Category: Blog Tour

Articles / Blog Tour

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Reflections on Writing Horror – As Fast As She Can Blog Tour

Reflections on Writing Horror

by E.F. Schraeder

 

Horror is a wonderfully broad genre with a scope that ranges from subtle and quiet scares to all imaginable extremes inflicted on the body, from gritty realism to every imaginable alternate world possibility. For someone starting to write a new horror project that kind of variation could be daunting. How much gore is too much? Are you going to emphasize one element like a monster; do you plan to focus on internal terror or on something happening in the external world? And if you’re sitting at the computer working on a first draft, how do you decide?

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Articles / Blog Tour

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‘Killer of Giants’ Blog Tour – Build A Better World, Or Not…

BUILD A BETTER WORLD, OR NOT…
By Steven L. Shrewsbury

“What world did you use in your new fantasy novel KILLER OF GIANTS?”

Well, this one.

That’s my usual smarty-pants answer to such a question. I follow it up with saying that in the book it is set in a pre-flood world, an antediluvian realm where many elements are different than our current world or ones glimpsed in ancient history. The world then was dissimilar before the flood story (seen in many cultures), from religious texts or reliefs in many places. “Gods”, demons, and their half-breed offspring freely walked the Earth (this one) alongside many bizarre creatures, be they all from nightmares or a glimpse of reality.
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Articles / Blog Tour / Interviews

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‘Knight in Retrograde’ Blog Tour: Writing Knight in Retrograde

Today we’re joined by Lee Hunt the author of Knight in Retrograde, the third release in The Dynamicist Trilogy. For info about the trilogy, it is described as, “The Dynamicist Trilogy examines the difficulties of change in a fantasy setting. This challenge manifests itself through a rigorous magic system where thermodynamic cost is accounted for, and an inventor killing god. Most realistically, the challenge of creating a better world is illustrated by the many mistakes and miss-steps of the well-meaning and intelligent characters. The power and importance of memory, love and hope are ever present.”

Q. How would you describe your writing style/genre?
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Articles / Blog Tour

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‘Triumph’s Ashes’ Blog Tour – Thinking Outside The Box

After I finished writing The Cassidy Chronicles I thought I was finished writing about Aiyana and Kendra.

I started with their wedding, broke it up, got them married, sent them on adventures, put them in peril, and finally ended things with them on top and ready to change the world.

I was ready to start on The Next Book.

It’s not as easy as it sounds; at least, not for me.

First I had to think of a problem.

Fine. Impending famine due to a breakdown in infrastructure.

Yawn. Boring!

Impending famine due to breakdown in infrastructure because the Lunar colonies keep demanding all the rare metals needed to keep the machinery working.

Better…

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‘It Calls from the Doors’ Blog Tour – Blockbuster Made Me Do It

Blockbuster Made Me Do It

by Paul O’Neill

 

At the bottom of our sad, gusty high street, my track-suited friends and I wasted afternoons at our local Blockbusters. Long gone now, of course, but they were all the rage back then. You could waste a lot of time in that vivid blue atmosphere. I can still taste all that plastic. Empty cassette cases (they were empty to stop us from knicking them) lined the walls from top to bottom. 

A vivid memory stands in my mind of carrying the empty cases of Poltergeist 3, Child’s Play, and Toys. Toys seems to have vanished from the world, but the terrifying jack-in-the-box on its cover still haunts me.
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Articles / Blog Tour

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‘To Bring Him Home and Other Tales’ Tour – An Insight Into Warren Rochelle’s Writing

Title: To Bring Him Home and Other Tales

 

A plotter or a pantser? Oh, definitely a plotter. Before I can start, I have to know where the story is going to end.  This doesn’t have to be very specific at all.  For example: at the beach, what beach, and how they got there, to be determined. Or, in the White City. Where the White City is and how they got there and why they went, something I will learn as the story progresses. I also have to be a beginning in which I can feel the flag drop, so to speak. Here, at this place, this point in time, the story moves forward, it begins. I also find myself dropping up time lines of significant events to be sure the continuity works and as a part of world-building. Most of the time I prepare an outline, knowing it will change, but the outline gives me a shape and a structure within which to tell my story.
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Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek

  1. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Lee Murray’s Sneak Peek
  2. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Geneve Flynn’s Sneak Peek
  3. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Christina Sng’s Sneak Peek
  4. Guest Post: Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken Angela Yuriko Smith’s Sneak Peek

A preview of ‘Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken’

Lee Murray

 

Tortured Willows—Bent. Bowed. Unbroken

Poetry by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn

 

I’m delighted to join my Crane sisters—Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Geneve Flynn—to bring you Tortured Willows, a collaborative collection comprising 60 poems expanding on the themes of otherness, expectation, and tradition that were introduced in our multi-award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards). With a foreword by dark fiction writer, poet, and historian, K.P. Kulski, the author of Fairest Flesh, and a stunning cover design by Kyra Starr, Tortured Willows releases on Poetry Day, 7 October 2021, from Yuriko Publishing. Today, I’m excited to give readers of The Horror Tree an advance peek of one of my poems from the collection:

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Articles / Blog Tour

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‘Traitors of the Black Crown’ Blog Tour – Finding Your Voice

Finding Your Voice by Cate Pearce

 

In my second year of undergrad (2006), I took a unique creative writing course. It was a night class so about half of the students were “adult learners” at midpoints in their careers. The other half were college kids like me; we fell short of the criteria for the “real” creative writing programs due to missed deadlines or less-than-impressive portfolios. It was a hodge-podge of experiences, ages, and interests. It was also the best writing course I have ever taken.

 

The premise of the class was simple. We had to write the entire ninety minutes. Once class started, we could not talk. If we had something to say to someone, we had to write it, and then read it aloud. The only socializing was done before, or after class.

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