October 24-26, 2014: Author guest (confirmed) at Spooky Empire Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando, Florida.
We’re also presenting what may be the BIGGEST Ultimate Occult Showdown we’ve ever done: Saturday, October 25th at 4:30p in the LAKE BALLROOM – be there!
The BIGGEST show we’ve done to date…and YOU’RE invited!
See the Ultimate Occult Showdown LIVE at Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend 4:30 PM in the LAKE BALLROOM on Saturday, October 25, 2014!
A game show with no prizes and audience participation is mandatory! Vote up your favorites in a contest of characters, movies, and TV programs but be ready to tell us why. Rules are made up as we go along by your opinionated a**hole hosts Kevin A. Ranson and Brett J. Link. Presented by MovieCrypt.com and Grim D. Reaper!
The new social network gathering the requisite amount of buzz this…year? Month? Week? It’s called Ello, as in something that cute little caterpillar from Labyrinth would say.
Why is the buzz strong with this one? This is a quote from their manifesto:
Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership. We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.
You are not a product.
Sounds good, but it’s still in beta, search is buggy, no IOS or Android mobile app yet, blah blah blah. This same idea, by the way, is what’s made WordPress such a strong web platform (and this website is hosted on it along with all of my other websites). As I’ve said many times over, when ANYONE creates a social network that can give people a better experience than Faceybook, so long, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (no thanks to all those game requests).
By the way, I’m @thinkingskull over at Ello.
I have been nominated by action/sci-fi/horror screenwriter Eric Ian Steele from Manchester, England to join the “Meet My Main Characters” blog tour. Today I will be telling you a little about the protagonist of my vampire thriller series The Matriarch.
What is the name of your main character?
Her name is Janiss Annette Connelly, formerly a college senior with one semester to go before she would begin student teaching, marry, have children, and live happily ever after…all of which changes after running afoul of a vampire named Ian Chrisman.
When and where is the story set?
It is set in and around Glenville, West Virginia and at my alma mater, Glenville State College. The story takes place in modern-day, but the roots of the story are steeped in the local ghost story of Sis Linn, a woman who was brutally murdered a century before and was interred in the old city cemetery on the actual college campus. Her murder was never solved, setting up the gray area in history where the story takes place.
What should we know about the main character?
Continue reading ““MEET MY MAIN CHARACTER” Blog Tour!”
“The Crooked Man,” Re-edited and Re-mastered; Enjoy!
Same story with the “telling” re-written into showing to match up with the rest of the series. Read something Spooky today; he’ll appreciate it!
Color is important to a physical description, but here’s a few suggestions that go beyond Roy G. Biv to provide for a particular hue with a single word.
I love to collect words. Making word lists can help to find the voice of my story, dig into the emotion of a scene, or create variety.
One of my on-going word collections is of colors. I love to stop in the paint section of a hardware store and find new names for red or white or yellow. Having a variety of color names at my fingertips helps me to create specificity in my writing. I can paint a more evocative image in my reader’s mind if I describe a character’s hair as the color of rust or carrot-squash, rather than red.
So for fun, I created this color thesaurus for your reference. Of course, there are plenty more color names in the world, so, this is just to get you started.
Fill your stories with a rainbow of images!
There once was a hill where an eldritch church slept
‘Twas surrounded by many a soul
Not only the bodies interred has it kept
The cemetery of Parish KnollNever could the township find fault in its grace
Its myst’ry to keep they implore
Ever would the townsfolk therein know their place
While still making room for one more
Copyright © 2014 Kevin A. Ranson
“Spooky” Spencer Lawson’s birthday is September 13th, so happy birthday, kid!
The Spooky Chronicles was my first foray into writing for profit – because film critique pays nothing in the way of actual coin. I’ve written five books thus far, and the series in general has been fun to write and fun for fans to read…and yet, many don’t know that the author of The Matriarch series (that’s also me) has these other books out.
For those neither happy with zombie kids or Appalachian vampires, dark fantasy is coming your way soon…!
This is what happens when you give a couple of Texans a description for a new kind of vampire hunter weapon: they build one, and the case it comes in.
The modular fauchard, aka “the decapitator.” Designed for ghouls to subdue and/or destroy neophyte vampires. Not recommended against elder immortals with a true understanding of their power. This weapon is featured in The Matriarch: Guardians.
Special thanks to Dragon’s Fire Forge who hand-forged the blades, created the connecting polearm and stake tips (mmm…steak tips). Box, “Osage Orange” stakes, and leatherwork by Tobin’s Turnings. These folks really outdid themselves, didn’t they? Here’s the original text this was taken from along with a hasty sketch I cobbled together:
Continue reading ““The Decapitator” from The Matriarch: Guardians is complete! #VWSG”
Writing a novel is like building house (I’ve done both).
It’s always nice to finish the foundation and get the framing up, just to see everything taking shape and your plan coming together. Of course, you still have the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, walls, shingles, appliances, flooring, carpeting, and everything else to do before it’s actually finished. Yay!
Afterwards you have to put the house on the market, put ads in the paper, start shopping it around…
Kevin A. Ranson 