Category Archives: Suspense

testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

Vincent Price Movie Marathon!

Anyone else watching it? Twenty-four hours, all Vincent Price, all day, all night. Now why can’t they do this everyday? I haven’t seen a Vincent Price Movie Marathon since I was 8 years old! Back than I scared myself out going into the backroom of the Shop at night as a result of “The Mad Magician”. It was the only time I had ever seen this movie, and today I barely remember anything about it, other than the fact that it burned in my memory as the scariest thing I had ever seen, and I couldn’t wait to see it again. (My mom owned a craft-shop back than, and I watched the VP movies marathon in the backroom.) Though he had scared the wits out of me that day, he instantly became my favorite actor, and today still remains my 1 all time fave. While I’ve seen 50 of his movies, there are still about 30 more that I have never seen.

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to discover that TCM had hosting a Vincent Price Movie Marathon… Vincent Price all day, none stop, no commercials, no interruptions, just Price movie after Price movie, back to back to back! And they kicked it off with…. that’s right, you guessed it: “The Mad Magician”!

Vincent Price as The Mad Magician

The Mad Magician

The Tingler

The Master of The World

The Last Man on Earth

Tower of London

Fall of House of User

Pit and The Pendulum

Tales of Terror

The Mask of The Red Death

The Tomb of Ligeria

The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Theater of Blood.

Of that list 5 of them I had never seen before. One, “The Master of the World”, could quickly become ranked as one of his best. A mad scientist builds a giant silver star ship, than goes on a rampage blowing up entire counties. That sounds strangely familiar to me. King Vielder and Melaca and their ship The VISION~D8 and their first arrival on planet earth? WOW! And here I thought I created that idea, now I find that Vincent Price did it in one of the movies I’d missed seeing… and that movie being based on a book written over 100 years ago! I’m sorry to say, that in all my reading, I have never read anything by Jules Vern. I must correct that and read The Master of the World, as soon as I have finished Harry Potter 7, which I am reading right now.

So, anyone else out there mesmerized by 24 hours of the greatest actor of all time today?

Currently watching :
The Fall of the House of Usher /The Pit and the Pendulum
Release date: 15 February, 2005

Narration for Writers Explained

Attention writers! Have you ever wondered what’s the differance between one type of narration and another? Look no farther, I shall explain them all here. Check it out.

http://www.squidoo.com/Narration-for-Writers/

Finished Harry Potter 7

Finished HP7 2 days ago. … what a bloodbath! She had said she was killing off 2 characters. YIKES! She started bumping them off right in chapter one and than keep on going in each chapter to follow! How many characters did she kill off? I don’t know, I lost count after chapter 4! My brother says it was 15 all together (main and sub characters that is…. closer to 50 if you count Death Eaters and Muggles too).

Deathly Hallows is by far the fastest moving, most action packed book in the series. Only one complaint: so as not to add any spoilers for those who haven’t read it yet, I’ll not name names… I loved the book execpt for one really big minor detail: she killed off my fave character!!!! WAAAAA!!! :( :( Not only killed him, but singled him out to slaughter him, which turned out to be a major turning point for the story and changed everything you thought you knew about the series and totally turned it upside down!

Vincent Price Movie Marathon!

Anyone else watching it? Twenty-four hours, all Vincent Price, all day, all night. Now why can’t they do this everyday? I haven’t seen a Vincent Price Movie Marathon since I was 8 years old! Back than I scared myself out going into the backroom of the Shop at night as a result of “The Mad Magician”. It was the only time I had ever seen this movie, and today I barely remember anything about it, other than the fact that it burned in my memory as the scariest thing I had ever seen, and I couldn’t wait to see it again. (My mom owned a craft-shop back than, and I watched the VP movies marathon in the backroom.) Though he had scared the wits out of me that day, he instantly became my favorite actor, and today still remains my 1 all time fave. While I’ve seen 50 of his movies, there are still about 30 more that I have never seen.

 

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to discover that TCM had hosting a Vincent Price Movie Marathon… Vincent Price all day, none stop, no commercials, no interruptions, just Price movie after Price movie, back to back to back! And they kicked it off with…. that’s right, you guessed it: “The Mad Magician”!

Vincent Price as The Mad Magician

 

 

The Mad Magician

The Tingler

The Master of The World

The Last Man on Earth

Tower of London

Fall of House of User

Pit and The Pendulum

Tales of Terror

The Mask of The Red Death

The Tomb of Ligeria

The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Theater of Blood.

 

Of that list 5 of them I had never seen before. One, “The Master of the World”, could quickly become ranked as one of his best. A mad scientist builds a giant silver star ship, than goes on a rampage blowing up entire counties. That sounds strangely familiar to me. King Vielder and Melaca and their ship The VISION~D8 and their first arrival on planet earth? WOW! And here I thought I created that idea, now I find that Vincent Price did it in one of the movies I’d missed seeing… and that movie being based on a book written over 100 years ago! I’m sorry to say, that in all my reading, I have never read anything by Jules Vern. I must correct that and read The Master of the World, as soon as I have finished Harry Potter 7, which I am reading right now.

 

So, anyone else out there mesmerized by 24 hours of the greatest actor of all time today?

Currently watching :
The Fall of the House of Usher /The Pit and the Pendulum
Release date: 15 February, 2005

MySpace Friends Trains: Harry Potter and Prof Snape

Okay, so I keep hearing about how great “friend trains” are. Well, I’m testing them out to see if they really are all the hoopla I keep hearing.

Here are the ones I just made so far. Join any, all, or none if you want to.

==================================================== Join this list if you are a Harry Potter fan – Round No.1 *^ 825044912

Create Your 0wn Train Here!


Train: For Fans of Harry Potter! Round No.1
The 0wner & Captain: EelKat
Female, 31 Years 0ld

Add To Friends


====================================================

For all those who love Snape! – Round No.1 —————–

2031685152

Create Your 0wn Train Here!


Train: Snape Lovers A-Nonny-Mouse Round No.1
The 0wner & Captain: EelKat
Female, 31 Years 0ld

Add To Friends

 

==================================================== ==================================================== ==================================================== ==================================================== ====================================================

Anyone got any ghostly advice?

well, I came on here today, because I am working on my novel… the one for this chalenge this time! it’s a ghost story, about a haunted house with several assorted ghosts living in it.

the “prime ghost” is the ghost of a black cat

the secondary ghost is a spirit possessed tree in the front yard

other ghosts include a hell hound, a bride, and a group of “little people” (not yet sure what to call these guys, they are somewhat like drawves or gnomes or leprechuans)

basicly I’m looking for any ideas, anyone might have, that they think would be useful in writing a ghost story; I’m looking for ghost cliches, urban ghost stories, how ghosts came to be, why do they haunt the places they haunt, how did they become ghosts, how can they escape from being a ghost, why might they haunt one person and not another, why are some ghosts goos while others are bad, how do ghosts kill people and why, and just about any ghostly idea you can come up with.

thanks for your help.

My Favorite Books

Here is a list of my favorite books, of books I own. You can create your own list here too. Lists up to 200 books are free.

EK’s Greatest Fiction Books of all Time:

I figured since everyone else on the blogosphere is makeing memes about what-have-you, and seeing how I like making lists, I might as well make a meme list of  my own. Actualy I’m going to make several of them, just cause I felt like it.

I have chosen to make this an alphabetical rather than “top 10″ list, because each of these books is equaly great and merits the #1 spot. I know I have forgotten to include some great books, so I plan to come back and add more to this list once I remember which books it is that I forgot to add.

So, now you are wondering, how is this a meme list, well, I’m getting to that part right now.




The Greatest Books of All Times Blog Meme:

Here’s how it works:

Just copy this post to your blog, keeping these instructions intact, and making changes as follows:

1) remove my name from the title and add your name or the name of your blog instead.
_____’s Greatest Books of All Time:

2.) remove my books from the list and add your book choices instead. How many books you list is not important, it could be as few as 3 or as many as 100 or any amount in between.

3.) add the URL of your blog to the list of blogs that are displaying this meme.

EK’s Greatest Books of all Time:

Today’s meme list is what I feel are the greatest works of fiction ever created. I chose these books based on how much I enjoyed reading them, how well I was able to itentify with the characters, and how good I felt the author’s writing style was. You may choose to agree or disagree with my choices. If you like or dislike any books on my list, I’d love to hear why you liked it or not.  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of my choices. If you like this Meme why not add it to your blog so people will link back to you as well?

  • A Christmas Carol
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators (series)
  • Alice Trough the Looking Glass
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Attaaack!
  • Dracula
  • Harry Potter (series)
  • His Majesty McDuck
  • Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5)
  • Nancy Drew (series)
  • Phantom of the Opera
  • Retief (series)
  • Return to Plain Awful
  • Scrooge McDuck His Life and Times
  • The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
  • The Three Muskateers
  • Treasure Island

Add the link to your blog here:
1.) http://blogmemes.wordpress.com
2.) http://eelkat.wordpress.com
3.) …add your URL here…

You may choose to display one of the following buttons in your sidebar or on your links page, but that is not required.

EelKat's Blog Memes: Greatest Books of All Time

EelKat's Blog Memes: Greatest Books of All Time

Copyright 2007 Wendy C. Allen a.k.a. EelKat

This meme may be copied and reposted on any blog or website as long as the above copyrighlight line and the two button banners remain intact with the rest of the post.

Star Log’s Blog Carnival for Writers

I have spent the last couple of hours browsing through Blog Carnivals. I love them.  They are such a great way to find new blogs to read. Well, I submitted several posts from Star Log to some of the carnivals. When browseing the carnival index though, I was disapointed to find that more than half of those aimed at writers have been shut down and are no longer taking new submissions.

In light of that info, I am now starting a new one, to be posted on an ongoing basis here at Star Log. I have decided to hold 12 carnivals a year, one each month. Submissions are open and accepted year ’round.

The overall theme is blog posts of interest to writers. What I am looking for are posts (written by you and posted on your blog), that offer advice to writers of all levels. The prime focus being on fiction stories, though all advice for writers is accepted. Posts on “general” writing topics accepted each month. Additionaly, I’d like to have a sub-theme each month as follows:

January: Writing Mysteries

February: Writing Romance

March: Writing Children’s Fiction

April: Writing Fantasy

May: Writing Science Fiction

June: Writing Pirate Fiction

July: Writing Action/Adventure

August: Writing Gothic

September: Writing High Fantasy

October: Writing Horror

November: Writing Family Memoires

December: Writing Holiday Fiction

Submissions are due by the last day of the previous month. Blog listings will be posted the first week the month. Send your submissions here.

You can copy the following tag to add to your blog so people will have a link back to find your listing with Star Log’s Blog Carnival For Writers:

What Does “Non-Genre” Mean?

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: “What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?” I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on it’s comments.  Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, “they’re non-genre focused”, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:

Romance

Fantasy

Sci-fi

Horror

(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader

When a publisher say “they’re non-genre focused” they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so… this is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction. The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependant on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own veiws as to the meaning of “non-genre”.

~~EK

Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions!

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Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions! May they inspire you to write about dancing vampire bunnys!

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us 

EelKat

Moonsnails Magazine
“Where reality becomes a dream & dreams become reality.”

Writing Exercise: Twinkies

Today is the anniversary of the Twinkie. Answers.com has this to say about them:

Spotlight: Twinkies! Can junk food get any sweeter? Twinkies are comfort food; they’re sweet and light and easy to eat. They have about 145 calories apiece. Everyone makes fun of them. Very few people will admit to it, but someone in America is eating an awful lot of them. Hostess (owned by Interstate Bakeries Corporation) sold about 500,000,000 Twinkies last year. First invented on this date in 1930, Twinkies became a lunch box favorite and were a snack food of choice to satisfy the need for a mid-afternoon sugar fix. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton chose a package of Twinkies as one of the “enduring American icons” to be preserved in the nation’s millennium time capsule.

Quote: “When it comes to Twinkies, I’d rather fight than quit.”Henry Waxman,

Twinkies
Twinkies
Source

Well, all that got me to thinking, why  not have you guys write a story inspired by Twinkies. So, for today’s writing exercise I want you to write a story about a man who becomes obsessed with Twinkies, to the point that they take over his entire life. This could be a horror, a sci-fi, or any other genre you choose.

Well, have fun writing today’s assignment.

~~EK

Submission Guidelines for Moonsnails

myspace layouts, myspace codes, glitter graphics

myspace layouts, myspace codes, glitter graphics 

Basic Submissions Guidlines:

This is a quick overview of our basic guidelines. See our fully detailed guidelines for each seperate genre on our Submission Guidelines website.

Status:
Moonsnails is currently accepting submissions

Title:

Moonsnails Magazine

Magazine Format:(projected)

Quarterly: 6″ x 9″, 96 – 132 pages per issue;
60 lb bright white paper, B&W text; 10pt glossy laminated perfect bound full color cover

Circulation:

world-wide though print on demand

Contact Info:

Wendy C. Allen, editor-in-chief, twighlightmanor@yahoo.com

Submission Format:

Send in body of email, 12pt Courier or Times New Roman or Send at attachment .RTF 12pt Courier or Times New Roman.

Payment:

copies only at this time; buys one time rights, (the right to print story in one issue; author retains copyright)

responce time: 2 – 6 months

Needs:

Short stories up to 13,000 words.

Literary Genre fiction. Cross-gen OK.

Rarely uses poetry. Poetry used only if it can be considered a full-fledged story, complete with characters and plot. Never accepts free-verse.

Genres Accepted:

Sci-fi, Fantasy, Gothic Romance, and “mild” Horror

Sub-Genres and Cross-Genres Accepted:

Action, Adventure, Alien Invasion, Alien Realms, Alternative Histories, Amateur Detective, Americana, Ancient Civilizations, Animal Stories, Biographical Fiction, Christmas, Classic Literature, Colonial America, Cryptozology, Dark Fantasy, Dragon Tales, Easter, Ethnic Fiction, Espionage, Faerie Realms, Fairy Tales, Family Sagas, Fantasy, Folklore, Frontier Sagas, Furries, Futuristic, Ghost Stories, Gothic Romance, Halloween, Hard Science Fiction, Haunted Houses, High Fantasy, High Seas Adventure, Historical, Horror, Humor, Inspirational, Kung Fu, Literary, Mad Scientist Sci-Fi, Mermaid Tales, Military, Mystery, Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Pirate Tales, Psychological Thiller/Terror, Regional: Maine, Regional: Quebec, Romance, Science Fiction, Serials, Short-Shorts, Slueths, Space Fantasy, Space Travel, Spiritual, Sword & Sorcery, Supernatural, Suspence, Thiller, Time Travel, Twilight Zone style, UFO stories, Unicorn Tales, Utopian Realms, Victorian, War, Western, Wizard Tales, Young Adult.

Things Rejected:

Rejects all stories that contain:

abortion, animal abuse, child abuse, cutting, death glorification, depression, depressive self-pity, drinking, drugs, elder abuse, erotica, expose`, gore, hatred, hunting, politics, pornography, sex, smoking, swearing, suicide, vulgar verbology, and stories about “how my teenage years were crap”.

Stories must be family friendly and rated PG-13 or less

Poetry Needs:

We focus on short stories, thus rarely use poetry.

Sometimes accepts poetry, at best it’s only 4 poems per year, IF it tells a story and has strong characters. Same as fiction needs, seeks longer “epic length” story poems akin to Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamlin, Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven or Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs & Ham. Prefers long rhyming poems with strong characters and a strong story plot.

Poetry Rejects:

Same as fiction rejects, plus: Does not accept free-verse poetry, haiku, short poems, poems without characters, poems without plots, meaningless ramblings, odes to…, poems without rhythem, or any other type of poem that does not tell a complete story from beginning to end.

Cover Art:

Usually done “in-house”, but well consider submissions of full-color photography or paintings, covering any genre. Always seeks beach and ocean themed photos or paintings. Do not send originals. Email files as atactment. Files must be compatible with MSWorks, MSPaint, or MSPublisher 97, .jpg files prefered. Note that we can not accept .tif files, our email treats them as a virus and deletes them. See fiction for needs & rejects list. Buys one time rights.

Art & Inside Illustration:

Usually uses spot illustrations and copyright-free/public domain illustration, but well consider submissions of B&W, pen & ink, line art only … no pencil, no shading, no grey-scale, no color, our printer well not accept them. All illustrations must be 4″ x 6″ or smaller and camera ready. Do not send originals. Email files as atactment. Files must be compatible with MSWorks, MSPaint, or MSPublisher 97, .jpg files prefered.  Note that we can not accept .tif files, our email treats them as a virus and deletes them. See fiction for needs & rejects list.

Advice:

Best advise: buy a copy of Brian Froud’s Faeries. Use it as though it were our Submissions Guidelines. Treat it as your Writer’s Bible. Use it to create believable fantasy characters. Never go anywhere without it. If you want to write for us than consider Brian Froud your new best friend, read everything he ever wrote. Study every painting he ever did. Watch every film he ever created. Watch the 2 movies written by Brian Froud: Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Read the Retief series by Keith Laumer and The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. We like that kind of sci-fi best.

Watch Star Trek (the original series), Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, X-Files, and Tales From the Dark Side. Let them inspire you. If your story would make for a good episode on one of them, than we want to see it!

We like to see strong characters. Character driven stories. Well written plots. We like fantasy realms, dreamscapes, and alien planets. Creativity is always welcomed. Pirates are always good, we need more pirates. Always seeking stories about Mermaids, Sirens, Dragons, Unicorns, or other creatures of the Realm of Fay. We like to see characters that Brian Froud would have created.

Let your imagination run wild.

Twighlight Manor Press Home Page

myspace layouts, myspace codes, glitter graphics

Twighlight Manor Press Home Page

Business Plans: Moonsnails Magazine: We’re Back!

In fall of 2005 Twighlight Manor Press announced that it was planning the release of a new magazine, which at that point was untitled and it‘s genre unknown. Our original idea was to keep it local; local writers, local sales, local flavor to the stories. Market research, however showed us that that would be a very unprofitable venture that would doom our magazine to failure before it’s fifth issue. We had to rethink out plan.

Over the next several weeks we threw around ideas and finally decided that the magazine would be a fiction “literary journal”. At first we planned on “all good fiction”, but than after studying the market, realized that this was virtually a bottomless pit, that would result in more manuscript submissions than our tiny staff of four would be able to handle.

Another thing we decided early on, was that, we wanted to stand out on bookstore shelves. Looking at other magazines sold at a local bookstore, Nonesuch Books in Saco, I discovered something. Rack upon rack of magazines, where all the same: 8×11” glossy and flimsy issues, that would not stand the test of time on a bookshelf, given them a shelf life of just 3 weeks. (This short shelf life was according to a study I found online.) According to that study, only a few magazines would be shelved and saved to be read again and again for several years. These magazines had good content and a sturdy binding. I went to Nonesuch Books looking for magazines with good content and study bindings, and was amazed at how few there actually were. In the end I found only three, out of the hundreds of magazines the shop had on the racks. By the end of this stage in our study we came to one conclusion: this magazine, was NOT going to be a 8×11” glossy; instead it would read like a book, with crisp white paper and a square bound “paperback” cover.

After some more market studies, we came to the conclusion that rather than focusing on fiction in general, we would instead use the same rule we use for writing: Write what you know. In our case it would translate into: Publish what you read. All four of us are sci-fi buffs. Sci-fi movies, sci-fi TV, sci-fi comics, sci-fi books… well it seemed only natural that we would thus choose sci-fi as the genre for the new magazine.

By January of 2006 we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with the magazine. On Space Dock 13 (the website) we announced that the magazine was a defiant go, and we were planning it’s release later that year.

With our genre in mind, we set out the name our new magazine. After several weeks of debate, only one thing was agreed upon: that the magazine must have a sci-fi sounding name and that it should reflect our local home base, namely that we are on the world’s most beautiful beach: Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

In April 2006 we introduced the world to two new websites. The first was the message board for writers: A Writer’s Desk. It was our hope that through here we would find new talent seeking to be published in our magazine. A message board built entirely to promote the magazine, today it stands on it’s own and has no connection to the magazine at all.

Our second Website was of course the homepage for our magazine. We had finally decided on a name, and that name was: Moonsnails. After a walk to the beach that cold April, me and my three brothers returned home with tote bags filled with Old Orchard’s most beloved seashell: the Atlantic Moonsnail. Later that day, while sorting the shells on the lawn, it hit me: Moonsnails was the perfect name for our magazine, it kept the local flavor and it sounded sci-fi. Later that week Moonsnails homepage went online.

By the end of April 2006 we were getting quotes from various printers, both local and online. Announcement went out with the news that Moonsnails would see its public release in September of 2006. We were off and running, and than came May 9, 2006 and the flood that washed away all of our plans, destroying everything we owned and bringing Twighlight Manor Press to an instant standstill. We lost everything, the building was condemned, and nothing survived. As far as the business was concerned, we were back at ground zero.

That same day, as a result of the flood, my dad went into a coma. In July of 2006, my dad awoke from the coma and returned home disabled and in my care. In September of 2006, instead of releasing Moonsnails, we found ourselves in the midst of fight to save our land from a local land shark. The result was my dad’s return to the hospital. In October of 2006, a fire swept through. What little we had that survived the flood, was destroyed in the fire and we were faced with fighting out Maine’s frigid winter in a tent, a fate that did not sick well with my disabled dad’s rapidly failing health.

In January of 2007, things took a turn once again, this time in our favor, and we found our selves with electricity, heat, and a roof over our heads, for the first time since May 9, 2006.

Reunited with my computer, I was amazed to find, that in spite of the flood, in spite of the fire, the hard drive remained intact, and with a few minor repairs, it runs as good as new. It looks like hell, a bent mangled mess, but who cares, all my files are still here! All my plans and templates, all those months of research and market studies: they had survived! With that knowledge in hand I set out to pick up the pieces, and once again, plans are underway, full speed ahead, to bring Moonsnails into production.

And that brings us to today. Nether flood, nor fire, nor cold of winter, could stop Moonsnails. Moonsnails rises once again.

~EK

Rant: When Did Gothic Go To Hell?

What happened to Gothic? Where did it go? And who are the black clothed demons that took it’s place? There are times when I get totally pissed over little things. This is one of them. I have been a fan of Gothic since the mid 1970′s. My entire life has been built around Gothic. I wear 13th century gowns of rose velvet. Haunted houses are more than a hobby, they are the core of my existance. Top hats and frock coats are part of my daily wardrobe. I wear burnoose and houplandres and cockscombs. Men I love are romantic owners of haunted house dressed ala Vincent Price. At age 9 my favorite book was Jane Eyre. Gothic flows through my viens. More than half of my fiction books are Gothics written from the 1850′s through the 1970′s.

So what brings on this rant? I just did a Google search for Gothic fiction, because a search on Harlequin’s website revealed that they no longer sell Gothic fiction. You know what I got back as results? Vampires. Death. Sex fetish cloths and weapons. Death. Black leather. Death. Demons. Death. Grim Reapers. Death. Blood lust. Death. Suicide. Death. Depression. Death. More Death. And, well death again. Not one single book. No romance. No haunted houses. No 13th century fashions. In other words, not one single solitary thing that is Gothic.

From what I can tell of Google search, the Gothic of today is nothing like the Gothic I grew up with as a child. Where is the romance? Where are the castles? Where are the handom men in poet blouses and frock coats? When did Gothic die and go to hell? When did Gothic raise from the depths of hell and return as a pit of demonic blackness of suicide and depression? When did Gothic stop being Gothic and start being Satanic?

Where has Gothic gone, and what is this grim blackness that claims to be Gothic today?

~~EK

testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

666

I just logged in for the day. First thing I always do is check comments in queue waiting for moderation. Today there were only 2 comments wating for me to approve them. After reading and approving them I checked the spam comment list to see there were ant comments that got stuck in with the spam ones. About 1 or 2 comments get shifted into the spam section and have to be moved to the comment section, so I always check. Well today I got this message:

Caught Spam

Akismet has caught 666 spam for you since you first installed it.

You have no spam currently in the queue. Must be your lucky day. :)

Well, if it isn’t a 458 that’s following me around it’s a 666. What is it with these two numbers anyways? Seems like every day one or the other shows up somewhere and sticks out like a sore thumb at me.

Does this ever happen to any of you? If so what number(s)?

~~EK

April Writer’s Challange

One month, One Story, yep, you knew it was coming, it’s time for the: April Writer’s Challange:

Easter is just around the corner. For this month’s challange I thought we  would write an “Eastery” story. Doesn’t have to be Easter exactly. I was inspired by Dove Chocolate’s “Fairy Bunny”, which I saw in the store today. They are so cute. On the box is a poem that tells about an enchanted valley where bunnies with butterfly wings live. It’s a cute little image tale, and it got me to thinking: What a great fantasy story that’d make!

So, this month’s challange is to write a fantasy about an enchanted valley filled with magical faeries and the like. You can spin it off as any genre you like. One idea I thought of was based on my siggie gif: The Vampire Easter Minions. Kind of a fairy tale got mad thing.

Ain’t they cute?

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us 

What can you guys think of? 

The challange is up, so get going and write!

~~EK