Dragons have been on my mind lately. I wrote my first Dragon short story and I will submit it to an anthology. (Fingers, and dragon wings, crossed for good luck with the story.) So here’s part 2 of my Monsters Meditation on Dragons. Dragons are on the MONSTER MENU Today! I’m very fond of Dragon-hunting in the Asian and Islamic Art Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dragons are EVERYWHERE! They are dishes, vases, scrolls, bowls, furniture, swords, helmets and more. There’s even a wonderful dragon-handled bronze jug in the recently renovated Islamic Art collection. It is absolutely beautiful
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MONSTER Vocabulary
I’m sure I’m not the only writer who occasionally gets bogged down in words. I LOVE words, but sometimes I seem to drown in them. Right now, on the bulletin board over my desk I have two words on little pieces of paper, tacked up there haunting me, taunting me to use them in one story or another. Crepuscular: referring to animals active in twilight Crepuscular has been up on the board for too long. It’s a luscious word, but outside of nature writing it feels a bit pretentious. I’m sure it’ll find its way into a story about vampires
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Dragons! (Part 1)
Sometimes when I need to cheer myself up or simply to focus on something outside my usual worries, I go on a DRAGON HUNT. No, I don’t have a secret stash of broadswords hidden in the back of my closet — I simply treat myself to a few hours at the Metropolitan Museum of art. Dragons, and dragon slayers, are all over Medieval and Renaissance art. There’s a particularly charming painting of St. George attributed to Carlo Crivelli. The saintly slayer has golden curls, lions on his armor and a red & white striped staff like a slender (and dangerous)
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The MONSTER Menu: Today’s Choice ‘The Sphinx’
Choose your MONSTER! Are you fond of charming, ever-young vampires? Do you have a yen for rough & ready werewolves? Have you fantasized cobbling together a perfect monster — like Dr. Frankenstein? Or do you picture yourself leading a battalion of zombies? There are all sorts of Monsters that appeal to all sorts of tastes. Although I’m usually inclined to write about vampires — and I recently wrote my first werewolf short story — I’ve been playing around with an idea that strays into the territory of mythological beasts — another brand of monsters entirely. Maybe it’s simply the fabulous
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Face-to-Face with a Villain
I’m sure I’m not the only writer grabbing bits and pieces from real life to add texture — and verisimilitude — to my fiction. I’ve called myself a “story vampire” for years and my nearest and dearest know that I’ll suck the life out of their tidbits, transforming chatter into stories. On occasion I base the appearance of a character on someone real. It’s rarely a person I know well and it much more likely a face familiar from my neighborhood. New York is a large city, but like most large cities it’s really many, many smaller neighborhoods and locals
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Summer Guest Blogger — Kirsten Weiss
My New York City apartment is tiny and hot, but my blog has plenty of room for summer visitors. Today, I welcome my third Summer Guest Blogger — Kirsten Weiss, author of paranormal mysteries featuring Riga Hayworth. I’ve read and enjoyed two books in this series. Kirsten’s blend of mystery & magic is a wonderful mix! Here’s Kirsten’s Post: The Paranormal Mystery Genre In case you missed the drama, amidst great howling and gnashing of fangs, author Charlaine Harris wrapped up her Sookie Stackhouse series of vampire/mystery/romance/suspense novels this year. Many fans were furious Sookie didn’t end up with the
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Ghosts & Echoes
Do you believe in ghosts? I don’t. Sometimes I want to believe — sometimes I almost believe, especially when I’m reading a good ghost story, but I don’t. Ghosts or not, I think we leave echoes behind. My grandmother has been dead for decades, but I still feel echoes of her life all the time. She’s in some of the stories I tell and in some of the foods I cook. After a lifetime of very hard work — in a sweatshop as new immigrant and in the family’s laundry store after she married — she instilled the desire to
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A Monster Metamorphosis…
I’m updating and upgrading the Candy’s Monsters blog this summer. This will be a MONSTROUS adventure, a transformation from my current vanilla with monster chips blog to a bigger, better and more monstrous site. It will have more pages, more pictures, more excerpts and more links. I have a ton of ideas. My designer has even more. But that doesn’t mean I’m not open to suggestions. Any thoughts on what I should add to my Candy’s Monsters blog? What pitfalls should I avoid? Is there a must-have feature? What design cliché should I be careful to avoid? I plan to
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Madness, Mayhem & Monsters
The literary concept of madness is not exactly the same as the medical definitions of mental illness. In fiction, “madness” is most often vague. I go directly to Jane Eyre’s rival — Mr. Rochester’s wife — living out her tortured life in the attic of their home. I’m not blaming Charlotte Bronte for the lack of diagnosis. 1847 is a long time before Freud. After the rise of psychoanalysis, “madness” was defined, but it was often just as unrealistic as Bronte’s madwoman. Domineering mothers, people with split personalities and crazy geniuses all became stock characters in general and genre fiction.
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