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December 2015

The Top Five Books That Turned Me into a Horror Nerd

Hi. My name is Claire and I am an unashamed horror nerd. I love everything that ranges from bloody and gory, to the tortured and psychological – if it gets my heart beating fast and leaves me looking over my shoulder, then you can consider me a fan. It doesn’t matter if it’s a film, game, comic or book, if it scares the shit out of me then I will love it.

As well as consuming horror, I love creating horror. Up until this year, I was running a series online based on slenderman myth along with Irish mythology called She is The Huntress. After having to cut the series short due to personal disputes, I am now rewriting it as a novel and hope to have it released next autumn. Writing something that will pull people into reading it despite not wanting to see what’s waiting for them on the next page is a thrill in itself, and having got into horror so heavily via books – my parents couldn’t dictate what I read as a child as easily as they could read BBFC ratings on films – my ultimate hope is that I can make others feel the same chill I did.

So, how did I become so enchanted by the genre? These books had a hand in it. Sit back, get comfy, and make sure the door is locked…

Goosebumps: Welcome To Dead House – R.L. Stine (1992, Scholastic)

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Who didn’t love Goosebumps back in the day? I discovered this book in my primary school’s library, and was curious about the gorey cover. The plot follows a family that moves into a new house (something I did a fair bit in my youth) and finds that all is what it seems in their new dwelling. Suddenly, zombie children! Fake great uncles! Spooky real estate agents! A dog!

For an eight year old girl, I was holding true terror in my hands as I read along. This book lead me to read through as much of the Goosebumps range of books that I could find in any library I came across, as well as the well-loved TV series, and soon my feet were firmly placed in the genre. I also have a huge amount of admiration for author R.L. Stine who has made his living scaring children senseless. What a wonderful bastard.

Point Horror: Teacher’s Pet – Richie Tankersley Cusick (1991, Scholastic Point)

teacherspet

My cousin/stand-in sister Rox got me into the Point Horror series as came to the end of my time in primary school and found I needed something a little more frightening to whet my wicked whistle. It also introduced me to a whole different type of fear – obsessive people. A naive teenage heroine who loves to write and be scared… oh, I can picture her so clearly.

Suddenly, a handsome, fragile teacher who falls for her – I always pictured him as my old history teacher Mr Clayton – and a demented stalker enter the scene and our heroine is left scared for real! It had everything I wanted in a book, suspense, drama, and a protagonist I could, strangely enough, relate to. Like ghosts, zombies and dentists, obsessive stalkers are fun to fear in fiction, but should be avoided in real life.

 Misery – Stephen King (1987, Viking)

misery

I actually borrowed this off my nan (AKA, my reading hero) and found it feeding further into the fears left from Teacher’s Pet. A talented writer, a demented fan, an axe… it was a perfect story. It had a heavy, claustrophobic feel to the whole story, along with the tension that built the longer that our protagonist Paul was kept captive by His Number One Fan Annie.

It opened my eyes to the legend that is Stephen King and his extensive back catalogue of horror and suspense – my particular favourites include Pet Sematary, Carrie and Cell, as well as The Running Man. His writing is sheer perfection, and I implore every horror fan out there to pick up at least one of his books in their lifetime. You won’t regret it.

The Rats – James Herbert (1974, New English Library)

therats

James Herbert was a superb British writer who passed away back in 2013. He was exceptionally talented for painting a gruesome picture involving gore and violence, and I recommend this book to anyone reading this just like it was recommended to me by my mom who read this back when she was my age now.

I love rats.They’re adorable, intelligent little animals and they make wonderful pets – but not the rats in this book. They are vile, disgusting mutated monsters who rise from under London and begin to attack people without provocation. One of their first victims in the book is a baby. Herbert does not shy away from shock and mutilation in his debut novel and it makes for truly unsettling reading.

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis (1991, Vintage Books)

american psycho

The odd one out in my selection here, but the book that cemented my fear of human beings and made me question sanity as it stands. This is not a horror book, but it is still shocking, graphic and paints a picture of a deplorable human being in main character Patrick Bateman. Most people will know this story from the iconic performance that Christian Bale gave in the 2000 film adaptation – he based his version of the character on Tom Cruise – but having read the book, I can assure you that the more graphic parts were definitely left out, probably so it would actually get shown in cinemas.

As the book goes on, we are left wondering if anything we are being told by Bateman is true. Is he a psychopath? Is he leaving a bloody trail? Or is he just another jaded yuppie? It is a chilling insight into his mind – as well as a graphic tale of sex, violence and madness.

 

So there you have it! These are the books that cemented my love for the written fright. As for my currently reading section, here is what I am slowly devouring…

  • Red Dragon – Thomas Harris
  • House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
  • Horns – Joe Hill
  • Code Junkie – Jeffrey Koval Jr

If you have any horror book suggestions, or anything to say about the books I’ve spoken about here, please leave me a comment and we’ll have a chat! Until next time friends, take care – are you sure all the doors are locked?

 

ClaireClaire is a foul-mouthed British twenty-something who spends most of her time pretending to be an adult. Her nerd status started from an early age with her dad’s love of sci-fi and developed through a love of gaming, reading and horror. As well as volunteering for a charity, Claire writes about her life with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and mental health over at her blog, as well as tweeting nonsense over as @MouthAndSpoons. The dream is to either make it as a successful writer, or go into mental health research. She lives at home with her equally nerdy husband, their dog Lady, cat Pip and a lot of fish.

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16 Dealing With Criticism – Some Nerd Girl Original Webcomic

Those one star ratings can be a bitch. And I MIGHT still be learning how to cope with criticism.

It’s probably a good thing I don’t have an actual nuke the site from orbit (working) button.

AlexAlex is our resident Webcomic creator. He grew up in Puerto Rico, but didn’t reach true Nerdom until he came state side when he was in middle school. He’s been drawing since he was five, but has only started posting Webcomics in the past year. You can check out his amazing and original work at tapastic.com/gomezalexj.

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The Lesser Known Expense of Self Publishing – the Emotional One

This week, Some Nerd Girl opened its virtual doors to all self-published writers in the way of a free review opportunity. As a self-published author myself, this is kind of near-and-dear to me. These days, there’s generally three ways to get published:

  • Self Publish
  • Publish via a small / medium press
  • Get picked up by a major publishing company

There are pros and cons to each one of these – I can’t speak to the last two bullet points, but I can very much attest to the first.

I have been writing since the age of 13 – now 29, this whole self-publishing thing is a brand new ballgame. I published my first book in March of 2015 – a complete rookie to the process. I used the power of the internet to learn the ropes. I joined some self publishing online communities and I ran, full force, towards my goal.

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Weeee! [Art by z-studios]
It wasn’t quite like running straight into a wall, but I learned running full-force at something like self-publishing was not the best approach. In the end, I accomplished my goal, but there was still a lot I hadn’t done.

Like made an online presence or market myself or my book. Just two small things that are, oh, what is that? Completely essential to your success? Balls.

Let me back up for a minute before I really dig into that point. There are a lot of known expenses when you self publish. Off of the top of my head, they are, as follows:

  • Editing / Proofreading
  • Cover Design
  • Website Domains
  • Website builders
    • Maybe even a web designer (for the fancy types with extra cash)
  • Print copies to provide visuals to possible local readers
  • Marketing (Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, BookBub)
  • The risky (and IMO shady) paid review

One expense that we don’t really talk about is this one:

The putting yourself out there, naked and afraid, emotional expense

As I mentioned, I ran as fast as I could to market with my first book, Children of the Fallen. I made a lot of mistakes, and one of them was not understanding that the world was not waiting for my book. The world didn’t know about my book. They didn’t really care about my book. It was my job to make them care.

My job.

Introverted, loves-to-write-alone-by-myself-in-a-quiet-room-for-fun, me.

HP_Gulp
Gulp.

And so, I made some attempts. I bought some Facebook advertising services (why this made sense, I have no idea), and I posted on Reddit a bunch.

And got caught in spam filters a bunch.

And told by moderators a bunch that self-promotion was a no-no.

OKMeme

The only places that were safe for self promotion were places that were 100% dedicated to self promotion, where the only people subscribed were only interested in promoting their own thing.

Well, crap.

I tried another approach – I began to submit my book for reviews. And got turned down all but once. I saw approximately zero difference in sales after my review ran. That is to say; none. None sales.

I attended self published panels (that turned out to be mostly bickering), and workshops where most folks there were scratching their heads the same as me when it came to building a readership.

So I went back to the drawing board and started watching what amounted to self-help videos. One of them recommended publishing more books, then offering some for free in order to build a loyal readership.

That’s cool, bro. Only a few problems with that – getting a book to market, the RIGHT away… it ain’t cheap. If I had a couple grand to plop down on each venture, I’d feel better about it. Quality editing alone is enough to make my bank account clutch its purse. The other problem is allocating the time to write multiple drafts to even get to the editing process.

Don’t get me wrong; this IS a good plan. And I will be utilizing it, but it’s a slow process. And I don’t like slow. I like to run. Like Forrest Gump, if you will.

FeltLikeRunning.gif

The cold reality of the situation is that we live in a world, and on an internet, that rather dislikes self-promotion.

It’s ironic, and I would be amused by it if it weren’t so real for me. Who will promote me, if not me? Do you see the paradox here, grumpy moderators?

I went a self-publishing route in part to avoid the crushing, drawn out rejection process that is querying major publishers. Now I understand the process is basically reversed for self-publishing – a quick start up, and then the real work starts. The emotional work of being a constant advocate for yourself – which is an odd exercise. And, again, not entirely welcomed with a warm embrace by people who are not your friends and family.

And I get it; nobody wants a flood of people crying for them to buy their book (not even me!). And I don’t really have a solution – other than to say I know in my gut there is a way for us self-published authors to band together in order to devise a source for interested readers to have a chance to find us. I’m going to let that one simmer for a while – to be continued, if you will.

I think step one is acknowledging that there is an emotional expense to self publishing. And yes, true – for all publishing. We are all human, and we all doubt ourselves (severely at times – we are writers, after all). But in a small or large press situation, you will usually have some backing. Some team of people helping you to achieve your goals. For the self-pub crowd, it’s us, our friends and our family that keep us going. We believe in our stories enough to put them out there – naked and afraid – for your approval.

deserve_to_be_loved_supernatural
Writers are people, too. And we want to be loved.

It’s kind of nerve wracking.

But we’re going to keep going. Because some stories can’t be contained, and these running shoes are barely worn out!

Eve2Eve is the founder of Some Nerd Girl and the author of urban fantasy novel Children of the Fallen and science fiction novel Colony One. She has been writing since the age of 13 and has been flying her nerd flag for the past 16 years. Fandoms include Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. Basically if it has ‘star’ in it, she’ll give it a shot. You can visit her website at www.somenerdgirl.com.

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Wrapping up NaNoWriMo: All of the Feelings!

If you have an exhausted-but-still-happy-looking friend, coworker or family member in your life, chances are they just completed a grueling month of frantic writing. They have experienced moments of utter despair, creative highs, possible crying fits in solidarity with their characters and much, much more.

I am within these ranks, having finished my novel on November 29th – and while this will be my 9th novel written via NaNoWriMo, the feeling of finishing is indescribably delicious and delightful. It is second only to finishing a final draft (If you’ve never done this, you need to. The creative high is out of this world!).

It is difficult to explain the FEELING of NaNo, so I’m not going to. I’m going to visually display the various emotions associated with this month (that many of us have, successfully if not narrowly just survived).

The It-Sounded-Good-At-The-Time feeling

HanAAH
I’ve made a terrible mistake!

This most commonly occurs when you haven’t slept in 20 hours, write feverishly, sure of your brilliance only to sit down the next day for a writing session to find out you cannot possibly write yourself out of this mess.

The emotional wreck because 50,000 words might as well be the same as climbing that staircase from Ace Ventura Nature Calls feeling

Ace-Ventura-Nature
Ayup. This is gonna take a while…

Coming back down with that slinky is so much more fun.

The I-Just-Wrote-A-Line-That-Cracked-Me-Up, and then realized I didn’t have anyone to brag to feeling

TinaFey
Good job, me!

Self amusement is not just about delirium! Sometimes it really is good!

The Eye-of-the-Tiger moment of writing so much you broke the daily limit three times over feeling!

EyeOfTiger2
Dean is equal parts hilarious and terrifying when singing this song…

So boss.

The being so tired but pushing through anyway feeling

WatsonNeedToSleep
This is fine. I am fine. All there is is writing.

It’s all gonna be worth it at 50k!

Not understanding why your characters won’t cooperate feeling

9-happy-gilmore-quotes
Why, MC, why?!

I can’t work with these people!

The feeling of guilt as you once again hide away from family, friends and obligations to write feeling

 

Guilty
Ignore the blood on his collar. That is totally unrelated. Mostly. I think.

Because this is important, damnit!

Being filled with joy and sadness as your novel comes to an end

Sobeautiful
We have been through so much together!

At the end of the day, NaNo takes us through some of our highest highs and our lowest lows when it comes to personal challenges. This is universal across all writers – young and old, new and experienced. We’re all in this together, we all feel a lot of the same things, we all push ourselves in similar ways and it’s a unique experience that should be proudly worn as a badge of honor.

As we wrapped up this NaNo year, many looked on in astonishment at the very first novel they had ever created. Others honed their craft and built on the years of experience they have put into the craft. In the end, we’re all winners for stepping up to the plate.

So here’s to you, fellow Wrimo, you are awesomely tenacious and genuinely courageous! Embrace all of the feelings of NaNo!

Eve2Eve is the founder of Some Nerd Girl and the author of urban fantasy novel Children of the Fallen and science fiction novel Colony One. She has been writing since the age of 13 and has been flying her nerd flag for the past 16 years. Fandoms include Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. Basically if it has ‘star’ in it, she’ll give it a shot. You can visit her website at www.somenerdgirl.com.

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