Lotta New Faces

Hi, MacAllister. I'm one of your newbies. I've been on AW for several months...was scammed by PA and went to the long PA thread to get some self-respect back.

I love horror, especially (older) Stephan King. Favorite poet is Edgar Allen Poe, "Quote the raven, nevermore" and all that. I don't know why I'm so drawn to horror as it doesn't scare me. Real life movies like The Day After and the movie about the bomb in the soft drink machine (can't remember the name of it right now) scare me a lot more than monsters and zombies.

What I write tends to be on the sad side. I guess you'd classify it as Southern Fiction. Woman done wrong by the man she loves.

Anyway, I'm glad to have found your group. Thanks for the warm welcome.

Hello, I'm also new.. just discovered absolutelwrite about a week ago and browsed the old forums a bit, but decided to come out of hiding with this new site.

I'm not sure why I love horror, I got inspired early with R. L. Stine's Goosebumps, then went on to some King and Koontz, and have loved it ever since. I'm starting to read more diverse genres now though.

I'd love to write a novel someday, but so far I've just been trying short stories. Even they are incredibly hard, and so far I haven't finished anything really good. I'm still young though, so hopefully my short stories will count as practice for now, and maybe I'll write something wicked awesome in time.

lol DiscoDan was a nickname I've had for a long time.. and so to make remembering my login name easy i just use it for everything. I don't remember disco .. but I'm thinkin' that's a good thing

MacAllister said:

Hiya Sara. Glad you're here! I did my master's thesis on King's Pet Sematary <geek> LOVE his older stuff.

Personally, I think horror gives voice to the shadow-self that Jung talks about, in a safe and controlled way. It also allows us a safe catharsis for our very real, very personal, terrors. That's a powerful tool.

PA scams good, bad, and mediocre writers alike. God knows, depending on the day, we're ALL good, bad, and mediocre writers.

Don't feel bad, and don't feel alone. Your thing is writing, not seeing through the con-artists in the world. I'm glad you haven't let them take the writing away from you.

Mac

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Well, that explains a LOT. When I was so terribly hooked on King, I was living in my own very real, very personal terror. Since I've escaped that situation I find I'm reading less horror.

King will always be #1 with me though. His books took me away from that terror for hours at the time until I was strong enough to get out on my own.

Thanks, MacAllister!

Howdy. I've been a lurker at Absolute Write for quite a long time, but realized that talking about horror to my mailman was pretty unfulfilling so decided to actually register.

I write short fiction horror mostly, though a bit of fantasy and science fiction (under pseudonyms). I have several novels planned out, but I had read that mastering the short story form helps you write a better novel, helping you focus on pacing and removing extraneous material. While I obviously don't know if that is actually true, I have so many short story ideas that it hasn't exactly been a problem yet.

I have been writing for about 12 years, starting in my mid-twenties. I wrote 3 stories, realized that they really stunk, and put writing aside for a while. I picked up the pen (keyboard) again in 1997, wrote 5 stories, and realized that while they were better, it wasn't by much. Fast forward to two years ago. I looked at all my old stories, realized how I could make each one, if not great, good. Even better, the new stories I started writing seemed fresh, and interesting. So I haven't stopped yet.

It's interesting to look at all the old stories, even the ones I've improved a dozen times, and realize 'man, I should never have done that, it would work much better if I...'. The advantage to my goofy system is I can look at the older stuff and get a real sense of perspective, a sense of improving in my writing and storytelling skills. The disadvantage is wanting to go back to 'fix' the old stuff (that hasn't been submitted yet). What I decided to do was put everything through a final edit, put it in a folder called Done, and submit. Rather than obsessing over the old stuff, I think it's better to let it sink or swim on its own and move on to fresher material.

Favorite authors... I have quite a few, though I prefer some moreso than others. Skipp and Spector, Joe Lansdale, Ed Lee, Richard Matheson, Mort Castle are all great, and I wish Philip Nutman and David Whitman would write more. I prefer horror that has a tinge of humor or despair or preferably both; Stephen King's The Mist for example.

I spent a few years navel gazing with crit groups, and while I know they are great places for many writers, personally I have trouble seperating out the conflicting advice. Of course, this was in groups where the writers wrote mostly fantasy and science fiction, so perhaps a horror writer group would be a different kettle of fish.

Well, I suppose that's enough of my rambling. Thanks for having me.

Mac, I have to agree with you. While I've yet to actually finish even one of King's novels (he's a bit wordy for me), I love his short stories. No, wait. I have to take that back. I did mangage to finish The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Anyway, I'm Spooky. I've loved the horror genre since I was 11 and watched Pet Cemetary for the first time at a sleep-over. (That was many moons ago, by the by.) I prefer Koontz over King. As a pre-teen I could not get my hands on enough Christopher Pike books. I've also read the Goosebumps and RL Stine stories with my son. Everyone in my family enjoys the chills and thrills of horror...

What can I say? We're a spooky bunch.

Scottish newbie

I'm another Newbie


I'm Willie and I write Scottish based fantasy and horror.

I started writing in '91 and sold 150 short stories in the small and semi-pro genre press. Around 1999 I started getting pro sales, and moved into novel writing.

My first novel, Island Life (Barclay Books) was published in 2001.

My Watchers trilogy, where Bonnie Prince Charlie and his whole Highlander army are cast as vampires, has just been completed by Black Death Books.

I have 3 more novels coming from Black Death Books, a comic novel coming from Lions Den Studios and a low budget movie in production of one of my novels (currently being cast.). There's also an omnibus limited edition hardcover version of the Watchers trilogy coming in 2006.

I'm working on a modern day vampire novel set in Edinburgh, Scotland, while touting a crime novel to agents.

Willie
http://www.willie.meikle.btinternet.co.uk

Hello McAllister and all,

I'm not new to AW, but I am recently new to the forums. Just thought I'd inch the door open here to see what might be creeping and crawling in the hallways.

I write several genres but my favorite is horror. Love Stephen King; have every one of his books, several autographed. Dean Koontz and John Saul are my other favorites.

At present, I'm editing my second horror book. The first, after too many years of collecting dust, was sent out a few weeks ago.

I hope to be around here and the rest of the forums for awhile, but if I tend to disappear now and then, it's because I've come up with another brainy idea and I'm off working it out of my head and onto the screen.

Joanne

I'm new to AW also. Big horror fan just realizing that's what I write best. My favorite horror novel is The Lottery, Shirley Jackson. Love King, staring to read Koontz again, but my taste runs the gamut from Margaret Atwood to Willa Cather to Anne Rice. I'm actually toying with the idea of writing a horror/historical fiction story...not sure that I can pull it off.

Welcome Blue Texas and Joanne. Glad to see you here in the dark shadows.

Blue, good luck with the horror/historical. I've found I don't have the patience for historical. But, I do love a good Anne Rice book.

new faces--sign in

Yes, yes and yes. This is exactly what I am looking for. I would be more than happy to participate in crit groups etc.

My interests lie in fiction. I enjoy Baldacci, Sandra Brown as well as many others. I enjoy a story that keeps moving. Descriptive is Okay, but I find too much is boring and sometimes overkill. I realize that sometimes you need it to set the scene, but most of us have already made up our minds about the setting within the first few chapters.

Just let me know when and where. I'll do my best to get there.

thanks

Hi everyone. I'm Kevin and I'm a huge horror fan. Anything from King (#1 by the way) to Koontz, Bentley Little, Picirilli, and Laymon I will devour. Preston and Child are also quickly becoming one of my favorites.

Just thought I would stop in and say hi. I'm not new, just spend most of my time on the PA thread in an attempt to take them down.

Hey -- figured I may as well drop a post here. I'm not a newbie, exactly, just a small-time lurker.

Like just about everyone else here, I'm a big fan of Stephen King. I've only read a small chunk of the canon -- mostly the early novels and short stories (I was burrowing through Nightmares & Dreamscapes last week, but my father stole my copy; I think he took it to school with him). The stories in Night Shift beat the hell out of any of King's novels, but everything of his that I've read is good.

Also, if the forum doesn't have a Resident Lovecraft Fanatic yet, I'll gladly fill the position. 'Nuff said.

I write only short stories, and precious few of them. I can't even imagine writing a novel -- can't imagine keeping myself in one universe for that long. (I'm considering doing a 50,000-word category romance for "practice" (read: money), but that wouldn't count even if I actually went through with it.)

Eh, did I mention I'm a lurker? I'd better give the board back to the interesting people, and go back to doing what I do best.

Hi Solatium. Welcome to the chamber of Horror.
Joanne