What's the creepiest thing you've ever read?

In this Halloween week when we’re all gearing up to be scared, I’m wondering what’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever read? Was it a Stephen King or James Herbert or Richard Laymon book? Or an Edgar Allen Poe story, maybe? With horror, you’d expect, and be hoping, to be scared silly. I’ve read a lot of Stephen King and found some of it quite creepy but nothing that really scared me (although I can remember being really frightened by the first TV adaptation of Salem’s Lot – in my defence I was watching it alone and was a teenager with an over-active imagination [so the only thing that’s changed there is my age]).

The creepiest book I’ve ever read was Blood Harvest by S.J.Bolton. S.J. writes cracking thrillers that are steeped in Old English folklore and, maybe because I wasn’t expecting to be scared by a thriller, was why it got me. Where I’d usually go to bed with a book, I found that I couldn’t read that one just before I went to sleep, especially when my husband was away. Ten out of ten to the author for the amount of suspense and ‘can’t bear to look’ moments in that one.

My youngest daughter doesn’t do horror or anything remotely like it and, we’ve realised, it’s because she can’t bear the tension build-up to the moment that makes you jump but, as writers, that’s the part of our readers we want to tap into to make you want to keep turning the pages!

If you want to have a creepy five minutes - check out the guest blog post I did this week, what a lot of fun I had writing those 500 words!! Enjoy.

http://victoria-writes.com/2013/10/30/halloween-week-karen-guyler-halloween-is-coming/

100 ups and downs

For the past few months I’ve been flogging myself half to death trudging up and down the stairs and not because I keep forgetting something! I’m off soon (excited squeak at exactly how soon) on a BIG trek and the up and down the stairs is the bulk of my training. My asthma stops me running and I don’t have time (or the inclination) for the whole gym thing so up and down the stairs has been brilliant. When I first started I could manage about four before a) needing my inhaler or b) my legs threatening to give out but now I can do 100 up and down with no inhaler, and the other day I ran all first 50.

It takes about half an hour to do the 100 and I’ve realised it’s a lot like a word count when writing a book. The first twenty-five are ‘easy’ – I’ve just started and am keen. The first quarter of a book is like that too, after planning I can’t wait to start and meet all the characters and the first chapter, the one that usually led to me writing the book in the first place, practically writes itself.

Twenty-five to fifty up and downs are okay, it starts feeling a little tough but I’m almost at the half-way point so that keeps me going. That part of the book process is okay too, by this point I’m picking up some of the threads I’ve planted at the beginning and I’m putting more in ready for the big finale.

But then I hit fifty-one and it gets hard, harder. And from sixty to seventy-five? They hurt! In book-writing terms fifty thousand in, you hit the dreaded ‘middle of the book sag’. I have (hopefully, although not usually in first draft!) a great beginning and I’ve built in lots to pick up at my exciting dénouement but how do I get from here to there? On a tough day, when the words won’t flow, it can feel impossible, lots of head-desk moments and shouting at myself to just get on with it. If only it was as easy as trying to ignore the pain in my thighs at the top of the stairs!

With lots of teeth-gritting, I hit seventy-five up and downs and I’m so close to the end, my pace picks up. And at seventy thousand-ish words I’ve limped to the point where I’m well on to the ending and can see how it all fits together so writing then is a joy and my laptop struggles to keep up with the speed at which the words fall out of my brain.

And then it’s the magic 100 – the best up and down of the lot – and I’m hot and tired and sweaty and struggle to get back up the stairs to the shower, but I’ve done it, until tomorrow. And when I hit the last full stop at the end of the last chapter, I can type those immortal words ‘the end’. And while first time around they actually mean ‘finished for six weeks when you get to go through it all again and put right where you messed it up’, for the moment, that’s worth celebrating!

The power of words

I came across a great quote this week that really made me stop and think:

The only words you’ll regret more than the ones you left unsaid, are the ones you used to intentionally hurt someone.

I’ve always taught my kids that when they say something hurtful and wounding, those words will always be out there hurting and wounding, no matter how many times they say “I’m sorry” or even how much they mean that apology. And as a storyteller, you become aware exactly how powerful words can be. With just a handful of them a good writer can make you feel sad or uplifted, threatened or empowered. You can be taken to a strange new universe that becomes part of your world, you can revisit memories, you can be encouraged to look at something familiar in a new and different way. And in being English-speakers we are blessed with a language that is rich in terms of volume of words and of nuance.

Thanks to a horrendous cold I lost my voice for three days a few months ago, I couldn’t even whisper. Not being able to use my words meant I felt isolated at a family meal out as I couldn’t join in the conversation so what was the point in anyone telling me anything as I couldn’t reply and I had to postpone dinner with new friends. These things didn’t really matter so much but in trying to get on with things, going to a shop was really hard – without the ability to say thank you twenty-five times while paying, as is our British way, I felt so rude, and it was clear from the looks I was getting, the cashier thought I was too! Not being able to make a phone call, share any part of my day or my thoughts with anyone else, let’s just say I was so pleased when my voice came back, although making up for three days of silence, I’m not so sure my family was …

Our words are powerful things. Speak kindly. Speak gently.

But also always speak your truth.