by Diana McCollum
This is a post I did in 2011. I'm recycling it. Do you ever have times when life spends out of control? That has been the last few weeks for me. Totally out of my control. That is the reason for the recycling!
There is a question at the end of the post, if you answer it you will be entered into a drawing for a $7.00 Amazon card. In celebration of the
7 yr. blog-o- versary! I'll accept answers through Monday May 14th!!
The first time I heard that quote it was an interview on t.v. with Stephen King and John Grishom. The show was on authors and their process for writing. John Grishom answered a question with "write what you know". Mr. Grishom being a lawyer, writes thrillers from the lawyer perspective, he asked Stephen King how that applies to him. Mr. King said "I keep a jar with a pickled heart on my desk".
After the laughter died down, Stephen King said that he writes about what Scares him.
The bogeyman hiding in the closet for instance. The closet door barely cracked open and two glowing green eyes visible from within the closet.
I would have to say my paranormals are written about what scares me. My imagination sometimes runs a bit rampant, and I have to rein it in. Scaring myself and the reader is the easy part. Figuring out how the Hero/Heroine is getting out of the situation, well, that's the hard part.
Scary things happen to ordinary folks in real life. Unexplained things. The haunted house down the block. The apparition in the garden. Try explaining the squeaky basement stair when no one else is home. The feeling that something is about to happen, and then it does. Do you really want to get to know the new neighbor who only comes out at night, drinks blood from a travel mug and she sleeps in a coffin in her basement?
Playing on the unexplained helps make paranormals seem real in real time.
Answer the question for the chance to win a $7.00 Amazon card!!! Answers accepted through Monday May 14, 2018!
What is the one thing that scares you the most?
6 comments:
I'm really scared of snakes. (Luckily, we don't have any in Alaska!)
Great post, Diana! I don't have any phobias, so I had to really think about my answer. I would say footsteps behind me in an empty parking garage.
I'm afraid of two things: heights and tight places. Just thinking about going into a cave gives me that familiar tightness all over my body. Just looking down over a railing makes me dizzy. There are some scenes in books that I can't read. When Harry Bosch is thinking about his past as a tunnel rat in Vietnam, I get the shivers and that tightness.
Great post, Diana. Hmm. Many things make me nervous, but heights really scare me. Not so much being high, but the fear of falling. I hate that sensation of my stomach roiling on a roller coaster. Did that one time. NEVER AGAIN. And I can be up high in a plane or a mountain top, so long as I stand far from the edge. :) I'm also scared of not finishing my current deadline, but that's not as bad as heights. LOL
Hey, Lynn! I didn't know that Alaska doesn't have any snakes! I don't like them either. With me, it's sharks. I can't even look at a picture of one.
OOh Sarah, that's a good one. Me it's having to call a stranger for something around the house, such as removing a dead deer, which I had to do recently. The guy was nice enough but talked on and on and I felt like he was sizing the place up.
Barbara, I absolutely have that fear too of tight places! Claustrophobic all the way, that's me. I got stuck in an elevator once and started hyperventalating because there wasn't a window and I didn't know how I was going to get out!
Marie, knowing you, I've always thought of you as fearless! Interesting to know you have a fear of heights! Do you sit by the window on the airplane or an aisle seat?
Thank you all for commenting.
Diana, Had to think a bit about this because I've crafted a life style that eliminates sooo many of the things that were (and would be) scary. I startle if around snakes but I'm no longer terrified. Same is true for 'edges' - it wasn't the heights but being close to the edge. I agree with Sarah about the footsteps in the empty parking garage. That would certainly get my heart pumping!
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