By The Pricking Of My Thumbs...

Wickedly Wicked

Wicked!  I just love that word. It conjures up images of witches and wizards for me and I always think of the late Ray Bradbury‘s brilliant novel “Something wicked this way comes”. He took his inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, of course.

Nowadays it is used by young people as a replacement for the word ‘brilliant’ or something similar. It is also associated with the word ‘cool’ – as in something or someone being ‘hip’ or current. Whoever said language was not a living breathing changeable entity!

Anyway, I digress. What I mean to talk about is the original proper use of the word. When I looked it up in my dictionary it said it meant evil or sinful. But then there was a whole host of harsh words from ‘abominable’ to ‘abased’ to ‘shameful’ and ‘vicious’. In fact over fifty similar words! Many of which I have used time and again in my own supernatural thriller writing.

But nothing says something evil quite as succinctly as ‘wicked’. It goes best with villainous characters and horrific deeds.

“To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.” Voltaire said.  A wonderful quote, indeed... I think one could weave an entire story around some of the quotes about wickedness.

A good word like this can be as helpful in horror/thriller writing as love is in romance writing. But it can equally be much overused and abused.

Do you have favourite words that you feel inclined to use more often than not?

 

Horrifyingly Macabre?

Macabre stories??

What a scary word macabre is to most people…

The dictionary defines it as ghastly or gruesome but in my mind, I always associate it with supernatural goings on. Books such as Stephen King’s “Danse Macabre” also spring to mind.  In his book King talks about the world of horror writing and it’s history and origins – an adventurous read if you are interested in horror literature. When I looked up the term ‘Danse Macabre’, I discovered that it appears to originate in medieval times and signified skeletons and other dead spirits dancing and leading mortals to their grave. A kind of unholy procession. There are quite a few artists’ impressions from that time depicting dancing gleeful skeletons holding hands with the dead and the still living.  Ugh! Nice pictures…

But I am thinking of the more common use of the word...  Macabre seems to be a word used for describing a grim or ghastly atmosphere.  It is generally only found in horror/paranormal -type literature. I think it is a wonderfully descriptive word which everyone knows the meaning of but it is rarely used in everyday conversation.

It’s almost as if it is beyond our understanding and therefore terrifying.  When one is struggling to describe a scary atmosphere or aura macabre is a good word to use…

Do you have favourite words that are relevant to your genre?

Monday Bloglights and Exciting News

News, Views and Reviews and Bloglights Spotlights too!

I was so surprised and delighted this morning to recieve a nomination in my email for this blog award! Yay!

I quote some of the wording of the email below:

"An article you wrote in 2012 titled ABC of Thriller Writing... has earned your blog a nomination for a Fascination Award: 2012's Most Fascinating Creative Writing Teacher blog.

The comments posted in response to your post prove that your content not only inspires your audience, but it also creates discussion around your posts, both of which are requirements for the nomination of a Fascination award."

Now isn't that just great?? It is indeed, an honour to be nominated. It's certainly boosted my monday mroning! What a lovely surprise. Whoooooo....

So everyone please go vote for me on or after 23rd  JULY!

On to other stuff...

I have had a pretty busy week socialising as I’ve had visitors  to stay with us ( actually my mum) so we’ve been out and about quite a bit and, of course eating and drinking out rather more than usual! Well, that’s my excuse, anyway for not sticking to the diet!

However,  I have managed to increase promo stuff for my book “The Afterlife of Darkmares” . It is available on Amazon – both as a paperback and kindle e- book.  The Afterlife of Darkmares  Do buy!!! I am a bit desperate for one or two reviews too so if anyone has read it, do let me know what you think. All comments very welcome – whether good or bad… 

Anyway it’s back to normal routine next week… sigh… I will miss the wine and cream cake though!

So here goes for this week's Bloglight Spotlight tour:

Ta ta ta ta da da Da! ( fanfare!!)

In the Bloglights this week are:

Firstly author Stephen Tremp

Stephen’s blog is full of fascinating other-worldly items. He is an accomplished writer of scifi thrillers and I love visiting his blogs as he makes me think about our world and the way we live. He is also quite witty and often makes me smile. He is (in his words) ‘One of a kind’ of thriller writer.

Next is em-musing ( Leigh Caron)

Leigh says her blog is ‘one woman’s slant on life and writing’ and it is certainly full of humour and wit. Em-musing is a very different blog written in a poetic way. I love her style – she says it like it is but her posts are never long and boring. Leigh writes with great style and in my opinion she is well worth a visit.

Thirdly Carolyn Arnold

Carolyn is another mystery, thriller, suspense writer who has several published books to her name. Her blog focuses mainly on the business and mechanics of writing and she contributes to other blogs too. I enjoy reading Carolyn’s blog as it is interesting, insightful and informative.

Lastly E.D. Of (Not) just another writer E. D.

E.D is a ‘wanna be’ author who writes great opinion-style posts. Again they are short and to the point, mostly about writing, but I love her straightforward approach. Her blog is well set out and easy to navigate and very easy to read.

So there we have it – four more great blogs for you to try out.  ENJOY!!!

Have you ever received an unexpected nice surprise in monday morning email?