Happy Halloween!
Earlier this month, I put out a call for short horror fiction… and my call was answered! (Spoiler alert: THE CALL WAS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE… mostly because I barely leave the house anymore given the pandemic and whatnot…)
Anywaaaaay. Tonight (Saturday, Oct. 31th), I’m hosting a show of those very stories on Instagram live at 8 pm.
The performers and stories we’ve got lined up are terrific and I’ll be debuting a new character, Sister Sarah Elizabeth, who wants nothing more than to absolve you naughty creatures of your sins.
Hope you can make it… alive.
To get myself in the mood for the holiday, I turned to horror master Stephen King—and his classic On Writing. Here’s a passage that stuck with me:
A block down the hill, not far from Teddy’s Market and across from Burnets Building Materials, was a huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train track running through the middle. This is one of the places I keep returning to in my imagination; it turns up in my books and stories again and again, under a variety of names. The kids in It called it the Barrens; we called it the jungle.
I have places like this, too (in my first novel, Love Will Tear Us Apart, I wrote about one of them and I called it “The Reservoir.”) I’ve never written a scene I’ve loved quite as much at the one I set at the Reservoir, and I suspect it’s because I have a very vivid idea of what that place is, and what it means to me. It’s really a mix of two places from my childhood, and I suspect it’s one I’ll write about again and again.
Lately, I’ve been dreaming of a few other places that have a similar power over me. In my dreams they’re a little different from the way they were in real life, and they seem to be begging me to bring them to life in their strange, uncanny form.
What places are asking you to bring them to life… or to death?
Now, as promised, I’d like to share some of the sounds and stories of the season that I’ve been immersing myself in. I’ll say nothing about them because I think it’s fun to go into things… cold.
I’m now about to watch Host to get myself in the mood for my virtual show, and I’ve also heard good things about Evil and In Fabric so those are next on my list.
And if you’re looking for something to do later tonight, streaming channel The LITverse has a Halloween party/costume contest tonight at 10!
Okay, that’s all for this week. I’m glad Halloween is the literal only scary thing happening in our world right now ;)
xoxoxo
Sarah