The truth is that I've been upping my expertise (such as it is) where writing is concerned. I've been cramming as much information is possible during one of my natural learning stints. You know, one of those times where you simply cannot find out enough about a subject that interests you -- when your brain seems to just slurp up anything and everything available, even stuff you already know, in an attempt to readjust given this new context. Yeah, and like a full and satisfied tick at the end of a long feast, I'm gurgling with it -- considering giving a loud and reverberative burp -- and digesting everything with a view to placement in my writing. Happy days.
Out of my head and back at the 'stead, I have a hen who's gone broody -- and isn't that a bloody strange state of mind? I gave her some fertilised eggs to sit on to keep her 'happy', but am concerned about exactly how seriously she takes this task. She is diligent to the point of catatonia or -- if I didn't bring her out of the hen house a couple of times a day for food and water -- death. She goes into a hypnotic trance that is really hard to shake her out of. Twice at day I risk life and limb (well okay, I risk being pecked a bit) to bring her outside for sustenance. Twice a day she just sits by the feeder staring into space and making this odd broody half-cluck noise until, rising in complete shock and indignation as though just waking, she looks around in horror. I can only imagine she's thinking 'How the bloody hell did I get HERE?' before attacking the pellets and corn with gusto. Poor old bird.
Wouldn't it be funny if human women did that too?
Oh, wait...
- Location:By the Hen House
- Mood:
accomplished - Music:John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course Book One (Don't Ask, Just Know I Have Kids)
This year is the first time I've attempted NaNo, and while it's really for those who haven't yet written a novel, I felt I needed to boost my raw-draft output having concentrated on editing for much of the last twelve months. There isn't much of this year left to go, you see, and because I have written, without fail, one full novel every year since 2002, I was getting a little nervous about 2007's effort.
Anyway, Great Aunt Ida's Revenge (a weird mainstream story, sorry horror folk) was drafted in a little over six weeks last year, so I've decided to step away from Llanvale, my fictional horror setting, and draft a quick and dirty sequel before the year's end. Enter Stanley, my hapless teen, as he contemplates life without some much-needed nooky.
Excerpt
Great Aunt Ida's Impossible Return
Gawd, Natalie.
While I checked out the kitchen cupboards for food, I decided I’d call around her house later on that day. I’d come clean and just admit to being a little nervous about the whole thing. She’d take pity on me, surely, then leave me alone for a bit in the nooky department. Perhaps I could appease her by asking her to help redecorate mum and Uncle Mick’s bedroom in the house. She could choose the colours. Yeah, she’d like that. Women did.
Breakfast turned out to be a cup of tea, a dubious looking banana from the fridge, and was disturbed by a couple of Uncle Mick’s ex-colleagues who looked more shifty that any pair of criminals I’d ever seen as they stood on the doorstep. They wanted to know if I knew anything about the grave robbery. I said no, I’d been away. They asked if I knew anyone who’d want to upset our family. I said yes. Two pairs of eyebrows shot up and two pairs of eyes beneath gleamed with a blood-lust I’d only ever seen in the eyes of Mick when he was after me with Doris, his peacekeeper truncheon type-thing.
“Who?” the stouter of the two wanted to know.
“Oh, just about any criminal put away by my uncle over the last twenty years,” I told him.
The eyebrows dropped back down to at-ready and the pair tried hard to hide their disappointment. “Ah well…yes. If you hear of anything?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“Thanks, son.”
I sighed. “No problem.”
I shut the door and went to check my email. There was one from Pete, nothing from Nat. I sighed again and opened Pete’s message.
“DUDE!”
(God, he even wrote that way too)
“I’m BACK in HELL (ThisTown) for a couple of weeks before going off to WAIT FOR IT………. CARNEGIE HALL in MANHATTAN at a teaching event thing in the recital hall. Shit, Stan-me-man, my balls are busting for this. I’m on my waaaaaaaaaaaaay……..!”
Scientists have 'discovered' that neatness stymies creativity.
Blinks.
Scientists have 'discovered' the right side of the brain, it seems.
Crikey, I could have told these highly-paid people that messy is good when it comes to creativity, that one should allow the muse its way with the person doing the creating. And it's a 'place' we all strive to be, isn't it, inside that creative trance? That place that has in many cases been 'educated' out of us.
Sigh.
I could have told them all this and more.
I wonder how much their grant was?
- Location:Neither Here, nor There
- Mood:
aggravated - Music:Silence
Horror can be a gentle and long build-up to climax incorporating atmosphere and emotion along with story details we already know -- or it can be contained in only a single line of sense-exciting prose. I like those mono-scenes that say and do so much to make us shiver or shudder or at the very least draw an "eeeeewwwwww" from our lips in so few words. So let's try some. And yes, this IS an invitation:
Write or quote a SINGLE sentence in which the very essence of horror is embodied.
In the interest of education, I believe we are allowed to post small excerpts from published works and films...? If anyone disagrees, please let me know and I shall remove said excerpts. I would, of course, like to discuss each line accordingly, for its merits and value -- how exactly it gives over that horror kick, and how strong the reaction. Let's try to use quotes that don't need context. Do they fail because of that lack of setting, history, etc? Which are scarier, the one's which make us say "eeeewww" or otherwise. How can we use this knowledge to help with our horror/dark fantasy writings?
And I'd like to post up some originals too. Email me with ideas, etc: dianeoliver@livejournal.com
How about this one to start with, from a movie: Aliens -- "They mostly come at night. Mostly."
Mwhahahahaaa...
- Mood:Sinister
- Music:Mozart's Requiem
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