imprint and it is just one more reason I’m excited for 2011. All in all I count myself very, very lucky to have Doc Pus as a friend in my universe!

NFTA: Oh sorry for drooling, I’m super excited about an updated Heinous what was it about the 1st edition of Heinous didn’t you like and if you were not 100% satisfied with it did you release it?

JM: I wasn’t happy with the self-publishing company I went with…for numerous reasons. I was excited to publish a book and in my excitement I did miss a lot of things with the novel and with the company. I don’t regret it at all for the simple fact I learned a lot of important lessons.

NFTA: Once the rewrite is complete will the 1st edition still be available for sale or will it become a collector’s item?

JM: Nope. Actually I canceled my deal once I started re-writing it and it is now unavailable…so to the brave few that own a copy it will be ultra-rare!

NFTA: Did you really just answer Timothy’s classified ad that he posted looking for collaborator? Judging by the rapport between you two at Seattle’s 2010 Crypticon one would think that you’ve known each other for years.

JM: Hahaha, actually yes. Tim and I clicked like we’ve known each other forever but we just began corresponding when we started working on Apoc. We sent well over 100 emails back and forth in hammering out Apoc and eventually we exchanged phone numbers. Somehow our styles, which are really quite different, melded perfect for Apoc. It still amazes even us how it worked. I talk to Tim, by phone, at least once a week and consider him one of my best friends. We will work together again in the future and people should be very afraid of that fact.

NFTA: LOL, thanks for the warning. You’re right that Mr. Moon’s and Apocalypse are wildly different from each other what was it about Tim’s ad that made you respond to it?

JM: The pure desperation in his words…just kidding. I had read Tim’s book Among the Living and enjoyed it. When I saw his was looking for someone to work with I jumped at the chance.

NFTA: It’s clear that you guys had a blast writing The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, but did you ever think for one moment that the Church and members of the literary community would so vehemently denounce your work? And knowing what you know now, do you think you would have done things differently?

JM: Apoc was a blast to write! To be honest it was nothing but fun. I knew as we were exchanging ideas that no one would go unscathed in our world and I kinda’ expected MORE people to think we were dicks than we have so far. If I knew a big whiplash was waiting I would have done more tweak-addled scenes from the sex shop and used the word ‘fuck’ at least eighty times more.

NFTA: LOL! Jokes aside for a moment, the reviews for The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, hover around the 4 ½ to 5 star range. Most of the reviewers are fans of the bizarro genre and they get it, has TASG received any bad reviews and if so how did you deal with it?

JM: I haven’t heard a lot of talk from people who didn’t like it. It is totally different from what I normally write so I have had a few people tell me stuff like ‘it’s a bit much for me’ and ‘it’s a sure sign of the decline of western civilization but it is well written’. I’ll take the negative when they come. You gotta have thick skin when you share yourself with the world because complainers are often louder than fans. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion…some I just don’t give a shit about. And that’s my opinion.

NTFA: Nicely said. Including your short story “Conversing Dr. Defeo” featured in Jason Baker’s Abandoned you’ve got five books out there with your name on them this year alone and you were also a guest at Seattle’s 2010 Crypticon, so what’s the deal are you writing full time now?

JM: I’m trying my damnest to work full time on it! I’ve got SEVERAL projects I’m working on for 2011 and it keeps me busy. I’ve agreed to be in at least the first three Abandons with Jason Baker. My new story ‘All That Glimmers Isn’t Copper’ opens up the second volume; which is also available now. Mr. Baker and I also have a top-secret project we are working on that will leave fans of creepy dark things in excited fits. My wife, my sweet Shannley, works full time to allow me to chase my crazy dreams. So, I’m pretty much sitting at home with the daughter and writing, editing, networking, publishing, and such while she supports us. Go, Baby, go!

NFTA: 1st off let me tip my hat to your wife Shannley, that’s amazing to be supported that way. 2ndly I don’t think its fair to hint about a top-secret project without going into further detail I think that might be cheating, but since I don’t have my play book with me I’m going to let you slide…only this once. Several projects? How do you juggle them, do you work on one at a time or do you multi task?

JM: I am a multi-tasking S.O.B. I typically have six internet windows open as well as at least two different novels or stories. I do a little bit of networking, write on HEINOUS for a bit, write a book review, then take a nap. Then I’ll wake up write on something else, write out some interview questions for my Monkey Faced Demon blog* and then write on a different story. And sometimes I sleep all afternoon.

NFTA: I always work on more than one story at a time and the problem I have is I can’t shut it off. I’ll be looking someone right in their face and not hear a word that they are saying because I am trying to work out a scene in my head and right at the beginning of a story or just about when I’m done I can not fall asleep to save my life because it feels like I need to be writing. How do you transition from writer, to dad, to husband?

JM: I do it all at once…although when I story is rolling around in my head I am distracted and they have to get my attention back to reality. I write not only because I enjoy but also because I have to…my stories would drive me insane if I didn’t share them. I got lucky and scored a very supportive wife and family. And always keep note books or memos when you have ideas but no chance to sit and type. That keeps this memory impaired dude afloat.

NFTA: As far as name recognition and of course books sales, how important is it to appear at the Cons and how many do you plain on attending next year?

JM: VERY IMPORTANT! You have to get out there and meet the people you want to read your work. Cons are not only a great place to interact with fans but you also meet other people in the biz. I’ve begun a Con Fund for this next year and I WILL attend, at least, the 2011 Cypticon, ZomBcon, and Bizarro Con.

NFTA: Well the reason I embarked on this quest to find you, risking life and limb in the process is because through my company Seattle Crystal Concierge I do a gift-giving guide on my blog called “Crystal’s 12 days of Christmas …shopping”! and because my book The Darkness is coming out this year I thought I would do the same with authors.

Even though we’ve been talking about The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, what I wanted to talk to you about is Mr. Moon’s Nightmares because as far has horror stories and anthologies go its right up my alley.

What was your motivation for putting out your own anthology and how long did it take you to finish Mr. Moon’s Nightmares once you got started?

JM: It took me just over a year to write all the stories in Mr. Moon’s Nightmares. Some were a little older, A Pretty Death and Owing Ira were two of the first stories I ever wrote. I wrote each and every one of these stories because if I didn’t they would bounce around in my head and literally drive me insane. Get the demons out!

NTFA: Which of the 22 stories in Mr. Moon’s Nightmares is your favorite?

JM: I have soft spots for a lot of them. ‘Wasp Stings and Fever Dreams’ is a bastardized mix of MY memories, nightmares, and a very twisted story. Since a lot of the things in it are really my fears it still scares the shit out of me. I’m also fond of my Grasshopper Seasons and What Really Happened To ‘Dirty’ Dick.

NTFA: Mine is Grasshopper Season, but can I ask why you broke it up into 8 little stories? I never read the table of contents but after I read, I think it was Pretty Death, it’s been awhile since I read Nightmares, and saw another Grasshopper so I skipped ahead and read Grasshopper consecutively.

JM: I initially wrote it as a serial for screamsofterror.com and when it came time to put Mr. Moon’s Nightmares together I felt like it read best as a separate story. I’ve always been a fan of the old cliffhangers and each one tells a little story but leaves you wanting to know what happens next. It’s funny you skipped ahead; I hear that quite a bit…what the hell do I know?

NTFA: So Mr. Moon’s Nightmares that is available is just volume 1 when can we expect Vol. II?

JM: 2011!!!!!!! I’m about half way through it but I have so many things cooking I just add little stories as they come to me. I can say it has a few smaller poetic pieces than Vol I. I can also say it is DARKER and more VIOLENT than the first but still maintains the beauty I try to instill in my tales.

NTFA: Darker and more violent? You don’t have to woe me with love letters I’m already a fan! How much time does it take for you to start writing from the time you wake up?

JM: It really varies, some mornings I’ll get up at five and write till eight. Sometimes I’ll sneak computer time all day. And other times I’ll be up drinking coffee until three in the morning working on something. I take my chances as they come!

NTFA: For now, I am a D-list author, not because my writing sucks, but because The Darkness is my 1st book and no one knows who I am…yet. With five books under your belt and a respectable fan base in terms of sales and notoriety where do you think you are on that list and what in terms of marketing and promoting did you do to get there?

JM: Huh, I’ve never thought about this. I hate to label myself anything really, as I’m still grateful to each and every person that reads my work. I’ll be doubling the number of my published works by half way through 2011 and I’d like to think I’ll never lose the appreciation for my fans that I have now. Almost all the promotion I’ve done has been straight up foot solider style! I’ve been lucky enough to work with guys like Tim Long and Jason Baker who are both marketing masters. Tim could sell ice to Eskimos. Jason Baker is not only a great guy but he believes in his friends and he helps pimp them. I think spreading the word for your favorite authors helps out everyone; the fans, the writers, and the publishing companies. The more support there is for independent fiction the more this thing will grow.

I’m planning a promotion called Mr. Moon’s Nightmares All Day on 12-10-10 in which I’m encouraging as many people as possible to flood amazon.com with orders for Mr. Moon’s Nightmares. I am building a NINE-book prize pack that I’ll be giving away to one lucky winner!

NFTA: That’s actually a good pretty good idea; if we all order that day you might get bestseller. I’m gonna put repost the invitation you sent me. So now that there’s Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s NOOK, the Apple iPad, the KOBO eReader, Sony’s eReader and about a gazillion eReader apps for everything from you mp3 player to your cell phone have you noticed a increase in your “eSales”

JM: Yes, it is a lot easier in this day and age for people to get an electronic book due to the cost and quickness. I have mixed feelings on the ebook thing…I love the feel of a book in my hands…but as long as people are reading I’m happy.

NTFA: Using the pervious question as a springboard, it’s not uncommon to buy a digital copy of a book for under $5.00, I’ve seen some for as low as $.99 not to mention all of the books you can download for free. With this in mind for your own personal satisfaction, as an author, which is more important to you … selling a lot of books or making a lot of money?

JM: Hehe, I’m happy as long as people are reading my works and enjoying it. I’d like to hope that eventually big book sales equals out to big money. Damn, I want big money!

NTFA: Are you a gadget guy, or do you prefer your books to be of paper and ink?

JM: Paper and ink all the way! I end up working with a lot of PDFs (from my reviews at horrornews.net and working with the Doc at Library of Bizarro Horror) and while they are cheaper and easy to send they just don’t pack the wallop of feeling the weight of someone’s words in your hand. I was raised on books and I’ll die reading them. If it ever gets all ‘1984’ up in here I’ll be writing my stories on cave walls.

NTFA: It was good seeing you again Jonathon, and thanks for sending the carrier pigeons without them I think I would have ended up far more south than I intended to be but I gotta jet. I don’t know what it is about this place but I feel like I need to drink a bottle of Holy Water. Before I take off though, what words of wisdom do you wish to impart to so many newbie writers, who have delusions of grandeur and dream of having the careers of Ben Templesmith, Scott Sigler, or LA Banks seemingly overnight?

JM: Never quit! Write every chance you get! Write what you want to write not what you think people will buy, be true to your talent and your talent will be true to you. READ all the time, and read different things! And remember only Scarface gets rich over night, if you are looking for instant cash and power sell cocaine because writing takes patience, skill, and time.

***WE INTERRUPT THIS REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM TO BRING YOU AN VERY IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. BOYS AND GIRLS: PLEASE SAY NO TO DRUGS****

We now return to the regularly scheduled program

NTFA: What about for those of us who still have a toe or two in the realm of reality and are shooting for the #28 spot on the New York Best Sellers list?

JM: Bah! I think most of the stuff on The New York Times best selling list is crap. It is just not what I want from my fiction. I have fallen in love with the independent fiction scene and honestly I think the work is better a lot of the time. I think most of T.N.Y.T best selling list is predictable and almost formulated. You don’t have to sacrifice your style or the stories you want to tell to be successful…it just takes a little more work!

NFTA: Once again thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to hang out with me. So you said your doing Seattle Crypticon next year? I’m super excited about Seattle Crypticon because I’ll be there as a vendor!

JM: Thank you, Crystal; I’ve had a blast! And HELL YES, I’ll be at Seattle Crypticon! See ya there!

For information on Jonathan Moon please visit:
www.mrmoonblogs@blogspot.com

Facebook Fan Page:
www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Apocalypse-and-Satans-Glory-Hole/119203184789805

To RSVP for Mr. Moon’s Nightmares All Day on 12-10-10:
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170572399623444

To purchase, The Zombist: Undead Western Tales, Mr. Moon’s Nightmares or The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole
please visit:
http://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Moon/e/B003LL76G6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

To purchase Abandoned please visit: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1209915

For Abandoned 2…http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1608536#about-book

Unveiling the Concept Cover for Artificial Light

2010-11-30T21:42:00.000-08:00

The artwork Yvette Montoya created The Darkness is a hard act to follow.

So needless to say I was becoming more that just a little worried as Artificial Light began to unfold itself into the complex, nail-biting, roller coaster of a ride that it’s become and at Chptr XXXIII I still had no idea of how or what I wanted the cover of this 2nd book to look like.

Because both power players in this trilogy are women I knew I wanted a woman on the cover, & because of the title I also wanted some sort of play on light and it needed to be pretty … but what I didn’t want is for the cover to look like everyone else’s.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, I am a high-maintenance drama queen with combative and belligerent tendencies who’s not easy to please, and though that has resulted in some pretty phenomenal results it can sometimes be my Achilles heel.

A couple of nights ago, actually it’s been about a week, I sloppily wrote “binary code” in my notebook on my nightstand either while I was dreaming or right as I was waking up & fell back asleep because I don’t remember writing it and had no idea what it meant but I have been thinking about it every sense.

At approx 4am this morning this is what I came up with:

I’m going to pass this off to an artist because it needs a little tweaking she needs darker skin and curlier, darker hair but basically boys and girls this is the cover art for Artificial Light.

I have been up all night and half the day working on A.L. since last Friday so I bought some Tylenol PM so that I can force myself to go to sleep, I missed a breakfast date with my BFF this morning because I was totally delirious from being up all night. I was talking to myself but didn’t understand a word I was saying …that’s pretty bad =/

Til next time guys,

If you like books and love jewelry…Meet Amanda!

2010-11-29T03:54:00.000-08:00

Today we’re talking to Amada Leigh, I was 1st introduced to Amada by my tour coordinator Yolonda Spinks from BooksAnd… when she booked me to be interviewed by Amanda about The Darkness on her blog. The coolest thing about Amada’s blog is that not only does she interview and showcase authors, she host contest where you could win free books, she also brings to our attention artist of different genres and mediums and she is also…wait for it…a jeweler! So grab a cup of tea and let’s get to know a little more about Miss Amanda Leigh.

Notes From The Author: 1st of I would like to thank you so much one more time for taking the time to read the sneak peak of The Darkness and giving me such a good review, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say after you’ve read the entire book =D I also want to thank you for taking the time to answer a few of my questions.

The 1st thing I’d like to talk about the name that you have branded yourself with, Not Really a Southern Vamp Chick, what does that mean and how did you come up with that name?

Amanda Leigh: Thank you so much for having me here! Most people just assume my name has something to do with the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries, but that didn't even come into the picture when I was thinking of a name.

I live in Tennessee and have never really fit in much here. I have a lot of “northern” tendencies and ways that I talk. Plus I've never met any girls like me around here. Then throw in the fact that my family in Kentucky, for those that don't know US geography that state is the state above TN on the map, always talk about being more southern and country than me.

I always meant to bring a map with me when I visited, but figured that would hurt more than help so I never did. LOL! So, I'm a bit of a goth girl stuck in Tennessee who doesn't fit in and people are confused by, and vampires have just been a lifetime love of mine, and there you have it! ;)

NFTA: You have been blogging since 2009, when you 1st started your blog did you ever image that you would have such a huge following?

AL: Oh my goodness no! I wasn't even sure that I would do much with my blog at first. I started out with just a few followers who were people I knew from other sites. Next thing I knew I was addicted to my blog, and now Twitter, and am absolutely amazed by my wonderful readers!

NFTA: How did you attract so many fans & followers, did you advertise or was it a “write it and they will come” situation?

AL: I've advertised off and on by making accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. I know a lot of people join different groups and all too, but I'm horrible with keeping up with things like that, so I try to keep that at a minimum. When I first started my blog I think I advertised more. Now I use Twitter the most, and that's what has made a big difference I think. With that said, I've never wanted to have followers just to have the numbers. I want the people that follow my blog, facebook, etc., to want to read it.

NFTA: I know right? Speaking of reading, the foundation of your blog is reviewing books in the paranormal and urban fantasy genres, which I super appreciate btw, are you also a writer and if you where can we find your work?

AL: If you had asked me that question even a few months ago I probably would have just said no. I've always written poetry. It's been the easiest way for me to express myself my whole life. Recently though, after several people asking me this same question, I've been thinking about it more and more and finally started writing my first novel. Who knows when I'll finish it, or what genre it will end up being in, but so far it's borderline urban fantasy/horror.

NFTA: What do you think makes a good story?

AL: I think that is completely subjective which is why it's so great there are so many books in the world. To me though, anything that can pull me in to the world and get me lost in the characters and the story is good. I like a bit of variety so there's no mold it has to fit. As long as the writing is done well and I like the characters for the most part, I'm usually pretty happy. Do I love all stories? No, but I still rarely start a book I don't finish. Too many books start out a bit slow but end up so amazing.

NFTA: Where do you as a book reviewer draw the line on gory descriptions and/or erotic content?

AL: Lol! I'm one person that it is hard to shock or disturb. Even if something gives me pause for a moment, I can usually just think about it and find some reason to laugh about it and move on with the story. I've actually only read one book that disturbed me with it's gory descriptions, which still made me laugh because I was curious who in the world could read it if it bothered me. I wish I remember what it was. As far as erotic content, I read plenty of it and as long as there's still a story line going on then I'm happy. Once the story line seems to disappear... then I don't see the point in reading anymore.

NFTA: How do you decide which books to review?

AL: I read the synopsis for the book, try to find out when or if there's a deadline for the review. For ebooks I can only review a few at a time. I don't have an ereader and have to read them on my computer, which is a bit hard on the eyes. I'm usually pretty good about picking out books for review that I want to read. I don't want to waste my time, the author's or the publisher's. There wouldn't be much point in me reviewing it if I were to go in with the mindset that it wasn't something I wanted to read. Still though, my reviews are my honest opinions though I try not to be harsh.

NFTA: What are the biggest challenges you face when writing a review, and have you ever received negative feedback from an author whose review was less than glowing?

AL: My biggest challenge is probably deciding how much I want to tell. I want to give my readers enough to make them want to read it, but I don't want to spoil anything for them.

As for feedback from authors, I've been lucky and have mostly had great experiences with them. Here's where my opinion on reviews differ from some people's though. I will say if I don't enjoy a story, but I'll go into my reasons for that without attacking the author. Like some young adult novels just don't seem to be written in a way I can connect with them, they aren't bad books at all. There are great characters and cool worlds, but I can't connect to them or care about them like I do others. Does that mean the author did a horrible job and you should avoid that book? No. In fact some of the series I don't care for I still recommend to people because I think they will really enjoy them.

NFTA: Not only do you review books, you hold a contest called “Win on Wednesday”, a segment called “Feature a Design on Friday” that will soon be ending due to the start-up of your jewelry blog and a “Shop on Saturday” where you share with us the things you’ve found and bought online. What is a typical work day/schedule for you? How many projects do you juggle at once?

AL: Right now I'm lucky enough to make my own schedule for the most part. There's the book review blog of course which I think I could work on constantly and still find more to do, jewelry making, general crafting, writing, and I clean and run errands for my grandmother who has trouble getting around. Now I'm going to start trying to do craft fairs every few weeks hopefully! Oh and starting up a blog for my jewelry and crafts, because one isn't enough work lol!

NTFA: Ok, now let’s talk about my favorite subject…jewelry! When did you become interested in creating jewelry?

AL: I've always made some bits of jewelry here and there, but since I've had the book review blog and do my Shop on Saturday feature, I've gotten to know some great designers. There were also times I'd be wondering around Etsy and see something and be like “Well I could make that,” so I did. At first I just thought I'd fix a few broken pieces I had and maybe create something new out of them. The next thing I knew I was completely hooked and couldn't quit shopping for more supplies.

NTFA: The jewels on your Etsy page are very diverse & the materials you use are, for me, a temptation to the sense of touch. What is your medium of choice when it comes to creating jewels and why?

AL: I have to choose? Oh no. Lol! I guess it's obvious that I like chains. I have a blast working with them. I'm really looking forward to what I hope I'll get to start working with in January and that's velvet and maybe lace!

NTFA: Where do your ideas come from and how does your creative process from conception to final piece work?

AL: Some ideas stem from general things from books. I love all things Celtic, so I keep making lots of things with green and Celtic knots. Sometimes I'll be in a store and see something and it will give me an idea for something else. Now not all of my ideas work. I just make what comes to mind, and if it doesn't work I can take it apart and start over. I can't work on jewelry everyday. Some days I just don't have any creativity in me it seems. Other days I'll pull out a box of charms and right away picture 5 pairs of earrings I want to make and maybe necklaces to go with them.

NFTA: What is your favorite project to date and why?

AL: It is probably my Crosses Gothic Necklace, 5 chains and 5 crosses all connected to one toggle clasp. I'd always wanted a necklace like this one and was thrilled that I could make it. It was one of the first pieces I made and was a lot of work. I love it.

NTFA: It really it a gorgeous necklace. Do you still have the 1st piece of jewelry you created or did you sell it?

AL: Well as I said, I've made jewelry off and on, though most of that I gave away to friends. Since I started this year, let me think... The first piece I made I gave away to a contest winner on my blog.

She won a steampunk necklace another blogger had made for it and I made a pair of earrings that matched it just about perfectly so I just sent her those too.

NTFA: Ok Amanda I just have one more question for ya, if you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?

AL: Since it's Christmas time, for those that celebrate Christmas, I LOVE Christmas carols, do you have a favorite Christmas carol? Mine is Carol of the Bells with Oh Holy Night being a close second.

NFTA: OMFG! Carol of the Bells is my all time favorite! I love the version by Nox Arcana and a capella version by Destiny's Child. I reviewed a movie called Whisper and the director used Carol of the Bell in the most sinister scene…it was perfect!

That was a pretty good question, I would have never thought of that =D Well that's wraps up our interview, thank you so much for your time today, don’t work too hard!

AL:Thank you so much for having me!!

Moving at warp speed...

2010-11-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

Ok kiddies, I am reviewing the final changes to The Darkness! If all goes as planned it should hit the selves the 2nd week of Dec just in time for Xmas!

...And They All Lived Happily Ever After, is cruising along nicely as well. The shortest story in that collection is a two page story called The Queen's Pawn, because it is such a short story I contacted a guy I know named George Moss who is the executive producer of Gmoss Designs to get some tips on how to convert a story into a comic book. He referred me to a friend of his named Charles Apellaniz.

After just a few emails and a quick phone call Charles was able to write a kick ass script for Pawn, and I am so excited about it I've been driven from sleep =D The visual and graphic artist I am working with is Ron Davis his work is like nothing I have ever seen before so I am totally hyped up about the way the comic book is going to turn out!

I am going to include both version in the anthology and give away the comic at the cons I'll be vending at next year. Just wanted to check in and say hello, I've been up all night so gonna get some sleep
'til next time!

DVD Pick Of The Week: INSIDE two tales of terror.

2010-11-12T23:43:00.000-08:00

1st up Jeff Mahler’s 2006 Inside

Plot line: The main character in Jeff Mahler’s 2006 Inside is Alex has disturbing hobby. He likes to follow strangers. One night Alex takes things too far when he sneaks into a home and gets caught...instead of calling the police, the couple, fascinated by his resemblance to their dead son Timmy, ask him to stay. As the grieving couple begins to believe that Alex really is Timmy, he finds himself trapped in a horrifying existence of desperation, despair, and insanity--and Josie, suspicious of Alex's sudden disappearance, is his only chance at escape...

Scariness Factor: Is off the fucking chain, this well thought out low budget film is more terrifying than William Goldman’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: The only thing I did not like was the graininess of the film but that took nothing away from this little gem.

High Points: Like in Misery Alex is confined to a wheelchair, so he can't just run away. The thing I love this most is how the kidnappers convince 1st a priest and then a doctor that the person they have captive is actually their son and just the horrible realization and hopelessness that Alex feels as he realizes that he may be trapped inside this house forever.

Personal Commentary: One of my favorite scenes is when Alex is in the bath tub and the mother goes into the bathroom and closes the door, she is furious that Alex keeps trying to tell her that he is NOT her dead son Timmy. We don't get to see what she does to punish him, but its easy to guess by Alex's screams, splashing water and gurgling sounds.

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Blockbuster

Our next nightmare is courtesy of Alexandre Bustillo’s 2007 À l'intérieur (American translation: Inside)

Plotline: Four months after the death of her husband, a woman on the brink of motherhood is tormented in her home by a strange woman who wants her unborn baby.

** I don’t think I have ever put a warning disclaimer on a movie that I have reviewed but in this case it’s warranted. **

Scariness Factor: I’m not really sure about what’s happening on the other side of the pond with our UK cousins but this movie is outright brutal. As gut wrenching as writer/director James Watkins’ 2008 Eden Lake is, by far À l'intérieur is far worse. Bustillo uses lighting, shadows, and music to create an atmosphere of terror that is all consuming and it will continue to effect you hours after the movie is over.

EDEN LAKE REVIEW
http://wordsmithcrystalconnor.blogspot.com/2010/07/dvd-pick-of-week-eden-lake.html

Gross-Out Factor: Not really gross but gory because it has to be.

Complaints: N/A

High Points: I love the fast pace and how Bustillo uses the lighting.

Personal Commentary: The main character, Sarah, is nine months pregnant and her baby is due in 3 days. When something bad happens to Sarah we get to see how the baby in the womb is responding to the assault. When Sarah is being pulled thru the hallway by her hair, the camera goes thru Sarah’s stomach to show the baby distressed and crying…it’s really cool.

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Blockbuster online

Both of these movies explore the monstrous things parents are capable of for the love of a child

The Author's have been Announced and I'm one of them!

2010-10-31T02:11:00.000-07:00

Table of Contents for NorGus Press'
Strange Tales of Horror Anthology

Forward by Jeff Angus
Introduction by Matt Nord
Hunger & Hair by Matt Nord
The Leaf People by C.H. Potter
Birthday Boy by Eric Dimbleby
Missionary by Jason Barney
The Scarecrow Man by Daniel P. Coughlin
A Secret Amongst Boys by Mason Ian Bundschuh
Mother by Jessica A. Weiss
Graveyard Queen by Mark Roland Wilson
Sitwat Goes Home by Sarah Islam
The Monster by Crystal Connor <-- I'm right here =D
The Devil’s Advocates by C.D. Reimer
Hall of Twelve by Rebecca Besser
Devil’s Playground by Eden Royce
All Your Flesh Are Belong to Us by Jason M. Bloom
The Night Visitor by Lorraine Horrell
Hanging by a Thread by Jeremy Bush
What She Saw by Darren Gallagher
The Pit by Darren Gallagher
Shotgun & Smoke by Ian Sandusky
VRZ by Patrick D’Orazio
The Hunger of Shadows by Robert Freese
The Devil, You Say by Ken Goldman
The Eyes That Watch by A.J. French
Dark Timber by Lee Zumpe
Poem TBA
The Shadow Beast by Anthony Bell
Get the Brick by Amanda Lawrence Auverigne
Lise by Jan Vander Laenen
Daggoth the Destroyer by John Pennington
Saw-Kill Road by Thomas M. Malafarina

DVD Pick of the Week: An Angel...or is he?

2010-10-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

Plotline: Sinister things begin happening to kidnappers who are holding a young boy for ransom in a remote cabin.

Scariness Factor: 41/2 out 5 Stars

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: I think the alternative ending should have been the real ending but other than that it was pretty much perfect.

High Points: Christopher Borrelli’s 2007 Whisper creates a lot of tension as he builds the story around the stolen child, from the beginning of the movie you hate the kidnappers but once the story unfolds itself you start to feel sorry for them.

Personal Commentary: I super loved this movie, I watched it 3 times, but I do not want to say too much because I don’t want to give anything away, but if you like the trailer the movie is a thousand times better!

Stars: 5

Where I rented it: Netflix

Pre~Release Tour Dates & Radio Times

2010-10-25T20:36:00.001-07:00

Monday, October 25

Notorious Spinks Talks

Dren's B-Spot

Tuesday, October 26

Sol Searching Radio 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern

Loves 2 Read for Fun!

Wednesday, October 27

Not Really a Southern Vampchick

Papercut Reviews.

Thursday, October 28

Character Corner Radio 7pm Pacific/10 Eastern

Love Magazine Radio 4pm Pacific/ 7Pm Eastern

Friday, October 29

Ins And Outs

Just touching base.

2010-10-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all, so things are starting to come together and I really like the way things are unfolding. Next week my book tour starts, the reviews are coming in and I'm excited and humbled by each one, this week I should have the 1st copy of The Darkness in my hands! I have another story is developing, Artificial Light is moving along quite nicely, I need to fold the laundry that has been sitting in my dryer for about a week now and I need to write a seething letter to who ever created dust and I'll have the DVD Pick of the week posted by tomorrow and move Centipede to the archives.
Til then guys =D

DVD Pick of the Week: The Human Centipede

2010-10-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

Plotline: In Germany, two American women and a Japanese man fall victim to a demented surgeon who plans to recreate a horrific operation with humans that he performed on his three beloved dogs: reverse-engineering Siamese triplets by attaching their digestive systems.

Scariness Factor: It’s not too scary, at 1st...

Gross-Out Factor: It’s pretty high on a 1 to 5 scale the gross out factor is a 5

Complaints: The two American girls and the fucking police! 1st of all how in the hell don’t you know how to change a fucking tire and for all of you who are thinking about traveling abroad stay in the fucking city if you don’t know where the hell you are. I don’t know what kinda cops leave a house to come back with a warrant without any kind of back up or radio communication. Do you? Yeah, didn’t think so.

High Points: Once you get past the gross out factor you really start to feel for these people who have found themselves in the most unimaginable horrendous situation and are fighting to survive.

Personal Commentary: Writer & Director Tom Six got it right with the ending because as the ending credits roll the only thing you’ll be left with is hope and despair which are fucked up feelings to have both at the same time and it’s the only time that The Human Centipede is truly frightening.

Stars: 4 Stars out of 5

Where I rented it: Blockbuster

One more time for good measure

2010-10-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

So this little note came with the latest review:

"You are not a horror writer. Your writing style is considered MacGuffin therefore The Darkness, and all the other little stories on your blog, should categorized as horrifying Thrillers, Sci-Fi Thrillers, Urban Fantasy Thrillers and so on."

Ok, so what the fuck does MacGuffin? Right, I asked myself the very same thing, so I Googled it and here's what Wikipedia had to say about it:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is “a plot element” that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction".

The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is.

In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, or a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.

The director and producer Alfred Hitchcok popularized both the term "MacGuffin" and the technique, with his 1935 film The 39 Steps an early example of the concept.]

Oh. Well...that's not so bad. While we're at it we might as well look up the official term for Thriller:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. Thrillers are mostly characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested.] Not the ones I like =D

[Thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings, and cliffhangers.
They also promote on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror.The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies.]

Whoa...really? Not such a bad place to be, but I'm done worrying about it The Darkness and the two books following in this trilogy are Science Fiction just to make it easier on the powers that be who need to categorized it.

The only thing I care about is that you, the reader, categorize it as a good book.

DVD Pick of the week...archives!

2010-10-05T00:17:00.001-07:00

Ok, Ok I hear you...with Halloween fast approaching I am getting more emails concerning picks of the week and movie recommendations. I'm a little more busy than usual but I promise I have not forgot about cha. There coming, I promise.

Speaking of DVD picks I added an archive and put all the DVD pick's in one place. I will still be posting the reviews on the main page of my blog so that you can leave comments but then I'll archive the picks so that they'll be easy to find.

The Monster.

2010-10-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

DUDES! So last night at around 2am I found out that my submission of The Monster, has been accepted and will be published in an anthology...Whooo Hoooo!

I'm not sure if I can post all the details here because there has not been an Official Announcement but don't worry the minute I can tell you I'll be shouting it out from the roof tops =D

I gotta tell you about the 2nd rejection letter I received about The Monster. The letter said "...and though The Monster is an amazing story we feel it may offend the members of the African American community." I always send a handwritten little thank you note to the editors & publishers who send me rejection letters. Ya know, just thanking them for the time it took to read and consider my work, and I had to really resist the urge to say something smart assed in that note.

But I write those notes to keep myself grounded and you never know how someone might reacted to your work, my friend Kathi had the same concerns when she read The Monster but she her fear was that I would offend both black and white people.

The thing is this, chances are someone will be offened by your work if you stay true to your story and craft especially if your work is not considered mainstream. Just know that eventually you'll find the readers who will get and enjoy your stories.

I'm going to submit more work to the guys who accepted The Monster this might be the publishing house that I've been looking for, or maybe they just really enjoyed The Monster. Either way I am still floating on cloud 9 right now.

I Googled Me =D

2010-10-01T00:32:00.001-07:00

Ok, by now I know you guys probably think I'm a giant goof ball...guess what your right! So I just had to know what would happen if I google me and guess what I found myself on google! Whoo Hoo =D

Another thing I found out was that I have a message board, forgot all about it, as soon as I remember the password I will link it here.

The Jacket Cover =D

2010-09-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

So I open my email from my editor and what do I find when I open it! My jacket cover. I'm gonna put it in the mail and send it to my mom.

My 1st Official Author Interview =D

2010-09-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

What was the last thing you read by Matt Nord? If your not already a Matt Nord, you will be! His work has been featured in The Book of the Dead, The Book of Cannibals, The Book of Horror, Letters from the Dead, FLASH!, 356 Days of Flash Fiction an Anthology and way to many to list here.

So let me direct you to his blog, where you can see his latest work or rediscover an old favorite...and while your there check out my interview! Or you can read it here! It's my very 1st one =D

www.zombiecustodian.blogspot.com/2010/09/author-interview-with-crystal-connor.html

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Author Interview with Crystal Connor

Crystal Connor is an up and coming writer who lives in Seattle, Washing ton that writes in several genres, including urban fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Her new novel, “The Darkness,” will be coming out in the near future. Crystal has spared a few moments from her busy schedule to discuss her upcoming novel, her other works and her future projects.

My Undead Mind: Crystal, thank you so much for taking the time to take part in this interview. Let’s get right into it. You live in Seattle, now. Is that where you’re from originally?

Crystal Connor: Yep, born at Ft. Lewis Madigan Hospital and I’m an army brat in every sense of the word.

MUM: When did you realize that you wanted to write?

CC: It’s just something that I’ve always done; I wasn’t thinking that I was going to be a writer when I grew up, I was just writing stories and plays to entertain my family and friends and the reason they were dark around the edges is because I was taking queues from shows like the Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt and the Outer Limits.

MUM: In your opinion, what is needed for a story to be good?

CC: For me intrigue, fast paced and a twist or unexpected ending. I think the ending of a story is almost more important than the story itself. I feel so cheated when the ending of a book or movie feels like the author just phoned it in.

MUM: Other than “The Darkness” what other published works can readers find of yours?

CC: The Darkness is my 1st published novel but there are a lot of short stories posted on my blog.

MUM: You write in the urban fantasy genre. What would you consider to be the defining characteristics of the particular genre of story or book?

CC: Ok, this is just between you and me…it will be our little secret, so don’t tell anyone else. I had no idea what the term Urban Fantasy meant until after our 1st focus group. The Darkness was sent to a book club and after everyone read it we all met for lunch. The president of the club said “I really enjoyed The Darkness; it’s a fast paced urban fantasy and science fiction story with an ending you can’t predict. I suspect that it will do well.”

After lunch I asked Rachel, who was my handler at the time, “why did she say that it was urban fantasy…is it because I’m black?” Rachel started laughing so hard she almost crashed us into the freezing waters of Lake Washington. There’s no way to explain how embarrassed I was when I read what Wikipedia had to say on the matter.

…the defining characteristics of the particular genre of story or book? Wow, you know I’m not really sure and it doesn’t help the “official description” is so vague. The Darkness is set in a city, several of them actually, because both main characters are insanely wealthy and are traveling all over the world, but they both have properties and spend the majority of their time in the same city. The Darkness is also 50% 1st person narrative, which is a requirement for an urban fantasy classification, but the other 50% is in 3rd. and there is the paranormal element comes from both the occult and genetic engineering elements. I started calling it urban fantasy because everyone else does.

MUM: What is your favorite genre to write?

CC: This genre question is going to get me a one-way ticket to the asylum; because I spend a lot of time worrying about what genre I write in. Back in June I entered my short story The Ruins into the Seattle Crypticon’s 2010 writing contest and I made myself sick because I started doubting that it fit the required genre.

I have no idea what genre I write in. I thought The Darkness was a horror novel, but I was told by a close friend of mine that The Darkness isn’t scary but it’s suspenseful another friend of mine said he thought it was a little scary but he thought it was Science Fiction. Some of my reviews are trickling in and two reviewers referred to The Darkness as an exotic-action packed-suspense- thriller.A romance novel can be frightening; a thriller can be science fiction, an action book can be a love story, a comedy can he horrifying…with it being so easy to cross and blend genres its really hard to say, I would love to be considered a horror or science fiction writer…but like beauty genre is in the eye of the beholder.

The only thing I can say for certain is that my writing is crossed and blended like my racial heritage. I'm proud to be Black, Mexican, Am Indian and white (Irish) maybe it’s a good thing that my horror is also sprinkled with science fiction, religious undertones, and a pinch of comedy and blended with the supernatural.

MUM: Do you find that you pull from your own life experiences when coming up with a story?

CC: Yes. While serving my country in the US Military and having the opportunity to travel to places that I saw as a child flipping through the pages of National Geographic magazines is why I think a lot of people say my writing is exotic and mystical.

MUM: How do you develop your plots and characters? Do you use any set formula?

CC: No I do not use any set formulas or outlines. I just pick up my pen and start writing. The more I write the more defined the plot and character become and the story starts to unfold. This is a little hard to explain, but I usually write the ending of my stories 1st or from very early on. Once I know the ending I use it as a foundation to build the rest of the story on.

MUM: Do you find that in writing there are some topics that you would consider too taboo? I.e. are there any lines that you won’t cross?

CC: The characters that I create have interracial families, come from single parent homes or have gay parents, some have enough money to do whatever they want while others are counting change to put gas in their 25 year old cars. Some are extremely self-centered whiles others will give you the last piece of bread, even if that means they won’t eat that night. I am not trying to appall anyone or create sensationalism.

My writing just reflects the live I life in. I was born on a military installation where having an Asian mom and white dad, or a black mom and a Norwegian dad who was as big and scary as a Viking and playing with so many different colors of kids that it made a rainbow look boring, seeing Muslim women completely covered and Hindu women with bright clothing and a red dot tattooed on their forehead was normal. I live in a fairly large and diverse city and have had the opportunity to travel outside the United States for extends periods of time. The characters I write about are based on the people and things I see around me.

MUM: I’ve seen in your blog that you hate this type of question, but I’ll ask it anyway! Can you give us a little of what your book, “The Darkness,” is about?

CC: Nooooo, oh why God, whyyyyyyy?!?! Lol, The Darkness is about rouge scientific research project that goes horribly wrong. The experiment they lose control of is a four-year-old little boy named Adam. What it boils down to is the unspeakable things people do when they have infinite power and influence and the consequences of arrogance and carelessness.

MUM: The book features some diverse themes; from genetic engineering to witchcraft. Did you find yourself doing a lot of research on these topics for the book?

CC: Well for Inanna, I spent a lot of time quizzing my mom, older cousins, and aunts. I wanted to be sure that she was believable but there was real fear that someone might try and cast a spell or recreate a ritual that’s in the book. So everything you’ll read about Inanna’s spells and the stuff she’s doing is either missing something or out of sequence.
As far as the science part goes, it’s fiction so the sky is the limit so I just made stuff up and I had a blast. For the most part the scientific research that is taking place in The Darkness is used as a backdrop for the rest of the story.

MUM: These are some pretty weighty topics. Do you consider them to be controversial?

CC: I don’t but you never know how some else might react. An anonymous person posted on my blog that children see enough horrible images and that I should use my talent more constructively because the book cover of …And They All Lived Happily Ever After upset her. A few days after my trailer went live a person posted a comment on youtube telling me I was going to hell, and a reviewer sent back a pretty nasty review because one of the sub characters is gay.

MUM: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

CC: No. I had so much fun writing The Darkness and I want who ever is reading to have fun too. I like to think of The Darkness as a literary equivalent of a roller coaster. There’s no message it’s just fun and scary.

MUM: How long, from conception to completion, did it take for you to write “The Darkness”?

CC: It took five years because in my defense it was just a short story and at the time I considered my writing a hobby. I was working as a mechanic in a Seattle boat yard and some of the guys told the welding instructor that I was a writer. Little did I know that Mike Jones and his wife were both editors and award-winning writers. He took The Darkness home with him, and the next day when he saw me he lost his mind.

He told me to stop fucking around and to start taking my writing seriously. He told me that the was no way that The Darkness was a short story and said that I was just being lazy. My pouting last for about a minute and a half, because the next thing he did was point out how certain sentences and descriptions that he loved and thought were amazing. When got home I started writing.

MUM: If you had to choose one book as your favorite, what would it be?

CC: When I was 28 I was working on a ship and a deckhand let me borrow his book. It was really old, a lot of pages were loose, and it was held together with a rubber band. The book was Homer’s Odyssey. I know, I know you guys are thinking everyone 1st read that poem in high school.

Ok so here’s the thing when I was in high school the only thing I wanted to read was Stephen King or Poe, so I did my BFF’s science homework and she did my Lit homework.

The Odyssey was amazing; the translation I read didn’t have the side and footnotes when I gave him his book back I also gave him a newer book in the same translation along with a copy of the Iliad and bought the set for myself along with the divine comedy. All five of those books were stolen from my library during a dinner party at my house. Who ever stole those books also took an antique bible but left the gold bracelets and rings that were in my master bathroom that’s directly across from my library. I was completely devastated you would have though someone had kidnapped my puppy.

The cop that came to my house so was pissed off, he was like you called us out here because of a couple of books? What is it with you people, you think we have time for this kinda bullshit, call Barnes and Noble we have real word shit to deal with princess. I have been trying to find those books for 8years now. I don’t know who translated it but I know it when I see it. It’s centered text and has old English writing style and word usage like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and the divine comedy had all three books in it, it was a large leather bond book with black and white illustrations. If anyone can tell me where to find those books I will be eternally grateful.

MUM: What are you reading right now?

CC: Stephen Kings Under the Dome and Phil Rossi’s Crescent.

MUM: What do you find to be the most challenging thing about writing?

CC: Being able to stop. There have been times that I’ve been up and writing for three days at a time, I’ve written on my forearm with a Sharpie while I was zooming down the freeway and there are times when I’m around people I care about but I’m not listening and I’m not really there because I’m working through a scene or dialog in my head.

My family and core friends are used to it but new friends and potential “love interests” don’t like it because they don’t get they think I’m ignoring them and I am but not because I’m not interested or bored its just that I’m preoccupied.

MUM: What have you found to be the most difficult thing to be in breaking into the writing world?

CC: Building the right team to support me through the transitional phase of writing a book to selling one.

MUM: Do you have any advice for other writers?

CC: I’m glad you asked this question because the answer is the 2nd part of the question you just asked me. When you’re excited about your work, other people will be excited too because excitement is contagious. You need to triple check the people around you to ensure they have you and your book’s best interest in mind…not theirs.

The first time I heard the name Scott Sigler I was on a site called Podiobooks.com and he has audio books that you can download for free, everyone on Podiobooks does. That’s how I learned about an author named Robert R Best. So I was super excited and we did a casting call for voice actors and found a guy that were we head over hills over…and then I downloaded Miles Reid’s Are you watching me, an audio drama produced by Darker Projects 5 Minute Fears and was blown away. I knew then The Darkness would be an audio drama.

I offered our voice actor the choice of roles and explained the change in plan and he spent almost a week complaining about how no one would listen to an audio drama, and telling me that’s just not how its done and the very best audio book that I could produce was…wait for it… with him as the sole reader. He wanted to negotiate a contract for him to receive royalties, he said I should take that he was confident in me and was betting on my success. It was so insane and at 1st I was really bummed out but then I got really angry. I invited him to be a part of my project and then he throw a diva fit when I changed the way I wanted to do things.

Almost a month went by and I wasn’t focusing on the audio portion of The Darkness, then I was sent a link to a story by Jen Rhodes called The Omega Road Chronicles which is another audio drama that was produced by Necropolis Studio Productions.

Now I know this is going to sound blasphemous but except for David Bruckner’s The Signal, 2007 8 Films to Die For’s Mulberry St, The 28 later films and George Romero’s The Crazies circa 1973 I’m not a zombie fan so I didn’t listen to the entire Age of the Zombies series but after listening to the “Call Me Jack” for just 15min I was fired up about doing an audio drama again.

I sent the gatekeeper an email with a link to my synopsis and asked how much it would cost to commission NPS to convert The Darkness into an audio drama and I get an email back from Dave Frizzell that said “we’re non-profit so we can do it for free, do you need us to write the script as well? The Darkness sound great btw.” (insert angels signing here)
It doesn’t matter if you’re the new kid on the block, like I am or if your about to sell your 100th book, you can never be careful enough about the intentions of the people you keep around you.

MUM: How about those looking to start writing?

CC: 1. If someone tells you your work is not worthy or marketable ask someone else.

2. Learn the difference between constructive criticism and criticism from someone who enjoys being mean.

3. Learn to tell when the constructive criticism isn’t beneficial for you or your writing.

4. If your paying someone for their services do not be afraid to speak up when your not happy with the services they are providing. I cannot tell you how many stress and tension headaches I suffered through, the countless nights of lost sleep and all the time that was wasted because I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. The hardest thing I had to do is tell someone that I was not 100% happy with their work or that I did not like the suggestion that they’ve made. It changed the working relationship but at the end of the day you have to take ownership of your artwork. You cannot say oh my book didn’t turn out the way I wanted because so-and-so did this and he didn’t do that…no, people only do what you let them.

5.As a new writer it doesn’t matter if you’ve signed on with a large publishing firm or go the self publish route you’ll be responsible for most of your marketing, do your due diligence and do the research. Know what your paying for and why, and make sure that the people you are working with at the very least, knows and understands your genre. There’s no point in working with a man who boasts his skills produce New York Times Best Selling authors if all of his author’s write romance and your book is about a zombie that needs to find a buried treasure to return to the realm of the living.

6.Pay attention to the economy, remember who your competing against and price accordingly.
For example paperbacks by L.A. Banks and Dean Koontz are less than $8.00. Stephen King’s Under The Dome is over 1,000 pages is just $19.99, you can download Scot Siglers books for free. With those types of choices it’s going to be extremely difficult to convince someone to pay $25.99, or $19.99 for that matter, for a book by an author they don’t know.

MUM: Is there anything additional you would like to share with your readers?

CC: Yep. Don’t be an ass, it’s extremely humbling when a person takes the time to conduct an interview or to review your book never forget that. Never lose your enthusiasm or let someone take it away from you and above all else have fun.

MUM: Any upcoming appearances you’d like to share?

CC: Yeah I’m going to be on Oprah and The Today Show…lol I’m just kidding! No appearance scheduled a of yet, unless my court appearance for a speeding ticket counts.

MUM: Again, thank you for the interview, Crystal. In closing, are there any other works, websites, products or blogs that you would like to plug?

CC: Thanks Matt for having me, this interview was a blast. I hope to do it again for Artificial Light.

Click follow on http://www.wordsmithcrystalconnor.blogspot.com/ to stay tuned for Artificial Light and …And They All Lived Happily Ever After

and for amazing audio drama books check out Dave Frizzell’s Necropolis Studio Productions at:
http://www.necropolisstudioprod.com/

and go here for 5 minute fears:

http://www.darkerprojects.com/index.php

Oh the Horror of it all!

2010-09-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

So I get three reviews back today and two of them proclaim about the new exotic-action-suspense-thriller book by Crystal Connor!

What? Oh boy..

Before I get start all three are really good reviews I was totally jumping up and down when I read each one, it's crazy to hear amazing things about your work from critics and colleagues. But when I 1st wrote The Darkness I intended to pen a horror story and looking back on the short story, it was pretty scary. So I'm not really sure how I got lost in the wilderness and lost the genre path of horror. When the 1st rough draft was completed and read I was told by one that it wasn't really scary but suspenseful and another said he thought Darkness was an science fiction thriller.

I'm ok with being labeled a science fiction writer because oftentimes sci fi and horror are are each others evil twin and I grew up reading Robin Cook and Dean Koontz and those are two great examples of writers jumping between horror and sci fi.

So back to the horror of it all, this is probably why I'm getting way more than my share of rejection letters...because I am submitting to the wrong contest and publishing houses, yet I am very reluctant to submit my work to science fiction writing contest, magazines and publishing because when I think of science fiction I think of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, George Orwell, and Arthur C. Clark. My stories are nothing like that...I don't think.

I lost my mind about what genre I write in a few months ago when I entered The Ruins in the Seattle Crypticon writing contest...I submitted The Monster to Norgus Press a few days ago but I'm not sure how I'll do...again the whole genre thing. I'm going to stressing over it and just be happy with the fact that I can tell a good story.

Ok then moving on.

Dave sent me 1st draft of the 1st few pages of the audio drama adaptation and its incredible =D Its hard to explain seeing your work in screenplay format. I am a very visual writer, when I write all of these characters are moving around in my mind, I see what they see, hear what, they hear...the only way I can kind of explain it is that Dave vision is my vision in 3D

And its super fun to read. There are all kinds of notes that I don't understand, there are breaks for music and fade ins I'm just having a blast.

In closing for those of you who think I ignore your emails about staying on top of the DVD Picks of the Week or movies suggestions for reviews, I don't. I get them all the time and starting next week, I will give you four to make up for this month. And I will do the best that I can to post a DVD pick every Wednesday, or at the very least once a week.

Now why in the hell didn't I think of that?!?

2010-09-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

I am preparing to go on tour and Tracee has been sending me alot of the interview questions in advance and that's what I'll be working on the entire weekend. The one question that every asks is....

Can you tell us what The Darkness is about?

I hate this fucking question because I don't know how to answer it. Have you ever listened to a little kid, about 7 or 8 tell you about a movie they saw? Where everything is all jumbled and out of sequence and you have no clue about what the the hell the movie is about and your not sure if you want to see it, but don't have to because they already told you the ending...

That's exactly how I sound. I have no idea why, and it's even worse when I'm asked about the sequel Artificial Light.

Last week I got an email from Angel McCoy (www.angelmccoy.com), she is an awarding winning author that I was slinging ink against in the Seattle Crypticon's 2010 writing contest...she beat me! Anyway she was congratulating me on The Darkness and said " I really liked the main character, and I found it exotic and super scary. Nice job :)" She was talking about The Ruins but she is not the 1st person who said my writing is exotic and I think that is a cool thing to say, so why don't I say that?

Dave over at Necropolis Studio Productions (www.necropolisstudioprod.com)said
"From the mind of Crystal Connor comes a story in the not too distant future where the manipulation of science crashes into the practice of the dark arts. Where light is but a fleeting notion and all paths lead to one conclusion… that there’s only one shade of darkness." When I 1st read that, (it's going to be used in our audiodrama intro) I had a moment of disconnect because I was thinking I would so read a story like that. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about my story.

D'oh

That's fucking awesome! Why didn't I think of that.

The stupid shit that comes out of my mouth goes a little like this:
"Ummmm, ok, see what had happened was..."
or
"So there is this little boy named Adam. A mad scientist, but she's really pretty and she's rich. Oh, there's a witch her name is Inanna and a dragon."

Really?

Note to self...self you need some sleep. The dragon is in the next book.

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them....

2010-09-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so that is the perfect Zen Quote to describe the status of The Darkness. For the better half of last month rereading and making what I thought would be the final changes and edits to The Darkness.

I was told that the word doc would be uploaded into PDF form, and that would take no longer a few days for this to happen. Once the PDF was done, I would review it and sign off on it, then we would sent it out to reviewers and we would move straight into the layout phase.

So I get the PDF file today a about a week later than the "due date" and right away (on pg 2) I notice that none of the changes that I made and signed off on where on the PDF. Which means I can not sign off on the PDF, I can not send it to the print shop and I can not send it out ARC's.

Its kinda bewildering that Necropolis Studio Productions are further along with the audio book than we hard with the paper & Kindle book version.

Are you fucking kidding me? I'm in Hell =/

What's your blog say about you?

2010-09-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, these guys are pretty good!

The Ultimate Bad Guy…oh be still my beating heart.

2010-09-16T20:54:00.001-07:00

So going on a recommendation I rented a movie called Serenity and just 15 min in we’re introduced to “The Operative.” and I loved him immediately. This is by far one of the most
commanding bad guys I have seen in film.

Just by looking at him, you know he is the one who’s in charge, yet he does not raise his voice or use a threatening tone of voice. In fact it’s quite the opposite, The Operative is soft spoken and eloquent but the things he says gives you Goosebumps. ommanding bad guys I have seen in film.

The Operative: You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.

Dr. Mathias: Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword.

Dr. Mathias: [as the Operative pulls out his sword] I would put that down right now if I were you.

The Operative: Would you be killed in your sleep, like an ailing pet?

Another thing that is both unnerving and alluring about The Operative is how calm he always is and how he controls every thing and person around him. We never see him mad, or even raise his voice…his fight scenes appear as if they were choreographed by the American Ballet Theatre.

The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I don't murder children.

The Operative: I do. If I have to.

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Why? Do you even know why they sent you?

The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?

The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

I can not say enough about this character except his is the most beautiful, graceful, bad ass, bad guy that I have seen so far and The Operative is my new favorite villain!

The edits for The Darkness are done!

2010-09-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

So the edits are done, I sent the final proofs to both Celeste (my editor) and Dave over at Necropolis Studio Productions...No we're not there yet.

For the book version this is now the layout phase, in the next couple of days I am going to get a PDF file of the book to review, this will have everything that you'll see when you hold the book in your hands...the cover art, dedication page, sneak peak for Artificial Light and excerpts from ...And They All Lived Happily Ever After. Once that's signed off on we then start sending copies to reviewers, after we get some of the reviews back they will be included in The Darkness and then it goes to print. But not before we figure out pricing for all the different forms i.e. Paperback, Kindle, Sony Reader overseas markets and so on.

While that is going on Tracee and I will start shoring up tour dates and tour stops =D I am sooooo looking forward to touring!

Now for the audio version of the book. Because it's not a regular audio book with just one reader Dave is going to have to rewrite The Darkness into a screenplay because we are doing an audiodrama...image just listening to a movie or a tv show, that's how the audio version of The Darkness will sound like. Complete with opening theme music and a whole cast of characters.

Dave is reading it now and I am kinda excited to see how he envisions The Darkness. NSP Age Of The Zombie was a PARSEC finalist in 2009 & was nominated again in 2010 and their Just Call Me Jack is also a 2010 nominee =D I'm in super good hands and am really humbled to be working with such a kick ass team. There is a really cool banner but I don't think I can post it here because it's just the 1st draft.

Oh and I am getting a hardcopy of the screenplay and I asked Dave if the all the cast and crew would sign it...yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm a super dork but I don't care and you guys love me anyways.

http://www.necropolisstudioprod.com

I am so wired that I cannot sleep. My employee and intern will be handling the daily duties of Seattle Crystal Concierge til Wed. I need to get Amber's New Friend done like yesterday. I am going to just stay up because meeting Kathi for breakfast and afterwards I am coming home and going to bed and when I get up I'm writing.

Oh my gosh the DVD pick of the week is brutal, should have it up by Wed. Til next time

Let's ask the Editor!

2010-09-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

Today's interview is with Celeste Bennett of Bennett & Hastings Publishing

Celeste Bennett is an avid reader who began professionally editing books in 1987, before completing her B.A. in English. After twelve years in corporate environments, she opened Bennett & Hastings Publishing.

Celeste is my editor for The Darkness and the 4th person I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing, but I have to tell you I had an ulterior motive for asking her for this interview. I wanted to get a better understanding of this whole reworking process. We were only about a 3rd of the way through the reworking process before I wasn’t having fun anymore.

I think the biggest reason why we were struggling is because, as all of you know The Darkness is my 1st book, and though I had been warned about the reworking process I was completely unprepared and to make things worse I really didn't understand why things were being done the way they were being done. I was once told that writing the book is the easy part, preparing the book for the bookshelves is the hard part...I had no idea how true that turned out to be.

I 1st asked my editor to grant me an interview, she offered that she was too busy…and I was really bummed out about because I thought she was finding a nice way to say no. We were butting heads because I fiercely defended the way I wanted the finished Darkness to look. So to say she was frustrated with me is an understatement because I was really giving her a hard time.

I am glad that I stood my ground and got thru, because for one we are back on even keel Thank God! And The Darkness is exactly what I hoped it would be. I was super surprised and elated when she agreed to the interview
So without further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen...Celest Bennett

In your opinion, what makes a good story? Compelling characters whose motives and thought processes show in their actions. Personally, I like character-driven fiction.

What was your goal when founding your publishing firm Bennett & Hastings? Establishing a place where the less powerful can go to get their work published in a professional fashion. We knew writers who had lost control of their writing when they went to large houses, and we knew writers who had poor quality work produced when they went to traditional self-publishers. We set out to start a company that would provide professional editing and design while allowing the author to retain rights to the work.

What is a typical work day/schedule for you? How many projects do you juggle at once? I start work around 8:00 a.m. and wrap up whenever projects allow, sometimes at 2:00 p.m. and sometimes at 2:00 a.m. The number of projects varies depending on the demand of each. I've never had fewer than three.

Why did you choose to become an editor verses becoming a writer? My skills are stronger in editing, although that (to quote Jane Austen) is because I have not taken the time to practice.

How do you decide which author’s you work will with? I run the manuscript past anyone who will be working with it - the editor, the designer - and get input from each. I look at our schedule and our budget. We choose manuscripts that excite us in terms of writing style or message, or we choose writers who are passionate about their work and willing to invest their own resources.

Can you please tell us the differences between proof reading, copyediting and substantive editing? Proofreading covers spelling, punctuation, and consistency in the use of a style guide. Editing involves looking at the manuscript's structure and involving the writer in corrections. We don't differentiate editorial work, so I wouldn't have anything but the generic to offer in terms of copyediting.

How do you deal with a writer, such as myself, who until they start working with an editor doesn’t understand how editing process works and questions what your telling them? Since the writer retains the rights to their work (which makes B&H unique) we won't publish something the author does not accept. We present our recommendations, but if the writer objects we accept their objections.

Have you ever worked with an author who refused to take your advice or ignored your suggestions? If so, do continue working with the author or do you terminate the relationship? We have, as you well know! If we don't have confidence in the author's decision, we will offer to withdraw. I can think of two instances when we offered to withdraw, but neither offer was accepted.

A few years ago there was a general feeling that self-published authors would not enjoy the same success of author’s who are published traditionally and that a reputable bookstore would never line their shelves with self published books.

With self-published titles such as “50 Simple Things You Can Do Save The Earth” spending 10 weeks on #1 spot on the bestseller list, and authors like Boyd Morrison’s The Ark going from self-published to signing a two book deal contract, what do you think has changed and why do you think so many authors are choosing to self publish?

Technology has changed everything, especially in terms of affordability and reach. Publishing companies are businesses, and companies are under tremendous pressure to return value to their investors. Nothing has changed in terms of publishers' risk management. If a writer can prove they have a loyal readership, a publisher is taking a smaller risk by offering them a contract. Self-publishing allows a writer to establish their readership. It also gives them greater control and shortens the time to market. The business models are apples and oranges. Readers are much more liberal, but S-P still carries a stigma among publishers and critics simply because there is a risk that no quality control has been implemented. Regardless, it has given writers more tools with which to prove their skills.

To date, which of your authors has had the greatest success, and besides writing a really good book, what did they do in terms of marketing and promoting that lead to them accomplishing their literary dreams? Clay Moyle has had the greatest success in terms of reach. His biography of Sam Langford was adopted by the Department of Education in Nova Scotia, and Clay has done a laudable job of getting word out through radio interviews and personal appearances. Non-fiction is always easier to target market, but it's been the author's initiative that has made the difference. The book has been reviewed on several continents and continues to sell well, two years after its initial publication. We're preparing to take it into a third printing.

What is the difference between Self Publishing and Vanity Publishing firms and what advice would you give an aspiring writer to help prevent them from falling victim to literary scams and schemes? The two terms overlap now. Vanity publishing used to mean self-financed publishing. That was in the day when the tools to publish weren't in the hands of everyday people. Now, the two terms are essentially synonymous.

I advise writers to read contracts, be clear about expectations, ask questions and look for testimonials or references. There are a lot of variables in book publishing and selling. The best investments will improve the quality of the product (i.e. design and editorial work). The greatest unknowns, and therefore the greatest risks, are in promotions. If you're paying to have your book entered in a contest, research the value of an award: have past award recipients seen a boost in their sales after receiving the award?

Before investing in any aspect of publication, it's a good idea to create a spreadsheet to forecast costs and profits. Some investments will be valuable and others won't. Not all authors are after a profit. I've been impressed by the number of writers I've met who simply want to promote their stories regardless of financial return. Regardless, I recommend a spreadsheet, to help you visualize where your investment's energy is being directed.

If you think you've truly been caught in a scam (i.e. have paid for a service that never was capable of delivering what they promised) report it to law enforcement.

You’re now living sunny California on a beautiful boat, is it everything you expected how long did it take you to adjust to life on the open seas? George and I moved aboard Nereid three years ago and set sale last August, so we've just celebrated our first anniversary of nomadic life. We love living in a small space with a small footprint, but we can hardly call it life on the open seas! Common wisdom says that cruising is the art of traveling to exotic lands so you can repair your boat there. We've spent most of our time in port. Still, we love the people that this lifestyle allows us to meet, as we love the exposure to fresh air and nature. In two weeks, we will be taking the boat into Mexico; our second international excursion!

In closing is there anything you’d like to say to aspiring or even seasoned authors? First, I commend you for writing! Second, as Garrison Keillor says on The Writer's Almanac, "Do good work." Ask yourself questions about your writing. Invite input from people whose opinions you respect. Third, heed the words of the temple at Delphi and know thyself. If you're setting out to publish your work, be clear about your expectations. Do your research, and be as realistic as you can in assessing whether your plans will get you to your goals. Fourth, I hope the journey is rewarding. Be well.

http://www.bennetthastings.com/
http://www.bennetthastings.com/blog.php
(206)905-WORD
(206)905-9673

It's already fucking Tuesday?!? What the fuck!

2010-09-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Oh my God, so The Darkness arrived yesterday for me to review and send back so that we can format it and send it to the press! I'm super excited and so are a lot of other people...like the reviewers waiting for their Advance Reading Copies, the team over at Necropolis Studio Productions who will be converting The Darkness into an Audio Drama =D and of course my Mom, who calls everyday demanding her copy of the book, at least she's not bugging me everyday about have a kid =D

Let's not forget about Amber's New Friend, which needs to be done by Friday I was hoping to have The Darkness done by Friday but there's no way I will. If I push my self to read 24pages a day I won't be done until Sunday so Sunday it is. I'll be working on both Amber and Darkness at the same time...I'll be farming out my work to my minions this week because I need to get this shit done.

With that being said this weeks interview with editor Celeste from Bennett & Hastings and the DVD pick of the week will be posted next week...sorry guys. Til then.

DVD review of the week: May

2010-09-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

Plotline: May (Angela Bettis) is an awkward, lonely young woman who had a troubled childhood due to her "lazy eye" which caused her to feel abnormal and out of place. As a little girl, May's mother takes her to an eye doctor, who suggests that May wear an eye patch to correct her vision. Unfortunately, this only encourages the other children to make fun of her, most notably on their first day of school, when one of her fellow students asks her if she is a pirate. She has very few social interactions with people throughout her life with her only "true friend" being a glass-encased doll named Suzy made by her mother and given to May for her birthday. After presenting her with the gift, her mother tells her, "If you can't find a friend, make one."

Scariness Factor: I’m gonna give it about a 3 ½ or 4. What makes May scary is the things that we do to each other as people and the things we are willing to do for companionship.

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: N/A

High Points: What I really liked about this film is that it takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride. At times May is sweet and enduring, it’s funny and stressful, but for the most part it’s frightening and heart wrenching. The soundtrack rocks!

Personal Commentary: May was a movie that was recommended by one of my followers and though I posted somewhere on my blog that I was done taking follower suggestions after being traumatized from watching “The Stoning of Soraya M.” I’m really glad that May was suggested. Actually I'm glad both movies were suggested. I never heard of this movie and if I had seen the cover in a video store I wouldn’t have rented it.

Stars: 5 stars out of 5. I watched it twice.

Where I rented it: Blockbuster Online

My birthday spoils!

2010-09-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

This year for my birthday I made out like a bandit! I had this huge brouhaha planned for the big Four-oh but a client needed more attention than I budgeted for so I had to canxl my plans and I was pretty bummed out about it.

BUT

My friend Kathi threw me a tiny surprise party, her thoughtfulness felt like I had walked into a gala with 100 people yelling surprise.

It was such a big deal, let me tell Kathi and I have had epic battles. We've drew lines in the sand, ripped up peace treaties, blocked incoming phone calls (back when we had home phones), vowed never to speak to each other ever again...not ever! And unfriended each other on myspace and facebook just to turn around to meet for lunch, tell each other secrets that we will take to our deaths, stay up all night watching movies or texting each other, lend each other money, buy each other gifts, bringing hot soup and meds when one of us got sick, taking a "quick" vacation just to start fighting all over again. Kathi and I fight like sisters and she is just as important to me as one. Are ever gonna fight again...probably. But that's what sisters do.

So yesterday when I get home from work I go straight to bed, and I wake up to see a spider crawling across my other pillow straight for my face. I propelled myself from bed and slammed the back of my head into the windowsill. I stood up dizzy and when touched the back of my head my hand felt wet. There was blood everywhere, it was so much blood my bedroom looked like a crime scene. I called 911, one of the paramedics told me I didn't need stitches and an ice pack would do and the other medic saw and killed the spider.

I woke up today and I feel like I've been in a car accident. My head, shoulders and neck are on fire and I'm in a pretty bad mood. I wasn't planning on leaving the house but I have a package at my post office box and if I didn't go get it today I wouldn't be able to have it til Tuesday. So off I went...and it was a package from Star! Another gift =D

Oh my gosh where do I began with Star? My mom calls her Sky =D Man the two of us have been thru the trenches together and there are stories that I can not post here otherwise she'd kill me =D

If there ever comes time when I find self in trouble, and I mean help me bury the body,post my bail, establish a fake alibi, and lie for me on the stand kinda trouble Star is the person I would call. This woman has seen me through and pulled me out of some really dark times in my life and I'm not sure what I would have done without her during that time in my life. When she was living in Seattle there were weekends when we stayed inside all weekend complained about our weight while eating tons of junk food and watching foreign horror films.

She is also one of the people I call in the middle of the night when I am trying to work thru a scene or need to read thru the last four chapts out loud to someone so that I can find my mistakes...and sometimes there are a lot...And she doesn't even complain that she is now living 4hrs ahead of me.

I am still in a lot of pain but I'm in a better mood it was like getting a long distance hug in the mail. I think it's save to say that these women are a really big part of my life and because things have been a little hetic so I just wanted to take some time and say thanks, because Kathi and Star really made my days =D

Not too bad right, but then my kid sis flies into town and just seeing her was like Xmas but then I'm completely bummed out because I can not hang out with her because of that God damned stupid fucking spider...but then she pulls out of her carry on bag and hands me this:

Ok,so not only does it rock it has personal meaning. When I was maybe 12? No older than 15 I told my family that I wanted a mirror on the lid of my casket so that I could look at myself for all eternity. This horrified my younger siblings as they had images of decaying flesh, but now it's just the family joke.

Look at all my notebooks and pens! I think this should get me tru And They All, Artificial Light and about a 3rd of the way thru last book in this trilogy.

So The Monster was completed at around 10:30pm last night and was submitted to Phill Hill Press keep your fingers crossed. I really like the editor I worked with for The Monster his name is Peter and we stayed on the phone for a few hours going over The Monster line by line, comma by comma, spelling error by spelling error. Even though it sounds bad it was really kinda fun. He is super easy to work with and takes the time to explain why he changes the things he changes or the reason he makes certian suggestions.

Amber's New Friend should be done, let me change that needs to be done by the 7th because The Darkness edits have been estimated to be done by the 8th.

I'm signing off for now, my shoulders are killing me.

A different type of profile pic...part 2

2010-09-03T02:30:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the work of Joshua Hoffine
www.joshuahoffine.wordpress.com

When Misha 1st saw the work of Joshua Hoffine, as I was explaining what I wanted in a photo shoot, the very 1st thing she said was “We need to bring Lauren in on this project.” By Lauren she meant Lauren Hoodenpyle a wicked FX artists with a feminine touch.

Ladies and Gentlemen please turn your attention to the drop dead gorgeous, insanely talented miss Lauren Hoodenpyle…

Before we get started can you please explain to everyone the difference between Fashion Makeup, Theatrical Makeup, and Special Effects (FX Makeup)?
Fashion make up is purely beauty make up which is more everyday or make up designed to match to outfits.

Theatrical make is character makeup which is design heavy for lighting that is centered above actors head so therefore its heavy in appearance.

Fx make up is dealing with prosthetics and applications to create the illusion of abrasions and creatures.

Where or what was your training to become and makeup artist and was/is there additional training to become a FX artist? I went to make-Up Designory (http://mud.edu/School-Site-2010/) for all aspects of make up as well as creature design which is sculpture and development of body suits and face pieces.

What films of images influenced your decision to get into a career in make-up/special effects? Return of the living dead, American werewolf in London, Dead Alive, Day of the Dead, The Thing, Hell Raiser, and Clash of the Titans.

What do you love most about being a FX artist? I enjoy making monsters come to life. I especially love gore and making it realistic.

What about the horror genre interests you? I have always leaned to towards the macabre.

My fascination with the supernatural started a very young age. Looking for ghost and monsters in the closet were a passion never a fear.

I just love the unexplainable way more fun then any standard day-to-day things.
How important is FX makeup when trying to convey a visual story?In order to make people feel they are really in a story you have to create the world the story is set in. If the make up is bad or kills the illusion it takes the viewer out of the story. They become aware they are in a movie hence the story is killed.

What do you think draws people to horror movies, images and novels? People love to be scared it is the strongest emotion next to sadness and love. In a world so dry and absent of feeling. I think people miss natural emotions and movies help us remember what we can no longer see in ourselves.

What is your favorite special effect, creature, or scene from a movie?I can not say one in particular. I am fond of the details in clash of the titans for that year. Especial since most of the film are macettes. But also the transforming werewolf in American werewolf in London amazing. Return of the Living Dead’s Tar man…amazing and complete with no C.G. I love that monsters were created from scratch with out help of computers. So to name one would be a lie I love them all!

Do you think there can be an instance where there is too much gore, and if yes, do you think writers and directors go overboard intentionally? I think some movies were created for gore hounds. So when you bring a storyline to say a slasher film you kill the point. Just like bringing to much gore to a psychological thriller kills its purpose. Gore is powerful enough to stand on itself to sell a movie. How many movies have you gone to see because someone was like “they chop off her legs and feed them to a cow” blab la J point made.

As a FX artist where do you draw the line in depicting gory/unsettling images? There is no line. I will go there.

Beyond your own work (of course), who is your all-time favorite FX artist and why? Honestly to many to mention and usually FX effects are not one person there are groups of people behind the making of one monster.

You’ve had the privilege of working on several movie sets, have you ever been star-struck while doing someone’s makeup? No. I am not a big fan of actors. Though I was star struck by meeting George Romero, in fact I told him I loved him. lol

Are you working on any current projects that you would like to tell us about? I am working on a zombie video for Miramax and I own my own custom purse line.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schd'l to talk with me. Can you tell us all where we can buy your handbags and see more of your work?
Sure,you can go to my myspace page myspace.com/rnrbanshee or add me on facebook to see xexene79@aol.com

Racing to beat a deadline.

2010-08-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so besides a little tweeking The Monster is basically done.

The 1st edits for The Darkness are schl'd to be done by Sept 8th and once that's done things for The Darkness should start to pick up speed as it's all down hill after that. I so can't wait to get that 1st edit in my hands =D

Amber's New Friend needs to be done and sitting on the editors desk by Oct 15th! Fuck. I'm almost there but Amber is turning out to be longer than I intended but I'm pushing to have it done within the next 15 days and now that The Monster is done I shouldn't have a problem.

I just wanted to touch base with you guys real quick, you'll be hearing from me in the next couple of day.
Til then!

DVD Pick of the Week: Alice Sweet Alice

2010-08-27T01:56:00.000-07:00

Plotline: Alice Spages is a withdrawn 12-year-old girl who lives with her mother, Catherine, and her younger sister, Karen. Karen gets most of the attention from her mother, and Alice is often left out of the spotlight. But when Karen is found brutally murdered in a church before her first holy communion, all suspicions are turned towards Alice. But is a twelve-year-old girl really capable of such savagery? As more people begin to die at the hands of a merciless killer, Alice becomes more and more likely of a suspect.

Scariness Factor: The scariness factor in this movie is amazing. Director Alfred Sole uses lighting, music, the tension between the people in the movie, and suspense to crank up the fear. Another thing that is done really well is what your seeing is really not what’s going on.

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: N/A

High Points: Alice is, no doubt a monster, her treatment of other people is alarming. Her tantrums and outburst will have you screaming quotes from Proverbs 23:13-14 and her mother’s denial will make you dizzy…and the thing is Alice knows this about her self. From early in the movie it seems like all Alice desperately wants is to take communion, as if this will be the very thing to save her. It’s extremely painful to watch her denied communion not once but twice. And on top of all we find out that this Alice is not the villain in this movie.

Personal Commentary: Alice Sweet Alice is the kind of horror films I grew up watching, which is why I have no patience sloppy storytelling, half ass directing and remakes of movies that should have never been made in the 1st place.

This is a slasher film but unlike most of the crap that is produced today that heavily relies on blood, gore, and nudity to hide the fact that you’re watching a movie that sucks because there's no plot or storyline…Alice Sweet Alice is a well thought out theatrical movie with excellent character development and compelling plot.

Bravo placed Alice Sweet Alice 89 on their 100 scariest movie moments for this scene…

However I vehemently disagree. The most frightening scene is the last scene, once we fully understand what has happened, once we see how close Alice was to her salvation, and then left to image what the rest of her life has in store for her.

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Netflix

A different type of profile pic.

2010-08-25T02:23:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the work of Joshua Hoffine www.joshuahoffine.wordpress.com

My photographer Misha Huntting, and her BFF Lauren Hoodenpyle who is an FX artist and I are gearing up for my photoshoot that will produce profile, website and book jacket pic that are having some people raise their eyebrows, while others are losing sleep over the fact that I refuse to conform to what mainstream society deems acceptable...And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Our guest today is none other than the amazingly beautiful & extremely talented Miss Misha Huntting. Let's get to know her and see what she's got to say...
When did your start career as a photographer?I started photography school when I was 18 and have been shooting ever since.

Do you believe in the expression “A picture is worth 1,000 words” and if so why? Sure, depends on the picture and I can’t think of a lot of photographers that have a thousand words for anything at all honestly. Visual expression is very different than verbal expression but a thousand words can be said about an image and it can be interpreted many ways. I feel this expression is best reserved for really good documentary photography and maybe not so much for duckface facebook downward angle bathroom shots….which I believe is 6 words…if you count duckface and facebook as one word.

Do you think that a person must possess talent to capture emotion and expression in a picture?I think a person can get lucky, I think a person with talent sometimes can’t express it because they haven’t paid attention to the technicalities of their craft. I think a person can become too self involved or too self conscious to pick up something that is happening around them. I think there are as many answers to this question as there are people. I’ve seen pictures that a 4 year old took that were insightful and observant and I’ve seen pictures that a trained person took that are total crap. Sometimes its luck sometimes it’s more. However I would urge anyone who is considering selling their work to learn their craft extremely well and put some real work and critique into it before you skip to that point.

What is your work schedule like when you're behind the lens? Well it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. First thing I need is coffee and since I’ve had Jimmy as my assistant I don’t do quite as much running around like a chicken with my head cut off first thing which is great, then I try to get my social face on even though I might be meeting a good handful of people I don’t know at all, shake hands and say hello explain what we’ll be doing with confidence in my voice. Then I fuss with the lights endlessly sometimes moving one no more than an inch 4 or 5 different times. After which I begin to shoot and crawl around from various vantage points. Then I get happy and excited if everyone feels it went well then I go home and immediately start editing the photos.

In your opinion, what makes photography an art? It’s still a creative tool. All mediums are creative tools in my eyes for the essence of creativity. However it is that a person wants to get across their creativity is an art in my opinion.

What is it about the horror genre that interests you?Well firstly it would be conditioning. I watched a lot of scary movies as a child and read a lot of scary books and enjoyed the thrill and the rush of being frightened, a lot in the same way as people enjoy roller coasters. My mother introduced me to some ghost stories and we went on cemetery outings and then I just went on from there on my own. Second, It’s the way I deal with my own fears. Some people don’t like to confront them I’ve always been as equally fascinated with things that scare me as frightened. Thirdly, a large portion of my interest in the horror genre is very simple. It’s a matter of taste. I enjoy the visual esthetics and the possibility for creative exploration in the grotesque. It’s reality, and it’s beautiful to me and no one could convince me otherwise.

OMFG, that’s exactly how I feel! From now on when people ask me that question I’ll be quoting you!

Do you remember the first photo you took that made you go WOW!?I remember the first subject matter I photographed that gave me that wild rush after most photo shoots these days. I was in a photography class and I was 14, so I got to really start thinking like a photographer for the first time. There was this multi million dollar home in my town that was having an open house. I walked in and thought I was in heaven. It was like the Beetlejuice house only better. There was a spiral staircase with a giant mural on the ceiling between the stairs of a bumblebee and a giant painting of a young dead looking girl holding a baby with a look on her face like she wanted to kill it. It was amazing. I was thinking to myself that these were going to be the best pictures of all time! Alas, some technical know how prevented them from being that but it was a lot of fun.

Can you tell us you’re funniest, scariest, most bizarre, or most touching story from one of your photo shoots?A lot of stuff leaps to mind, mostly abandoned building adventures. Those are my favorites, but I’m going to go with this one. I decided to take some band photos in a very sketchy motel on Aurora, frequented by hookers mostly (incase someone’s not from here). I thought it would be gritty, dirty and add something interesting. I tried to book a room over the phone many times but every time I called one they hung up on me. So we just started driving up and down Aurora asking for a room. The first 3 we went to said no because there was so many of us. I saw a few all brown lobbies with a really pungent smell of 70’s and cigarettes and in one of them, was a dead mini Christmas tree from 6 months earlier and really wanted to stay there but botched it by giving away that there were so many of us for one room.

We finally got to one that let us stay there with a man dressed straight out of the beat it video standing outside in a leather coat with an elastic waistband. The only way they would let us stay there is if we pretended it was just the singer and I. First of all we went into the wrong room to discover a man with boils all over his face, a hooker on the bed and 2 people shooting up in front of the t.v…..woops. So once we finally got our room we had to sneak everyone else in one at a time when the manager wasn’t looking, which unfortunately wasn’t very often. The room was alright I suppose, there was some 4x6 frames with tacky northwest art on the wall, a fold out couch and cable!! Which I don’t even have at home! But things were slightly off, like the various punched holes in the walls and that half the curtain rod was super glued to the wall and the other half was just dangling on the other end. It was definitely what I was looking for, we had a lot of laughs at the situations expense and when we finished shooting I wanted to get out of there asap. So we snuck everyone back into the van and the singer and I played it off like we were just having a quickie in there while the toothless manager in overalls proceeded to berate the singer for the duration of his suggested love making. With classic lines such as “Boy, if I had a girl like that I’d be in there allll night, I’d be foggin up the windows” Etc. It was bizarre circumstances for our working relationship but I still couldn’t stop laughing. That’s about it.

Holy crap that’s got to be the wickest story I have ever heard, no wonder you guys couldn’t stop laughing.

What has been the most surprising or most predictable reaction to your photographs?When I got out of school I went to a few interviews and after that when someone feels uncomfortable with what I do, they always use the word “Edgy” “your work is so edgy” Gets pretty old. Although there has been a few who don’t even attempt to hide their distain and simply say “that’s scary” well spotted dumb shit.

LOL, I know right, it’s kinda the whole point.

Are you working on any projects that you would like to share with us?Of course! I am working on a tarot deck currently that is going to be a gritty, underbelly of Americana. The themes are grotesque and ironic and a lot less metaphysical than most decks. I hope to be done with it by October, in time for Halloween.

Thank you so much for your time today =D

Thank you back =D

Advance purchases of a few of Misha's Tarot Cards such as the two below are available at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MishaBellone

To view other photo's in Misha's portfolio please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/mishafoto

Ordering infomation for the clutch bag, or one like it, in the last photo will be made availabe during the interview with Lauren Hoodenpyle. Thanks for checking in, check back for the DVD pick of the week.

Caucasian with some type of African American glazing.

2010-08-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

So I was invited by a few friends to go hiking slash ghost hunting. Ok two problems with this. One I am not wandering around in the wilderness surrounded by dirt just to sleep on the ground covered in dirt with the icing on the cake being that we would be looking for ghost! Am I the only person in the world who watches horror movies? And two, I am not wandering around in the wildness surrounded by dirt just to sleep on the ground covered in dirt.

So I say, “I’m sorry but black people don’t do that.” And his reply was “Yeah but you’re not really black, you’re Caucasian with some type of African American glazing.” Yeah, yeah laugh it up. The only reason he is still breathing is because he’s one of those mixed kids his mom is black and dad white…and for some reason he says the most insane shit when it comes to race.

Oh my gosh you guys I got a surround sound system. I found it at a pawnshop when I was out on my monthly jewelry scavenger hunt and I paid less than $50.00 for it! It’s actually for a computer and when the manger was telling me the types of connectors and cables I needed to convert the SS from computer use to TV use he said “I guess if your just looking for something that will do for now this will be ok.”

So I get it home hook it up and its so loud it sounds like a fucking IMAX theater in my house! So I’m not really sure what he meant by it will do for now. I’m not kidding when I say it’s loud; you can feel the bass in your chest. I turned it all the way down to the line nest to the “off” line and its still loud enough to be heard from outside. Great that gives my neighbor yet something else to complain about =/ Movie Night will never be the same!

Check it out:

So here is the little sub woofer with the power button on top. It's cute isn't it =D

Here is the little speaker on the right. Look how little it is!

And look at the one hiding under the plant.

I can't remember what life was like before Surround Sound! Stay tuned for our DVD pick of the week!

The Girl in the Cloak by Molly V.

2010-08-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

So I was hired by an author to offer ghostwriting and story structure services, and at 11years old she is my youngest client so far. When she 1st started talking about the idea my very 1st thought was no.

Hold on…let me explain.

The lifestyle I enjoy does not present opportunities for me to interact with children on a consistent basis. The 1st half of my adult life was spent employed and jet setting as a sailor and I cuss like one. Because of me one of her very 1st sentences was “fucking blanket.” And trust me when I tell you this, her father was not at all pleased. Let’s not forget, as all of you are well aware, the fact I am entertained by the unsettling and the macabre and that’s the way I express my self creatively. So that’s why I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t the right person for her.

But as I listened to her plot line I realized three things that changed my mind. First off I can not tell you how incredibly awesome it feels to have someone completely trust you enough to completely hand over their work, and that fact alone changed my mind.

The 2nd thing is if I can pull this off, and by that I mean, taking her ideas and writing a story that is age appropriate in content, language, and dialog and making this story exactly how she images it, that was catapult my skills as a writer.

And the 3rd is developing better people skills. The clients who hire me thru Seattle Crystal Concierge don’t really care how I get the things they want done, as long as I get them done. So basically I’m working the way that I want and doing the things that best for me. When I hire someone to do a job for me whether it be an employee, intern, outside vendor or contractor I expect for things I want done to be done without question, and when it comes to my writing you can times that expectation by infinity. So with this new client I now have to wear that shoe on the other foot.

Because there is no way on God’s green earth that I will be able to speak to her the way I’ve been known to speak to adults without having her mother put a gun to my head and pulling the trigger, I’m kind of looking forward to this project.

I need to be able to interact with children, understand them at their level, and be aware of their presence so that my friends don’t cringe every time I start talking. I need to be able to knock it down a notch and write a creepy little story that the whole family can enjoy, I mean for the love of God, The Skeleton Key with Kate Hudson is rated PG-13. The more I think about it the more and more I’m glad that I said yes!

She has given me permission to post her both her story and what I’ve added to it on my blog, and hopefully she’ll post it on hers as well. With out further a due let me present to you the 1st section of Molly V's: The Girl in the Cloak

Molly's Raw Talent:

“I was a happy little girl...”Rain started to say. “I was lost in a forest fire and my parents did not send a rescue search party for me”She looked up at the night sky.then she closed her eyes.”then when they found me,the put me with new parents,witch made me stressed.then when i was 17,i left.”She paused and then continued to speak."but when I had my real dad, he gave me a black cloak and magic buttons.I thought he was joking...”she opened her eyes and stared down at the cloaks button."my new mom said to through it away,but I said a plain “No”.she started to yell at me.”She sighed.”then one night I left with my white t-shirt,torn jeans,converse and my cloak.then thats when I turned evil.”she opened her mouth and felt her sharp fang.

Molly's Cloak with my devilish details:

Rain was walking through the dark quiet forest; she took long deep breaths to draw in the fresh air of the night.

Rain had been a happy girl and she smiled to herself when her fingers ran across one of the buttons on the cloak her father had given her. When he gave her black cloak he mischievously told her that the buttons were magic and then they both started laughing because Rain mistakenly thought her dad was joking.

A tear left her eye as she looked up at the night sky and then closed her eyes. When Rain had been a young girl she and her family were camping in this forest. They had pitched their tent and gone to bed. But it wasn’t the sun that woke them up, it was the noise of stampeding animals. When they opened the tent to see what was going on they saw deer, a huge black bear and four mountain lions all running together.

Rain thought that it was very scary for animals running next to the ones that they would normally hunt, when she turned to see why all the animals were running together and her answer came before she could ask it. The forest was on fire.

In the fear and confusion for survival Rain and her parent got separated. When she was running for her life Rain tripped and fell into a deep muddy ditch. She hit her head and passed out. Because everything around the trench Rain had fallen into was wet, it saved her from the fire.

Rain was awakened by the panic shouts in her ear and light slaps on her face of a firefighter, and it wasn’t until she was in the hospital that she learned her parents had perished. Rain enjoyed walking alone in the woods because it gave her time to think but really it was because this was the last place that she had been with her family.

Rain’s extraordinary beauty was a gift from her parent, but since their death it had become Rain’s curse. Her foster mother was so mean to her that Rain was willing to bet that Cinderella lived a better life. Her foster mother was always telling Rain how ugly she was, fed her the smallest meals, and forced her to sit at the table and watch her real children eat large meals and delicious looking deserts that made her mouth water and her stomach growl.

One night of her 17th birthday her little foster brother opened the closet door to where Rain was force to sleep. He looked very sad and scared at the same time. Tucked secretly away in his pajama bottoms was a half eaten fried chicken breast and a piece of smushed chocolate cake. Way more food than she had been given for dinner.

Both children started to cry and through her tears Rain ate the chicken so fast she almost chocked. Rain had only taken two bites of the sweet cake when the wicked evil witch queen snatched open the door. She was so mad that she slapped her real son in the face really hard two times in a row. Then she grabbed Rain by the hair and dragged her down the stairs and threw her outside into the rainy night. Rain was only wearing a torn pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She ran across the back yard and got inside the doghouse to keep dry.

One of the girls threw Rain’s black high-top Converse out of her bedroom window down to her, when she left the cover of the horrible smelling doghouse to get the shoes the next thing the girl had thrown out of the window made Rain stand still, barefoot and breathless in the freezing rain. It was her black cloak.

From the very beginning the wicked evil witch queen had tried to steel and destroy Rain’s cloak, and Rain had not seen it for years, so to see it floating down to the ground like snow from heaven meant that one of the girls had hidden it away and kept it safe. This made Rain both very grateful and very sad at the same time.

She retrieved her shoes and cloak and put them on, she turned to look into the bedroom window and knew all three of her foster sisters and brother was watching her from the dark. She kissed her hand and threw the kiss towards the window, repeated the act with her other hand, then she put her hands flat together like she was praying and took a bow of thanks.

She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and turned and walked away. Her foster siblings knew that they would never see Rain again and as she walked through the gate to promised safety she could hear them cry.

As Rain walked away from her little private Hell on earth she smiled revealing for the 1st time since her parents death her long sharp fangs, and that was the night Rain decided to use her father’s gift of magic for evil.
***

She loves it so far and approved of almost everything, I have to remove the word Hell. Doh! You can take the girl out of the sea...

Please check back every Monday as the approved sections will be update and posted =D

At all cost stay true to yourself, and your vision

2010-08-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

So we’re back on track with The Darkness. One of the 1st things that was said to me at the very beginning of this process was how writing the story is the easy part, now the hard part begins. I cannot tell you how painfully true that is.

Once your story begins the transformation from story to book you have a ton of other crafts involved to make that book come true which means there are a lot of other creative forces involved.

The last two months has been extremely stressful because someone else’s vision started to creep through and it's a very different vision than mine. Though I have been writing for years this is 1st book and I am very excited and humbled to be here and I was not prepared for this process.

So when suggestions and ideas were made that I wasn’t 100 and 10% supportive of, I tried to be accommodating. Before I knew it these other creative forces started to eclipse mine and I was losing the control over what I wanted The Darkness to look and read like. This person has been in the industry for decades and was only offering different points of views and visions. However knowing that did not prevent it from feeling like a hostile takeover.

Because I was so afraid of hurting someone’s feelings I did not say anything and I was miserable, I was bitching to my friends, my sister lost patience with me and basically told me to stop calling her to whine and deal with it and I had a headache for almost a week straight.

Everyone knows that I’m Stephen King’s # 1 fan, and that my admiration for Dean Koontz boarders on stalker status and because the late Octavia E. Butler lived in the same state as I do…well those records have been sealed. There are books written by them that I’ve read and didn’t like, and a few I didn’t finish and there is no way in hell that I can read more than about 6 pages of Clive Barker’s work. But do you think they give a rats ass about what I think, I mean who the hell I am?

My point is no matter what you need to fight for your voice and your story once you get to this process because if you don’t you’ll release a book you’re less than happy with. The author’s mentioned above took and still receive tons of criticism and bad reviews…but they wrote stories that are true to their vision and idea’s, and where are they now? Living in gated communities protected from stalker fans like me.

I spent almost six days trying to find a way to explain to the powers that be that our creative visions are different and don’t fit well together because I wanted to be careful. I didn’t want to express my concerns the way I did when I was venting to friends or be as frustrated as I was right before when my sister hung up on me.

So after rewriting and rewriting my concerns, explaining how I felt and requesting that my vision...mine, be realized I sent the email.

I tried; I really did do the best that I could not to step on toes or hurt anyone's feelings. I spent six and a half years sailing with the 7th fleet along side some of the meanest men in America and I have learned how to use my words as weapons, so I really did try not to be mean or hurtful so that no one would be upset and that my point was made and heard …but it happened anyway.

My friend told me that “Telling someone you're not 100% happy with their work or with your working relationship is never easy and it’s expected that someone’s feeling will be hurt. You just say what you have to say to get your story written and published the way you envision it and everyone will be Happy in the end.”

It was extremely hard to send that email, I’m not happy that I made someone feel bad, but it needed to happen so that I could stay true to family, my friends, myself and to The Darkness, so I had to step up to the plate and say something and as my fellow writer or artist I hope you do too and because that’s my wish for you, in closing I would like to quote my friend once more because it just doesn’t apply to me.

It's YOUR Story. You’re a GREAT Writer. Have Faith in that.

Moive Night with Crystal

2010-07-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hellooo Peoples!

So last night I hosted my 1st movie night with friends there were so many men in my house I thought I had died and gone to Heaven...or maybe found a secret section of Hell reserved for only for the people who are really good when there being really bad =D I'm not sure what happened to all my double X chromosome friends who RSVP'd and didn't show up but for those who did...you rock!

We watched Eden Lake which was reviewed last week, and basically, like I said...that movie Rocks! Smoking hot Sami Chohfi, lead singer for the Blue Helix showed up with horror movie buff, Curt MacCormack the bands drummer(who fucking rocks btw)and he didn't even see the ending coming!

With most of my client's summering in Europe, Seattle Crystal Concierge being nearly self sufficient, the reworking of The Darkness, writing the sequel, re-reading and picking my favorite short stories and writing new ones for...And They All Lived Happily Ever After, and of course entering tons of writing contest I can spend days and days happily locked inside my home playing music loud enough to block out the summer sounds of birds signing, children playing, dogs backing and my Psycho Suzie neighbor up staying up for days and days at a time just writing and writing.

But for some reason this horrifies and bewilders the newest members of my circle of friends..my family and friends who know how I am when I'm writing are use to it and pretty much wait for me to emerge from my writing hovel, but these newbies call me constantly show up at my house unannounced to make sure "I'm ok" (grrrrrrr)

So to appease my friends who have the ability to show up at my door anytime they want to I decided to host a movie nite once a month but judging those who were in attendance verse those who were invited I might have to amend my original once a month hang out with friends nite to twice a month.

Because the movies I enjoy are so brutal in nature I think I'll do movie night for the guys and maybe a spa nite for the girls HUGE emphasis on spa nite. I had sooo much fun last night surrounded by too much food, super chill people and watching a movie with such a unhappy ending that I might have to wait awhile for spa nite...if it ain't broke don't fix it, right?

Til next time guys!

DVD Pick of the week: Eden Lake

2010-07-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Eden Lake

Plotline: When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing quickly becomes a bloody battle for survival.

Scariness Factor: Is cranked way up! This is got to be one of the disturbing & frightening movies I have recently seen because the monsters in this movie are children and the things they’re doing is unbelievable.

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: None

High Points: What I liked the most about Eden Lake is that, not your average run-of-the-mill city slickers lost in the woods movies, is that most of Eden is shot during the day. The breath taking beautify of the wilderness offers a stark contracts to these children’s wild and brutal behavior. Another thing that director James Watkins does really well is point out how much Janie (our leading lady) loves kids and when she has to defend herself from them, even though she doesn’t have a choice, it doesn’t sit well with her. One of the closing lines in Eden Lakes is “but they’re just children.” Which they are and that’s what makes Eden Lake all the more chilling.

Stars: 5 Stars

Where I rented it: Blockbuster

My world from the view from the tip of my pen...

2010-07-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

So for the most part I have spent every last ounce of my free time, of what has been a gorgeous summer so far, indoors writing...and I really wouldn't have it any other way. I've just finished a new short story for my anthology "...And they all lived Happily Ever After" and am working on another one.

The one I've finished is called "The Monster" and I'm not sure if I like they way it ended so I'm going to read it again next week and see if there is anyway I can make it stronger. The one I am working on is called "Amber's New Friend" and I have having a fucking blast with that one! I am super excited about the shorts that will make up "...And they all."

Things with Artificial Light are coming along really well I'm really having a good time with Artificial and can't wait to see how it turns out. Things are kinda of slow with the reworking of The Darkness but honestly I wish things were moving much faster than they are...oh well there's not too much I can do about it so I'm going to try not to drive myself insane. I'll be posting the DVD pick of the week tomorrow and it's one of the most fucked up movies I've seen to date, so don't forget to check back in for the review.

DVD Pick of the Week: House of the Devil

2010-07-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

House of the Devil
Winner of the 2009 “Best Feature Film” for the Birmingham Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, winner of the 2009 “Festival Trophy” award for Screamfest and winner of the 2010 “Producers Award” Independent Spirit Award.

Plotline: In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret; they plan to use her in a satanic ritual.

Scariness Factor: Is off the scale! It’s extremely creepy and suspenseful in the way of John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween, the 1st Friday the 13th on Crystal Lake, and Fred Walton’s 1979 When a Stranger Calls! There are some really good “jump” scares and if you’re like me, you’ll be screaming warnings to the babysitter not to go in that damn attic!

Gross-Out Factor: There is only one part in House of the Devil that is kinda gross, it’s towards the end of the movie during the ritual.

Complaints: N/A

High Points: The House of the Devil was filmed in 2009, but watching it you’ll swear it’s an 80’s horror film. To help with the illusion of time travel there are a couple of actor’s that starred in older horror films that we all grew up watching and loved.

Overall: There is a reason why House of the Devil is an award winner, this is a scary film with a well thought out plot and the fact that the film makers takes us back in time a full decade, with feathered hair, high waste jeans, smoking inside restaurants and a tape player walk-man to do so is flawless.

Stars: 5 Stars!

Where I rented it: Blockbuster

The reason I hate the summer!

2010-07-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

So I get up this morning super excited because I'm going to spend my 2nd day at a street fair because I had soooo much fun the day before. I open my front door to find I've been trapped inside by a huge spider wed and a giant spider! I slammed the door and resisting the urge to Dial 911 I started flipping thru my phone to see who can rescue me. I end up running to my bedroom window and start screaming for help. My self proclaimed "red-neck" neighbor jumps over my fence shotgun in hand and runs to the window to see who he can shoot.

Thru my hysterical tears I tell him about the spider that's trying to break in to my house and kill me...and to his credit he kills the spider opens the door and pours me a glass of water and says, "Yeah he was pretty big but I kilt it so your ok now." And he kept patting on the back and telling me I was ok now "cuz its dead." And he didn't even laugh at me.

He stays with me until I leave the house and even walked me to my car and tells me if I need anything he's just next door, I don't even want to know what my other neighbors thought at the site of the two of us. So I spend the day outside, eating too much junk and spending too much money and made it home without incident.

About an hour ago I get out of the shower and on the wall above my couch is another spider bigger than before. So I throw on a coat over my towel and run my naked ass next door, He gives me a tee shirt big enough to cover everything and comes over to my house to take care of the other spider...who by this time moved from the spot on the wall, so he had to look for it and thank God he found it and destroyed it. He shrugged his shoulders and offered..."well everyone is afraid of something." As I started to cry. He said "You know where to find me" as he left and said he would be back tomorrow to spray around my house for bugs.

Thank God because its the bugs that I hate most about summer.

DVD Pick of the Week:If you call in the next 15 minutes we’ll even throw in…

2010-07-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

As I said when I reviewed a movie called “I Sell the Dead” I do not like my horror & comedy blended together. With that being said David Bruckner’s, Jacob Gentry and Dan Bush’s 2007 The Signal is a phenomenal movie.

What sold me is The Signal is told is within three genres, which they brake-up into “Transmissions” and the end result is three little movies that when put together tell a whole viciously brutal story.

The 1st part of Signal is straight up Horror and it’s told in Horror’s perfect form. The opening scene looks a 70’s horror movie, and just as your about to look at the cover of the DVD to make sure you’ve got the right movie we find out it’s a movie there’re watching because all of a sudden the TV loses its signal.

We’re introduced to Maya & Ben two people who are clearly in love…but we find out the woman is married and Ben is not her husband. After realizing the time Maya tries to call her husband but her phone is dead and so is Ben’s house phone, so she flees from his apartment to race home. On her way she notices that things are “off” somehow and when she gets home we see why she’s having an affair. Her husband Lewis is large, brooding, and has a short temper and it’s clear she is afraid of him. It’s a slow and intense build-up before we’re thrown into full-blown madness and learn the signal on the TV is a transmission and it’s being broadcast over every single TV, radio station, and phone. And it’s turning men into monsters.

The 2nd part of Signal is comedy. It’s so over the top, dark and vulgar it’s disturbing, and it’s also the most violent and gory part of this film. You guys all know that I am not a big fan of gore for gore’s sake but by offsetting the outrageous satire with the excessive violence is what sold me. And sold me in a big way.

The last part of Signal threw me for a loop. It’s scary, suspenseful, and somehow romantic. Actually The Signal’s under current is a love story, the whole movie revolves around Maya and the two men who love her. Her husband’s love has turned dark, obsessive, and dangerous while her lover Ben’s love is pure, patient and romantic. All throughout Signal we watch Maya and Ben have flash backs of each other and we follow their horrific journey as they to try and find each other in a horrific world that has gone utterly mad.

This movie really worked for me. I really like the way Signal break between genres to let you know there is going to be a change of pace so I am giving it 5 Stars

But wait there’s more….

So remember I told you that the opening scene looks like a 70’s horror movie? Well it is…sort of. The movie used in the opening of Signal is a little film called “The Hap Hapgood Story” And it’s featured in the DVD extra’s. It a short film only 10 minutes long but is one of the most frightening movies I have seen in a long time.

Hapgood pays homage to the horror movies of the 70’s it’s the kind of horror I grew up with and it’s the type of horror that I prefer.

“The Hap Hapgood Story” scared me more than The Signal so it also gets 5 Stars

That’s a 40-dollar value!

There are three other short films included on the DVD they are all shorter versions and different perspectives of the feature film and each is called Transmissions. Transmission 14: Technical Difficulties, Transmission 23: The Return and Transmission 37: Crosstown Traffic. My favorite of the three is Transmission 23: The Return but all of them are pretty brutal.

5 Stars for Transmission 23: The Return and 3 ½ Stars for Transmissions 14 & 34

I cried for 15 min.

2010-07-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

A Conversation with a Fellow Blogger.

2010-06-28T02:15:00.000-07:00

Hello readers, as I’m sure some of you have seen I have a page inviting other bloggers, writers, producers or anyone who has something to say or promote to be a guest on my blog.

Today we’re going to spend some time talking to my dear friend Amani Darby. She is my principle partner in crime, my 1st editor, & my literary rival. We’ve known each other for over 10 years and her opinion where my writing is concerned is paramount. I love her writing and she has agreed to let me post a piece of her work here and I get to pick the story!

So let’s hear what Amani’s got to say…

What do you think makes a good story?

I think a good story is something that pulls you out of the here and now and suspends you in someone else reality and a great story makes you want to say in that reality.

How much reality goes into your characters, are they your alter ego’s, based on people you know or completely made up?

I think they are little of both of being made up and based on other people. Because of the way that I write they come to me; a situation comes to me or a dialog comes to me, and as I flush the person out memories of how someone responded to a situation or I how responded to a situation in my life that’s what helps bldg the person. It’s like being born, you’re not a complete person at anytime in your life, and I think that when I write neither are the people I write about.

What type of genre do you write in and why?

I have no fucking clue!

Do you work from an outline, or do you just start writing and see where you end up?

I just start writing usually from a dream. That kinda makes me feel asinine…its really hard to answer these types of questions with out saying you don’t write from an outline, I think what I like most about the way I write its visceral, it’s vivid because my ideas do come from a dreams.

Where do you as an author draw the line on gory descriptions and/or erotic content?

I don’t think I draw a line although I have noticed that our writing assignment, that you didn’t do by the way, grab # 1 was my 1st story that had real cussing in it, even my son/editor asked me why is she was talking like that. I think there’s cussing in that piece because it’s so internal.

Besides writing you’re also an editor, which do you enjoy more writing or editing and why?

I think they are completely two different beast and I cannot say that I enjoy one more than the other. It’s like asking which of your kids is your favorite and that’s impossible to answer because your kids are little pieces of you.

Despite the fact that I have read your short stories and poetry you insist that you are not a writer…why do you say that?

I hate you for this question. I think I feel that way because everything thing you’ve read of mine and out of every piece of my work we’ve talked about there are only two of them that are finished and one is a poem…I think I am still in the birthing process.

In closing is there anything else you would like my visitors to know?

Understand that my piece are always in process and my reality is just that my reality, if that offends you please seek professional help.

As promised I'm now going to post one of my favorite pieces from Amani, it's a newer one and it was assigned to us through our writing group. It doesn't have a title yet, she just posted it under the name of the assignment...it's called Grab Bag # 2. It was a 15 minute timed drill, the 1st sentence had to be There was no time for sleep now.... and the story had to use the words vision, memory, gifts, and beckoning.

The following story and others from Amani can be found on her blog @

http://amanidarby.blogspot.com/
**********************************************************
There was no time for sleep now that the ritual place and time had been decided. Now we must prepare since the beginning of memory for the tribe this ritual had been performed by the High Priestess and her children but with the flash flood only two months ago our new High Priestess would have to have a helper that was me.

I had worked for the last Priestess and her family and since I had not been in her house that night I was assigned to help the new Priestess. What no one in the tribe was aware of was that I was a Priestess in my own right a Priestess of Marahat I had communed with Marahat and asked for the chance to be the new Priestess and this was the village’s interpretation of that wish.

My visions were strong and I knew that Mallaleha would soon be just another gift for the Gods. As the sun rose on the western horizon I saw the line of villagers bearing gifts for the ritual in two days time. Mallaleha appeared in the doorway beckoning me inside the temple to begin the preparations. I felt a small twinge of guilt as I knew in two days time she would cease to exist and then my family line would hold the most powerful spot in the village.

My children hidden in the swamps and high lands could come down and enjoy life as I wrote and dictated the rituals and spirituality of the tribe. What power what justice oh what vengeance would I hold in the palm of my deformed hand. What no one seemed to understand was that our deformity is what caused us to see the visions of the gods and was the only reason one of us always served the High Priestess without us she would be a shame a lie.

Now it was time for one of us to hold the position. It was our birthright, our gift to make up for the imperfection the Gods had given us and one I was fully prepared to kill for.

DVD Pick of the Week…a month in review.

2010-06-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

Made in Hong Kong.

Believe it or not my best friend Star and I spent our beautiful sunny Seattle days last year indoors watching movies imported from Asia. We watched “Old Boy” 5 Stars, “Cello” 5 Stars, “No Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” 5 Stars, “Time” 5 Stars, “A Tale of Two Sisters” 5 Stars…way too many to list here and by far our favorite was a movie called “The Curse of the Golden Flower” 5 Stars.

We were dazzled by the sheer beauty of the film and scandalized by it’s deep and complex plot. We both thought that this would be the be all end all of modern Chinese cinema, but then comes along a little movie called “The Legend of the Black Scorpion” This 2006 Huayi Brothers rendition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was nominated for seven, count 'em seven Hong Hong Film Awards and there are no words that I can think of to describe its perfection.
5 Stars

Seen it all before.

I can handle indie films with poor lighting and strange “artistic” camera angles. I don’t need an all-star cast, outstanding special effect, or a million dollar production movie to be entertained.

However if I have to watch one more zombie movie with bad acting, a non-existing plot line, and a predictable ending I am going to shoot someone in the face.

Wolf Wolff’s 2008 Virus Undead (The Beast Within) not only gets Zero Stars but two thumbs down as well.

I’m not a fan of whodunits but this little gem made a lair outta me!

M. Brian King’s 2009 Night Train, not to be confused with Clive Barker’s 2009 The Midnight Meat Train (we’ll talk about that later) is super fun to watch because your not sure which genre your watching and your not even sure what year it is. A man boards a train, and it's apparent that his sick because he’s popping pills like its M&M’s, and another passenger gives him alcohol, and dun dun dun! He dies.

The man who gave him vodka opens the box the dead man is holding and sees diamonds inside. He convinces the other passenger in the car and the conductor to throw the body out of the train so they can keep & split the jewels. We soon find out that every person on that train and even the little Pomeranian have something to do with that damn box. We spend the next very stressful 91 minutes trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and what the hell is inside that box!

5 Stars.

No not the one from the Twilight saga…the other one.
In 2004 Mark Edward Robison released a film called Breaking Dawn. We are introduced to a young medical student who is assigned to psychiatric patient Don Wake as her final exam. At 1st she cannot get through to her patient because he would not speak to her, but when he finally starts talking her tells her about a man named Malachi who is watching them and warns her not to drink the coffee.

She dismisses his claims as delusions until she becomes aware of a man following her, complete strangers start to come up to her to warn her about Malachi, and then she shares his paranoia and stops drinking the coffee. Half way through the movie you can kinda see the ending coming but all and all it’s a decent little indie film that’s worth watching.

3 ½ Stars out of 5

Seattle Crypticon 2010

2010-06-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hello you guys =D Well as you know I spent my Seattle weekend at Crypticon. I met other authors, film producers, star-gazed at celebrities, ran from zombies bought some jewelry, ate too much, saw a couple of screenings for movies and had a rip-roaring good time. Instead of posting a zillion pix, I've compiled my favorites and made a little video...

I would have had a gazillion more kick ass pix but my stupid battery died...grrr...enjoy!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Taking time to give back…

2010-06-14T00:02:00.001-07:00

To those of you who know me personally, know I think nothing when it comes to giving back to my community.

To those of you who do not know me, I own and operate a company called Seattle Crystal Concierge and thru my company I donate heavily to The Girl Scouts, The Susan G. Komen for the cure, Girls Inc, UNIFEM, local domestic violence shelters in the Seattle area and Operation Homefront.

I just got home and recv’d an email from a client telling me about an organization called “Girls Right Now” she was explaining in her email that because I tend to help organizations geared towards girls and women thru Seattle Crystal Concierge that now I might be able help girls as a writer.

This is kinda big deal. From the very beginning I’ve always, always, always written about and will continue to write within the horror and sci-fi genres. When I was just a little girl everything I read was written by a white male, before I started my business and I was working on ships and as a diesel mechanic I was surrounded by white males…I really didn’t know anything else.

The book that had the most profound effect on me was a little book called Fledgling written by an author you may have heard of named Octavia E. Butler and I didn’t read that book until I was in my late 20’s. It was the 1st time I’d ever read a story where the main character looked like me, who talked like me and the author looked like me and the 1st female writer that wrote like me. (Calm down, my delusions of grandeur is not so far off the Richter scale that I believe that I’m as a phenomenal writer as Octavia Butler. My point is we both write in the same genre)

Before I read Fledgling I was always editing The Darkness to what I thought would be a good fit for “the mainstream readership” i.e. white male readership, but when I was finished I found other writers like me authors like Tananarive Due, L.A. Banks, and and then I found a copy of Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora on a Seattle Public Metro Bus and nearly lost my mind…it was like finding the Holy Grail!

I undid the edits I had made. It was no secret that both my main characters in The Darkness are women…what I was editing was that both of them are black. I wrote The Dakness they way I wanted to with characters who look like me...and now I'm being published.

Do I still read books from white males...Heck yeah I do! Stephen King, and Dean Koontz are still the love of my reading life, but I have to admit I've been flirting with the books by Scott Sigler and one way or another I'm getting Patricia Briggs' autograph...but being true to myself and my writing was the best thing I've ever done.

I’m going to do what ever I can to support and bring awareness to Girls Wright Now, I have a photo shoot and an interview that will be taped schl’d for next month, and I’ll be wearing a Girls Write Now t-shirt for both events, there is a link to their site from my blog…and I’ll be donating $1.00 from my 1st 100 book sales to Girls Write Now.

Plumes of Arrogance.

2010-06-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

Before I even knew that The Darkness would be published I always told my family and friends that if I ever did become published that would be getting a tattoo of an ink bottle and quill on the inside of my right forearm because I am right handed.

Over the years I have been collecting pix of feather quills, flipping through tattoo magazines for other ink and quill tattoo’s and putting together a general idea of what I wanted my tattoo to look like…and for the most part it was going to look like the everyday glamorous quill’s like the one on the right hand side of this blog under “tools of the trade”

Though I didn’t know it at the time, my idea’s of my feather quill’s began to change when I wrote and posted a piece entitled “Colors part 2” (you can find it under the January archive) along with a comment by an anonymous poster, which lead me to put up the picture of the peacock in dedication to the hateful comments that anonymous left.

So when the time came around to get the tattoo to commemorate my first book and even though the feather of geese are traditionally used for the ink and quill I began to look at a different bird for the plumes of my pen…

Like I said, keep an eye on me.

My work had been reviewed and judged and...

2010-06-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

The Ruins has earned a runner up placement in Crypticon Seattle's 2010 writing contest!

Whoo Hoo!

I feel really good about this placement because this is what I wanted. I'm not going to lie to you and say I didn't want to win, of course I did, that's why people enter contest in the 1st place, but the recognition of a placement feels just as good.

Here is The Ruins for you to enjoyment. The Ruins will also be included in my short story collect "...And They All Lived Happily Ever After."

I

It sounded like a cannon. Not like the whisper of 16th century artillery, its ear-piercing scream was like the roar of the Mark 7 16inch guns blasted from the bowels of an Iowan class battleship. The recoil from the .50 caliber was so powerful that the 2nd shot propelled me a full foot and a half, and I hit so hard against the wall I was afraid I was going to black out. I remained standing and snarled victoriously at my archenemy lying at my feet.

I saw my husband but couldn’t hear him, as I was still temporarily deaf. He quickly glanced me over from head to foot, at the gun in my hand and then at the floor. He looked at me slowly this time checking to see if I had been hurt. I watched him halt the men from entering into our bath suite, his guards were only a fraction of a second slower than my husband in coming to my aid. He assured them that everything was ok before he closed the door. The sound was coming back to my ears, but for now all I could hear was ringing.

“I’m tired of these wild accusations.” I screamed that declaration I know that I did because I felt it in my chest but my hearing still betrayed me. Fahyim looked down at the scale, which was now in a thousand smoldering pieces and smiled.

“That brutal instrument is the creation of the Devil.” I heard myself that time but I sounded far away.

Nothing said I love you more than the way my husband looked at me now. He told me all the time in all seven languages that he spoke how much he loved me, but it was this look that hammered it home.

I meet him in France. On our 1st date he flew me to have lunch in a city with a stunning view of the Arabian Sea, he proposed in Germany and now we spent six months living in the US and six months in Iran. I married into a very affluent and powerful family; in antiquity his would have been a royal one.

I had been engaged in trench warfare with that damn scale since the birth of our twins two years ago and I was losing ground with frightening speed. His smile melted me. He glided across the mosaic tiles with the grace of a dancer and the way he was looking at me then let me know he didn’t mind the extra.

We fell asleep on the bathroom floor but I woke up in bed. I was hot and sticky and wishing I was still on the cool bathroom floor. Spending the summer months in Iran was like vacationing in the fourth level of Hell. It was only 11 in the morning and already 93 degrees.

I was only out of the shower for five minutes before I started sweating again. I followed my children’s laughter into the kitchen. Sameer and Sameera where playing and chasing their cousins who were 4 and 6 around and the nanny and the poor girl was near

tears. They we’re all going to the zoo today and in their excitement lunch was all but ignored.

After getting the children fed and out the door I went to check on the renovations. The East wing of our palace-sized home had been unused for almost 30 years and the space I was given to remodel was a 27,000 square foot space with a tile and glass dome top – I was having it turned into my own private indoor rain forest.

The foundation and been dug up to accommodate my heated pool that snaked around my oasis like the Amazon River. My husband imported fragrant tress from Asia and Africa that were now tall enough to filter the sun. Tropical birds and butterflies were brought from Malaysia and Peru and last week I saw a python.

The groundskeeper, who was hired to stay on top of the butterfly and frog population, assured me that he was harmless and explained that he was imported to feed on the frogs and that he shouldn’t grow larger than 12 feet or so.

Last year I saw in the distance what I believed was a leopard cub. It scared the shit out of me and I fled into the arms of Fayhim, who was just as startled as I was by the sighting. Later that day we found out that the jungle cat was just an Ashera, a large exotic house cat that had cost $20,000.00 courtesy of the emissary of evil – my mother-in-law.

Both cats had been declawed for my safety, but that idea was not my mother-in-law’s favorite.

I was in my 7th year of remodeling and “The Garden” was becoming one of my favorite places in the world to visit. No matter how many times a day I came down here I always heard and saw something different. Small rodents and lizards (some large one’s too) had been imported so the cats would have something to hunt and a new species of bird was discovered in my forest.

The team of veterinarians we hired who specialized in tropical animals was growing concerned over the results of recent blood test due to the fact that the animals were drinking what was essentially swimming pool water. We hired water chemists who assured us that he could control the bacteria levels while reducing the amount of chemicals that were use to keep my river clean.

My current project besides converting my pool into a quasi-fresh drinking water source while keeping it save for my children and I to swim in was incorporating two “natural” springs. One pool was to resemble the fresh water of a river and the other, the Jacuzzi, would be the “hot” spring.

I could hear the call of the birds but I couldn’t see them from the tops of their canopy. I felt like I was being stalked and I probably was...fucking cats.

I was inspecting the site where the fresh water pool was to be installed when my foot was tangled in a thick vine. I tried to yank free but I fell and as I was lying there trying to catch my breath, I felt the ground beneath me shift. I tried to get up but before I could I fell again, this time 30 feet beneath the foundation of my home.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious; when I woke up I realized that my left leg, right wrist, my jaw and maybe a rib or two had been broken. As I lay looking up at the shaft of light, jagged floor boards and pebbles of dirt that slid down the hole I left I did the best I could to stay calm and breath.

The worst-case scenario would be that I would spend the night here and would be found by the groundskeeper when he did his morning rounds. I drifted in and out of sleep, when I woke up again it was still daylight. My jaw didn’t hurt as bad and neither did my ribs. I was able to drag myself up to a sitting position and get a better look at the cavernous void that I had fallen into.

If I had of landed just a foot to the left I would have kept falling. I gingerly peeked over the cliff that I was perched on and saw nothing but blackness. There was a cool upward draft of air and I could hear running water. There was a wall thrusting itself upward from the abyss and the pillars that crowned it stopped just a few feet from the foundation of my home. The temple wall was constructed of large stones that had been cut and placed on top of each other and I could see images carved within the wall.

As I studied the strange symbols that had been chiseled in the rock I wondered what message the ancient people who worshiped here were trying to convey when I saw an image that made my blood freeze in my veins. Shaped within this stone that had been underground for God only knows how long were the faces of my children. I cried out and closed my eyes, opening them slowly to see if what I saw would still be there. It was my two children.

The light pouring in from above flickered and when I looked up I saw a silhouette of a head, and then another, and another. The reflection in their eyes and four legs that helped their descent served to alert me that I was now prey. I took advantage of their slow and cautious decline and stood up. I used the pain that shot through my body like a lighting bolt as fuel and dragged myself away from the light. It took only 25 steps to plunge me into complete blackness and in 15 more I fell the distance that I missed the 1st time.

II

Droplets of water woke me up and as I opened my eyes, I could see my surroundings. Instead of being enclosed in darkness I was bathed in muted shades of grayness and I prayed that this source of light meant that there was another way out.

I sat up gingerly and noticed that I had fallen down a flight of stairs. The floor I was sitting on was inlayed with rows of mosaic stone rugs.

I rose slowly but still managed to stand fast enough for me to slam my head into a large stone ice crystal that was hanging from the caves ceiling. My vision exploded with stars and blood poured from my nose as I stood swaying waiting for the pain to subside before dragging myself deeper into the cave following the sound of the water.

The tiled rugs I was walking on became littered with sand, the sand turned into loose pebbles before I found myself stumbling over large unstable rocks. I closed my eyes against the pain and lost my footing, I plunged headlong down a narrow ravine hitting both sides of the jagged wall on my way down.

My broken leg became a compound fracture. I heard the fluttering of winged creatures taking flight in the background of my screams along with the sounds of hunting cats and was bombarded with the of falling rocks the size of grapefruits that had shifted in response to the movements of the predators above.

I was safe from the cats for now because the only way they could have come down to where I lay broken would have been to jump. However the distance was too great for even an animal granted with nine lives to attempt.

I watched the cats peering down at their next meal as my vision threatened to abandon me. What jarred me back to consciousness was the sound I heard from behind me.

I sat up fast dragging myself from the water’s edge as quickly as my battered body would allow and as I did so I saw the tail fin of something large and prehistoric plunge back beneath the liquid depths. I sat trembling against the rough and ridged wall of the cavern. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around the gaping hole in my shattered leg the best I could with just one hand. With my latest fall my broken wrist was now dangling from my arm by just a few tendons. I threaded my arm through my bra strap for support, closed my eyes and tried to think while desperately trying to ignore the splashing of water.

I opened my eyes and waited for them to adjust to the light, which was brighter than the grey light from above. The first thing I noticed on the shore of the other side of the bay was another temple. This one was much smaller than the one I encountered when I first fell beneath the earth but in terms of size it looked like a two-story house that would have comfortably accommodated a family of six.

There were stairs leading to the crest of the temple from both sides where the crumbling remains of two thrones sat, both equal in size, and between them was a large pit.

I was hoping it was used to contain flames to keep the royal one’s warm but somehow I knew that wasn’t its intended purpose.

The carvings on the temple and the wall behind it resembled the remains of Persepolis. In the center of the wall behind the temple was a stone effigy of a Goddess and she dwarfed the statue of Emperor Shapur the 1st who stood guard before the Shapur Cave. The deity, carved from rock, was illuminated from something that was glowing behind her, which gave the effect that she had descended to earth in gold rays of light.

The light reflecting off the moving water that bounced off the walls, the formations dripping from the caves ceiling, and the pillars thrusting out of the water made the inside of the cave beautiful; and the Goddess, her temple and carving made this underground space seem sacred.

I pulled myself deeper within the cave so that I could see around the temple in front of me because I wanted to see where the brighter light was coming from. The journey of six feet was long and laborious, an ambitious feat for someone in my condition.

I reached the end of my excruciating expedition just to learn that the fruit of my labors would be paid with cruelty and despair.

The Goddess wasn’t alone standing on each side of her were stone replica’s of my children that seemed to have had been carved before the beginning of time.

I looked up at the Goddess who seemed to be staring down at me with malevolence, with tears filling my eyes I screamed at the Goddess and the sound that came from the depths of my soul was guttural and inhuman.

I woke to the rustling sounds of leathery wings and lay in petrified terror as a thousand large bats flew past me, over the head of the Goddess that stood over my children and into the twilight beyond. The passage they flew through looked like a mining shaft and I knew the light coming from the other end of that tunnel was from the moon. If the bats could use that tunnel get out meant it I could use it too, however all I had to do was swim across to get there.

There were only two problems with my exit strategy. The first one being, I couldn’t walk let alone swim and secondly, and more importantly, there was something in the water. Something big.
I felt a draft that was blowing on me from behind. I flipped myself over on to my back and propped myself up on my elbow to see where the air was coming from and saw a passageway that I hadn’t seen earlier when I was crawling to this spot where I could see behind the temple.

I was exhausted, confused, and riddled with pain. I closed my eyes and let the cool air caress my face. I lay back down, and the drops from my tears pooled in my ears. I just wanted to go sleep but the cool air turned cold and I began to shiver. The next sound I became aware of was a waterfall of pebbles. I sat back up and noticed wisps of dust and cascading stones coming from the opening of the smaller cave in front of me. Then I heard a feral sound, the chirping and chattering of felines.

III

The scheming cats had found another way down. I gave these animals a Garden of Eden they were fed well and protected. The best vets money could buy tended to their medical needs and I was spending $6,000 a month to ensure they had fresh drinking water…and now here they were hunting me.

I pushed away from the portal in the rock wall. As the head of the first animal appeared my arm, head and neck dipped into the freezing water. The lead hunter was completely out of the opening and two others weren’t far behind.

With a large underwater stroke I propelled my entire body silently into the water and arched my back to stay afloat disturbing as little water as possible not wanting to

attract the attention of its occupants. The cat on the shore hissed and prepared to lunge. As the cat took flight something brushed across my back. The timing was perfect and the huntress splashed down into the water to my left and came up pissed.

The distance between us was just a hairs breath, I tried to push away from her but my overhead stroke was quickly converted to a protective defense shield. Her razor-sharp claws sliced my forearm all the way down to my elbow. Now I was just as mad as she was. I swung at her ripping away the flesh across my knuckles on her teeth then pushed her head beneath the water and she shredded away the meat on my arm in retaliation.

As another cat was sailing through the air to her aid, a hooked tentacle, the blue color of a healing bruise, burst from the water with the same fear inspiring awe and splendor as a missile being shot from the silos of a submerged submarine and wrapped itself around the cat’s middle.

The pride of large house cats on the water banks displayed their outrage with arched backs, flattened ears, and spits and hisses. Their reverberated snarls echoing of the cave walls sounded like the roars of lions.

Another cat took flight but this time I was not the quarry, it was the beast rising from the depths of the water. The leviathan had the head of an eel; the fangs thrusting out from its bottom jaw and to be at least a foot and in its mouth were rows and rows of knife

sharp teeth. Two more tentacles rose above the water; the cat that had pounced was now locked within its jaws.

I wrenched my arm free from my bra strap, rolled over and swam. My only goal, my only hope, was that I would have enough strength, enough speed to swim the distance of an Olympic swimming pool to get to the shores of the temple.

I ignored the carnage I was hearing behind me and swam. I thought of Johnson and Johnson No More Tears scent of my babies’ hair and swam. I thought of the holes in the knees of Sameer’s tuff skin jeans and swam. I ignored the cramp in my side and swam. I thought of the drawer full of Sameera’s barrettes, ribbons, and hair combs and swam. I ignored the burning in my lungs and swam. I remembered the last night I’d spent with my husband on our bathroom floor, I remembered the sounds of laughter from my babies and swam.

I felt new pain explode in my arm, as it slammed down hard on rock. I climbed out of the water on my elbows like a navy seal sneaking onto the beaches on enemy lands. I swung my bum leg out of the water, brought my arms against my chest and rolled my self further away from the water as if I was on fire. I had gained so much momentum that I crashed against the base of a staircase.

The sea monster rose out of the water at a frighten height. I was not safe from where I was and I wouldn’t be able to get out of the way in time. The monster’s attention was suddenly at the Goddess as if it she had called to it. The beast seemed to flinch and bow in submission before sinking back beneath the water seeming to never take its eyes off her as he did so.

V

I don’t know how I got there but I found myself lying at the feet of the Goddess. Rows of concrete bells draped her ankles and her toes were jeweled with rings. The purple light of the rising sun woke me and cool morning dew wrapped me in a damp fog.

My head weighed a thousand pounds; I hurt in places I didn’t even know existed. I could not go on. I knew that Fayhim would be looking for me, so I just thought I’d rest here until he found me. I just needed a little more sleep.

How long I slept there was no way of knowing but I woke up in a drowsy cloud of haziness, delusion and pain. Mommy. Can you hear a mirage? Mommy? That was just wishful thinking or a cruel dream. Either way that wasn’t Sameera’s voice? I was lost beneath the earth. God alone knows how far I had wandered from home. If anyone would be calling me it would a member of the search party, an adult, using my 1st name. Fayhim would never bring a child down into this earthbound hell, especially our own.

Mommy! That was my daughter’s voice and it was full of tears and terror. Sameera! My voice held more strength than my body and just screaming her name pushed me towards blackness. But hearing both my children crying out to me through their tears gave me the strength to call upon the Goddesses from my culture to deal with the one who stood above me. I called to Leza the West African Goddess of Protection, and to Sekhmet the Egyptian Goddess of War and Destruction.

As I pulled myself up through the mining shaft, the cries of my babies were being muted by the sounds of drums, dafs, and cymbals. The daf, a drum made with metal rings attached to the inside of the drums frame, was mainly used in religious ceremonies, hearing it now drowning out the cries of my children and being in the presence of this Goddess made my blood freeze.

My crawl was so slow it was more like a slither. By the time I inched my way to the sounds of the ritual music and within view of the percussionist who beat them I could see the entrance to the cave, which was probably still a half a mile away; the indigo sky was splashed with bluish grays, magenta and the secondary colors of orange and purple; and four of my fingernails had been ripped away.

Though mere seconds before I was a half a heartbeat away from death what I was seeing now filled me with rage and gave me the strength to stand up. The space I was standing in was filled with stone pillars and another temple, which reminded me of the

one of the Seven Pagodas of Mahabalipuram, but seemed somehow older. The only Goddess present was a replica of the one below.

The Goddess that was carved into an arch on the side of the temple, and tied to three of the four pillars of the shrine were both my crying children and Fayhim, and he couldn’t have looked any prouder. Resting upon the pillars that my family was tied to was a sacrificial mound and bound upon it was our screaming nanny and she was struggling, against all hope, against her restraints.

“The prophecy shall now be fulfilled.” I didn’t even see my mother-in-law until I heard her. The drummers reduced their banging to soft taps, so that the monstrous atrocious woman, who kidnapped and imprisoned my family and was now offering them up to some ancient Goddess, could be heard.

She handed me a ceremonial knife that was so old that at first I thought the blade was stone. After a longer look I realized it was oxidized copper the flaking and green color so deep it was as if the copper had returned to its natural state. The hilt of the long blade was the face of the Goddess, her headdress colored stones and jewels.

My mother-in-law gently rubbed the side of my face and called me by another name, “You’ve never come this far before, this time you must do what must me done.”

I looked at my bounded and gagged husband, listened to the cries of my children and watched the nanny scream and struggle against her restraints.

I looked back at my mother-in-law who smiled encouragingly at me. I plunged the knife into her neck, the blade came out on the other side just above her shoulder. The look she gave me was a forgiving one as she slid off the blade and collapsed onto the floor. I hobbled over to my husband and removed his gag; all I needed was to hear his voice.

“Its ok,” he said calling me by the name his mother had used to address me. “I’ll wait for you, I’ve always waited for you.” He told me he loved me in his native tongue while I told him I didn’t understand.
“I loved you before Cain was born and I will love you until the end of time. Don’t worry; I’ll wait for you, in Paris like always. This is the farthest you’ve ever come, and we’ll make it next time I’m sure.”

I had gotten him untied and he was holding my face within his strong hands. I turned to look at Sameera as she screamed Mommy just in time to watch my child materialized into smoke. Fayhim was holding me tight, kissing me and telling me that it was ok, that he would be waiting for me. I heard my son screaming out to me but Fayhim blocked him from view, when I heard him no more I knew he too was gone.

There was nothing left in me, I was hysterical and demanding to know what was happening. My husband soothed and calmed me with just his touch and presence. He smiled at me he kissed first my right eye, my left and then my lips. “I’ll see you in Paris.” He faded from my view, my grasps as I begged him not to leave me, and within moments he was gone.

Sitting alone within the temple walls with no one with me but my slain mother-in-law and my dead nanny, but how she died I couldn’t tell. I looked up again at the Goddess who had destroyed my family and suddenly couldn’t feel my heartbeat. Looking up at the Goddess was like looking into a mirror; the Goddess I was looking at was me. My screams took the very last of what I had and I collapsed near death, hoping for death that did not come.

I was also denied sleep and I lay on the cool floor all night trying to understand what it was that my husband and mother-in-law had said to me, what they saw in me – what I saw in myself when I looked into the face of the stone carving; while trying to understand what it was I must do the next time I got here and wondering how many times I had failed before. Finally sleep was granted.

I woke to the rustling sounds of leathery wings and lay in petrified terror as a thousand large bats flew past me, returning down to the refuge of darkness from which they came. The next sound I began aware of was footsteps and I was relieved when I

realized that they belonged to the countries authorities and the guards that had been employed to protect my husband’s family.

But I quickly became mortified as I knew the only thing they would see was my murdered mother-in-law, my dead nanny strapped to a sacrificial alter, a nasty looking weapon that my prints would be found on, and at the realization that nothing I would say would make any sense.

My next project

2010-06-04T04:26:00.000-07:00

In the next month or so I am going to be putting together a collection of my short stories...my 1st anthology =D Here's a sneak peek...

My 1st Interview...(sort of)

2010-06-02T02:24:00.000-07:00

It seems like all of sudden people are starting to ask me about The Darkness. From people I interact in person, my face book and my myspace "friends" and from emails sent by complete strangers people seem to what to know I am. A few months ago my BFF "interviewed me" about The Darkness and I thought it would be a good idea to add others peoples questions to the ones she asked and post them here in my 1st unofficial interview. Here Goes:

What made you want to write science fiction?

Well it’s the way I like to be entertained. I’m a big fan of the idea of forbidden knowledge, conspiracy theories, government cover-ups, and secret societies.
I rarely missed an episode of the X-files or Millennium. My own worst enemy was right up my alley and now I’m watching Fringe both on DVD and online…I can’t get enough of it; and every book I pick up has some type of monster in it.

How long have you been writing?

I’ve always been able to tell a really good story. I asked my mom if she could remember when I first started telling stories and she said, “Yes I remember…it was from the moment you learned how to tell a lie.”

My mom said I got in trouble for whatever it was I was lying about but not necessarily the lie because they were always so imaginative and creative. She says that sometimes I would create a whole cast of accomplices even if I was the only person at the “crime scene.”

My brother once found a play that I had written for our father when I was very young. It was only three acts but what was so crazy was that it had instructions for the lighting and stage crews.

I was in jr. high when I started transferring my oral stories to paper and I have been writing them down since.

What is your writing method?

I write like a raving lunatic! I was once told that the way that I write is raw and undisciplined and I think he said that because I’ve never taken any type of writing classes.

He was reviewing a chapter of The Darkness and three pages consisted of one giant run on sentence. My written grammar is atrocious and my spelling is even worse but I don’t care because I know what I’m trying to say; and besides that why God created editors!

I just write and I write on everything. I have several note pads full of what appears to be the ramblings of a madman, reams of scratch paper full cultural proverbs, references to the Bible & Koran and random quotes; and my research consist of sticky notes that are plastered everywhere…and once I wrote on my forearm while I was driving on the freeway because I didn’t want to lose an idea.

What gives you inspiration for your stories, what sparks the different characters, and how do you intertwine them?

The inspiration for my stories comes from everywhere: the things that I am afraid of, a partial conversation I hear as I walk through a crowed room; the crazy, wonderful, unexplainable, things that little kids say and do, the crazy, horrible, inexcusable, things that we do to each other as adults and the random acts of heroism and kindness of strangers – and of course Monsters, Anti-hero’s and Villains (oh my!)

What sparks my characters are the everyday people I grew up around and surround myself with, which for the most part are women. I got an email asking if I was a feminist and though I believe in equality among the sexes I hardly qualify as an activist. I grew up in a matriarchal household; most of my friends did too.
Growing up watching the incredible things that my mom did to ensure we were taken care of; and watching the way her and her friends took care of each other and all of us is the bases on which my character development comes from and every story I write has an incredibility strong woman at its foundation.

I’m not sure I would use the word intertwine, collide is more like it and they do so with such violence you can actually hear it.

Who influenced your writing?

I think I’m more influenced by concepts and “What if” questions rather than other authors; however when you read my work there is no denying who my literary hero’s are and who I try to emulate: Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, Octavia Butler, Michael Crichton and Robin Cook.

Why is Adam not trying to understand his "mother" the Dr.? It seems he would have many questions for her?

He’s angry. He does have a lot of questions but the more he thinks about it the more it upsets him.

It’s because Adam doesn’t ask the right questions or know the whole story is why you start to get that awful feeling in the pit of your stomach. It’s like seeing there is going to be a train wreck but knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Does Adam know that his power does not simply come from Inanna?

Actually I don’t think that he does. Adam was only four years old when Inanna rescued him. His earliest memories are of her alter room, reading from her spell books and studying in her library.

Inanna and Myrddin taught him how to use and control the results of his genetic alterations through their skill and knowledge of witchcraft and sorcery; and though Adam uses both his powers from his genetic engineering and his powers from witchcraft he doesn’t seem to differentiate between which war chest he gets his armory from.

Is he going to ever leave the "dark side"?

“If you only knew the powaaah of the Dark Side” I’m sorry, that’s a pretty bad impression of James Earl Jones. Actually Adam quotes Darth Vader in The Darkness, he says the exact same thing but his impression is much better than mine. So will Adam leave the dark side…we’ll just have to say a prayer keep our fingers crossed and wait and see.

Was it Inanna’s goal to cause Adam to be so powerful, and vindictive?

Wow, that’s a really good question and one I haven’t really thought about in that way. Gosh, I don’t think so. Inanna loves Adam and they are extremely close.

Anyone who knows these two would never believe that Inanna did not give birth to Adam, no mother wants anything bad to happen to their kids; and like wise no mother would want to knowingly raise a child like David Seltzer’s Damien – but with that being said Adam was already extremely powerful due to his genetic engineering and Inanna increased his power by teaching him witchcraft; but you can only teach someone what you know. Because Inanna is so powerful and vindictive it was inevitable that her son would be too.

…We are not looking for other genres of speculative fiction and we are not looking for…

2010-06-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

So I come across a writing contest that’s right up my alley and I get all fired up about. So I dig up a story that I wanted to extend it was one of the ones I did as a writing prompt.

I read and re-read the contest entry rules and the extended The Ruins to the meet the word count requirements and had a blast while doing so. Once that was done I had three people read it and I read it out loud to two others to insure that I wouldn’t make an ass out of my self in front of a panel of judges (well not really in front of, but you get the picture.)

I read and re-read the contest entry rules. Changes were made, and I was stoked! I scoured the Internet on the correct way to submit to a contest and learned all the mistakes I’ve made in the past when submitting entries (D'oh!)

So I reformatted my mini-manuscript. I read and re-read the contest entry rules. I called my BFF and read The Ruins one more time out loud. The phone call ended in elation because we were both sure that I had written, at the very least, an award wining runner-up story!

I read and re-read the contest entry rules. I called my BFF to ask if I should include something in the body of my email, or just send it off. She suggested that I include a short bio and the cover letter in the body of the email. Sweet.

I read and reread the contest entry rules. I took a deep breath, ran spell check on the email I had just composed, attached my story, took another deep breath, and clicked send. It was 3am so I went to bed.

I was in a super good mood when I woke up, knowing that I The Ruins was going to be at the top of the pile. I read and reread the contest entry rules…we are not looking for other genres of speculative fiction and we are not looking for…

Uh Oh.

I googled the definition “speculative fiction.” I binged the term “speculative fiction.” I re-read The Ruins. I read and re-read the contest entry rules and burst into tears. I think The Ruins falls under the "other genres" of speculative fiction.

I called my BFF we googled speculative fiction together…she did what she could to try and reassure me. I was beside myself because I knew I'm not going to place in this contest. Not because I didn't write a good story, I did, however I wrote a good story outside the contest guidelines (queue the tears and violins)

I have no idea what genre I write in. I thought The Darkness was a horror novel, but I was told by a close friend of mine that The Darkness isn’t scary but it’s suspenseful another friend of mine said he thought it was a little scary but he thought it was Science Fiction.

A romance novel can be frightening; a thriller can be science fiction, an action book can be a love story, a comedy can he horrifying…with it being so easy to cross and blend genres its no wonder I’m walking around lost with no real home.

Maybe my writing is crossed and blended like my racial heritage. I'm proud to be Black, Mexican, Am Indian and white (Irish) maybe its a good thing that my horror is also sprinkled with science fiction, has religious undertones, has a pinch of comedy and blended with the supernatural.

But still...it would have been kick ass to place in that contest.