Books and stuff

I finished the Moore "Serenity Falls" books. I still recommend them, but have to say that they suffered the fate a lot of horror books do, in that they fell apart at the end. I just didn't get it, ultimately.
This could just be me. I like to have everything very clearly spelled out in my horror. Other book I'm A-OK for subtlety (with the very obvious and fervent exception of sex scenes in romances, of course! We need those to be as explicit as possible!), but horrors I want the full Who What Where When and, most especially, Why. I want every detail. Don't bring up intriguingly scary little things and then don't fully explain them later! Don't assume I know why that woman killed her husband. I want the full denoument. I want the bad guy to start Monologuing.

This is one reason (among many) that I find The Changeling to be one of the scariest movies ever. Not only is it just plain freaking terrifying, but at the end you know exactly what happened and why. The full horror of it is permitted to sink all the way in, leaving you nervously looking over your shoulder at every house creak.

Any thoughts? What books disappointed you with a fudgy ending or just a non-ending? Like The Crimson Petal and the White, another book I loved until the end just fell apart on me? Like John Carpenter films and his damned ambiguous endings (The Thing, while a fantastic movie that I love, is guilty of this)?

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If anyone actually reads this...

Too scared to write...

No, not of failure, or of the story dying my head.I can't write today because I'm too scared of the hellhounds. And the demon corpses. And the little wooden figurines that are apparently possessed in that spare room.

In other words, once I calm down enough to explain exactly what I'm talking about, I'm scared because I am currently reading a fucking fantastic horror novel.It's called "Serenity Falls" by James A. Moore. I guess it was originally published as one enormous book, but now it's been divided into three parts. I'm in the middle of the second, "The Pack" and I feel perfectly OK about admitting that I am really, really creeped out by it.

One of the cover blurbs-several of the blurbs, in fact-mentions Stephen King's early work. I would agree with this, but I think it's scarier (except for parts of "It" that really were terrifying-this book is on a par with them.) And with less reliance on old song lyrics.

I love horror novels, but it's rare to find some that are truly scary. Too often I'm disappointed. Anyone else notice this? How hard it is to find a really good scary story?

When we were looking for an apartment we looked at one inhabited by a lovely couple. The wife was a horror writer. She mentioned something about how she had always secretly wanted to write literary fiction, and I said, "THat's funny. I've always wanted to write horror."Which is true. I'd love to be able to write horror.

What I'd really love to write is genuinely scary horror with some good sexy romantic scenes in there too, but I don't know that anyone would buy that.One of these days...sigh.

Anyway, go buy Serenity Falls. There's three books-Writ in Blood, The Pack, and Dark Carnival. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sigh

Baby has refused to properly nap the last couple days, so no writing was done.

BUT...there is some good news. Two weekss ago we started the Princess on these digestive enzymes, Peptizyde and Zyme Prime. The theory is that some autistic behaviors (which she has, but she's never been diagnosed with anything) are caused by problems with digesting certain foods, namely gluten (from wheat) and casein (from dairy). The lack of proper digestion of those foods means the pollute the bloodstream, which creates an opiate effect in the brain while at the same time starving it of essential nutrients. I read about this and decided to give them a try.

While I won't say the improvements have been dazzling, there have definitely been improvements. She seems to understand concepts better, and is more attentive. There's been a definite improvement in her behavior towards the Faery-she likes to play with her now and is much nicer. She's also not so fussy and bratty, and she doesn't complain that her tummy hurts anymore.

So yay!

Please can I go shopping?

So we've been planning today for the last couple of weeks. Hubby is taking me to Glastonbury to do some shopping. Most exciting.

Except, of course, nobody slept a wink last night. We have the Princess on these enzymes that are supposed to help her with her behavioral issues. The big side effect is they make her wet her bed. So she crawled, soaking wet, into our at likw 5:30. When I was still awake because I have not been able to fall asleep to save my life lately.

Now Princess's ear hurts, and we're pretty sure she has an infection. Of course, we're not signed on with any particular doctor yet so I have no idea what to do. I suppose if it comes down to it we'll take her to the hospital.

Will I get to Glastonbury today? We'll see. To be honest, I'll be a bit pissed if I don't because I originally wanted to do this by myself on the train, but hubby insisted on driving me, so here we are.

So why am I wasting time here?

When I should be working?

I'm actually about 2500 words into my new book. Yippee! And it's going pretty well. I know it will need some work when it's time to edit but on the whole I'm quite pleased-it's coming out nicely, not so dialogue-heavy, and I'm establishing all my stuff early on so nobody will be confused later.

So why am I playing online instead of working?

Because we got a new computer today, so I am indulging myself in online fun.

And here's a question, in case somebody stumbles across this and feels like answering: When a man finds a wounded woman, takes her home, and undresses her to get her in the tub to warm her up, is he an unredeemable cad for noticing she has nice tits? Does it help that he's ashamed of himself for noticing?


Sheesh, the kinds of questions that come up when you enter the fun and exciting world of erotic romance...

Titles come last, usually

I was talking to my Dad the other day and mentioned that I'm getting ready to start work on a new novel, getting everything straight in my head. Because nobody wants to be a "pantser" forever.
My Dad was fascinated by this. He couldn't understand how I can keep all that in my head. He said he would forget it all before he got halfway through.

The best explanation I could come up with was to say it's like a movie, one that you've seen a lot, so you're just telling the story the way it exists already. Except it came from your head.

But it's already in my head. All of it. I just have to unearth it, scrape off the layers of junk and dust and pull it whole from where it is. That won't be done until it's all written, but I need to find the barest bones of it so I can get my synopsis done. Which is always handwritten in a special notebook I keep just for such things-bits of dialogue, scene ideas, character studies, lists of names, stuff like that. Not all of it ends up being used, but eventually I may find use for the discarded stuff-for my last novel The Black Dragon I ended up using a scene I'd planned for a different book, and I have every confidence that eventually these things will turn up useful.

It's about elves, and an elf war, and a spy, and another spy, and an Elf Queen who wants to destroy the planet.

Sound fun?

Here's another one

Since the first was so unclear (that's wind-driven rain obscuring the shot) we'll try this one. Still unclear but more dramatic, don't you think?

testing...

This is the view out of the little window in our front door while Hurricane Wilma was blowing through.

Yes, another One

So, for those who are keeping count, this is blog #3. Not sure how much I will use it or how often or why. I would say it's for writing but I use my dj for that. I could switch my dj to something else and use this for writing, since Whiskey Creek has set up its new Torrid Temptations blog here so I created an account. I might keep all the writing blogging here from now on.

So...just moved to England from Florida. Settling in. Two daughters, the littlest of whom turns one on Thursday the 8th. Can't get my head around that, and as of that day I will have officially breastfed her for one year. Really can't get my head around that!

Trying to find time to write. Getting my next projects set in my head. Elves, witches, vampires, medieval studs...sigh...love them all.