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All posts for the month July, 2015

Images to Words

Today, Spooky Moon welcomes its first guest post, from author T. Frohock. T. writes richly dark fantasy with delicious characters. Her latest book, In Midnight’s Silence, is available now.


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I love Cat’s site. It’s the perfect combination of color and imagery. She maintains just the right consistency between subjects and pictures so there is nothing to jar my sensibilities as I scroll through her posts. She makes it look very easy, but designing a website is never easy, and submitting new and appealing content in an interconnected manner can be daunting, too.

A writer faces some of the same obstacles when using description in their works. No one wants to get bogged down in a four page of description of a doorway—unless it is a very, very, VERY important doorway, and then the author had better milk the use of that doorway for the next six chapters.

I’ve yet to come across a doorway that important to my story.

So I try to choose small details to convey both the mood and the essence of a scene. For me, personally, the problem always arises because I don’t have an artist’s eye. More often than not, I rely heavily on photographs to set the stage.

This is especially helpful when I’m writing a historical fantasy. Even though there is magic and angels and all the trappings of a fantasy world, I need for my descriptions of the real world to be authentic. My Los Nefilim series is set just before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, so I’ve resorted to using Pinterest to collect images from the that time period. The lovely thing about Pinterest is the link to the original picture is preserved, so I can return to the website for more information if necessary.

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I have a board for the Spanish Civil War. Here, I can look at catalogs for the styles of the period, what kinds of cars they drove, and especially the streets and buildings. Small details make a huge difference between a good scene and an excellent scene, and even the name of a store or restaurant can inject a certain feeling in the reader’s mind.

However, I don’t just use Pinterest for historical details. A lot of the pictures are there for inspiration. I have a board for angels and cemetery statuary; a board for haunting images, which stimulate my imagination. Another of my boards is for the dark sounds, which is comprised mostly of flamenco and tango, so I can study the poses and the footwork of the dancers.

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I use all the images to inspire me with a sense of mood and place. Then I try to transfer those images into words by choosing an aspect of the picture to describe. I keep my descriptions as brief as possible, because what the reader can imagine is far more powerful than anything I write. A good author will nudge your imagination, not overwhelm it with insignificant details.


BIO: T. Frohock (website | twitter) has turned a love of dark fantasy and horror into tales of deliciously creepy fiction. Her other publications include everything from novelettes to short stories. She is also the author of the novel, Miserere: An Autumn Tale.

T. lives in North Carolina where she has long been accused of telling stories, which is a southern colloquialism for lying.

In Midnight’s Silence (Los Nefilim: Part I) 

The fate of mankind has nothing to do with mankind …

Born of an angel and a daimon, Diago Alvarez is a singular being in a country torn by a looming civil war and the spiritual struggle between the forces of angels and daimons. With allegiance to no one but his partner Miquel, he is content to simply live in Barcelona, caring only for the man he loves and the music he makes.  Yet, neither side is satisfied to let him lead this domesticated life and, knowing they can’t get to him directly, they do the one thing he’s always feared.

They go after Miquel.

Now, in order to save his lover’s life, he is forced by an angel to perform a gruesome task: feed a child to the daimon Moloch in exchange for a coin that will limit the extent of the world’s next war.  The mission is fraught with danger, the time he has to accomplish it is limited…and the child he is to sacrifice is the son Diago never knew existed.

A lyrical tale in a world of music and magic, T. Frohock’s IN MIDNIGHT’S SILENCE shows the lengths a man will go to save the people he loves, and the sides he’ll choose when the sidelines are no longer an option.

Buy Links:

 

Art Dump!

I have a backlog, as usual, so here are a bunch of bits of art I’ve saved.

Untitled 59, by Peterio

Untitled 59, by Peterio

Untitled, by Argento Morte

Untitled, by Argento Morte

Monster - Scream, by Noistromo

Monster – Scream, by Noistromo

No Sense for Sanity, by Jay Allen Hansen

No Sense for Sanity, by Jay Allen Hansen

Breaking Silence, by Deadbeat Cookies

Breaking Silence, by Deadbeat Cookies

Mathieu Baly

Mathieu Baly

In The Court of The Hollow King, by Alex Konstad

In The Court of The Hollow King, by Alex Konstad

The Wolf King, by Danny Burgess

The Wolf King, by Danny Burgess

Grandma and Earthworm, by Wersalka

Grandma and Earthworm, by Wersalka

Revival Bat Motifs. via Art of Darkness

Revival Bat Motifs. via Art of Darkness

Eight Spooky Internet Mysteries. Also via AoD

Eight Spooky Internet Mysteries. Also via AoD

The Undertaker of Lake Burley

The Undertaker of Lake Burley

10 Notable LGBT Horror Movies

10 Notable LGBT Horror Movies

A Peek at the Ash vs Evil Dead Necronomicon

A Peek at the Ash vs Evil Dead Necronomicon

Snow Globes with People in Peril. Thanks, Skot!

Snow Globes with People in Peril. Thanks, Skot!


please don’t be awful…please don’t be awful…
Don't Be Afraid of The Light--Kickstarter for indie horror. Trailer is just okay, but the story sounds great.

Don’t Be Afraid of The Light–Kickstarter for indie horror. Trailer is just okay, but the story sounds great.

The Last Witch Hunter posters are ah-may-zing.


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The Last Witch Hunter posters are ah-may-zing.

Sculpture by Frodo Mikkelsen. Via Creepy Art.

Sculpture by Frodo Mikkelsen. Via Creepy Art.

Aunt Sadie's Candles, many by Johanna Parker. Via pumpkinrot

Aunt Sadie’s Candles, many by Johanna Parker. Via pumpkinrot

Monster Candles. Via pumpkinrot

Monster Candles. Via pumpkinrot

Patricia Breen Halloween Christmas Ornaments

Patricia Breen Halloween Christmas Ornaments

Ghost Baroque design set by Urban Threads. Suddenly, I want a sewing machine that does embroidery.

Ghost Baroque design set by Urban Threads. Suddenly, I want a sewing machine that does embroidery.

Haunted house miniatures by Patricia Paul

Haunted house miniatures by Patricia Paul

Hastur, The Deep One, and Yog Sothoth by AbsolutStudio. Via The October Country.

Hastur, The Deep One, and Yog Sothoth by AbsolutStudio. Via The October Country.

Names of Demons from Collin de Plancy’s ‘’Dictionnaire Infernal’’, 1818.

Names of Demons from Collin de Plancy’s ‘’Dictionnaire Infernal’’, 1818.

Garden snake bracelet

Garden snake bracelet

Michael Doyle is a wildlife artist who has been carving and casting for more than 30 years.

Raven Skull

Raven Skull

His Etsy shop, Moon Raven Designs, is named for his love of ravens, which feature heavily in his work.

Wolf Mask Ring

Wolf Mask Ring

It’s a very big shop, so I couldn’t browse through everything, but here are some favorites from what I looked at.

Medieval Dragon Skull necklace

Medieval Dragon Skull necklace

Silver Lizard ring. Give this to me now!

Silver Lizard ring. Give this to me now!

Horse Skeleton necklace

Horse Skeleton necklace

Life size chameleon skull ring. Nevermind, I want this instead.

Life size chameleon skull ring. Nevermind, I want this instead.

Dolores Dragan

Winter Witch can be stationery, or used as an eight-foot puppet.

Winter Witch can be stationery, or used as an eight-foot puppet.

One of my favorite haunters is a retired art teacher living in the Halloween-friendly town of Lambertville, NJ.

lambertville-halloween

Darkly comic, I’m trying to get through the post without mentioning a certain film maker.

Dolores Dragan creates stunning figures from rigid wrap. They are black-and-white caricatures, often of people she knows.

Mistress Borghese visits Halloween House

Mistress Borghese visits Halloween House

She wants her display to be spooky rather than gory–a rare preference I happen to share.

From nj.com

From nj.com

The figures are designed for blacklight, which shows them to perfection.

I’d love to visit myself someday, but for now I’ll have to content myself with pictures and videos.

 

Y'all know I'm not a zombie fan, but this Zombie King by Josef Rarach is stunning. Check his other albums as well.

Y’all know I’m not a zombie fan, but this Zombie King by Josef Rarach is stunning. Check his other albums as well.

The Morris Everett, Jr. collection of lobby cards and posters is up for auction. You can download the catalog PDF.

The Morris Everett, Jr. collection of lobby cards and posters is up for auction. You can download the catalog PDF.

The Shining inspired food by Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca

“The Shining”- inspired food by Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca

And let’s finish with me cleaning out my “Via Art of Darkness” file:

Temple of R'lyeh cookie jar

Temple of R’lyeh cookie jar

My Dead Girlfriend Keeps Messaging Me on Facebook.  (this is fantastically creepy)

My Dead Girlfriend Keeps Messaging Me on Facebook. (this is fantastically creepy)

Skull Pearl Necklace by Kilroy's Attic

Skull Pearl Necklace by Kilroy’s Attic