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IWSG

#IWSG Oct. 2024- Ghost Stories?

Created and hosted by the Ninja himself, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writers Support Group posts the 1st Wednesday of every month. Click here to learn more or sign up.

**This site has been experiencing outages. If you are able to see this post, thank you bunches for stopping by. I look forward to spending time with you this month.**

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Optional Monthly Question: Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What’s your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

I’ve read many scary stories in my life, but most of them make me feel either sad or mad. There have been a few that stuck with me long after reading simply because of how scary they were.

When I was much younger, I didn’t think Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart was that scary, yet it stuck with me. The madness of the killer and the depiction of paranoia made me feel sorry for the guy. Still, I would have called the cops on him if someone else hadn’t (Wink Wink). It was later in my early twenties when the story took on a level of terror that I still can’t fully explain. It was then that I learned that ravens can actually mimic human voices and words, even to a greater degree than parrots if they are properly trained. Before I simply imagined the madman hearing the bird say “nevermore”, after learning that, I could envision the scene playing out, where the raven is talking to him from above the door. That’s what got me. To this day, it’s one of the scariest stories I re-read each year.

Update- After writing this post, I realized that I was mashing two stories together- The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart. I still think the talking raven is spooky but the beating heart from Tell-Tale is what really sticks with me. I always imagine the raven is a call back to the other story letting the reader know, “I know what you’ve been doing.”

On a slightly different note, there is one fairly recent scary book I’ve only read once. It’s so scary that I may never read it again, but if a sequel comes out, I will definitely pick it up. You can click the image to read my Goodreads review and I’ve also included a purchase link in case you are interested.

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And now, on to the personal updates…

I have plenty to say, but I’m not yet ready, so nothing to update at the moment.

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What are your favorite or worst ghost stories?
It may take some time, but I promise, I will eventually stop by your blog.

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After hanging out with Alex, be sure to stop by and visit this month’s co-hosts:
Nancy Gideon,
Jennifer Lane,
Jacqui Murray,
and Natalie Aguirre!

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Click here to visit other IWSG blogs and sites to receive and share more inspiration and support. (This month, I’m #25).

Did you know you can join my community for FREE over at Patreon to receive a monthly update on the creative projects I’m working on? I tell you the truth, it’s better than a newsletter!

Thank you for making it this far down the virtual page. Kudos to you! I’d love to know what you thought of this post in the comments below. Stay safe and be blessed.

Categories
Mark of Bletsian

I’m #writingabook: Mark of Bletsian No.2

Greetings Dear Reader,

Life is hard. Things happen and all your plans go out the window. This year has been rough for me and my family and I’ve had to shift my focus so much away from my writing. Long story short, I’m still processing grief and change but I’m also moving forward with life.

I’m happy to report I’ve made the slightest bit of progress with this project, so this won’t be a long post. I previously mentioned in another post that I lost a lot of the research I used for the original series and some that I’d done for this rewrite. I’m happy to announce that, I think, I’ve finally recreated all that research. While these aren’t words towards a novel word count, it’s the stuff I need to be able to move forward.

At this point, I’m tightening up my outlines and filling in the gaps of changes from the old series to the new, plus I’m developing subplots and characters that weren’t really in the original series, though the ideas were there. I hoped I would be further along than I am, but at least I’m no longer at a standstill. Maybe I’ll be ready to start adding to a novel word count by December.

Before I go, I want to talk about the one thing I’ve already mentioned that will be different in this rewrite. The mark of blessing. The main character has many names but the one his mother gave him is Bletsian, which is Greek for blessing. In the original series, I never explored the meaning or origins of the word blessing any further than to say that’s where the MC’s name came from. In the new series; however, I will highlight characters throughout time who have been given a special mark to indicate they have a significant blessing over their lives; which of course, my MC will be one of those people.

That’s all I have for now. I hope life doesn’t shift again for me anytime soon. I’d like to be settled for a while and simply write.

BTW- I now have Public/Free content over at Patreon every month, so please check it out. This is what I do instead of a traditional newsletter.

Thank you for making it this far down the virtual page. Kudos to you! I’d love to know what you thought of this post in the comments below. Stay safe and be blessed.

Categories
Mark of Bletsian

I’m #writingabook: Mark of Bletsian No.1

Greetings Dear Reader,

Welcome to my journey of personal growth, self-expression, and a complete and total rewrite of my Eternal Curse Series. So, before I dive further into this, I want to clear out any haters lurking about. This rewrite, like the original, is based on a Judeo-Christian worldview but is not Christian fiction.

I want to be clear when I state that I have no problems with Christian fiction, it just so happens that what I’m writing isn’t that. I have actually drawn knowledge and inspiration from many tales and histories stemming from all three major monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, as well as other various cultures, polytheistic religions, and some lesser-known mythologies. My aim, here, is to tell a great story but to also be true to myself. I know what I like in a good story and am not afraid to blend my many influences to achieve the results I want. I am creating a world of fiction, inspired by a dream, based on a Biblical foundation and a bunch of other stuff.

While most people who read paranormal fiction are used to reading about angels, demons, and other related content without any reference to religion or spirituality, but I will be including those elements in my story. I will not be trying to hide a message of faith in my story, I’ll just be telling a story that happens to include characters dealing with spiritual struggles. While I think it makes for a great story, this will clearly not appeal to some, and that is okay. I’m just stating here and now, that if my characters talk about and or actually engage in prayer, it’s because that’s just their reality.

Outside of my monthly IWSG posts, I plan to provide weekly updates on how this process is going. Today, I’m starting with 5,787 (1,000 just added) words of clarified terms, characters names, locations, biblical research, and more as I start this process. I had started updating my Patreon community on this project a while back but abandoned it when I hit a wall. Moving forward, this is where I’ll be tracking my progress, even if it’s just a handful of words or ideas. I will reserve any special excerpts I want to share with the Patreon community, but otherwise, this blog will be focusing on the development of this series. So, to round things out today, this first day of a new journey, I thought I’d explain why the series is being rewritten and why the series name is changing, and what it means.

First, I absolutely love my original Eternal Curse Series and all its flaws. I have reread the books (the two published ones and the third unfinished one) and still really enjoy the overall story and the individual characters. The main reason this series is getting a rewrite is that I grew so much as a writer between the first and third books that I was struggling to maintain the same voice I’d started the series with. My voice had changed. Plus, there were so many aspects of the story that I wanted to change for clarity and to fill in the gaps.

The original series’ name was a reflection of the struggle many of the characters lived. I’d written about characters that were clearly cursed and yet, they had chosen to do good or be good despite their curses. The story is ultimately inspirational, but it’s also very dark- not afraid to touch on a few hard topics. For the rewrite, I wanted to focus on the many character’s, especially the main character’s, choice to be a blessing despite their circumstances. I even go so far as to introduce a mark of blessing to the overall theme, but I’ll explain more about that later.

BTW- I’ve posted my public/FREE monthly update over at Patreon so please check it out. It has a really cool video that I’m not posting anywhere else… And, I posted a channel update on YouTube. Check it out.

Thank you for making it this far down the virtual page. Kudos to you! I’d love to know what you thought of this post in the comments below. Stay safe and be blessed.