Halloween Haunt w/Pics (Update)
Here are some more pics of what we have waiting for the TOTs. Still a work in progress but our main goal is to scare the hell out of them give them a thrill! This is hanging in the entrance to the Skeleton Wedding Feast room. How many brave TOTs will walk past it? And …
Conversing with Story: Writer’s Block, and Defining Yourself as a Writer
Story: What's wrong? Me: I'm not writing. Story: That's bad. Why not? Me: I think I'm blocked. Story: Maybe you need a high colonic. Me: No, I mean I have writer's block. I can't write. I'm stuck in the mud. Story: Uh huh. Me: You don't believe me. Story: I believe you believe it. Answer …
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Halloween Haunt at Night w/Pics
Here are some pictures of the haunt at night with webbing and under lighting. Still a work in progress, but you can get a better sense of what the totality will look like. Keep checking back for updates. I'll have more soon. 🙂 We started putting up webbing today. This is the top canopy of …
Halloween Haunt Update w/Pics!
This year we have a double theme. Outside it will be "Spider Graveyard" and inside "Skeleton Wedding Feast". These pictures will give you some idea of what we are currently working on. I hope to have everything running by Saturday night and will try and get some night pics for you. I don't plan to …
The Long Red Light of the West
One of the things you learn when you research the Old West is how utterly violent it was. It is this long red light, the murderous plain of humanity if you will, that I want to talk about today. From genocide to rape to murder to shotgun blasts from an alleyway into someone's back to …
Argo Navis Publishing
Coming Soon:
Gunfight at the OK Corral – A Retrospective in Three Movies
On this date in 1881, around 3.00 pm, a gunfight occurred which lasted less than thirty seconds. Oh, and for the record, it never happened in the OK Corral but on Fremont Street. Well, that's history for you, always getting in the way with facts and verifiable evidence. I mean, who wants to read about …
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A Conversation with Story: Advancement of Plot through Conflict
Story: What's up? Me: I'm writing a love scene. Story: I see that. Where's the conflict? Me: What conflict? It's a love scene. They're in love. Story: You delight in making my life difficult, don't you? Me: Of course not...oh, I see what you did there. You advanced our dialog through conflict. Story: Exactly. All …
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Theater 13 Radio Broadcasting OTR Horror, Mystery, and Suspense on 100 Channels!
Theater 13 Radio has upgraded. We are now broadcasting Old Time Radio programming on 100 channels. We hope this will alleviate any bottlenecking issues listeners experienced when they tried to log on with our old 50 channel system. We are still broadcasting at 24K and are considering an upgrade there as well. Do you like …
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A Dialog with Story: On Dialog
Story: Here we go again. Me: What's wrong now? Story: Your dialog. People don't talk that way. Me: Well, I can't write it the way people really talk, either. Have you ever listened to how people talk? They hem and haw and start and stop...you try writing a story like that and see how fast …
Halloween Haunt (a progress report)
We started unpacking Halloween stuff yesterday. We are going with a spider graveyard theme outside and Starwheel by Kammarheit as the background music. I don't know if you have ever heard this album, but it is scary as hell. I actually reviewed the album for Drops of Crimson a while back. It's some very atmospheric, …
Writing as an organic and creative process
Writing is an organic process. At least that is how I always viewed it. You can approach the story from a cerebral end but it seems to me when you start writing the story becomes organic. I kind of think this is a good thing. I see a story as a shifting plain with topological …
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The Organic Process of Novel Writing (a personal experience)
I have been making slow but steady progress on finding an entry point into the new novel. I had a false start last week but this start feels more solid to me and I think it has promise. Anyway, what I am saying is I think I can go on from here. This is a …
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Pride and Prejudice: If People Were Ants We Wouldn’t Need Stories
About three years ago I read the first 100 pages of Pride and Prejudice and then I bailed. I was taking some very heavy damage from several hardened missile silos down below me. I had lost all aileron control and the self-sealing fuel tanks, well, were no longer self-sealing. I had to eject fast or …
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Conversation with Story: Trusting the Reader to Trust You
Story: What are you doing? Me: Writing. Story: No, what are you doing? Me: I thought I was writing. Story: You don't see what you did back there, did you? Me: Back where? Story: Five pages back. I'll wait. Me: Oh. Yeah. Well, you see, I wanted to make sure the reader understood what was …
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The Last Pale Light in the West — Music by Ben Nichols Inspired by Blood Meridian
Ben Nichols, frontman for the Texas country/punk band Lucero, released a solo acoustic album The Last Pale Light in the West in 2009. It is an incredible work. It's a short album of 7 songs based on Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian. Each song follows a particular character from the book. The last song "The Judge" …
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Bad Writing Advice for Amateurs and How to Ignore It
I know a lot of writers. Most of them, I'd say 99.9%, are hard working ordinary people who honestly want to help new writers understand the business and get a firm, confident start in the profession and the field of publishing. And then there are the handful of jerks who do nothing but put up …
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Yikes! Halloween is coming fast and I haven’t begun to decorate.
Sheesh. The month is more than half over and I haven't begun to move on Halloween decorations yet. I've got to start. I have some ideas from last year and new plans for my haunt. But I've got to put this stuff together. I'm not yet in the mood. Not feeling it. I guess it …
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The Chaotic Cuisinart of Novel Writing (and by extension, writing in general)
The deeper I get into this novel the more I am bombarded by all sorts of ideas and impressions that come and go like koi rising to the surface in a green pond. I examine each one in turn and decide whether or not I will use it in the novel. It's a heady time …
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Hoover's Corner 