The Gardens At Clawthide Castle and other ghastly vignettes

Something new and a look back at why I keep slipping into horror.

Hi everyone,

If you’ve been reading along since I started here in March, you may have noticed that I can’t resist a ghost story. I regularly slip into the macabre with my stories and I don’t believe it’s because I am in need of therapy…

*awkward silence*

I think exploring horror is actually good for our imagination. Was there ever a horror story or a film that frightened the life out of you and had you checking behind doors, removing dressing gowns from hooks and looking over your shoulder when you were alone? Let me know in the comments!

I’m sure there were scary things I saw as a kid but the horror film that first stuck with me was the 2012 adaptation of The Woman In Black. It terrified me. I still lived at home at this point with five siblings and my parents but any dark corners of the house freaked me out. I haven’t written anything as scary as Susan Hill’s haunting classic but I do dabble from time to time. What I particularly love about horror is that:

It keeps things interesting. That little thrill we get from seeing imaginary fears and boogeymen is life-affirming. I know that sounds crazy. I’m reading it back and it sounds crazy but bear with me here.

The presence of bad things throws into focus how much good there is too. Think of yin and yang or the Force in Star Wars. There has to be balance. It’s nice to wake up and know that there are no demons possessing your spouse— or are there?

I’ve been exploring supernatural and psychological horror in particular through my short stories and my serial novel. If you’ve been reading along with the Oceanus serial, I’d like to know what you thought of Chapter 7.

This week, for Macabre Monday I published a vignette, The Gardens At Clawthide Castle. Thank you for all of the restacks and likes. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to not only share my fiction with the world but also to have people actually enjoy it. I’m glad it brings something to your day.

Challenge 2 of the Gibberish writing competition.

Tomorrow at 1pm GMT, the stories produced for the second challenge of the Gibberish writing competition go live. This was a really tough one. We had to write no less than 1850 and no more than 2150 words, feature only one character and create the sense of the character being “bottled up” with an escape at the end. My entry is called Copycat and it will be available to read from 1pm (8am EST). This is a one-off bonus story for the weekend and will land in your inbox on Saturday.

Have a great weekend and I’ll be back with more Oceanus on Sunday.