The Fear Behind the Smiles

Flipping The Media

This post has two parts. The first deals with Women in Horror Month, which I'm giddily proud to say I am one. The second half of this post will deal with the other half of the equation, and an equally important part of the equation: the reader.

In case you didn't know, it's Women in Horror Month. What does that mean, exactly? It means we ladies get to step into the spotlight for a change and say loudly 'WE WRITE HORROR!'.Here's just a few of my titles available, with covers done by Jeffrey Kosh. Click here to get the full listing of my work.

What's the big deal? In a genre typically dominated by men, women tend to get put on the backburner when it comes to being taken seriously as horror writers. Yes, even in this day and age. I suspect it's very much related to sex (the noun, not the verb). On some deep level we all want to believe that a woman is a nurturer and a safe zone, a potential mother in each one of us just waiting to pop out a baby rather than a horror novel. In my case, I did both.

To the nay-sayers who think women are just incapableof being as scary as a man, you're right. We're much, much scarier. We plant a seed of fear and sit back to let it grow. We water that bad-boy while it's sprouting and you don't even realize it's there. When you've got a fullgrown Audrey II in your head, THAT is when we pull back the curtain and say 'Ta-da!'

And you didn't even know we were there. There's a reason there are mommy issues, people.

To that end, I've been told (by more than one source and by more than just my mom) that I'm pretty good at the whole writing thing. In fact, here's Blaze McRob's take on it.

And now for part 2: The Reader!!!

I'm going to plug Blaze McRob's blog again because it was 50% of the inspiration for this post (75% if you count the blog post about me :)). In this post, Blaze talks about Vix Kirkpatrick. Who's Vix Kirkpatrick you ask? She's a reader. Not just any reader, but perhaps one of the most famous readers I know - yes, I know Vix. She's awesome. She's also a reason that TW Brown came out with another zombie book in his series, I suspect she's the single reason Amazon in the UK loves us indie writers and publishers, and she's also a big reason I started to kick around the idea of a fourth book in the Immortal War Series. Oops, I let that slip, didn't I? Well, it's out there now and I've said it, so I guess I'll have to do it.

So where does the title come into play? What's with this flipping business? No, it's not selling the media after a few minor and possibly structurally dangerous tweaks. It's not a house, after all. "Flipping' is in reference to an interesting new way of teaching called 'flipping the classroom'. What that does is makes the student the teacher (with teacher guidance and facilitation). The students take the lesson plans and create their own learning from it using research, discussions, and presentations. Kind of neat.

In the writing world something similar has been developing for quite some time. The more interaction between the readers and the writers, the more we writers tend to start looking at our work not as a 'here it is, publisher' finite thing, but as an evolving and flexible medium where reader input is no longer out there in the ether but landed squarely in our inboxes and on our Facebook pages. It's a flipped medium. There are fan fiction sites all over the place and even some wildly popular published fan fiction. In Star Trek and Star Wars circles this has been going on for a bit with the series of officially approved novels based on the original characters and stories.

How does it affect our writing? Reader input can influence the story, or in both my case and in TW Brown's case, it can spawn another book.

But there's another (and in my mind the coolest) element to this flipped media: the reader as the celebrity. I know, right? So here we have Vix Kirkpatrick, the world-famous reader! How cool is that?

Welcome to 2013, where the students are part of the teaching process, fan fiction is legitimate, and readers are the celebrities! Now if we could get working on world peace and balanced budgets, that'd be great. :)

Second-Hand Sarah: This Stuff's Getting Real Now...

If you haven't checked out the latest in my fiction forrays, it's high time you paid a visit to the Second-hand Sarah blog, don't you think? It's free. Nothing to download or buy. Just free pseudo-fiction for your reading enjoyment. That's not to say I get nothing from it. I enjoy writing it immensely, and I enjoy feedback.

One of the greatest compliments I've received (and from more than one person, mind you) is that the readers are so excited that I got such a bargain of a house with so much to explore.... .

I guess my story and my writing may have been a little too good. Too real. Too... believable?

I'm not complaining. Not at all. The pics are real pics taken from my own home renovations, my own travels, and a lot of what Sarah went through I also went through at one point, so yeah, the emotion and drive are definitely there. She's my sunny side up, I guess. She's likable. She's human, where I tend to try to pretend that I'm superhuman or not human at all. I scoff at humanity and I've lost faith in mankind. She's been kicked, but she's not staying down. She's the part of me that picked myself up and kept going even though some days it felt like my heart would break. I put on my angry mask every day and walked out of the house snarling.

But not really.... inside of my little black heart is Sarah optimistically typing away with my fingers. More and more I find myself exploring the fictitious old Victorian home in my head and poking inside the closets and cellars in search of more blog posts. So far I haven't been disappointed. This week alone Sarah and I found a secret passageway, a mysterious tower in the woods, and countless journals filled with all sorts of writings. We found a bunch of other stuff, too, but I won't spoil the surprise.

More and more I find our personalities merging into a more realistic person. She's a little too sunny, and I'm kind of gloomy. Combine us both, and there may even be a normal person there.

The transformation first began when I had my son. After he was born, I found I didn't want to leave behind a legacy only of darkness and horror writings. I wanted to leave him something he could show people and say, 'My mom wrote these books!' and not have them smile politely while nodding and backing away. I wanted to leave him something that he could show to people and they may actually say something like, "Holy crap, that's YOUR mom?!"

Or better still, when he gets older, it's a project we can work on together. Maybe even build a miniature version of the house in order to take outside pictures for the blog.

Either way, it's the little blog that could, and it's so great to see folks enjoying the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it. It's even more great to see folks getting inspired by Sarah herself and her spunky optimism. Here's to the momentum picking up!

For those following the blog, I've got a TON of pics to edit and get ready to be posted for when she FINALLY gets up to the attic. And yes, I do in fact own a LOT of antiques. More than I realized.

I'm having far too much fun with the Second-hand Sarah blog. :)

Behind the Scenes at Second-hand Sarah

The little blog that could. I sit here putting together playlists of old jazz while listening to old Bauhaus songs ('All We Ever Wanted Was Everything', for those keeping score) and sorting through literally HUNDREDS of pictures from the actual home renovation we did here over the last few years.

Now when I walk around the neighborhood I bring my phone so I can take pics that will ultimately be incorporated into the Second-hand Sarah blog at a later date. It's a bit like playing chess in that I have to plan the posts in advance and keep track of where they should go in the long run. Eyes on the prize and what-not.

I'm trying to keep it as close to relatively realistic as possible, right down to the weather in Maine at this very moment. High of 73 today, current temp of 68. Tomorrow going up near 80.

It's a bit like writing The Lazarus Stone (Conspiracy Edit) all over again, but with a happier ending, I would imagine. No apocalypse in Sarah-land, after all. I mean that statement in the respect that I need to 1) research the hell out of the facts, such as the differences between Victorian houses and Colonial (which is what we renovated), 2) little things like local weather (can't say how hot it is in Maine today when it only got into the 70's, meanwhile here in central PA it's 90+), 3) put on my Sarah mask and write AS Sarah would. It's a trick I use when writing my characters in general, but I've never channeled a character on a long-term basis.

I also have to remember not to post all the blog posts at once and to make notes in the actual journal of how many days have passed in Sarah-land, and what date each post will be going live so I can keep track.

No. Easy. Task.

I'm thinking of creating a Pandora station based on Sarah's taste in music so folks can listen while they're reading. Now if only the internet would let me insert smells so the visitors to Sarah's house can smell that old wood and salty air and the lingering ghost of a pot of strong coffee. Someday... :)