Category: The Craft
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Introspection For Writers and P.I.N.K.
A famous businessman got some unkind attention lately when, during an interview, he claimed he never practiced introspection. He said introspection is a silly modern affectation, invented only in the 1910s in Prague. (Hold this alleged factoid in your brain, we’ll come back to it.) Before that, nobody got curious about their own minds. When…
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How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall?
If making New Year’s resolutions is cliché, surely it’s also become a cliché to declare that resolutions are silly. “95% of resolutions fail by January 7!” we might say, smugly. “Glad I never want to get better at anything!” Except, of course, most of us do want to get better at something. Maybe you want…
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THINKING ABOUT VILLAINS
Last year I listened to the audiobook Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, And The Secret History Of The 60s. It had me hooked, because I can remember as a teen in the early 90s when Manson’s crazed face got put on black T-shirts and placed on serial killer trading cards. This is a true horror…
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From Blood to Whispers: The Appeal of Quiet Horror
I used to live in the guts of horror. By that, I mean the kind of horror that stains your palms and tastes like rust. My other books — especially the Bloody Series with its love for graphic detail, human monsters, and the unforgiving anatomy of violence — live in the places where flesh tears,…
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The Natural Rewards of Writing
I’m sure there are people out there who began writing because they wanted fame and fortune (although I can’t imagine anyone who keeps writing because of all the loose fame and fortune laying around in publishing). Every writer I know, however, began writing for a couple of reasons: There are some writers who are happy…
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MIRROR TEST
The Mirror Test is an experimental technique used by behavioral scientists to help determine whether or not an animal is capable of self-recognition, which is arguably considered to be a sign of self-awareness and sentience. A mark is placed on the animal at a spot it cannot see except in a mirror. If the animal…
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Creating A Horror Book Cover Using Canva or With Photoshop
In an earlier post, I demonstrated designing a book cover using Canva. I do most of my cover design work in Photoshop, but Canva is a great tool that I use regularly to design as well, so this time, I thought it would be fun to try designing the same cover in both Photoshop and…
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THRILLSEEKING
I haven’t really done a lot in terms of watching or writing horror in the last month. However, Sunday (for some reason) I recalled the movie Ronin, which I love dearly, and how I like Jean Reno’s cautious cool persona. This led me into trying to find a film he starred in I couldn’t remember…
Threads that Bind 