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.

This is the blog post I don't want you to read

This last week has been a big week. I’ve signed up to do a marketing course. Nothing big about that really except that it is a year-long course with lots of homework. So far, so expected and so difficult – those who know me well know how I struggle to fit everything in as it is, so taking on something this big . . . But, as we all know, because the lights are never all going to be green at the same time, there’s always a reason to procrastinate. On the one hand, this course is only presented every 12-14 months, got to do it now. On the other, I’m away nearly all of November, so I’ll be playing catch-up for a while afterwards, should take it next time.

But then there was the tipping thing for me and the reason why I pressed that buy button. The course is really a business course and I wouldn’t know how to apply it to be applicable to fiction writing. But I know someone who does, who uses this system and who is running a course alongside the business one to dovetail it to fiction writing. And that someone is that the author with whom I have taken the best writing courses I ever did so I know, with her help, and more work, I can make this er work.

So the scary news is

I’m effectively doing two year-long courses together

The good news is

over this next year I am going to be writing a lot of fiction

The bad news is

I now need to buy a roll of wallpaper on which to write my ‘to-do list’ (with thanks to Nicola, who is also embarking on this madness, for that fabulous idea)

And despite being daunted, I am excited!

Why is this then the blog post I don’t want you to read?

Because now it’s out there in the big wide world, I’m accountable to the goals I’m setting and the tight timetables. So you will nudge me if you see me straying, won’t you?

A wise man once said

I recently learnt that Confucius said that ‘it doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop’. And then in one of those once you see something once, you see it everywhere experiences, I’ve noticed lots of other people saying the same thing in all different ways. And it may seem pretty obvious, but to me it’s been a real eye-opener.

I am the world’s worst at beating myself up if I don’t hit my word target for the day or don’t manage to do any writing on a particular evening, and then I get stuck in this ‘I’m so behind’ spiral and all that serves to do is to derail me further. Two of the people closest to me have both reminded me in this last week that I write because I enjoy it, so I should enjoy the journey as well as the reaching the destination. This is my shiny new goal.

I’ve got rid of a daily word count, I’m not even keeping track of how many words I do each day, but I am trying to write every day and if that’s only 100 words, that’s okay. The days I do a lot make my smile brighter, but the few words here and there added when I can, are making my work in progress grow astonishingly fast, which in turn is making me look like I’m auditioning for a toothpaste ad.

Confucius also said ‘choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ Wise man, that Confucius.

Your starter for 35

This may sound a little nerdy but for the last two years I’ve been keeping a list of the books that I’ve read (yes, okay, it’s a lot nerdy). I decided to do this because I read very quickly and so I can’t always remember what I’ve read. When I’m actually reading something I’m totally immersed in the plot and invested in the characters, so much so you could tell me you were leaving a million pounds right beside me and, if I’m reading, I wouldn’t hear you or notice when someone else made off with the money. But once that book goes back on my bookshelf, is returned to the library, or is filed in my Kindle cloud, I’m totally invested in the next one.

The number of books I’ve read this year has just passed the number I read in the whole of last year (the 35 of the title, which will have book bloggers and my teenage-self rolling about laughing at how few this is) but it’s great to see for someone always moaning about a lack of time. And it’s fascinating to see how eclectically I read – I don’t think I can say I read in a favourite genre any more. It’s also amazing how it’s almost like a journal in how it maps out my year – in January I wasn’t well so I read 9 books, in April I was editing in every spare second I had so I didn’t read any.

I wish I’d started this list years ago, not least so I could remember the one book I read so many times when I was ten, you’d think the title would be tattooed on my brain – about a gang of kids led by a boy called Ginger, if anyone can help me out.

Rightie or leftie - apparently we're both

So I had most of my next blog post written out –

So which are you? And I’m not talking about the hand you hold a pen with.

I bought a book once called ‘Organising for Creative People’ in which there was a quiz to see which side of your brain is dominant. People, it said, usually score slightly higher on one side or the other – I scored 80% right brain. Right brain is what governs the creative side, the part of your mind that wants to play with pictures and colours. The left side is the logical side, the analytical thinker good with logic and numbers. You can see why I needed the book now, can’t you?

Writing, I’ve learnt, is very much a both sides working together activity. The ideas come out of my right brain and I need my left brain to filter out the ‘that’s just crazy’ ones. I need logic and analytical skills to ask questions about my characters, give the story its structure and make sure I keep to my themes. My creative side, that’s where all the really cool stuff happens – where the ideas feed from, where the characters are born, where the ‘instead of that, how about this’ bursts out and changes everything I’d been assuming to be true in the context of my story.

And then, I have no idea why, I decided to google left/right brain dominance and – insert sound of a needle scratching across a record - it turns out that research published this week has totally debunked this theory. It now appears that, whilst some functions do occur in one or other side of the brain, how we use our brains seems to be determined more connection by connection.

All very fascinating but all very unhelpful for my poor blog post.

But it made me think about research – it’s so easy now to find out everything about anything, to justify an argument with a fact or a quote, to be able to talk convincingly about a place you’ve only visited through travel blogs and YouTube. And fascinating when you discover a little known fact about a little known fact and, if my experience is anything to go by, I’d be surprised if surfing isn’t the number one accidental displacement activity for writers. Can you imagine if suddenly, à la sci-fi/dystopian/conspiracy plot, the internet was no more? Apparently the internet has never been for two thirds of the world’s population, according to another little nugget I picked up this morning. Now, of course, my right brain is pinging book ideas at me as if, not only has the internet ended, but there will be no tomorrow - please keep quiet about the fact it can’t be doing this!