by mike | May 14, 2012 | Books, California, Horror, Native Americans, Research, Writing |
Of my four horror novels, three are steeped in Native American culture and mythology. More specifically, the Native Americans that I chose to write about are among California’s indigenous people. Why? First, there has been a book or two (or a gazillion) written about...
by mike | May 4, 2012 | Books, California, Horror, Nightmares, Science Fiction, Writing |
As a writer I don’t often use the old cliché, “Love at first sight.” But that’s what happened the first time I saw Barney. This runty German shepherd, about two months old at the time, sat by himself in a large cage inside an Indianapolis pet shop. There were other...
by mike | May 1, 2012 | Books, Horror, Horror Movies, Research, Sword & Planet, Writing |
In an earlier post, “Horrors! Or How to Scare the ‘Yell’ Out of People,” I wrote about the effect of scaring readers and film watchers with subtle horror, rather than in-your-face buckets of blood, entrails, oozing brains, various and sundry dismembered body parts—you...
by mike | Apr 18, 2012 | Books, Fantasy, Horror, Nightmares, Research, Sword & Planet, Sword & Sorcery, Writing |
What’s the deal? A guy who writes horror, fantasy and other weird stuff thinking that creativity is a curse? To be honest—no, not the majority of the time. My brain is almost always swirling with new plots, unique characters, exotic settings and such, and for the most...
by mike | Apr 13, 2012 | Books, Research, Writers' Retreat, Writing |
Next week, when I facilitate workshops at the Hunt Country Writers’ Retreat in Virginia, I will finally get to meet Ken Kraus for the first time. Ken is a New Jersey-based writer of speculative fiction, and while I’ve worked with him on and off for years as his editor...
by mike | Apr 5, 2012 | Books, Bookstores, Fantasy, Research, Writing |
What? No, this isn’t about THAT first time. This blog is about writers, and writing, and fantasy, and horror, and stuff like that. Besides, that would be telling. This is about the first time I wrote a novel, and since I’ve written over thirty of them, I had to take a...
