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Month: July 2012
SniderWriter Exclusive: Dark Side Sale!
It’s been a while since I told you guys how fantastic you are, so here: YOU ARE FANTASTIC. Thank you for visiting me here and letting me into your head every day.
So, for you guys ONLY, Dark Side: Seven Repulsive Stories, my first collection, is half-off at Smashwords with coupon code CQ34H. It’s good til July 18th, so you still have time to scoop a copy. Click the pic to get yours!
-Stef
Real Life Horror: The Moray Eel
Moray eels look like this:
“Creepy Moray Eel” by Michael Bentley
There’s something about them that makes me uneasy. They’re so…thick. Substantial. Meaty. Imagine scuba diving and looking down and seeing that big green monster right below you.
But that’s not the half of it.
From the front, they look like this:
both images from Gamestop.com
The “eyes” of the humanoid face you’re seeing are actually its nostrils, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. Also? The green moray eel, pictured here, has two full sets of jaws. Due to their bite mechanism, “…the eel cannot release its grip even in death and must be manually pried off.”
See it in action below, and ask yourself why you ever thought it was a good idea to go into the ocean.
Come Play With Us, Danny…
forever…and ever…and ever…
30 Excuses for Why I “Can’t” Write Today
I’m tired of making excuses to myself. So in a fit of pique I scribbled out a list of all the reasons I can think of not to write.
These are transcribed exactly how I wrote them, questionable grammar and all.
1. It’s hard.
2. I can’t make a routine because of my shifts @ work.
3. I’ll never make a living at it. (why bother?)
4. My friends are humoring me.
5. I’ll probably get sued.
6. No one reads horror.
7. I’ll never get rich writing e-books.
8. The internet is more fun.
9. I need uninterrupted time and quiet and a thunderstorm or perfect Fall sunlight and…
10. Who do I think I am, anyway?
11. My ideas are stupid and no one has told me.
12. I don’t like to give up other things to make the time.
13. The tax forms are confusing.
14. It’s all been done before.
15. I can’t describe exactly what I see in my head.
16. I’m afraid of cliches.
17. I don’t have a proper editor and am probably making so many mistakes.
18. My office is messy.
19. I want the lifestyle but I don’t want to put in the work — I want it just to happen.
20. My job gets in my way.
21. It’ll just get stolen anyway.
22. There are a million other people doing the same thing as me at the same time as me.
23. I don’t have an English degree.
24. I’m already behind on The Plan.
25. It’s a pain to lug my laptop around.
26. I could write more at work if there was a table in the locker room for me to sit at.
27. I’m not great at networking.
28. I can’t concentrate.
29. What if I actually write a novel then hate it?
30. I’m scared.
Honestly, there are some thoughts on this list that I’m not especially proud of. But I’m glad I wrote it out: the whole list was written in only a couple of minutes, and it felt good to get it out of my system. I figured I’d post it here as a confession of sorts. There must be other (new) authors out there feeling at least some of these things.
Now that I see it in front of me, I can see how ridiculous some of these thoughts are, and how the “obstacles” that seemed so big are really just me being lazy or cowardly or…
Feel free to make whatever comments you’d like on this one: I’m having an introspective Let’s Get Real kind of moment. Do you share any of these feelings? What are your go-to excuses?
Blenderstein!
I usually like to post fun-slash-cute things on a Friday, but I just found this and I’m an impatient child when it comes to waiting for anything ever. So tada! Blenderstein!
This cartoon short is fantastic! I love everything about it, right down to the bitchin’ song at the end credits. Enjoy!
Blenderstein! from Cartoon Brew on Vimeo.
(ps: exclamation mark!)
stonetree: The Visual Work of Marcel Meyer
My Favourite Childhood Nightmares, Dream 2
This is a technique called “animated photography”, and it’s something I’d never heard of before. The fact of the photo being static, except for small movements, immediately calls your attention to the nightmare unfolding. It’s eerie.
See the rest at stonetree.
Abraham Lincoln: Matrix Meets Civil War
I expected to hate this movie. I’d borrowed the book from my friend Leslie (she of I Know I’m Not Normal Because…, who will be posting her own review shortly review is here) and struggled through the first…third?…before I gave up. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t interesting. It was too much blah blah and not enough action or suspense. Therefore, this review is about the movie only, which Leslie tells me is nothing like the book.
If you’re going to see this one, go into it with an open mind. (I mean, you have to be at least a little willing to suspend your disbelief; a President slaughtering vampires? Hokay.) But I mean really open your mind. This movie is wild, and over the top, and funny in a possibly unintentional way. It reminds me of Drag Me to Hell in that if you’re expecting scary, you’re out of luck. If you’re expecting to be entertained, you’ll have fun.
Super-quick summary: go see it, in 3D, before it’s out of theatres. The spoilers start below:
Abraham Lincoln is a total badass who spins his axe like a karate bow staff. He started picking off the vampires, blah blah, and I started to think it was going to be nothing but hack-and-slash. At one point his axe is revealed to be both a gun and a knife. (Really??)
Then it got pretty.
The movie is wonderful to look at, even in its most bizarre scenes. There’s a LOT of CGI. Sometimes it gets crazy, like a chase scene where we see Lincoln hopping Frogger-style across the backs of stampeding horses. And there’s a few too many slo-mo fight-scene Matrix backbends. But it’s also used subtly, and beautifully, as with the falling embers and the vampires’ reflective eyes.
The costumes are incredible: if I thought I could get away with wearing 1800’s period dresses I would be all over it. I especially loved Mary’s mourning dress, as seen at the dinner table with Lincoln. Not only would I wear the clothes, they would give me an excuse to knit a shawl like I’ve always wanted.
The sets looked fantastic, especially the burning train trestle and Lincoln’s office at the White House.
Standouts: THE VAMPIRES! They looked quite a bit different than your standard vamps: when they attack, they’re almost demonic in appearance. And the effects when a person has been bitten are impressive (you can see the veins pulsing beneath the skin). I also appreciated that the actors were able to speak normally with fangs in; none of the mushy mouth you usually get with vampire movies.
Watch out for: the bad 80’s riffs on the soundtrack to the fight after the ball, the axe-gun-knife, the flawless projection of a child’s tiny metal sword when fired from a gun, and Henry’s ability to hold up entire train cars without ripping his arms off. There are some plot gaps, too: Lincoln attacking Henry for lying about being a vampire (uh, no he didn’t) and Mary blaming Lincoln for hiding the whole vampire thing from him (nah, he told her right to her face).
Still? It grew on me. I really, truly liked it. Even if there were only three of us in the theatre.
sniderwriter 