Growing up in the 80s, there was really no avoiding Stephen King. My parents never read horror, but his stories were everywhere. They were discussed on TV, they were whispered about on the playground. Carrie was already a palpable hit for both him and De Palma. The likes of Christine, Cujo and Firestarter were infamous. As was Thinner, sneakily written under that tissue paper thin alias he occasionally ducked behind. The Shinning was dividing people between preferring the book and the movie; an early precursor to so many comic book movie arguments that were waiting for us in the 21st century. As I grew up the names of his stories became the stuff of legend. Pet Cemetery, It, The Stand, Salem’s Lot.
Read MoreI want to talk about a man who’s been inspiring me since I was a kid. Mr Terry Gilliam. There are a lot of people who have shaped my brain. The Marx Brothers. Roald Dahl. Bill Hicks. Woody Allen. Neil Gaiman. Alan Moore. Arthur C Clarke. The list can go on and on, but Terry Gilliam is something special. In fact, he’s such a cornerstone of my desire to tell stories that I’d forgotten how big an influence he was until recently.
Read More Back then, I’d only just started writing and self-publishing horror stories. I’d finished a few: The Low Road, The Narrow Doors and The Compressionist, but I was still finding my feet. At first, I didn’t even think about trying to make a story out of my nightmare. If I’m being honest, I just wanted it out of my brain.
It was only after a shower and a mug of coffee, that I realised I had to try and do something with it. I was trying to be a horror writer. It would be a shame to waste the fear jangling through my system. So, instead of distracting myself, I sat down and began to work with it.
From past experience, I know that elements of the past few days are going to creep into my writing over time. It’s happened before. The section in Something Needs Bleeding called The Blind Walls came from a trip to Austria, where I ended up getting out the lift on the wrong floor and not realising until I turned a corner that wasn’t on my own floor. A trip to Bury St Edmunds became The Wooden Walls and a Monday night spent in a chain hotel in Bristol became the inspiration for the first section of The Righteous Judges.
Read MoreK.B. Goddard has a new novella coming out and I’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak preview before its released. ‘The Girl with The Roses’ is a genuinely unnerving and atmospheric horror novella. The story begins in the sales room of Thornhill and Swift, where items with an unusual and unique past are sold to the highest bidder. It’s there we find a statue of a young girl holding a bouquet of roses. As with all the items that are sold there, this statue has a story to tell.
Read MoreThere was a definite menace in the silence that followed. I don’t think I heard a front door close, which makes me wonder if I heard anything at all. Still, that silence pressed down on me. It wouldn’t let me close my eyes. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t fearing for my own safety. My sleep, maybe; but not my safety. I lay there and waited for a violent encore. Raised voices. Doors slamming shut. Glass smashing. Or, worse, laughter.
Read MoreHere at The Blank Page, we like to try and keep our offerings to a fairly high standard. Sadly, this week, your erstwhile blogger is suffering from a mild existential crisis. He’s currently hiding in the attic and is refusing to come out. It’s been a pretty rough week for him and any attempts to blog about it have led to screaming fits, drinking and drawing on the walls.
Read MoreTime has been misbehaving this year. Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve certainly noticed it’s been toying with me, especially since the beginning of March. I had gone into Christmas last year feeling quietly confident about the draft of the novel I’d been working on for all of 2016. It felt like it was meant to be something special. A novel that was about something worthwhile. Social commentary was new to me, but I was giving it a go. I just needed to hack the first draft into a tighter version of itself. Hone the edges, kick the tires. It felt like it was going to be pretty simple.
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