Alterpedia: Muses

November 13, 2015 Jeremy Varner

In the Alters’ World (and the series of books found here), creatures of legend reveal themselves to the world. Born through genetic abnormalities, defects and mutations, the Alters have lived for centuries as outcasts of human society, hiding their true nature from the world while colorful stories have been written by many to describe what they’ve seen. How are these creatures different from what was described in the stories? What relationship do they have with humanity? Every entry of the Alterpedia will delve into a new creature from around the world. This week we cover:

Muses

Source of inspiration, guidance for mankind, often invoked in the modern day by the likes of writers, the Muses were the goddesses of inspiration in all fields where creativity was helpful. Covering fields such as art, science, literature, and anything else where instructions weren’t clear – Muses could be credited for much of what we call “civilization”. Though rarely used in serious fashion today, the belief in them has left a mark on who we are as people in the western world. Even the term “music” comes from their name.

But who were the Muses, what was their goal, why did they leave such a mark on us? Why would “goddesses” deign to give us their attention? For that, we must take another look into the world of the Alters… Continue reading Alterpedia: Muses →

About me, Writing

NaNoWriMo – A Trial of Focus

November 9, 2015 Jeremy Varner

So, it’s a bit of time into NaNoWriMo and, if I’m familiar with the community as much as I think I am – a lot of you have fallen behind. Generally, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t fallen behind at least once over the course of a NaNoWriMo. It even happens to the professional and semi-professional writers I know. So for those of you who have, fear not, many of us have done it and you’re far from alone. As for those of you who haven’t – well aren’t you just perfect?

oblivious — Kidding, kidding, keep up the good work

Seriously though, keeping up on your word count can be a challenging task and a lot of us end up psyching ourselves out by saying it’s somehow harder for us than for others. It feels strange, when you think about it, that the NaNoWriMo challenge is only 50,000 words when Stephen King insists every writer should hit 2,000 a day. If we were keeping up with Stephen then no one would lose. But a lot of us struggle to get beyond 1,667 words a day (the average that people need to hit to do it in November) and it’s usually for the same damn reason… Continue reading NaNoWriMo – A Trial of Focus →

Writing

Finding Your Way Through The Block

November 4, 2015 Jeremy Varner

So as I mentioned recently, it’s NaNoWriMo time and there are a lot of first time writers out there trying their hand at it. Hell, there’s a lot of second or third time writers too. So it’s also time for me to give some of the basic advice that could be helpful to those people. After all, getting started is usually the hardest part of the hobby and is definitely the hardest part of the profession. So why not give a little help?

For a bit I was stumped as to what to write, I’ve spent a lot of this year providing writing tips regardless. With a regular feature on this blog being exactly this, it can be a little rough thinking of something unique to NaNoWriMo. But then a friend pointed out something that would be tremendously helpful to everyone, especially on a month where everyone is aiming for 50,000 words or more. It’ll even be helpful once the month is completed and there’s a chance you’ll find this down the line. What is it?

How do you avoid getting stuck and frustrated enough to want to quit?

It’s easy for more seasoned writers to take for granted how hard it is to break past that inertia. We all have writer’s block, but it’s really not common after a point for you to have writers block in the middle of an idea. Time and again I’ve had it hit me before even starting only to find that everything’s smooth sailing once the work is underway. Rarely is the same true in the other direction. So what about the people just starting or haven’t developed that ability to just plow ahead? Well, this post’s for you… Continue reading Finding Your Way Through The Block →

Writing

NaNoWriMo Wildlife

November 2, 2015 Jeremy Varner

Ah, November, the weather is becoming cool and crisp, the leaves are falling, and everyone’s using pumpkin spice to wake each other up from sugar comas. The Candyocalypse has passed and all of us are trying to figure out what to do in the time before Turkeygeddon is upon us. For many people it is a time to appreciate pumpkin spice, watch leaves fall, and take in some Football. However, the writers are going another route. Those writers among us have been stirring for a while, their mating calls echoing across the ‘net to ring in the annual season. Should you listen carefully, some of them may be heard right now:

“NaNo”

“WriMo”

Yes, National Novel Writing Month is back and this time it’s personal. Not that it wasn’t always personal, no one is going to twist your arm. The tradition is something of a vendetta that some writers have imposed on themselves. After all, Jonathan Franzen admitted just recently on Colbert that he only aims for 6,000 works a week and yet there’s a sea of people right now declaring they’re going to average that roughly every 3 and a half days.

The number makes sense, it’s totally doable, at only 2,000 words a day you’ll find yourself done before the month is through and that’s what Stephen King tells all of us to do. The problem is, as many of you know, that number can be hard to hit consistently every single day. Still, as far as it goes, this is a good time for new people to get into the art of writing and for the old guard to have a sense of community that we sometimes need desperately. It’s okay, it’s NaNoWriMo, we can admit sometimes the only people we talk to are our pets and our growing psychosis.

But for those new people, it’s time to warn you a little about what you’re getting into. You see, there are a lot of colorful characters out there and some of them may draw some ire out of you. That’s fine, but it’s best we warn you now so you see them coming… Continue reading NaNoWriMo Wildlife →

FICTION

The Other Room

October 30, 2015 Jeremy Varner

Few things are as haunting as a scream. We’ve come through the ages learning on a basic level that screaming and crying are signs that something horrific has happened to someone. It makes sense, it’s not a normal sound, it’s so far outside of normal that you feel it in your chest. That tight, uncomfortable feeling as it drills into you is your body telling you that you might need to run. Sure, the scream is coming from someone else, but that means you can be next. At least, that’s what instinct is telling you.

The worst part of most screams is when it comes to a sudden end. What does it mean? Will you ever really know? Do you want to know? It’s a sign that something changed and, as far as you know, it was probably for the worse. After all, who switches from screaming to sudden silence if everything is okay? For the longest time, I thought that moment was one of the worst moments to have.

But there’s something worse than a scream that suddenly stops – one that never ends.

You expect screaming to come to an end, even if you hate the moment when it happens. Every fiber of your being is hoping that it blows over. So when it doesn’t happen, when the screams are unending, it pushes into another part of you that you weren’t aware existed. It starts to take a toll on you, dredges up dark thoughts. You start to question whether it will ever end. More than that, you start to ask yourself if you’re going to have to do something to make it stop. You start to wonder what you’d be willing to do to make it stop.

And, standing at the doorway of the next room over, listening to the wailing sound of an infant, I started to wonder what I had to do. I started to wonder what I was willing to do… Continue reading The Other Room →

About me, Writing

How To Scare Me

October 28, 2015 Jeremy Varner

As autumn rolls in and we find the days growing shorter and the nights growing longer, we also start to imagine the things that may be moving through those nights. Since mankind first made complete words on paper, we’ve found ourselves enamored with the possibilities of this time of year. Most of the creatures we fear are nocturnal, and the nights are making them much more active. So the questions we find ourselves asking are appropriately filled with hush tones of fear and reverence. It’s no surprise this is when we start to put more effort into our stories of ghouls and ghosts.

It’s strange, really, that someone who writes so often about monsters and creatures of the night like myself hasn’t written that many horror stories. I’ve written things that were a bit grotesque, maybe even disturbing, but actual attempts at horror are few and far between. The genre’s never really gripped me like most. It’s not too unusual, most people are too creeped out by these stories to be able to read or write them. But my problem is a little different: few stories really capture the things I’m most afraid of.

Most of the things you’d find in the horror genre just doesn’t do it for me. Monsters intrigue me mostly as creatures of fantasy. I joked through most of Paranormal Activity that it was just Casper trying to make new friends. And as a child I fell asleep through a Friday the 13th Marathon. And as for books, while I appreciate the work of someone like Stephen King, I always liked his less horror oriented stories better.

So it’s strange to say, if you knew me better, you’d think it’d be easier to scare me with these things. I actually had some pretty severe phobias, almost crippling in some cases, and still have one of them to this day. Generally that would be enough for most people, but what scares me doesn’t take center stage as often. So when it comes time to give writing tips to horror authors, there’s really only one thing I can help them with:

How do you scare someone like me? Continue reading How To Scare Me →

Observations, Writing

Opinion: Are Jump Scares Really Lazy?

October 26, 2015 Jeremy Varner 1 Comment

October, that time of year when horror franchises march out their newest edition and try to convince you that you haven’t seen this movie before. This year, 2015, we have another Paranormal Activity, The Scout’s Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, and, scariest movie of the season, a Bradley Cooper movie where he’s not playing a racoon.

burn — I know, it’s not horror. But, seriously, not looking good.

I haven’t seen any of this year’s crop. The last Zombie movie I went out of my way to watch was Zombieland and I haven’t watched a Paranormal Activity since the first one. So I’m just going to guess right off the top of my head, based on what I’ve seen of the Paranormal Activity franchise, that there’s a lot of jump scares in there. For those not in the know, that’s one of these.

But I’ll give them a benefit of a doubt and say they’re only 50% jump scares. That’s being pretty generous in the modern horror scene, with a great deal of horror franchises being anchored now into the old slasher model. It used to be that the only time you could expect a solid wall of jump scares was when a maniac with a mask and a machete were involved. But now they’re basically everywhere and a lot of horror critics are jumping onto the bandwagon that the genre is full of lazy hacks. But I have a different opinion.

They’re not lazy, they’re ignorant… Continue reading Opinion: Are Jump Scares Really Lazy? →

Agent of Argyre, FICTION, Observations, Satire

Dressing Up Like A Human

October 23, 2015 Jeremy Varner

The days are growing shorter and the humans are starting to act a little strange again. You’re seeing them hang skeletons in their windows, corpses on their lawns, and they’re buying pumpkins in bulk. And let’s not even get started on what else they’ve been doing with the pumpkins.

But the one thing that truly intrigues you is the idea of this Halloween they do every year. Sure, you were around when it was called the Samhain, but now they’ve gone and made it more fun and less solemn. You can get to drink, eat ridiculous foods that shouldn’t exist, and play games with complete strangers. And, best of all, for the first time all year – you’ll fit right in! Yes, the costumes are on the way and that means you can disguise yourself as something completely different.

Just one problem, the costume choices aren’t doing it for you. You spend all year being a little… quirky, so you really don’t need to be doing it again for Halloween. The standard vampire, werewolf, zombie and grim reaper options are pretty mundane as far as your day-to-day goes. It’s time to go wild, go crazy, and do something really wild. May I suggest to you the perfect costume: normal people. Continue reading Dressing Up Like A Human →

Agent of Argyre, Alterpedia, FICTION, Mythology, Mythology World Tour

Alterpedia: Cucuy

October 19, 2015 Jeremy Varner

El Cucuy

It was a dark and stormy night. The world was shrouded in black, save for the flickering of candles and the brilliant display of the storm above. Thunder rolled endlessly over a small town in the middle of a desert as people screamed into the dead of night, yelling at each other over the wailing wind and the growling clouds above. And one lone man stood under that sky, watching for signs of rain and realizing the horrible truth of the fate that had befallen them:

I was probably not going to be able to update my blog on Friday since my power was out all of Thursday night.

But another terrible thing was becoming apparent as the dark night grew long. Long raised around the culture of Mexican immigrants, this lone figure knew, deep down, that something else was brewing in those shadows. The stories had been passed in whispers for years, murmured through elementary school classrooms. A single name was spoken in hushed tones, the name of something which lurked in the shadowy corners of the world. It was clear, the longer the lights were gone, that a child in the city was under a looming threat. Someone was being watched that night, from the deepest shadows, by the Cucuy… Continue reading Alterpedia: Cucuy →

Writing

Foreshadowing: Hidden In Plain Sight

October 14, 2015 Jeremy Varner

As we enter the autumn and most of the northern hemisphere cools and takes on sunset shades, we start to enter a magical time. This is the twilight of the summer season when we can stop pretending to give a shit about whether or not the hedges are trimmed and the weeds are cleared. Instead we now get to watch the world take on a new shade, settle back, and let nature take its course. Before long, some of us will find ourselves watching snow fall through a window of our cozy dens. Not me though, I live in California where it’s still in the mid-90s in October.

But while I contemplate a trip to the cold depths of Siberia to escape this hell, others have far more pleasant plans to make. National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us once more in November, and it’s time for some of us to dust off some old projects or start anew with the power of community behind us. It’s a joyful time, practically the writer’s holiday season, when good will is shared among all and we each find a little bit of comfort from each other. To acknowledge this, years ago I wrote my first real writing advice posts and found that it was actually something I liked to do. In fact, since those first few posts I’ve made it a point to make writing advice a regular part of this blog.

But a friend recently pointed out to me that I only superficially touched on a vital topic when I talked about Mystery writing. I’d covered requiring enough evidence to prove your case and the timing for when you should reveal it all, but I didn’t really touch on how you would reveal it. What if you didn’t want something to feel like a clue? What if you just wanted it to be something that people would recognize after the fact? This is something that applies to all genres because there is always information you wouldn’t want to leak at the wrong place or time.

So in the interest of giving people the information they deserve, I feel like it’s a good time to cover… Continue reading Foreshadowing: Hidden In Plain Sight →