The Darkest Corner of Blogger

"You had a big imagination with your little pirate show." Creepypasta : If you're reading this post, then you're probably familiar with the term and what it entails. Itself a corruption of the term copypasta (derived from the nowhere near as 'net-friendly copy/paste ), it's a name given to short pieces of writing that are freely copied and shared around the internet, originally on message boards such as 4Chan (remember that one, kids, or have you tried to scrub it from you memory?) or Reddit.  Sticking to the adage that it's all-round good clean fun to creep someone out, disturb them or, if push comes to shove, gross them out, many such pieces tended to be horrific in nature, hence the term creepypasta . Pretty clever, huh? Over time of course, the subgenre (if you want to label it as such) morphed into something bigger, spawning whole online communities, along with short sharp shock pieces of fiction, usually written in an almost urban myth friend-of-a-fr...

Hello friends, readers, and everyone in between.   This time around, I want to talk to you about the body. The human body, to be precise, and its role in horror fiction. The aim here is twofold; to paint a brief generalisation of what I consider to be a vitally important aspect of the horror genre, as well as to touch upon how the concept inspires me personally. So, huddle up tight in your favourite corner of the room, put your dinner to one side (especially if it’s a nice, rare steak), turn any mirrors to face away from you, and here goes… I’ve found that a frequently recurring theme in much of my own written fiction is a somewhat overt concern with the human body, fitting quite neatly into the sub-genre of body horror, if you like. For want of a better way of putting it, this is one of the niches of dark fiction with which I have grown to feel particularly comfortable, probably because writing becomes that little bit more authentic when the author can relate to the s...

George A Romero. I think it's pretty fair to admit that the Pittsburgh native had a pretty big influence on my writing. That might sound a little unusual, but I promise it isn't really. Despite being a prose author, I am usually inclined to try and visualise the work that I write, pretty much as though viewing it and I'm pretty sure I can't be the only author (there's that word again!) who works in such a way. A series of snapshots, images or entire scenes spill their way out of my head and onto my screen. I tend to see my characters and their surroundings, before trying to summon up the right words to best describe them. So the logic should follow that I have a strong appreciation for film that is rooted in my creative side. When it comes to the works of Romero, I was probably a bit of a latecomer to the party. I was about thirteen or fourteen years old the first time I saw  Night of the Living Dead . I recorded it from a late-night television airing and, in a stro...

Something off the cuff. No revision. Make of it what you will, it is exactly what you think it is.  There were once two cities.  The first was in a place far away, close to the centre of governance. Its people were content. Educated and affluent, businesses booming, their coffers swelled with the fruits of their labours. Who cared if the streets weren't really paved with gold? The people looked to their promised future with hope. No one cared about what filth might be strewn in their path, their eyes fixed only upon the good in their lives. Vibrant, the city pulsed with life. Things are good , they would say to themselves, not great, but good and, as is the way of the optimist, they would tell themselves that things could only get better. Such are the thoughts that help the optimist to sleep at night.  The second city had once thrived. A place filled with hard-working people of pride. Far removed from the presence of governance, under which the first city flourished, its...

At least is isn't for me, not in the way I'd like it to, anyway. To be honest, it hasn't worked for me for quite some time. A large part of the blame for that rests squarely with me. Mea culpa , and all that. I've fallen victim to the gaping maw that is the hole belonging to a fuck off huge rabbit. I've allowed myself to be distracted, to be drawn into meaningless void-screaming dialogues about politics, religion, sexuality, all of those things that devolve so easily into rhetorical slanging matches, where no one will ever agree and everyone is just left shouting until the back of their throat runs itself hoarse and they gargle on their own blood. Or rather the pads of their typing fingers are worn down into bloodied, bone-protruding nubs as they punch out each and every anger-laced word. Cards on the table here: I'm an independent author of dark fiction for Christ's sake. I'm interested in conversation, I'm as interested in small talk and interactio...

🎶Let's talk about sex, bay-bee...🎶 Actually, I'd rather not, if that's okay, but I'm going to anyway. Talk about suffering for your art. After all, it's a subject that's been simmering away on my own little back burner for quite some time now, while I've tried to ignore it like an elephant in the room. The problem is though, that sex, inescapable creature that it is, always raises its ugly head (no pun intended) at some point in the proceedings. So I've decided to finally have a go at my own vague take on the subject, to share a few of my thoughts on why it plays such an important role in so much genre fiction. I promise I won't take long (where have I heard that before?) Okay, let's make something clear; I don't really enjoy writing about sex. Hell, a lot of the time I don't particularly enjoy reading about it either. Doing so strikes me as being the equivalent of how I'd imagine it would feel to settle down and watch a porno with...