 So why in the world would I participate in NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month in which writers take on the lofty goal of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days) when I’m smack dab in the middle of working with my editor on Wanted: Dead or Undead? I have a publisher. I have several books, already written, that I plan to release next year through them, so why NaNoWriMo?
Because I need to write. I need to. What's so wrong about that? I’ve been editing and rewriting for the most part of this last year, which can be somewhat fun in its own right, but it’s not the same as writing. It’s not. Editing is editing. Writing is writing. Big difference. I want to write. I want to write like crazy. CRAZY! Will it be crap when the month of November is over? Oh, YEAH, it will be. There is no way I can write a perfect manuscript in a month. I know there are some who can type out a masterpiece within a few weeks worth of time. It has been done—there are classics and bestsellers that have proved it is possible. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those talented few. But so what? I have the whole rest of the year to fix and tweak and rewrite—if I find the manuscript worth salvaging. That’s what the months of December through October are for. Besides, writing a manuscript in one month that is pure genius and without flaw isn’t the point of NaNoWriMo. On the flip side, writing 50,000 words of crap isn’t the point either. There are some who are so caught up in reaching 50K that they will cheat to do so by typing random words or describing the sky for ten full pages, etc . . . In both cases, the point of NaNoWriMo has been missed. It’s really NOT about the 50K at all. The real point of NaNoWriMo is to tap into your creative side and write—just write. THAT is the point. Oh, many will rally against NaNoWriMo, saying it’s a waste of time, a quality vs. quantity kind of thing. A lowering of standard. Some will say that books will be written in a month and then the market will be flooded in December with crappy, unedited 50,000 word novels. Again, so what? The market has a way of weeding those out with bad reviews, rejections from editors and agents, and whatnot. In essence, it would be a very small percentage of NaNoWriMo’s who actually publish their book as is anyway. For the most part, many of these manuscripts will never see the light of day as they are filed away by their creators who will deem them unreadable. Most NaNoWriMo’s write for the challenge and for the camaraderie and not necessarily for quick publication. And again, I ask, what’s wrong with that? I mean, the first year I did NaNoWriMo, back in 2003, I was a mother of a 6 year old, a 2 year old, and a 3 month old baby. I had always loved to write, but NEVER had the time. I was busy playing Playdough and watching Barney and Teletubbies. I wanted to do something for ME. I wanted to recapture my love for writing. So I signed up, unsure I could even do it, and with a toddler playing at my feet and a baby in my arms, I typed. I wrote a story for the first time in YEARS. It wasn’t very good. Total crap, actually. I have never done anything with it and no one has ever read it, but BOY did I feel as though I had accomplished something big. That feeling was tremendous. A local reporter wrote a story about NaNoWriMo and published a few names of people in the area who chose to do it and so my name ended up in the paper. My dad (yes, my dad) even laminated the article. I still have it. I'm that proud. But six years went by before I chose to try it a second time. I’m unsure why, exactly. I assume it was a matter of life getting in the way—kids, family, etc . . . In 2009 I decided to try it again. I wanted to recapture that feeling I had six years before. This time, though, I had a real purpose in mind—I wanted to write a story that had a beginning, middle, and an end. None of my stories ever had an ending. Not one. And so I made it a goal that by the end of November, I would have an ending. Is a 50K book considered a novel—no. It’s not, but I didn’t care. I wanted to prove to myself that I could actually finish a story. And I did. I’m proud of that book. Is it very good? Not really. Only a couple of people have read it. And until I get the opportunity to revise it and add more to it (I have learned so much and my writing has come a long way since then) no one will. It’s a great story, it just needs a lot of work. Then last year, I decided to do it for a third time. Again, I had a goal in mind. I usually write in first person and my MC is always female. I decided this time around I would write in third person and I would have at least one of my MC’s be male. I wanted to see if I could write like a dude. Also I had written Desert Rice and its sequel Desert Flower and both of those books tapped me out emotionally--tough subject matter. I wanted to write something fun and what's more fun than a western romance, zombie style? I wanted to have fun. And I did. This time though, the novel didn’t have an ending. I hit my 50K but knew another 20-30 was needed to wrap it up. So I spent the next eight to nine months adding more. Then I edited, and edited, and edited—A LOT. Then I submitted it to agents and publishers. And now, that book which started out as a NaNoWriMo writing exercise will be published early next year—WANTED: Dead or Undead, the first book in the Zombie West Series, through Evolved Publishing. I'm working with one of their editors right now. So again, I ask, what is so wrong about NaNoWriMo? Look what it did for me. Anything that gets people motivated to write can't be all that bad. And for those who hate on NaNoWriMo, I just don't get it. Sorry. All of the arguments against it don't make that much sense to me. I look forward to this year of NaNoWriMo. I will be writing out the draft form for the second book in the Zombie West Series. That is my plan. So tomorrow morning I will be back to writing about zombies and it excites me. Then I will spend the next year revising and editing. You can't edit or revise if you have nothing written. Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? If you are, pop over to the NaNo site and add me as a buddy—we can encourage each other and have a great time doing it. User name: Calynnblue (not sure why I picked that name back in 2003).
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 To celebrate the fact I'm almost at 400 followers (two away at this very moment), I decided to clean off my book shelf and pass along some books. Since the number 4 is my favorite number of all time, I decided to give away four books. Why I love the number 4: (I sucked at taking the ACT test. My first two times, after studying my butt off, I received a total score of 12 and the second time a 13--not good. So I signed up for third time. BUT, the college of my choice accepted me with my 13 ACT score and so I really didn't HAVE to take the ACT a 3rd time. My mother made me go anyway since she forked out the $$$. I took the test, but I didn't take it seriously. I finished the math section in 10 minutes by circling any answer that had a 4 in it--or any number that could be divided by four--16, 8, ect...--guess what? I upped my score to a 23 by "guessing". How's that for studying for ACT's? I love the number 4). I wish I could give away 400 books (my husband wishes I'd give away 400 books--he's always complaining of my book addiction), but as much as I love my followers, could you imagine the cost? I'm a poor, lowly writer--not even published yet--so as you can guess, my pockets contain lint and not much else. So, 4 books it is.  The first book is WAKE by Lisa McMann. Book description: For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody- notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime. She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control. Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....  The second book is THE HOURGLASS DOOR by Lisa Mangum Book Description: Abby's whole life has been planned: she is dating the "boy next door," whom she met shortly before she turned four, her parents are organizing the same bowling birthday party they've thrown for her for 14 years, and she and her best friend plan to be college roommates. Then Dante, a tall, dark, and handsome Italian foreign-exchange student, arrives at her high school, and everything gets turned upside down. Suddenly, she is having passionate feelings for him that she never had for her boyfriend, and she is willing to entertain possibilities that she never before considered. The closer she gets to Dante, the more her life spins out of control. Dante has secrets: He always wears leather gloves that cover his wrists, he disappears for days, and time literally stops when Abby is with him. The more she finds out about Dante, the more danger she is in.  The third book, CONFESSIONS OF AN UGLY STEPSISTER by Gregory Maguire Book Description: Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity--each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness. But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers. (You can read more at Amazon--big description).  The fourth book is THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS by Rae Carson
Book Description: Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one. But she is also the younger of two princesses. The one who has never done anything remarkable, and can’t see how she ever will. Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs her to be the chosen one, not a failure of a princess. And he’s not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior, and he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake. Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young. Most of the chosen do. So how can you possibly receive one of these four books? It's easy. I don't do points or "tweet about it" or "write a blog." I keep it simple, all I ask is leave a comment below. It would be pretty dang awesome is you followed my blog, too. But that is up to you. I won't force you--free agency. Do it because you really, really want to. And that's it. Comment and say, "Give me one of those books!" That's it. And maybe, just maybe, it will be yours.  Years ago, I decided that each of my family members needed a 72 hour emergency kit. You know, in case of an emergency. I would make sure each kit contained enough water, food, clothing, and basic survival essentials to live on in case of earthquake, hurricane, tornado, zombie apocalypse. What a good mom I was. I tossed in granola bars, pop tarts, bottled water, toothbrushes, toilet paper, hard candy, etc . . . Bring on the emergency. We were ready.(Just kidding. Don’t bring on an emergency. I like things non-emergency like. I really, really do). Well, guess what. No emergency. Year after year passed in peace and harmony, and the kits were stowed safely under my bed. Eventually, with time, I forgot about them. Here’s the thing about 72 hour kits—they need to be updated on a yearly basis. Yep. YEARLY basis. Not decade. Remember that, in case you decide to make 72 hour kits for your family members, which you should by the way. It’s a good thing . . . as long as you continually update them. Had an emergency actually occurred, and we had to rely on those kits for survival, we would have died within hours. No joke. Every bit of food packed in those kits was WELL beyond its expiration date. The bottled water looked nasty, and the clothing I packed (I laugh when I look at them) no longer applied. For instance, my eight –year-old-daughter would have had to wear diapers, plastic pull ups, and a size 12 month romper. My teenage son and his ten-year-old brother didn’t fare much better (Bob the Builder Underwear for each of them and footie-pjs). But the worst of all . . . I would have had to wear “mom jeans.” Yep, the pants with the stretchy waist band (they were my after pregnancy pants). I shudder at the injustice I would have had to endure for my lack of preparedness. I would’ve looked hideous. Because even in an emergency, you still want to look cool.  My point is this: sometimes we need to make sure we are up to date on current writing trends and tips. We need to continually be updating our writing skills so we know what is industry standard and what just makes us look like amateurs and fools.
There is an abundance of information available to us as writers and we need to take advantage of it. There is no reason that we shouldn’t—unless you THINK you know it all. You would hate to be standing there, holding your manuscript, wearing “mom jeans” and looking rather dumb now, would you? A couple of things to remember (things I’ve seen in our few months of critiquing): 1) Do not underline anything in your manuscript. Some of you have been told that you underline words or phrases that you want to emphasis. This is no longer true. You use italics for emphasis. 2) The only time you use single quotation marks is if you are quoting something inside a set of double quotations. Otherwise, always use double quotation marks. 3) You only need one space after a period. Not two. 4) Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks. 5) No funky fonts. Stick to Times New Roman. There are a couple of others that are acceptable, but Times New Roman is the standard font. No curly Q’s. 6) It’s best to use contractions in your dialogue. Most people don’t talk like this, “I can not believe he did not see the cow in the middle of the road? He should have swerved.” 7) Know the industry standard for word length in your genre. If you self-publish, I guess it doesn’t matter if you have a 250,000 sci-fi novel. Traditional publishers, on the other hand, will pass it by. Especially if you are a new author. Anything less than 50K is considered a novella and not novel. 8) Do not use more than one exclamation point to indicate your characters excitement. None of this--!!!!! Or this--!?! . In fact, use exclamation points sparingly. 9) Do not use more than one modifier. I mean, it’s great to know that your hero has super, cute, brown, wavy, shiny hair. There is no need. Just pick one. Otherwise, your reader will forget what it was you were trying to modify. Keep yourself updated. Don’t have a decade old 72 hour kit as your writing arsenal. Make your kit fresh and current—useable. You will be so much better, so much wiser, so much more in tune to today’s writing standards if you do. What other outdated rules have you seen people continue to use? What do you do to keep yourself current in an ever changing world of writing? Your tips and comments would be appreciated.  I remember being a young girl, perched on a stool in the middle of my kitchen, singing along with the radio, belting out the words of the song with such passion and emotion as my mother cut my hair (she was a hairdresser back in the day and so our haircuts came free—lucky us).
I was feeling the music all the way down to my soul. I was a singer! I could sing just as well as Crystal Gale, or so my thirteen-year-old self believed. I knew I was that good. Then my mother, the woman I so admired, so loved, told me, “Angela, I’m so glad you took up an instrument instead of joining the school choir.” What?! What the heck did she mean by that? Was my own mother telling me I sucked at singing? Really? I truly believed so. At least that’s the way I took it. And to this day, I remember that scenario clearly (my mother denies saying any such thing or that the situation even happened at all) and because of it, I have a singing complex. I still love to sing, but I don’t do it nearly as loud, nor do I sing in public places—I whisper-sing when anyone is around. I’m super self-conscious. The feedback I received from my own mother had a lasting impact on me that even twenty plus years later, I still feel it. As much as writers crave feedback—good feedback, constructive feedback—every writer at some point will receive some toxic feedback that will make them want to cry, take a hammer to their laptop, and swear they’ll never, EVER write again. No matter what. You can’t make me. And to make matters worse, that feedback was usually given by someone we admired greatly and so wanted to impress. To find out we didn’t impress them one bit can be pretty damaging and heartbreaking to our fragile writer’s ego (yes, we’re fragile, we are. We want to be tough, but it still stings—we’re human after all). Putting ourselves out there by handing over our writing, something we’ve put our heart and soul into can be scary. Then to be told it just wasn’t good enough can really affect how we continue to look at ourselves and our writing paths. Each writer is different and each writer will take that piece of feedback and react to it differently as well. For some, it will be the end all to end all. And for others, they will use it to better themselves in an act to prove that particular feedback provider wrong. Recently, I read a book titled, Toxic Feedback, Helping Writers Survive and Thrive by Joni B. Cole, in which she discusses this very thing. If you have read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont, then you will enjoy Joni B. Cole’s writing style and approach—very personable and humorous. Because I like to use little post-it notes to mark passages or areas of a book I find useful , my copy of this book now looks like a freaking rainbow, there was so much I found valuable and worth marking. At some point in your writing career, someone is going to make you feel like crap. It will happen. It will. Whether it’s early in your writing—be it a teacher, professor, even your own mother, or heaven forbid, your spouse—or later, after you’ve been cultivating your writing for years—rejections from agents, publishers, or you receive a horrible review from a reader who gives you one stinkin’ star out of five—it will happen. But in her book, Toxic Feedback, Joni goes on about how we should process that information, how to approach it. And more importantly, I feel, she discusses how WE should go about giving feedback to others who ask it from us. Because like it or not, receiving feedback and giving feedback can be a highly emotional thing if not done correctly. It could actually be more damaging than good. I love Joni’s definition of feedback, or what she believes the definition should be: “Any response to a writer or his work that helps him write more, write better, and be happier.” Wow. Isn’t that great? That’s the kind of feedback I want. Don’t you? And that’s the kind of feedback we should be giving, as well. Now, don’t confuse this with being all fake and saying positive stuff about someone’s writing that is seriously lacking and needs a ton of work—that’s not what I’m saying here or Joni either. That defeats the “write better” portion of the definition above. It’s all about the approach. We need to be conscious of how we approach a person’s work, how we encourage them to fix those areas—spelling, character development, plot issues—without making them feel like a loser. Joni gives some great pointers in her book about how to do it correctly. We also need to look at ourselves and understand how we process and react to negative feedback as well—we need to understand the intentions. The cold hard truth is that we all need feedback. We do. Without it, we risk setting ourselves up for failure and humiliation. For me, I know I’d much rather have one of my critique buddies tell me I have a piece of broccoli in my teeth (embarrassing and slightly humiliating) than to be standing in front of the world, smiling like an idiot, with broccoli in my teeth, making people uncomfortable or worse yet, causing them to gag. If you haven’t added Toxic Feedback to your writer’s library, I highly suggest you check it out. Just as important as it is to know where to place a comma, or what things to avoid in writing your first five pages, I think knowing how to give and process feedback ranks right up there with things all writers should know and be aware of. The sooner we can come to understand negative feedback and how to utilize it to make us better writers, the sooner we will improve not only our writing but other writers writing as well. And don’t we all want that? Of course we do. I'm feeling pretty generous right now, so I'm thinking to give away my copy of Toxic Feedback--covered in post-it notes. All you have to do is leave a comment below and let me know how you deal with negative feedback and your name goes in the drawing. How easy is that? (It's a GREAT book. You'll want to get your hands on this one).  It's easy to write about the good guy, the protagonist that is likeable, adorable, and slightly flawed--with good cause. And if you give him a couple of cute dimples and make him say a few clever little quips, then you will have your reader swooning. EVERYONE loves a good guy. Everyone can relate to someone like that. But what about the antagonist? The bad guy?  Of course we don't want the reader swooning over the bad guy. That would be weird--unless that is your intention. But for the purpose of this blog, let's say our intention is to make him evil, REAL evil. We want the reader to fear him and worry for the protagonist.  How do we do that? There is a fine balance between creating a character that scares the bejeebies out of our readers and an evil character that comes off one-dimensional--the same old-same old. This is where I find myself struggling. I want my bad guy to be uniquely bad, but I'm unsure how to tap into my evil side. For the most part, I don't write stories with evil antagonists. Never had. Even when I introduced my mad man in my novel, WANTED: Dead or Undead, The Zombie West Series (2012), I only gave a glimpse of who he was. That was all that was needed for that book.  But now I'm in the process of delving into book two of the series, in which this mad man will play a much, much larger role, and I need to know more about him. I need to develop his character. I need to know WHY he is doing what he is doing. I need to psychoanalyze this guy. Is my mad man "bad to the bone"? Was he always this way? Was he a bad kid? What lines will he not cross? These are questions I need to answer if I want this character to stick with my reader well beyond the last page of the book. I need to know what makes him tick.  Because there is ALWAYS a reason why a person does what they do. Even if what they do is bad. No one starts off being evil. No one sets out to be the bad guy. Something propelled them to be. So what was it? What propelled my mad man to change from being a well respected country doctor, someone people trusted, to man who would give up everything to track a young girl across the West just so he could tear her apart, piece by piece? That is the fundamental question that plagues my brain. Because at this point, I'm not quite sure.  I found this book a few months back at my local Barnes and Noble (the real store--not on-line) and scooped it up.
This book breaks down every kind of bad guy from the sociopath down to the femme fetale. It helps you as a writer to delve a little deeper and create an antagonist that is realistic and hopefully doesn't mirror all the other ones already created. Your bad guy needs to be special :) I'm still in the process of reading it, but so far it's opening my eyes to a whole new set of possibilities and is helping me to dig deeper. The back of the book has a list of questions to ask yourself when creating your bad guy. Such as: What does he fear most? Does he have enemies? Does he use bad language? If he is at all likeable? Is he capable of defeating the protagonist? What is the MOST important thing in his life? What is he afraid of losing? I've already delved deep into my protagonists, I know them. I know why they do what they do. I care for them. I enjoy writing about them. Taking on this new kind of character will be interesting for sure. I will have to tap into a whole different kind of muse to make my mad man come off as not only crazy and delusional, but also have my readers sympathize with him as well--that will be quite the trick. What kind of antagonists do you write about? Who are some of your favorite villains or bad guys? Do you find it more or less difficult to write the bad guys?  *WARNING: SPOILER ALERTS* I love October--when all the little boys and ghouls come out to play, when creepy scary things displayed in store windows are acceptable and the norm, and when you get a good tingle of fright that runs up your spine--good times. October is about the only time of the year in which I like to break out the scary movies. For the most part, scary movies scare me and I can't stand them. Give me a good comedy or romance instead. Or better yet, a romantic comedy. I like to laugh and have a jolly good time when watching movies. I like walking away from a movie feeling as though life is worth living :) :) :) But here it is, October, and I keep watching movies that scare the bejeebies out of me. Someone on twitter mentioned the movie THEM and so I had to check it out for myself. Oh my gosh! So scary. So intense. And just like the picture above, "Absolutely Terrifying." One reason it was so terrifying: It's a French movie with English subtitles. I don't know why this made such a horrific impact, but it did. I had to read their words and the movie took on a whole new kind of ambiance of scary. The second thing that made this movie so frightening: Everything, I mean EVERYTHING, that you're not supposed to do in a movie--run into the wood, look through a peep hole, go to the basement, look out the window, check out the strange sound--this movie did. The two main characters would say (in French), "The lights are out. Let's go check the breaker system in the basement." "Okay, after you." (paraphrasing here). And I would be like, "You fools! Don't go to the basement! That's where the maniacs are! Light a candle, you idiots!" Or they would do something dumb like, "Now that we are able to escape our house and leave the maniacs inside,let's run into the dark, thick forested woods. We're injured, but the trees will hide our movements and moans of agony." (again, paraphrasing) "Yes, the woods will keep us safe. After you." Or, "I think I will put my eye to the keyhole and see if the maniac is gone." "Yeah, that's a great idea. Do it. Let me know how it goes." NOOOO, you dumbies! This is how you lose an eyeball or worse yet, your brain--JAB! You are now a Kabob. And everyone knows the woods are bad thing. Very bad. We learn this as kids--Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, etc, etc...  I will tell you, there comes a point in which I say, "You deserve to die. You are stupid. Really stupid. I hope the monster/maniac eats you." Take for instance the movie THE FOG. Now, I must admit I never did finish this movie. There was one scene in which the girl, dressed in only her underclothes, decides to go outside and check out the fog and weird noises she is hearing. Even I know that monsters and maniac like to kill girls wearing only bras and panties. This is why I sleep in a t-shirt and ratty sweatpants--I'm living forever. It was this point in the movie I started rooting for the crazy fog. And when the fog didn't kill her (as I'd hoped it would), I stopped watching. I've also come to realize that there are TWO different kinds of horror movies: A) The horror movie that ends with hope and B) the horror movie in which it ends with everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dying. I like hope. I like survivors. (Sing with me, "I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give And I, l will survive, I will survive....Hey, hey).  A few years back, my husband and I picked up a movie from the Red Box, came home, popped some popcorn, and settled in the watch a nice little comedy move. What we didn't know was that the movie we had planned to watch had accidentally been swapped out with THE HILLS HAVE EYES. We were part way into the movie when we both realized something was wrong, but we had invested too much time into the characters and wanted to see where this was headed to stop watching.
Oh, how I wish we'd stopped watching. This is one of those no hope movies, and BOY do I hate those kinds. There was one point in the movie in which I still clung to some hope--the father was dragged into a cave by the mutants, but he was still alive. So during all the craziness happening to the rest of the family, I thought, he was going to come back and save them all. Without giving it all away, let's just say that didn't happen. It was at this point I realized this is a horror B) kind of movie. I really, really hate those kinds. THE HILLS HAVE EYES was, for me, the most terrifying movie I had EVER witnessed. There was no way I would watch the second or third movie in that series. *shivers* Even at the very end of this movie, when once again I clung to hope as I watched a few survivors start walking away in the distance, having survived and killed a lot of mutants, the camera pans back and you see someone watching them through binoculars. It wasn't over even though the movie started rolling the credits. Not fair. Not fair at all! But I will say this, it has come to a point in which I must STOP following suggestions from people on twitter. Someone mentioned watching the movie THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE and so I thought, okay, let me check that out. Ummm...I didn't watch that. Do you know what they do in that movie? Some super weird stuff that's just wrong. So wrong. I didn't see it, but I read about it, and that was enough for me. So I'm dialing back my scary movie watching for a while. I've taken up watching DANCING WITH THE STARS. That's as close to horror as I want to get right now. I need a break. (Go, RICKI LAKE!). Here are a few tips about survival if ever you find yourself in a horror movie type situation: 1) Do not wear bra's and panties to bed. 2) Do not look through the keyhole or peep hole to check on the maniac stalking you. Just know he is out there. He is. Even if he is really quiet and you haven't heard him shuffle around in a long time, he is still there. 3) The woods are bad. Do not run into the woods. Just think chainsaw or axe. 4) If you run into a room that is draped in plastic painting tarps--you are screwed. This will not end well for you. So don't run into that room. 5) Do not go down a sewer drain or into a dark tunnel. 6) When you hear a strange noise, don't go in search of it. Just let it be. It's okay. 7) Do not look at the window. Ever. The bad guy is always on the other side. Even if you are on the third floor, the bad guy will chuck a body part at you. So don't look. 8) Don't go into the basement or cellar to check the breaker system. It's useless. The lines will have already been cut. 9) If you move into a new neighborhood and your creepy neighbor says something weird or something that just seems improbable, you best believe him and do as he says. Just do it. Even is it means wearing a teddy bear costume and waving a feather duster. This will save your life. 10) This is the biggest thing I learned (from THE HILLS HAVE EYES) do NOT take shortcuts. Especially in the desert. There are no gas stations along the short cut path. There are no "real" people on the short cut path. There is no water. No food. No cell phone service. And you vehicle will stall, run out of gas, blow a tire or two, or simply chose to stop working at this time. It will happen. So stick to main roads. If you have any other helpful hints, let me know. Let's add them and save a few lives. What was the scariest movie you ever saw? And if you had to recommend a scary movie (a scary movie type A--with hope) what would it be?  Last Monday, I wrote a post about my super cool neighbor and his yard full of zombies (check it out here) and how he has an amazing knack for creating creepy things. Well, I had asked him last year if he would help me create something creepy-cool for my yard and he jumped right on in there and helped me make these lovely ladies (well, he actually did it all, I just bought the stuff--that counts, right?)  Since he already had the zombie thing going on over at his place, I decided to go for the next best thing--witches. For me, zombies are the number one coolest monster, with witches coming in a decent second. Vampires and werewolves no longer give me that tingly feeling. Twilight damaged me (Sorry).
I mean, think back to your childhood and all the Disney movies we were exposed to as kids--Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid. That's some scary stuff for a little kid. Did you see a Disney vampire cartoon? No. Or a Disney werewolf cartoon? No (Beauty and the Beast doesn't count--he's not quite a werewolf--close but no beans). As a child, I grew up knowing witches were evil and to be feared (except for BeWitched, which was kind of funny--loved that show. Good times). So I've got the three sister witch thing going on in my yard. The witch in the middle, the one with the stick, actually stirs the black cauldron. My neighbor put in a motor that turns in a circle--super fun. On Halloween night I will add fog coming out of the bucket and a bunch of scary music in the background. Maybe witches cackling or something. I may even dress up as a witch myself as I pass out the candy. I love Halloween. I love being able to get my creep on! Oh, and don't you just love the scary eyes in my window? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Halloween is my favorite holiday by far. It's the only time of the year I can be as creepy as I want and it's socially acceptable. What cool stuff so you do for Halloween? Dress up? See scary movies? Take the kiddies Trick-or-Treating? This is what I see outside my window every day AND it's totally awesome:  When our neighbors moved into our area three years ago, we had NO idea to expect this kind of grossly wonder from them. They were just your average couple with grown children and so the neighborhood expected they would most likely hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters and nothing more. What we didn't expect was this <---- We saw him building his masterpieces in his garage during the summer and wondered what he was up to (my neighbor makes each of his props by scratch and his wife paints the faces). My kids would take a peek whenever the garage was open and would fill me in on the latest news, "He's got some blinds in there! And some sticky stuff! It looks gross!" When he brought out the fence and placed that around his yard, my kids could hardly contain themselves, "Oh, this is gonna be GOOD! Just look at the fence!"  I'll tell ya, I was pretty excited myself. The whole neighborhood waited and watched. Halloween was going to be awesome! We could just feel it. Then out came the headstones and the zombies. He had half zombies and full size zombies--all sorts of zombies. They just kept coming and coming. This year he added the creepy skeletons coming out of the ground and the zombie heads in the trees. I also know for a fact that he has some super scary pumpkin spiders in his basement (he showed me) but I have yet to see them appear (perhaps next year).  Each zombie, each headstone, and figure are made from items he picks up at the local thrift shop, hardware store, and after Halloween sales. He says it's amazing what you can do with a bit of carpet glue, some plaster, and stains. With the freakin' creepy lights he has shining on them at night, it gets pretty spooky in our neighborhood. Well, I love Halloween (I love dark and creepy stuff) and I had tried decorating our yard with my "store bought" items. But living across the street from a zombie graveyard made my flying bat look stupid and cheesy. So I did what any neighbor would do, I stole his stuff. Just kidding. I would never do that. I mean really. "Hey, isn't that my zombie in your yard?"  "This zombie? Oh, no. That's my zombie. I know it looks like the one you lost, but it's not. This one is completely different. I bought it at Wal-Mart." Instead, I asked him to help me build some super cool decorations of my own. And guess what? He did. He helped me build the most scary set of witches you will ever see (pictures to come later--I need to put some finishing touches on them. Soon. I promise). Three green, hairy mole covering sister witches. One even stirs a stick in the cauldron. Oh it will be cool. So does this stuff scare the neighborhood kids? Oh no. They love it. Even the little ones get a kick out of it.  And when these same neighbors, Dale and Sherry, got jobs as zombies at Lagoon last year (our big amusement park in Utah) my kids even posed for pictures.  I can tell you right now, I can't wait to see what they come up with next year. It makes me wonder, living across the street from zombies . . . perhaps I was destined to write a zombie western romance after all. (Okay, my daughter looks a little scared there --->) Hmmm.....  UPDATE: Since posting this blog earlier today, my neighbor put out the creepy pumpkin spiders. There are about five of them and they're crawling all over his house. Check out the teeth--nasty and sharp! |
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Ahh, the fruits of my labors...
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