Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: horror


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Weird in Manila: Trese (2021)

I went into Trese, the new animated series from Nettflix, practically blind. OK, a paranormal detective story set in contemporary Manila and based on the folklore of the Philippines. But that was all.
I had seen the trailer, and I was intrigued.

I was a bit dubious because it is presented as an “anime”, but it is not a Japanese product, it was made in the Philippines. You don’t call it New Orleans Jazz if they make in in Sweden, don’t you?
Wikipedia adjusts this by describing the series as “anime-inspired”. OK.
But apart from that, I was curious.

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Back to high school

Today’s challenge is writing a 5000-words horror story that’s due for submission by Monday. I have the story outlined, and I’ve set down the first 2000 words – which also means the story will probably be closer to 6000 than 5000 – but it’s OK, because the top hard limit is 10.000 words, so I’m fine.
And yes, I have been told that all this talking about word-count and required lengths and other “technicalities” detracts from True Art(R) and impoverishes my Muse(R), because imagination should be free-flowing and unbound.
I have been told that.
By people that never published a single line of work.

Incidentally, I believe that discipline and restraints help creativity.
So, on we go with my horror story, and as the two characters are about to face the monster and fight for their lives, I’m taking a pause for a cup of tea.

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Another idea

People that do not write have a hard time understanding that ideas are everywhere. They’ll come to you and say “I’ve got this great idea for a novel, I’ll tell you so you’ll write it and we can share the money.”
They get it wrong on three counts – first, because they think there really is any serious money in writing (ah!), and second, they believe their idea is unique (it’s not).
Third, and final, you can’t write a book based on a single idea. You need at least two good ideas to rub together for a long work to have a hope in hell.

Ideas are everywhere, and a good writer – well, a decent writer… let’s say a serviceable hack – is the one that can recognize them as they pour around him.
A general rule of thumb is, when you are overworked, stretched thin and at the lowest point of a low period, you’ll start getting all these brilliant ideas.
It’s like an Egyptian curse.

Let me give you an example.

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Ancient incarnations of death

Like that guy said, never say never.
Or “not often.”
I was talking with a friend, about four weeks ago – she does not like horror fiction, she’d rather read historical fiction, and I said that these days I don’t read or write that much horror anymore.
And as a result, most of what I submitted in the last four weeks, and most of what I read, falls one way or another in the field of horror.

The last two books I read, in fact, have been two excellent horrors, both dealing – in a very different way – with the urban manifestation of ancient spirits of death.
They are both worth checking out, and as I have already mentioned Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, here’s my review of the other, Robert Levy’s Anais Nin and the Grand Guignol.

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Folk horror and movies

As I nurse the worse cold in ages, there’s little I can do but write. I’ve a lot of things to write, but luckily all the urgent work was done before my ill-advised decision to go and attend Libri in Nizza. So I am taking a brief pause from my writing, and I’m catching up on my to-read list.

I’ve just started and finished in two days flat Gemma Files’ novel, Experimental Film, that I was given as a gift a few days back, and boy, was it a brilliant book!

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Writer

Yesterday it was Friday the 13th and there was a full moon, so I met a friend who’s a fine horror writer and we went for a bite and a long night talking.
Of course we would have done it even had it been Monday the 19th and a quarter moon, but the whole day/moon thing was a nice touch.
We were assigned table 13 in the diner where we stopped, and that did not escape our notice.

As it usually happens in these situations, we ended up talking shop, and the discussion turned to our professional designation. Writer, that is.

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From Hell they came…

There was a time, more or less when I was in high-school, when horror was big. And I mean BIG. I have this clear memory of the girls in my high-school class swapping big fat books: Stephen King, Peter Straub, Dean Koontz and V.C. Andrews most of all. There was this sort of underground book club going, and there were always new titles coming, mostly from a paperback publisher called Sperling & Kupfer.
Boys did not read, or if they did they went for science fiction or comic books, and fantasy was small and read by both boys and girls, but at least in my biased memory, it was the female of the species that really loved horror novels.

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