A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com The holidays are almost here! That means the Hallowday edition of my author’s newsletter coming out soon and end of the year book sales. It also means ghosts at Christmas and . . . vampires at Christmas?  Well, there’s one coming soon to a theatre near you. A vampire movie, that is. So, keep reading for the details! ‘Nosferatu’ Remake to be a Holiday Release The new remake of the 1922 German unofficial “Dracula” movie adaptation, "Nosferatu", releases December 25th (US). This will probably be fitting for some horror fans since many of the scenes are of dark, frozen landscapes, and it’s actually set during the Christmas season according to a review at Slashfilm .  So, it's kind of a black Christmas film, but don’t expect gore exploitation in the ugly manner of “Silent Night, Deadly Night”. This movie, directed by Robert Eggers (“The Lighthouse”), is a more psycho-sexual interpretation of the original. It appears to have a more dream-like (as in nightma...

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. Well, I just can't believe how fast November raced by and now we're into December! Before we know it, it will be Christmas and then New Year’s! Speaking of which, I have some news about an upcoming end-of-year book sale which will include my own books at reduced prices! That news, along with news about Stephen King's upcoming novel, will be in the part of this post that will make up for Monday’s missed one which I apologize for. So, I'm doubling up today for both the IWSG blog hop and for Monday.  The Cliffhanging Ending in Fiction The IWSG optional question for December is: Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader? Ever since my big ‘60s “Batma...

Actor Boris Karloff,  23  November 1887 - 2 February 1969  Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons Earlier on this Saturday that I’m actually writing this post for the Monday I will have released it, I was going to concentrate more on writing and revising stories for " Bad Apps ", my upcoming book of short science fiction horror stories. However, my desktop has been running so slow during the past two weeks that it’s been slowing down the writing that I do on it, including my story revisions for “Bad Apps”. So, I decided to uninstall several apps that I never use because they’re probably what was causing the computer to process so slowly. Because doing that took so long, I'm keeping this post short. I thought I should talk a little about actor Boris Karloff, since the Saturday that I'm writing this is his 138th birthday! (His posthumous birthday, of course.)  Karloff played some big roles in movie adaptations of books by famous authors of horror. The most notable of these is...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons Some of you may had noticed that I skipped posting back on the 4th of the month, as far as Monday posting goes. I posted for the IWSG blog hop that Wednesday and it didn't make up for that Monday's missed post since I said I had to keep it short. I had to reduce the writing during that week because, as I also said in that IWSG post, my mom passed away back in October and so that was the week of her funeral. I just got back on track earlier last week (Wednesday I think it was) and so that included returning to working on my fiction projects, namely my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". Needless to say, I'm back on track with my weekly blog posts. So, I have some about my latest progress on "Bad Apps" and, in sci fi/fantasy news, about an upcoming graphic novel adaptation of a lost silent horror film that starred Lon Chaney Sr. Back On Track with ‘Bad Apps’ My short hiatus from my fiction writing wasn't really a ful...

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....

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...

James Earl Jones ("Star Wars", "The Lion King"), Jan. 17, 1932 - Sept. 9, 2024 Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons I got a late start writing this post, so it will be a short one.  I don't really have a lot going on this week to talk about as far as any updates in my writing projects go. In science fiction news, James Earl Jones, who did the voices of  Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy and Mufusa in the original animated feature of "The Lion King", died on September 9th. He was 93. Mike Glyer down at his blog, File 770, has a short but nice article that pays tribute to him.  As of this writing, I'm almost done proofreading one story for my upcoming short fiction collection, " Bad Apps ".   I'm about two pages away from completing the proofreading which is mostly for grammar and mechanics. The other story I'm currently working on for the collection, I'm about halfway through in revising the main character. ...

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.  Optional Question for September Last time, I mostly skipped the optional question of the month and so just gave it a very brief answer. However, my answer to this month’s optional question was one that I wanted to go over a little more, so I’ll mostly be focusing on that. And that question is: Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer? In my senior year of high school, I had this creep of an English teacher who was always downgrading my writing no matter what I did to improve it. This was a time when I had fairly recently decided to go for a career in writing/journalism and had been ace-ing my English classes in my previous ye...

  Credit: Pixabay The Author's Bad Deeds Aren't the Book's At my writer's critique group last week, the subject of the sexual assault accusations against author Neil Gaiman came up. I’ll admit, even though I’ve been a fan of Gaiman's work since the early 2000s, I had no idea he was accused of anything until last week. The writer’s group member who actually brought up the subject said that he would no longer purchase anything by Gaiman because of the alleged assaults. Everyone else in the group seemed to agree. Everyone but me. The meetup was virtual, so I responded by typing the following in the chat box:  “. . .  I try to separate the art from the artist. The author can be evil but their art/literary work can still be good. I'll just be sure to downgrade the artist’s bad actions aside from their art.” Please keep in mind that when I said “author” and “artist”, I wasn’t referring to Gaiman himself. Instead, I was referring to authors in general who have committe...

(Credit for above image: Pixabay.com) You're probably surprised to see a post here after I had said that I'm taking today off from blogging and would be back with another post next week. Well, at the last minute, I switched my day off to next Monday. I knew you'd be expecting the print edition of "The Trespassers", my new short-read of alien terror, to release by the weekend. As you probably noticed, it didn't release. I wanted to explain the reason for the delay: I haven't released the print version yet because I had forgotten all about having to look over a proof of it.   Before I release "Trespassers" as a print book or paperback, I have to look at a proof, or unofficial sample copy, of it. I don't want to leave anybody with a badly printed and formatted book and so I want to look at it before making it available for purchase anywhere. I have to order the proof which will probably take at least three days to reach me by mail.  So, it may b...

  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 normally do the optional question for the month which this month’s is Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio? However, because it covers a topic I've gone over several times both in past IWSGs and in weekly posts, I couldn’t think of anything else to say about AI in time for today’s post. So, I’ll just give the short answer: I absolutely do not use generative AI, and any other type of Artificial Intelligence I do use is probably so imbedded in tools such as text editors’ spell checks that I don’t really think about it.  Here are some of the past posts where I cover the topic of AI:  https://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com...