..:: Written .:. Off ::..

I go through phases where I won’t watch horror movies for a long time and then I will go a bit crazy and rent out a ton of them. I’m on the tail end of another (bloody) spurt of horror movie viewing, so I figured that I would share some quick reviews with you.

I’m a big fan of Japanese horror movies. I don’t know what it is about these films, but they scare the hell out me, which is the point. Japanese horror films tend to be more creepy that gory. They usually involve ghosts and use darkness effectively. There have been a lot of remakes of Japanese horror movies lately. The Ring, The Grudge and Pulse are all examples of remakes. I thought that the American versions of these films, especially the Ring, were pretty good. I have yet to see the American version of Pulse, but most reviews panned it.

There are a few things about the Japanese movies that will turn mainstream audiences off. First, the subtitles can be questionable and sometimes incoherent. I was watching The Grudge 2 last night and the subtitles would use a character first name instead the word, “you”. For instance: “Koyoko seems very nervous”. Instead of, “You seem very nervous.”

Another thing, that seems to be like a badge of honor in Japanese horror movies, is to have an incoherent ending. Almost every movie, with the exception of the Ringu (The Ring), had an ending that made no sense. If you want your movies to wrap up nicely, avoid these movies at all cost.

Ju-On: The Grudge (5 out of 5): Ju-On is the original version of the Sara Michelle Gellar film, The Grudge. This movie is by far the scariest and best horror movie that I have seen in a long time. I watched it in broad daylight and it still scared the hell out of me. The subtitles in this one are good but the plot is a bit hard to follow because the events occur out of sequence ala Pulp Fiction. It takes some attention to understand what is going on but its worth it in the end because it was so damned scary. I was trying to pinpoint why the ghost woman in this movie is so scary. I think I narrowed it down to the fact that her facial expression always remains the same, even when she is stalking the characters. Her expression is just…well…dead.

Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (3.5 out of 5): This movie was even harder to follow than the first one. The scares in this movie range from silly to outright terrifying. The first half hour of the film was slow and hard to follow, but once it picked up, it was relentless. The ending made no sense and hurt the overall impact of the movie. Still, I enjoyed it. There are few scenes where, if you pay attention, you will see the ghosts hiding in the shadows while the characters converse. (Pictured Above: Grudge Girl)
Pray (2 out of 5 stars): This movie started off with a great premise; a young man and woman kidnap a little girl in the hopes to collect a big ransom. When the call the girl’s parents, the mother tells them that “they can’t possibly have their daughter, because she has been dead for a year”. And so begins the promising Pray. Unfortunately, the movie goes downhill slowly. The writers apparently thought that the main storyline with the little girl wasn’t enough so they threw in another ghost girl similar to the ghost from The Ring. This extra ghost is added for no other reason than to attract fans of other (better) movies. The whole movie ends with a complete head scratcher (of course).

Marebito (4 out of 5 stars): One of the better horror movies that I’ve seen in a while that, sadly, falls into that “I can’t really recommend to anyone since it’s so bizarre”. Marebito is about a lonely news camera man obsessed with fear. He want to feel pure terror. One day, he captures a man committing suicide down in the subway below Tokyo. Before the man kills himself, his face twists with terror. The camera man is convinced that the man saw something before he died. The camera man returns to the subway and searches until he finds a set of caverns that lead to a strange and empty underworld under the city. While exploring, he finds a naked woman chained inside a cave. He takes her home and finds that she can not speak and acts more like an animal than a human. He also finds that she has a taste for human blood. This movie stuck with me for a few days after I watched it. Nothing was as it seemed in this movie. There were a lot of clues as to what was really going on in the movie. I still don’t know if I have it figured out. Did the camera man really find Hell? or was the movie merely a chronicle of lonely man’s descent into madness? Like I said, great movie…too bad I can’t recommend it to anyone other than the hardcore horror fan. Ben Solah would like this one. (Pictured Above: Scary Elevator Girl).

Satan’s Playground (0 out of 5 stars): I should have known better. Whenever I read glowering reviews of straight-to-DVD release from a horror site, it always turns out to be a stinker. The reason that this movie caught my eye, was that it starred actors and actress from some very famous horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead and Sleepaway Camp. Satan’s Playground is the only American movie of the bunch and boy was it a stinker. The movie is about a family whose car breaks down while travelling through the New Jersey Pine Barrens (home of the fabled Jersey Devil). The Jersey Devil lurks in the woods but the $1.50 budget that this movie was made on, did not allow the director to show him to us. So basically, you have a movie about the Jersey Devil but no Jersey Devil. Oh, did I mention that his family lives in the woods and are the same crazy bunch of rejects found in a dozen better movies? One by the one, the characters leave the broken down car and are killed by the family. Who cares? I still don’t know why this movie got so many positive reviews. It was so bad, that it doesn’t even fall into the, “It’s so bad, it’s good” category. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a second blog that solely dedicated to short stories and flash fiction. The purpose of this blog would not be for the authors to have their work read as much as it would be to have their work critiqued by the readers. I would view it more as a workshop than just a straight-forward fiction blog.

Let’s face it, it’s really hard to get an honest opinion of your work. Even your fellow bloggers may not want to criticize your to protect your feelings. I know there are times when I read someones work and I just want to tell them, “You may want to cut some of the adverbs”. I hold back from these comments because I don’t feel that it’s my place to criticise someone’s story, especially when the story is part of a blog carnival or posted at a fiction site.

As moderator of the blog, I would make sure that unhelpful comments such as, “Don’t give up your day job” or “Your story sucks” would be blocked, since I consider that type of feedback to be a waste.

So, my question is, would you writers out there have any interest in either submitting stories to or commenting on a blog of this nature? I don’t want to set up a blog if no one is interested in have their work critiqued.

I have a lot of books. I keep most of them on the shelves, except for about 30 that I keep within arms reach of my computer. These are my writing books. My library contains books  ranging in many subjects including style, grammar, inspirational and reference.

The authors of these books generally agree on many of the core foundations of how to write. One thing that these authors don’t agree on is whether or not to use an outline. Some authors will tell you that you have to have some kind of an outline. While others will tell you to throw away the outline and write.

I’ve tried working with every kind of outline, from the method we were all taught in school to computer aided outlines loaded with visual flair. The only benefit that I get out of making these outlines, is that I’m forced to think about where my story is headed. The problem for is that my stories tend to change as soon as I start writing. I’ve outlined whole chapters only to have the finished product look nothing like what I had intended to write. I also have a habit of outlining and then never referring to the outlining.

After realizing that I do these things consistanly, I have given up on the idea of outlining an entire novel.  For me, it seems to a waste of time.

I would use an outline if I were writing something nonfiction. I think that an outline would lend itself better to a “how to”, reference manual or biography. In those cases, you are dealing with facts (hopefully) and would want your book structured in an orderly fashion.

Do you use an outline to write? If so, do you find it helpful.

Note: The title of this post was much more interesting than the content, wasn’t it?

Non Maiden Fans: If you scroll down the bottom of this post, there is a new writing-related post!

What can I say about this band? They have remained my favorite band since I first heard them at 11 years old. 26 years later, I still love Maiden as much as I ever did. Their new CD, “A Matter of Life and Death“ will be released in the states on September 5th. The advance buzz on this CD has been extremely positive which is enough to send any Maiden fan running to the local CD shop on the day of it’s release.

When I was 11, I got two things for my birthday, a Sanyo Walkman (the Sony knockoff) and my choice of any album that I wanted. My parents took me to the local record store where I spotted a cool looking album by a band call Iron Maiden. The record had a skeleton dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt wielding a katana and was called Maiden Japan. I had never heard anything from this band but was so intrigued by the artwork that I made my parents buy it for me. I took the album to my room, dubbed it onto cassette and listened to it for the first time on my spanking new walkman. Ever since that day, I’ve been a fan.

The 80s were a great time for Iron Maiden. Every album that they released during that decade was a classic. Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind (my favorite), Powerslave, Somewhere in Time. The cool thing about a new Maiden album was not only the music, but the packaging and concept behind each record. The artwork was elaborate and sometimes contained hidden jokes that you needed a magnifying glass to see. My friend Henry and I were diehard fans who would spin their albums constantly while pouring over every last detail of the artwork (a practice all but lost with the death of vinyl).

The 90s were not kind to Iron Maiden. Vocalist Bruce Dickinson left the band after two lackluster releases to pursue a solo career. Even though, I liked Fear of the Dark, the fire had kind of burned out. Looking back, things started to go downhill after Adrian Smith (guitar) left the band. Maiden replaced Dickinson with a singer named Blaze Bailey, who had gruff voice and an obviously poor choice to replace Dickinson who was known for his powerful vocal range.

Maiden released two records with Bailey. The first was The X-Factor which contained a few good numbers and then followed it up with the completely limp Virtual XI (or is it Virtual IX?). Not only was the singing not up to par, the band seemed to lose all of it’s fire under the weight of horrible songs like The Angel and the Gambler and When Two Worlds Collide.

Meanwhile, Dickinson’s career started to look up after a string of so-so solo records. Dickinson’s later solo records were so strong that the made Iron Maidens current albums pale by comparison. There is not one song on those two Maiden albums that can compete with Omega or Taking The Queen from Dickinson’s amazing Accident at Birth.

Like all things that are inevitable, Dickinson and Adrian Smith both rejoined Maiden and released the album Brave New World. While I liked this album, I think that it suffered from some of the same things that made X-Factor an okay record. The songs were too long and lacked the fire of previous releases.

The funny thing is, as a live entity, Maiden were stronger than ever. I saw them on this tour and they were unbelievable, rivaling even their performance from the good old days.

After extensive touring, Maiden followed up BNW with Dance of Death. A lot of fans dislike this CD but I like it. Maiden seemed to get some of their fire back on this album. There is more variation and songs like the Rainmaker and Pashendale kicked butt.

Maiden continued to tour and receive accolades for their live performances. Their live shows were so potent that they proceeded to blow every band at Ozzfest away, including Black Sabbath, much to the ire of one Sharon Osbourne. Sharon even went as far as shutting off their sound and gathering a group of goons together to pelt Maiden with eggs on the last night of the tour. Some bands would have walked offstage due to this sort of treatment, but not Maiden, who were spurred on by the crowd who were equally incensed by Osbournes treatment of their favorite band. Maiden played their set and kicked ass, undeterred by the jealous antics of Sharon Osbourne. In the end, Maiden walked away triumphant while Osbourne received a heap of backlash for her childish antics.

This brings us to present day.

I’ve recently had the pleasure to take the new Maiden CD for a couple of spins. What follows is more of preview than an official review, since I still need some time with this CD to make up my mind completely about it.

A Matter of Life and Death - Iron Maiden (Preview)

Different World - The album opens with a fast, stomping opener that Maiden is know for. The chorus of this song is instantly catchy and memorable, which is something that will prove consistent throughout this album. (5 out of 5)

These Colors Don’t Run - The first of several war-themed songs on this album concerns the feeling of soldiers on the front line. The song starts off slow and brooding but picks up quickly. Another song with a memorable chorus. (4.5 out of 5)

Brighter Than a Thousand Suns - A song about the threat of nuclear war and the first of several epics on this album. The thing that strikes me about this album is how crunchy and heavy some of the songs sound. Bruce’s voice soars during the chorus. (5 out of 5)

The Pilgrim - This song starts off with an almost middle-eastern sound but soon picks up with the gallop that Maiden are well known for. It’s shorter than most songs on the album and probably the closet thing you will find to a filler track on this record. Still, it’s a good song. (4 out of 5)

The Longest Day - Another war epic and probably what I would consider to be the centerpiece of this CD. The lyrics are delivered with loads of emotion and the music builds slowly with tension and thundering drums. The middle section of the song took my surprise with middle section reminiscent of classic Maiden, filled with guitar harmonies and emotional soloing. Most excellent! (5 out of 5).

Out of the Shadows - A slower acoustic number echoing of Children of the Damned and Remember Tomorrow. This song is a nice break from the epics that surround it. This song would fit easily on any of Bruce’s later solo records. (5 out of 5).

The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg - I have no idea what this song is about and I don’t care, it’s great from start to finish. This song was the first track that I heard from this album and fits in nicely with the rest of the record. The song starts off slow with some chilling lyrics before it bursts into the awesome main riff. This is another song that contains a heavy, ass-kicking midsection (5 out of 5).

For the Greater Good of God - A really loooooong epic, and what I would consider to be my least favorite track on the album. This one is most likely a grower but still sounds too much like the songs that I don’t like off Brave New World. Again, like a lot of songs on this record, the song takes an unexpected turn during the midsection. (3 out of 5)

Lord of Light - Good song that seems to be another grower. I will have to hear this one a bit more to make a decision on it but It’s certainly good.

The Legacy - The final epic is a contemplative track that starts off with a long acoustic section. The song builds into a swirling triple guitar harmony and then slowly fades back to a single acoustic guitar. (4 out of 5)

Overall, I think that this is the best Maiden album in years. You will have to hear it for yourself to understand what makes it better than the last two Iron Maiden records. For one, almost every song has something immediately catchy and memorable about it. The choruses stick out and you will find yourself humming them long after hearing the songs. Although my descriptions of each song may sound a bit samey, there are several songs that take unexpected turns and will surprise the listener. The guitar playing is top notch and fiery at times. The sound of this album is much better than Dance of Death, which suffered greatly due to a compression used by the record company as an anti-pirating tool.

As with any album that over 70 minutes, it will take much more listening to really get into. The reason that I know this is a good album already is that my first instinct after listening to it is to put it right back on and that, I think, is the mark of any great record.

Up the Irons!!!!!

I would like to end this overly long tribute with some lists:

My Top 5 Favorite Iron Maiden Records

1. Piece of Mind

2. Number of the Beast

3. Killers

4. Powerslave

5. Iron Maiden

My Top 5 Least Favorite Iron Maiden Records

1. Virtual XI or IX

2. X Factor

3. No Prayer for the Dying

4. Brave New World (Not a bad record by any means but I listen to it less than all of the others).
5. Fear of the Dark (Good record but it’s missing something)

Favorite Maiden Songs that I’m Least Likely to Hear Played Live (ie. No Classics)

1. Still Life

2. To Tame a Land (do they ever play this one anymore?)

3. Drifter

4. Powerslave (I haven’t heard them play this live in years)

5. Infinate Dreams

6. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

7. Strange World

8. Back in the Village (A song that I hated that grew on me over a 15 year period)

9. Afraid to Shoot Strangers

10. Total Eclipse (Lost B-side from Number of the Beast).

Worst Iron Maiden Songs

1. The Angel and the Gambler (The worst of all time. Long and silly throughout).

2. Mother Russia (Borderline self parody)

3. Deja Vu - Silly filler track from the otherwise excellent Somewhere in Time

4. Public Enema Number One (What where they thinking?)

5. When Two Worlds Collide

Video: The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg

I want to thank everyone for their positive comments on my last post. It’s great to hear that other writers share the same frustration and pitfalls that I do. The main reason that I started this blog was to discuss writing with other writers. I don’t know many writers in my daily life. It can be frustrating when you can’ talk about something to your friends and family that consumes most your time! I have a few friends who always ask about how my writing is coming along but since they are not writers, they can’t relate to the work involved. I’m sure that there are more than a few of you who experience similar detachment about writing when dealing with people in your day to day lives. So thanks!

One thing that I found interesting in the comments I received are the bloggers out there who don’t consider themselves to be writers because they don’t write fiction. I disagree. I think that anyone who maintains a blog consistently and forces themselves to come up with interesting material day after day, will encounter the same traps and frustrations as any fiction writer. Blogging requires a great deal of commitment, especially if you post more than once a week. Many of the blogs that I read are updated daily or every other day. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a blog and thought, “Where does he/she come up with so much material day after day?”

Anyone who has the passion and drive to write on such a consistant basis should consider themselves a writer.

Disclaimer: I was feeling extremely cynical when I wrote this article. I started to feel a bit better after I wrote it. Sometimes you need to reevaluate yourself as  a writer and remember why you are doing it.

Ned Flanders would probably say that I’m being a “negative Nellie” lately. I’ve been working on editing my novel and I hate every sentence that I read. To be honest, the whole project just makes me sick when I read it.

As you can see, I’m not too happy about writing this week. Something occurred to me this morning and I’m not afraid to say it in print: Writing is a pain in the ass. Go ahead and say it because it’s true. It will make you feel better.
Most of you who have been writing for a few years already know this secret. But for those of you, the beginning writer, with hopes of being the next Stephen King or, god forbid, Jackie Collins, I offer you the following bits of about writing that you probably won’t read about in most books or hear from your creative writing teacher.

Enjoy.

1. Writing is Work: Whether you are writing a novel or a short story, it requires lots of work. You will have to reread and rewrite whole sections and sentences over and over until you get it right (at least in your own mind). Then you need to have someone who is impartial read it so that they can point out all of the mistakes that you missed.

2. Your First Draft Sucks: If you think that you wrote a perfect first draft, you are kidding yourself. Put it away and read it again, then let me know what you think of it. You can read some of the Flash stories posted at this site to see examples of poorly written first drafts. To put it simply, just because you typed The End, it doesn’t mean that you are even close to being finished.

3. Writing is Tedious: In order to produce a story that has a chance of being published, you will have to reread your work over and over to the point that you will start to hate it. Dialogue that once seem snappy will seem stale. Plot twists that you once thought clever will seem cliche. Think about your favorite novel and how many times you have read it. You will probably have to read your own novel more. Unless you are some sort of writing prodigy, you will have to read it over and over to find everything from plot holes, continuity errors, grammar mistakes and spelling errors.

4. Your Friends and Spouses Opinions Don’t Count: Most of your close friends and spouses will always tell you that your work is great. Don’t be mislead. Their enthusiam is most likely genuine but don’t let lead you to believe your work is flawless. It’s not. You should take their enthusiasm and channel it back into your work to make it better.

5. Most People Will Assume You are Wasting Your Time: When you tell people that you are writing a novel, they may not say it to your face, but a lot of them will assume that you are wasting your time and will never be published. This is something that you will have to deal with. I stopped talking about writing to my friends when I realized that they had no interest in what I was doing. Listen to me when I say this; Even if you never get your work published, you are not wasting your time. Most folks in your everyday life can’t even string three coherent sentences together. Take a minute and read some of the emails that you get at work from your coworkers for evidence. Don’t ever let anyone persuade you that you are wasting your time.

6. Not Everyone will Like Your Work: There will be times when you write something that you will be extremely proud of, only to have it met with either negative reactions or no reaction at all. Keep in mind that you have no control over peoples tastes and opinions. How many times have you seen a movie that you thought was great, only to have others tell you how bad they thought it was?

7. Listen to Constructive Criticism: Sometimes you will find a reader who like your story but suggests something to make it better. A lot of times these criticisms may be valid, even if it hurts your feelings to believe it. I’m not saying that you should make every change that someone suggests, but you should at least consider it or try to figure out why you did something a certain way. I was recently told that my story The Eater had and anti-climatic ending. I considered the ending carefully but realized that there could be no other ending for the story. I wrote the whole story based on the idea of someone noticing something beautiful even though he was heading toward death. To change the ending would be a mistake.

8. Ignore Jealous Criticism: If someone tells you that your work sucks without anything constructive to back it up, just ignore it. Period. If someone can’t tell you why they didn’t like your story, you shouldn’t beat yourself up trying to figure it out.

9. Your Chances of Being Published By a Major Publishing House are Slim: Publishers receive hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts a day. The poor bastards who have to read though these manuscripts have no doubt become jaded from reading shitty manuscript after shitty manuscript. If you don’t have a great opening paragraph or your book still contains spelling and grammar errors, the person reading it will probably toss it right into the reject pile. If you think your novel is so wonderful that the publisher will ignore all of your spelling and grammar errors, you are kidding yourself. Get out your red pen and get back to editing.

10. Write a Novel in 30 Days? Yeah right: The books and the internet are loaded with quick methods to writing a novel. There’s no quick way to write a book. Even if you do finish a book in 10 to 30 days, it’s doubtful that it will be in any condition to get it published. What you will have is a first draft that will require months of work before it’s in any condition to be published.

11. You Have to Have Passion: If you aren’t passionate about writing, then you should probably give it up. You have to love writing to be a writer. You have to love everything about writing, even the dull bits. I know lots of people who tell me how they are going to write a book someday. Guess what, they will never do it because they lack the passion you need to be a writer. I question any writer whose main goal is to get published. If you aren’t writing because you love it, you will most likely not have the drive to finish anything worthwhile.

Okay, I’m finished. Phew! I feel better now. Did I miss anything?

In the old days, if you wanted good seats to a concert, you either camped out the night before or got up early the day tickets went on sale.

Things have really changed.

I wanted to get good seats to the Iron Maiden show at the Tweeter Center in Camden New Jersey. I found out from a news site that if you purchased an advance copy of the new Iron Maiden CD, you would be eligible for an Internet presale for concert tickets in your area (as well as receive a free t-shirt). I preordered my CD and waited.

About 5 days before tickets went on sale, I was sitting in front of my computer, when an email arrived. The email informed me that I could log onto a special website and get first crack at tickets! I followed the link, only to find that all presale tickets were already sold out. I thought that this was strange, since I was sitting at my PC when the email arrived.

I went out to Ticketmaster to find out when tickets were going on sale, which turned out to be the upcoming Saturday. I called my friend and we decided to get 3 tickets. My first instinct was to log on to Ticketmaster at 10:00am that Saturday and buy tickets online. I remembered that Ticketmaster hits you with about $10 of convenience charges if you do this so I decided to buy tickets the old fashioned way and go to a Ticketmaster outlet.

I arrived at Ticketmaster about 20 minutes before tickets went on sale and found that I was the 3rd person in line. I was psyched, assuming that I would get good seats. Five miutes before tickets went on sale, we were herded into the store to buy tickets. The first person in line purchased his tickets and seemed to be pissed off. Since I made friends with this guy in line (since metal heads are friendly people who love to meet other metal heads), he walked over to me and showed me his ticket. His seat was in row K of the last section! How could this be? Where did all of the other thousands of tickets go? I purchased my seats, which ended up being in the same row.

I left, feeling ripped off and called another friend who purchased his tickets online. He got better seats than I did buy only by a few rows.

How did this happen?

My friend said that he knew someone who worked at Ticketmaster. He said that all of the good seats are sold to other ticket agencies in advance with a huge mark up. So if you want a good seat, you have to buy from a third party ticket agency for a lot more money.
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have no other way to account for the lack of good seats. The Tweeter center is a big venue and even if they sold a few hundred seats through the presale, there should still be some tickets available.

If you go out to Stub Hub, which is an online ticket broker, you can see that there are many good seats available for this show for over $100.

Stuff like this makes me want to stop going to shows all together.

Review:

There’s a movie in the theaters now called “Pulse” which is about a group of teenagers who realize that their dead friend is trying to communicate with them through their computers and television. This movie is a remake of a Japanese film that is also called Pulse. Being a person who prefers the original product over the cheap remake, I rented the Japanese version of this film yesterday. While, I haven’t seen the american version, most reviewers have panned it as being inferior to the original.

I watched Pulse and found it to be a unique and strange movie. After a friend commits suicide, strange things begin to happen to a group of teenagers who knew him. One of them sees visions of their dead friend in the shadows while another has a computer that keeps repeating strange ghostly images. They receive phone calls from the dead person, who only repeats the word, “help” over and over. I’ve found that most Japanese horror movies are really high on the creepy factor and Pulse is no different. The director uses darkness and shadow so effectively that you will find yourself peering into the dark areas of your TV, looking for the next phantom to appear. The characters in the movie are lonely. They often walk around as if they are ghost themselves. The ghosts use modern day technology to communicate with the living. This sounds like it could be silly, but nothing is overdone in this movie. It’s subtle and scary. As the movie goes on, more and more people start to disappear and the cast of characters diminishes to the point where the city of Tokyo…well, I won’t say anymore. If you can handle reading subtitles and like a good scare, I would suggest checking this movie out.

Lingering Creepiness:

The movies creepiness stayed with me most of the day. I watched half of the movie in the afternoon and had to shut it off midway because I had something to do. I shut the DVD player off, went into my kitchen. A minute later, the DVD player turned back on and continued to play the movie. Now, I’m sure that I just accidentally hit the power button twice, causing it shut down and turn back on. Didn’t I? I took the DVD out of the player, just to be safe.

Later on that night, I was in my garage, when the garage door suddenly opened. This scared the living daylights out of me, remembering the DVD player turning on earlier that day. The door opening worried me because, one, this has never happened before and two, I leave my opener in the car. I walked outside into the night, wondering if someone had gotten into my car and was screwing with me. I walked over to my car door and it was unlocked causing me to panic. I opened the compartment where I hide my opener and it was gone! Looked into the dark bushes for any sign of life. I headed back inside and shut the garage door when something occurred to me…earlier that night, I had stuck the garage opener in my pocket. I must of clicked the button by accident! I felt really stupid but relieved.

Have you ever managed to scare yourself?

My flash story, The Eater, is now posted up at Flashes of Speculation.

The version posted up at the site contains numerous edits that I found while rereading the story. I never seem to be finished editing any of my stories. Almost every time I reread them, I find missed errors or things that I want to change.

Flashes of Speculation is a good site that hosts a variety of authors. If you are a writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, historical fiction or magical realism, check out the writers guidelines.

I didn’t get into reading until I was around 15 years old. Before that time, I wanted to read, but I could never seem to get past the first 10-15 pages before I lost interest.

When I finally became interested in reading, there were dozens of books that I wanted to dig into. Some of the first authors that I became interested in were Stephen King, Douglas Adams, Tolkien and Clive Barker.

Once in a while, I like to check up on what some of my old favorite authors are doing. Out of all the authors that I read in my teen years, Clive Barker was probably the most twisted and imaginative. His horror novels were both unique and scary. As time went on, Barker started to write books that were longer and more like dark fantasy than horror. As time went on, I lost interest in his work and sort of forgot about him.
I read a blurb somewhere on the Internet that Clive was working on a huge novel based in Hell. I remember reading that the novel was going to be over a thousand pages long. I’m always intrigued when artists, whether it be writers, musicians or filmmakers, embark on projects that seem to be monumental.

Here is a quote that I found at

“I am on the final draft of The Scarlet Gospels, with a huge final polish to do, simply because it’s a huge book. If you want to know, I’m on page 2,298 of my handwritten draft and I’m averaging between twelve and fifteen pages a day - which is not quite where I would like to be but it’s very dense writing. I mean, I’m in Hell, but this is not a Hell you’ve ever seen before and these are not places you’d expect to find in Hell; in other words, what I’m trying to do is deliver a Hell that is fresh and new in large measure.”

Whoa, back up a minute there spinach chin!* Did you say 2,298 pages? That’s the equivalent of four Harry Potter novels. Here I am complaining about editing 400 measly pages, when this guy is churning out a book that you could knock out a bull with.

I wonder how these authors do it. I can’t even fathom writing something that big. Barker became really big on description in his later novels. He goes on to say:

Obviously it’s going to have demons and it’s going to have pain and suffering, but I’m talking about topography and architecture and wildlife - all the other things that give texture to my other invented worlds, if you like, to Imajica, for instance.

The sheer scope of this book makes me interested in reading it. If anything, from a technical point of view, it will be interesting to see if he can sustain a story for that many pages.

I think that writers can learn something from almost any book that they read. Stephen King maintains that you have to read in order to write, and I think many of you would agree with that statement.

King also called Barker, “The future of horror” back in the 80s. Maybe King knew this epic was coming!
*Mike from Cannonballers has set me off on this wild Army of Darkness kick and there is no turning back. Groovy.