Hurrah! The age of the classic ‘B’ movie has been reborn! I’m probably showing my age a bit now, but in my youth I really enjoyed watching some of the old ‘B’ movie Sci Fi/Horrors that were around. In their own way they were brilliant: totally unbelievable plotlines, blatantly rubbish props, monsters made out of [...]
Category > Boredom Buster!
-button. Travel back in time at the touch of a-
I love this. Three guys, one garage, a bit of imagination and a lot of care and attention…. Amazingly, this was filmed pretty much live. Watch out for the behind the scenes link at the end, so you can see some of how it was done.
Write Your Own Scary Stories Part Two!
Welcome to Part Two of my workshop on how to write your own scary stories! In Part One I talked about ways of finding ideas for a story by looking at your own worst fears – if you write about something that you are afraid of then it will seem genuinely terrifying to a reader! [...]
Write Your Own Scary Stories!
Whenever I do events, I often get asked the same questions. The most popular of these is “Are you rich enough to buy a helicopter?” The answer to this, sadly, is not yet, although I often look at them on eBay and will hopefully one day get myself one. The second most popular question, usually [...]
Black Shuck, the Devil Hound
Last year Lincoln Book Festival invited me to give a talk on the ‘Folklore of the Lincolnshire Fens’ - that large marshy area on the east coast which was drained for farm land in the 17th Century (incidentally around the same time that Matthew Hopkins was busy hunting witches in the counties just south of Lincolnshire). Although the Fens have a rich and [...]
Diagram of Working Methods
We all know writers have strange working habits. So it pleases me to see some of them represented in the form of a diagram: This is taken from: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/visual/charts-graphs/working-methods.php and they appear to have forgotten about one of the most common places where a writer works: a cave. That is common, right? I mean, other writers [...]
Not For The Squeamish
Three quick things. First, here’s a link to a piece I wrote for the website of SFX Magazine listing my current Top Ten Favourite Horror Books and Films. Second, here’s Play With Spider, a jolly little 3D Flash animation that’s fairly self-explanatory. Lead your furry friend by the movement of your mouse, by leaving out [...]
Jake Hunter lives!
It’s always very nice to receive fan mail – but it’s more fun when fans go all out to dress themselves as their favourite hero… or in this case, villain! Here’s Max Stockdale in his sinister guise as Jake Hunter from my VILLAIN.NET books – dressed to impress for his school’s book day. Go Max!!
Petrify Your PC
As if the monsters around here weren’t terrifying enough – you can now make your computer a petrifying place on which to read about our constant battle for freedom! On the Scream Street website, you’ll find two new wicked wallpapers to creep up your computer screen – one for Scream Street 7: Invasion of the [...]
Look Out Monsters, I’m Getting Serious!
I snuck out of the cave last night to take my final club level exam at Tae Kwon Do. Assuming I passed, I will be entitled to wear a ‘black tag’ belt from now on. I aim to take my full black belt in Bristol in the Autumn. My examiner for the evening was Master [...]
