A Far Out Fantastic Site

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop.  In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I apologise, but I'm going to have to keep this month's IWSG post short. It's been a hard three weeks because my mom died on October 18th and so I haven't been getting a lot of writing done. I have family from out of town for the funeral that comes up at the end of the week, and so I've been very busy helping in the preparations on top of my day job and getting done whatever writing I can  in between. It's a wonder that I got the newsletter out a few days before Halloween. Again, if you haven't signed up for my free author's newsletter, you can do so here .   I think I'm just going to have to stick to the IWSG question of the month for this post. The question of the month is: What creative ac

Credit: Pixabay.com I apologise for posting so late. I was busy all weekend putting together the Halloween edition of "Night Creatures' Call", my free author's newsletter. If you're not subscribed to it, then you can do so here . In the newsletter, I talk about writing project details that normally are not discussed here. I also offer discounts on books that you'll often be the first to know about like the case has been with the latest edition of the newsletter with my current subscribers. Speaking about discounts, I was busy putting together those as well. Afterall, it's my Halloween treat to you! So, be sure to check that out below. But first, some highlights of a zombie fest that I attended over the weekend. Davis Zombie Bike Parade This past Sunday, I attended the Zombie Bike Parade in Davis California, home to UC Davis. In its sixth year, one of the event's hosts was the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Davis, a lodge chapter. Although I didn&#

Credit: Pixabay I said last time  that I would have a list of horror films for your Halloween viewing and so I have that for you today. I wanted to do a list of horror movies based on books or short stories that are currently streaming for free. However, there are just too many of them out there to do in one post, and so I had to narrow it down to original movies that are either based on Stephen King’s fiction or that’s screenplays were written by him. I also have some of the latest progress made on my upcoming book of short fiction, “Bad Apps”. But let’s start with the list of movies.  8 Original Stephen King Movies Online that are Free to Watch Like Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King is an author and filmmaker who has become an icon for Halloween. For years, people have gathered on or around October 31st to watch such classics as “Carrie” and “The Shining” at adult parties, college campus movie nights and, relatively more recently, virtual watch parties online. While yo

Dunking for "Apps" instead of apples this Halloween!  Image Credit: Pixabay I was going to have for you a list of movies for watching this Halloween season. I was also going to include the countdown to the number of stories left to revise for my upcoming collection of short fiction, "Bad Apps". However, I, embarrassing as it is to admit, couldn't even remember the total number of stories that I was going to include in the book, not counting the bonus story that I announced in my last newsletter, “Night Creatures’ Call”. In that issue, I said the total number of stories to be collected in "Bad Apps", including the bonus, would be eight. Well, I combed through several papers in my writing folders and filing cabinet Saturday evening looking for the book’s written plan to find the exact number of stories. I couldn't find the plan anywhere. I don't know what the hell happened to it. It probably just got lost in the piles, possibly during that time I

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.  I wish I could get started on a better note with this blog hop, this being the month of one of my favourite holidays--Halloween. In fact, I was going to answer the IWSG optional question of the month (see below) with not just one favourite ghost story but a list of thirteen of them that includes both film and prose. However, someone who I'm very close to has been very sick and so not only do I not have the time to make that long of a list but, even more so, I am just not in the mood. So, I’m going to have to keep it to three. Maybe I'll come out with a longer list as it gets closer to Halloween. The problem I mentioned above has also put me behind in my writing projects although I've still kept at them the best I ca

Book cover to Harlan Ellison's new and posthumously published anthology. Image Credit: Publisher's Weekly , Blackstone Publishing No, the headline to this post is not a tabloid. This is not rag or sensationalist journalism. Even though mulit-award-winning author Harlan Ellison passed away six years ago, an anthology edited by him is posthumously coming out very soon. I’ve read all of Ellison’s anthology of dark and disturbing science fiction, "Dangerous Visions", and almost ever since his final and third book in the “Dangerous Visions” trilogy was announced as a Patreon-backed project in 2020 , I had been looking for my used paperback copy of the second volume, "Again, Dangerous Visions". I knew it sat buried, untouched and unread by yours truly among many other books of science fiction, horror and other genres, somewhere in my bedroom closet.  It was only a little over a week ago that I finally found it, and it wasn’t as buried away in my closet as much as