The Blog In Yellow

I'll write more about this once I sit down and read my notes but the last two classes I took were very helpful. You can always tell a master vs an apprentice writer. One of the classes was by a professional shortly teller who kept us hanging on every word with the spaces in between her words. Like a comedian, it's all about timing. Second teacher was more about comedy and putting good dialogue together. Not as good as the last teacher but still had some great ideas. And then we have my therapist. Yesterday, she told me she has clients like me who can draw up lists and put together facts. But when it comes to writing they struggle. Makes sense to me, I'd rather write around writing than write. Something to work on.

Among my research of Eldritch writers I've never co.e across the works of Thomas Ligotti. I found a page on Pinterest expressing Lovecraft and Ligotti as the bookends of cosmic horror. How is it I never heard of this man? This character so great that he ends the stretch of Lovecraftian stories? The post compares the two to optimism and pessimism. How Lovecraft becomes the optimist on this scale is something that confounds me. What dark horror is on the pessimist side if Lovecraft is lighter? This could be the research that I've been looking for. 

One of the themes I've been thinking about is why my characters dive into dangerous situations. The fact is, they may not be doing it willingly. Like any archeologist they seek knowledge but not the kind that changes the world. They just want to understand something. Unaware of the danger that lies in their discovery. If I have my characters jump head first into eldritch horror, it's suddenly not horror but an adventure. I've watched trailers of Robert Eggerts new film "Nosferatu." It ses our characters aren't looking for a vampire, that conclusion comes later. They are looking for answers to their problems which, from the trailers, looks like strange deaths, horrific dreams, plagues, and haunting experiences. I need to readjust my train of thought to what they know, rather than what I, the author know. I know what is coming for them, they dont.

From what I've heard this movie is based off the shorts on YouTube about people being haunted and chased by smiling figures. I watched this in preparation for Smile 2. Honestly, it's not bad, but not good. The movie is focused on jump scares and sudden build up to scares. Such as seeing deceptive smiles everywhere the lead actress looks. My favorite was the missing cat only to be found in a present to the leads nephew. Delightfully tastelessness that i can get behind. I think that reveal is soon followed by a jump scare the director took from Terrifier. Someone's head slides off next to a car door, scaring the driver. It's a good enough film with a strange premise and a good monster at the end, where I'm sure most of the budget went to. I'm not sure if I'd recommend this film but it's worth a rental.

Lovecraft seems to fall into similar tropes of the scifi age of his time. Space lasers, brains in jars, teleportation, things that come to mind of the old black and white scifi movies. Lovecraft isn't immune to this influence. His Yithians battle with guns that fire beams, the Mi-go can transport human minds across the cosmos with jars, it seems almost a folly that Lovecraft fall into these classic alien cliche. His work is so wildly different from standard sources that it feels like a seperate series, much like his Dreamland cycle. Looking at his aliens creatures we see weird geometry forms and strange things that worship alien gods. But we expect that in different species. The mind can always go into whatever direction it wants when it comes to fantasy creatures. But why go down the road of cliche when he had invented new avenues? Specifically, an uncaring pantheon mimicking the coldness of the universe and secrets that were never meant to be uncovered. Like many authors creating...

Going back to my October 15th post, I mentioned how magic and technology blend in the Lovecraft universe. An example is the Shining Trapezohedron which summons the Haunter in the Dark aka Nyarlathotep. This artifact remains a mystery both in the universe and to the lore creators. It activates with horrible sacrifices and allows glimpses into other worlds or into the minds of gods. I've wondered at it's name, Lovecraft doesn't seem to be the type into geometry. Did he pick a shape at random? It does add more malice than the shining cube. But it's the only artifact of it's kind. No "glowing trapezoid" or "shadowy pyramid" exists in the lore. It's also strange that an object of narrow, straight lines summons the crawling chaos. Some writers have guessed that an object of order binds the god to our dimension. It's these type of mysteries that has caught the imagination of writers like myself. The lack of clear understanding reflects how scien...

There's a famous game series called Castlevania. In it, the Belmont family fighting through hordes of monsters against, or to prevent the resurrection of, Dracula. Usually with their signature whips or a variety of weapons. When Castlevania: Symphony of the Night came out it changed the formula to let the player explore the castle at their leisure rather than a straightforward experience. A spiritual inherent came out years later called Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a game that I've been playing.  It's a good game but the problem is all the powers throws at you. Every enemy has something the player can add to their arsenal. Whether it's a new weapon or a spell. But there are almost a hundred enemies which can over load the gameplay with too much to do.  As I have been compiling my own lore for my stories, I'm noticing that the pages of lore keeps on growing. It's growing to a point that I'm having to make diagrams of whom works with whom.  And that'...

One of the issues I see with Lovecraft art and writings is the focus on mystic over science. Lovecraft was an amateur scientist who used his studies as the foundation into the occult. Start with what we know and dive into the unknown. It's why many of his characters are explorers and scientists. Their descent into occult brings out the story. Lovecraft goes into great detail about brain jars and other devices invented by his creatures and characters but I rarely see them in display in other people's work. Lovecraft's science has an alchemical element of occult and technology that has been lost in the arts. It's something I'm guilty of as well. My characters focus on the mystical and miss the magic that comes by combining the known and unknown. I wonder how I can rectify this.

I've been a bit lazy lately. I haven't been updating lately either due to forgetting or the fact I don't have that many words in my head. I tend to think and worry too much. My apologies to the one reader I have. But this is mainly for practice, not for profit. Recently I've been diving into image boards on Pinterest to find drawings I can use to inspire me. Plenty of pics of the King in his tentacle form. It's strange, Hastur isn't a true character of Lovecraft, yet he's popular. Only behind Cthulhu. I've been working on a factions board which is difficult because the alignment chart doesn't seem to fit the characters. What do you do when two forces are chaotic neutral but both oppose each other. I say that because Lovecraft's gods are beyond our morality. It's naive to label them as "evil.' Is it evil to destroy a colony of ants, even if it's for scientific research? I recall reading about a colony that was so large it took thr...

I had a recurring dream a long time ago before my teen years. In it, I run from a werewolf in a hotel. The doors out are locked so I commit suicide, I embrace the werewolf knowing I will die. And then I wake up. I've always remembered that dream even thirty years later. I read that Lovecraft had a similar dream about the Night Gaunts when he was a child. It's interesting how dreams, no matter how strange, can inspire the world's you create. I've decided to add the dream to my own character's backstory. He'll have to embrace the horror, the madness, if he wants to get out. Looking back, I still run into enemies in video games if they are too scary. 

I realized I was too stricken by Barbara Crampton to explain the plot of Re-animator. Herbert West is a scientist from Switzerland who comes to the US after an experiment with his reanimation formula brings his dead professor back to life. Later on were lead to think that West may have killed the professor for the sake of ts4he experiment, bit this is never made clear. West becomes a roommate of fellow Miskatonic medical student Dan Cain. Cain is engaged to the deans daughter, Megan Halsey. West reanimated Cain's dead cat, demonstrating his drug's abilities. However the drug seems to cause the victim excruciating pain and makes them attack the living. To shorten the shortly, West has a feud with Dr. Hill, who is jealous of West's discovery. In a horrifyingly hilarious scene, West decapitates Hill who is reanimated and kidnaps Halsey. West and Cain go to rescue her only to be attacked by Hill's reanimated creatures. Cain escapes with Halsy's body and uses to formula ...

Let's talk about camp. Today I watched Re-animator, a corny horror film with plenty of blood and ample use of scream queen Barbara Crampton. I've seen plenty of...assets in other horror flicks but Barbara, baby, you awoke something in me. It's like the horny teenager in me reawakened. She's stunning on the camera clothed and unclothed. Maybe it was the morning for at 11 am that aroused me, but I was infatuated with the woman by the end of the film. But I need to talk about the film. Besides the names "Miskatonic," "Arkham," and "Herbert West," the film has little to do with the short story. I'll review the story later, for now, the movie. Jeffery Combs hams it up whenever he's on screan to such an ability that I flip flopped between believing his acting and laughing at him. It's that kind of performance that I enjoy in these kind of films. It's the same reason I love Robert England's performance in the Elm Street series....

Yesterday I finished another class at Thurber house and this time the teacher seemed to kind of understand what he was talking about. And I don't mean that in a poor way. He's a descent writer but he had the same trouble many writers have and that is how to explain or teach a concept. Even King struggles with this. You'd think he'd have a lot to teach with his wealth of knowledge but his book about writing is one of his smallest. For me, explaining writing is like explaining a joke, it dies on the table. The teacher from yesterday seemed to understand this but didn't focus into what I felt was the core of his class: keep the reader asking questions. He brought up several books of different genres that had that unputdownable factor. The book he quoted the most was Harlam Shuffle which starts the first paragraph with a heist. The first paragraph. Think about that. No opening, no description. The book starts with a heist. Most stories have a type of opening but the wri...

I'm a sucker for found footage films. They manage to both scare me while simultaneously make me laugh. Yesterday, I finished watching the seventh installment in the Vhs series. Several directors gather to make short films while another film provides the thread to connect them all to a central theme. Shudder makes these films once a year or so. This time the flavor of the year was aliens...for the most part. One short was about dogs and taxidermy, and the less that is said about that short, the better. The other four were interesting enough to captivate me for the two hours. The first one, titled "Stork" has cop-like activists hunt down aliens. A tried and true story with a twist on the abduction. The second film, "Dream Girl," is likely my second least favorite because, like the dog film, has nothing to do with aliens. I remember saying something like that out loud when I saw it. My favorite, "Live and  Let Dive," follows friends skydiving when a UFO c...

One of the issues with Lovecraft is his lack of template for dialogue. Narration usually drives the story forward. It's likely due to being such an introvert that he didn't know how his characters should speak. This is rarely a detriment as his stories are so good that it's hard to hold the flaws in a larger light. But this still leaves today writer's with the question of how to write dialogue for a Lovecraftian world. Stephen King has written such stories but the dialogue remains in his own format. Stories such as "N." or "Revival" have Eldritch elements but lack dialogue that would accompany anything but a King story. Other authors have tried similar approaches to Eldritch world dialogue but what do you talk about when everything is futile? The characters usually come to that conclusion through their adventures and are left off for the worse. It's like trying to get someone at a funeral to talk, it's rude and feels awkward.

I've started reading James VanderMeer's Southren trilogy, starting with "Annihilation." I was told it was a good cosmic horror story, so, of course I had to dive in. I'll give a full review later but I wanted to do some of it in parts. James does a wonderful job of making me feel like I'm in a forest. It's different to read something that isn't Lovecraft or King so, to see a new author is both refreshing and agitating. It's like trying to used to a new food you want to like, good for you but your body hesitates. I'm only 20% in but the book already has me intrigued. Fowler women descend into Area X not knowing the reason or the dangers. They're even exempt from knowing each other's names which strangely strengthens their description in the book. Being sans a name means you have to remember their description rather than a name tag. Give a character a name and a person will assign th a face without the writer's input. James may have u...

One of the aspects that I rarely think about is what my characters are wearing. I read a lot of comics and the clothes make the man. I already know what my protagonist is going to wear, at least in the first story but the others remain a mystery. I remember a teacher telling me that you should be able to tell a character by the silhouette. That doesn't have to do with clothes but clothing do affect their body shape which affect their outline. If you read comics you can immediately tell who Batman or Superman by their pose, outline and their silhouette. I plan to do the same for my characters because I fell it's important to write in pictures or scenes. And it's hard to write people who are naked unless you're writing a romance.