Maria is the bad ass Mexican heroine you didn't know you were waiting for.
Maria is the bad ass Mexican heroine you didn't know you were waiting for.
There's not much I love more than haunted things and horror origin stories...well, other than puppies and iced coffee. Being that it is Women in Horror month, I started looking into the origin story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The history is more interesting than you think. The Year Without a Summer The year of 1816 was known as the year without a summer. In April 1815, there was a volcanic eruption. The eruption of Mount Tambora (located in present-day Indonesia) was the most powerful volcanic eruption in human recorded history. It is reported that the[...]
It's April 2nd, which means that many of you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo have been working on your book or your project for two days already! Or erm, if you're like me, you really haven't started yet because of the weekend and um, yeah, I should probably get on that. First off, CONGRATULATIONS on taking the next step to make your creative project a reality if you are participating and already signed up. Secondly, if you haven't checked out NaNoWriMo, you should! It's a great way to start the project you've been wanting to work on and creating excellent writ[...]
The Where to Query series is now off to a running start and if I'm lucky, I'll have about as many addendums to this as there are Land Before Time movies. I wanted to do this because sometimes your eyes start to cross when you're researching agents. I know that sometimes I find myself wishing that someone would just make a list for me. So, here you go friends. A magical list put together just for your middle grade horror novel! I've written one post previously on this, titled: Where to Query Your YA Horror Novel. That post is helpful for anyone to re[...]
So, you're writing a horror story? Can you tell me about it in a sentence or two? That is a question that freaks out even the most seasoned writer. So, how do you pitch a horror story? The same way you'd pitch any other story, except you need to make sure you represent the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist. Here are my top 5 pieces of advice when pitching: Prepare This is a test. Not really, treat it as though you're studying for a test. Even though this sounds obvious, without preparation you may become too nervous to really take advantage of th[...]
Once upon a time, there was a girl. That very girl woke up one night and could see, but not move. She did; however, freak the hell out. She flailed her arms and legs until they finally moved. Then, she did the only thing left to do...check outside to see if the mothership was beaming up any alien life forms. If you haven't figured out yet that it was me...it was. I thought aliens had come to either take me away or implant their spawn in my womb. Being older, I know that there were no aliens that night. With The 5th Wave coming out next week, I can't help but won[...]
Hey everyone! Sorry I've been MIA from the blog for a few weeks, but my wonky brain didn't allow me to concentrate on ANYTHING! I'm not sure if what I've been dealing with has technically been writer's block, rather I think of what I've been going through as "stress brain". Outside forces, along with pressure I put on myself, started shutting my thoughts down. I had a lot of sleepless nights, which is extremely unusual for me. If you know me at all, I can drink a large coffee and fall asleep ten minutes later. I never have difficulty finding that REM sleep. I fe[...]
WARNING: Brief spoilers contained in this post. If you haven't watched The Walking Dead Season 6, please do not continue reading. If you were anything like me, for four weeks I wondered whether or not Glenn was alive. Was the body on top of him the one the walkers ripped apart? Was he able to crawl underneath the dumpster, he had just been standing on not two minutes ago? I didn't know the answer to those burning questions, but what I did know was that those damn writers wouldn't take a character ending scene like that in Thank You and give us a conclusion the v[...]
It's week #3 of NaNo, so let the craziness continue! This week should be full of writing the middle 1/3 of your novel. This is often the hardest part, but can also be the most fun to write! In horror--whether it be a novel or movie--I look forward to this part. I mean, this is where the tension should be really high and I should be scared out of my wits (think Michael Meyers stalking and beginning to kill the friends of Jaime Lee Curtis). While watching the middle is fun, writing it can be really difficult. This is where all the doubts come flying in. It's[...]
Because it’s Nano, I’d like to focus all writing questions this week on writing a lot of words in a short amount of time. So, here is what I’d like for you to think about and answer for my post next week… Do you know how many words you are able to write in an hour? Do you edit as you write or are you able to fast draft? If you fast draft—how the hell are you able to just dismiss punctuation? I’d love to learn to write like this, so any thoughts you have will help:) If you are a planner, how long did it take you to outline your book before you cou[...]