A Far Out Fantastic Site

This is going to be a short post because I had a family reunion going over the weekend and so have had to really squeeze in my writing time in bits and pieces. "Bad Apps", my upcoming book of short stories has been keeping me busier than ever, especially since I'm coming to the completion of the book. So, I've been having to keep the blog posts down to one a month, with the exception of the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop, in which the next one is coming this Wednesday, October the first. Yes, we will be into the Halloween season in only a couple of days! And to start it off, there will be a re-release of a classic Frankenstein film which will be followed by a new Frankenstein film the following month! I'll talk about those in this post. I also have a little bit of an update for "Bad Apps", so keep reading! Movie poster for "The Curse of Frankenstein"  Credit: Wikimedia Commons 4K Version of Classic Hammer Frankenstein Film Releasi...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons I’ve been watching an episode a week for the last three weeks of Guillermo Del Toro’s new Netflix horror anthology series, “Cabinet of Curiosities”. (Yes, you read that right; I only watch an episode a week and so I don’t do binge watching.) So far, the series has been really good. I first started watching the episodes in order (even though the series doesn’t have an over-arcing storyline), but only up to the second episode. That’s because I wanted to see how at least one of the two episodes based on H.P. Lovecraft stories played out. Episode five is based on the short story “Pickman’s Model”, and episode six is based on the short story “The Dreams in the Witch House”. I’ve only seen the first of these two so far and thought it mostly played out really good including the creature effects. However, an article at ScreenRant doesn’t seem to give it as much credit, nor does it give much more to episode six. The article’s author, Padraig Cotter, says the monsters ...

Credit: Pixabay I apologise for missing last week. I was busy editing much of the newsletter for this month on the day of its release. This month’s issue features a free short story, so if you haven't yet subscribed to my newsletter, “Night Creatures' Call”, you can do so here . In this and future issues of the newsletter you’ll find things such as news about my upcoming book and future Book-To-Movie reviews.  A couple of productions by Guillermo del Toro, producer of dark fantastic films such as “Pan's Labyrinth” and “The Orphanage”, are coming up. One is a movie and the other a TV anthology series. Both will feature adaptations of stories by authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and others.  Del Toro’s movie, entitled, “Nightmare Alley”, is based on a 40s noir novel by William Lindsay Gresham. A remake of an earlier adaptation from 1947, the movie is about a traveling carnival in which one of its employees who is ambitious and manipulative becomes involved in a relationship wit...

A very busy two weeks. Sorry for putting the posts on hold for so long. I had to live my alter ego in the "real" world to make ends meet. That's a freelance writer's life. Unless you're somebody already well known, like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman, you have to rely on more "practical" forms of writing such as journalism or copywriting in order to support yourself. This is especially so if you're trying to avoid a "day" job, but that's not always feasible for most of us. Because of this, I have to put the short story collection on hold as well. But not for long! I'm in the revision process of the introduction and will be doing some last proofreads on some of my stories from more than a year ago that I'm including. Like all living things, a writer grows and learns. And so if I can improve older stories that I plan to publish then I'll do it. So expect to see The Fool's Illusion out in the next week or two. Speaking abou...