My Bloody Valentine

It's all about the blood. From the mutated DNA strands that bring the animal to the surface in shapeshifters to the diseased cells that create zombies, it's always coursing through our veins. Is there anything more intimate than sharing blood? Before you say "Gross!" and click away, think about it. You are literally giving your life force to another person. You are trusting someone to know how to keep you safe while they fulfill their desires, or even their needs. There is so much more to it than just preventing the spread of diseases from donor to drinker, although that's always a consideration.

Blood is most commonly associated with The Big 'V'. Vampires. We love them. We know all about them, right? The shapeshifting ones, the emo ones, the Viking, and the sparkly.

But what about vampyres? The real ones? The ones who consume blood or energy regularly? They're out there, keeping their compulsions hidden from society at large.

Blood fetishists use blood for sexual arousal. The sight of it, the taste, the smell, the feel. Bloodplay is usually kept within the confines of a 'scene'. It gets them off. It's mostly sexual, but the trust and bond cultivated between the parities is undeniable.

Sanguinarians (sang) have a need to feed on blood. They do it because it nourishes their physical being and replenishes their emotional energy. Without it, they can develop migraines, weakened immune systems, depression, and even joint pain and rages. It's a part of their nature, not some image they wear, and it's not a sex game to them. Some of these sangs have suffered these symptoms for years only to have ingesting blood provide nearly instant relief, leaving the sang relaxed or energized. Is it medical, or a psychosomatic response? Does it matter? 

There are several medical conditions which may have contributed to the myth of vampires. Porphyria can cause a sensitivity to UV light and tightening around the gums, making the teeth seem longer than normal. Garlic can exacerbate the symptoms. Noticing any vampire myths yet?

Xeroderma pigmentosum causes severe photosensitivity. Exposure to the sun can cause blistering, and sometimes even death.

Some sufferers of catalepsy, a disorder that causes muscle rigidity, may have been buried alive. When they recovered from their symptoms, they might have attempted to dig themselves out of their graves. Exhumation of these bodies found bloody hands and mouths. The traditional method of driving a stake through their hearts to kill these vampires most likely simply released gasses trapped in the abdominal cavities of these corpses, leading superstitious villagers to believe they had killed a member of the undead.

These undiagnosed, misunderstood conditions probably gave birth to the myths we see propagated by movies and books today. Is it any wonder why these vampyres prefer to stay in the coffin?

~xxx~

Dynamically Paranormal Relationships

The dynamics of a relationship really shouldn’t be all the paranormal. It should just be normal. Unfortunately, that is most often not the case. In normal life we all experience relationships, most we’re forced into, either a birth family or co-workers. We search for years for that true family that we choose, the people we love because we can, not because we have to.

We all laugh about those in our family who are the black sheep, and maybe some us are those fluffy dark critters. But we’re all ingrained with this horrible need to belong. Not just in work, school, or public society, but to our families too. People get married to try to create that secure family unit, only to divorce later when they realize it’s not something that can be faked, forced, or fooled.

Writing a good story, especially romance, isn’t just about the main couple. Sure we all know they will get together, probably have hot sex, and end up happy ever after, but where’s the family to the equation? We all know that often times a lover is just not enough for support. Slash writers really get this idea, often twisting the dynamic relationship even further to create a romance that originally wasn’t intended.

 In the real world we have children to try to fill that need. They have us so they have to love us, right? We all know in truth, that’s the wrong reason to have a child. After all, a lot of us have horror stories about growing up with parents who really didn’t want kids. To this day, my own mother claims I owe her tons of money for “raising me”.  However, her failures helped shape who I am today. And while I dream wildly of paranormal relationships I don’t have, I know what to do whenever I find one.

This is the building block of the dynamic relationship, the desire to rise above the forced family and create one of true support and love. Romantic love or otherwise, relationships are the key to any good writing since most of us read to escape our own problems for a few hours.

What does that have to do with paranormal writing, you ask? The best fiction isn’t about one or two characters. It’s about a cast of them. The supporting actors and actresses, who shape the main characters, nudge them in the right direction, and lecture them on bad decisions are just as important as your hero and villain. Paranormal relationships are the core of good writing, and the key to keeping a series alive. Would my protagonist, Seiran be his growing self without Jamie following him around and trying to protect him? Or Gabe’s quiet but unshakeable love? Of course not.

Any genre would be lost without the paranormal relationship dynamic. Would Harry Potter be anything without Ron Weasley or Hermoine Granger? Bella without Jacob?  Frodo without Samwise?

So how do you create that dynamic relationship? The answer is simple of course. And no it’s not to add more characters. It’s to make the ones you do have more personal. How to do that? Well all your characters should have flaws and strengths, something that is helped by knowing the other character. For example, Jamie’s biggest flaw is that he needs to take care of someone. Seiran is insecure and really needy, so he fills this role for Jamie. Gabe’s biggest flaw is that he likes to be in control. Seiran fulfills this by letting Gabe control most everything.  All of the characters should pyramid each other with flaws, a bit like a puzzle.

So while I don’t have a big brother who is willing to put up with my crap, and my sisters and I could live on different moons and still never talk, I do write my characters to have that paranormal relationship. I build my from the inside out, flaw to strength, until the network is complete. So what is your favorite paranormal relationship dynamic?

A demon with your book?

When I was a junior in college I took a class on John Milton. Instead of seeing them as horrible and bad and deserving of contempt, I thought they were cool. I mean Book II of Paradise Lost where Mammon, after listening to first Moloch who wants to get his sword and go, and Belial who thinks they should just suck it up and live, decides that they could build there, sure, I sort of fell in love with them. John Milton would have a seizure, that was so not the point he was trying to make. The whole speech from Satan in Book I where he says that it's better to reign in hell than to serve in Heaven, is just empty words. But they are very romantic ones. When we discussed it in groups, in class, I thought, uh-oh, my moral compass is way off here because I'm feeling sorry for these guys. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to understand.

The same way that Michael Corleone is romantic in The Godfather, the fallen angels, now demons, had my interest. At first I thought, big red warning sign that something was seriously wrong, but it's just like falling for the bad boy instead of the squeaky clean guy, it's not really about the evil, it's about the possibility of good. It's about the kernel of redemption. The ultimate bad boy, is a monster, and what could be worse than a demon? Think about a guilty pleasure like the show Charmed. Even if you didn't watch it when it ran originally, like me, (because I'm old), you've caught in on TNT at some point. The hottest couple ever, Phoebe and Cole. Why? Because he was a demon. If she could redeem him, make him good...swoon. Piper had the angel, and he was cute, but he was not sexy Julian McMahon.

If love can redeem an evil vampire, that's very romantic. But a soul-sucking creature from the pit, if love can turn him around, that's ten times hotter. All the strength and power of being evil is still there, the loyalty is refocused for good and he's possessive and protective because demons are selfish and keep what they treasure close. Suddenly, you have a hero where there was only darkness just a little while ago. Turning evil into good, nothing better, and a little wicked thrown in with the nice is always appreciated. Like Kahlil Gibran says:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
Yeah, like that.

Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard

The old saying goes, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard”. That is one hundred percent true, which you may not realize until you actually try and be funny.. While I think that the supernatural and humor are a natural pair, it can be trickier to balance than you might imagine going in.

For one thing, almost nothing is more personal than humor. What you find funny and what I find funny varies wildly, and you need to look no further than the television to confirm this. Many people enjoy the top rated comedies, or whatever sitcom you can find on your TV at this moment, and odds are if you turn it on right this second you'll be greeted by a sitcom in syndication (or an infomercial, which is its own kind of comedy). A lot of people find Modern Family or Family Guy hysterical, and yet there are almost as many who would rather poke hot needles in their eyes than suffer through an episode. It's not only content – it's style and taste (or lack thereof), timing, a dozen different things. Where you might dislike certain kinds of horror, there's less variation within that dislike. It usually just comes down to genre with horror – you might dislike gorn (also known as torture porn) but like slasher films, or vice versa, or maybe you like it all, but hate CGI. As personal as scares are, there's something about humor that makes it much more unique and revealing.

If that's where the problems ended, you could color me a happy writer. But of course it's not as simple as that. Beyond the problem of humor being highly subjective, there's the problem of balance. There has to be a happy medium between the humor and the horror. For instance, if the horror is too violent or, well, horrible, you throw the reader right out of the scene, and there's just no way to laugh. One way to handle that is through being vague about the violence, or approaching it as slapstick, but that's easier to do on film. I'll point you to the fabulous “hand fight” scene of Evil Dead II. Almost impossible to capture on the page, but hilarious on screen. At the same time, if you make everything a joke, there's no stakes, and therefore no horror. You've made a children's story with bad words.

Since I'm writing a comedy horror series, I find myself thinking about these things a lot. Horror – and certainly the paranormal offshoot of it – is a natural for comedy. And yet juggling all these things – the amount of violence, the type of humor, how you frame a scene – can feel a little overwhelming. Am I hitting the target, or am I missing it entirely? Is it funny, or is it just kind of weird? Is my editor going to kill me? Okay, to be honest, no matter what genre I'm writing in, I assume my editor's going to kill me. I give them so much work to do, I should praise them all here and now for being wonderful, patient people. (I do appreciate you, I hope you know that, and I'm not going out of my way to give you work. It just seems that way.)

I wanted to end this little bit of meandering by giving you tips, but truth be told, I would like to hear from you. What do you, as a reader, feel about horror comedy? Do you like it? Hate it? Is it too tricky to pull off? If you're a writer, have you dabbled in the genre? Even if you haven't written in horror/comedy, I'd just love to hear from the comedy writers.

Just to end this little rant with something beyond questions, I'm going to name three of my favorite horror comedies, in no particular order: Evil Dead II, Shaun of the Dead, and Dead/Alive (also known as Braindead). (All, you may note, with a paranormal bent.) If you've seen any of these films, what do you think works? Is there something in particular that didn't work for you? Or do you think horror and comedy should stay in their respective corners? I have to admit, I'm dying of curiosity.

-Andrea Speed

How Horror Snuck Up On Me When I Wasn’t Looking

Okay, up front I will fully admit to being a chicken shit when it comes to the things that go bump in the night.  I was the kid that could not watch horror movies at slumber parties or else I ended up crawling into my parents’ room in the middle of the night to sleep on the floor.  Of course that might have something to do with being scratched by a cat during a critical scene in Nightmare on Elm Street.   I swear I never had a normal night’s sleep again until we moved out of state and I managed to convince myself that Freddy Kruegar was still looking for me in Ohio.  I told myself that as long as I never watched another Elm Street movie I would be safe in Maryland. 

"Dagon" Todd Shearer



As much as horror scared me, I have to admit that I was drawn to it, fascinated by it.  I kept going back for the thrill of fear.  I even watched The Children of the Corn in a barn surrounded by cornfields.  When we lived in that little rental for a month with no TV, my sisters and I re-enacted out horror movies to keep ourselves entertained.  When my mom would demand that we be quiet because she worked nights, I would tell them romance stories with their favorite leading men.  Looking back now, I think I was predisposed to a mix of romance and horror at a very young age even though I loved to read fantasy books the most.  Weird right?  Most of the stories I wrote then had a both a love interest and some strange demonic entity.

Then I became friends with my future husband who introduced me to role-playing and the absolute freaky horror of Call of Cthulhu.  It’s a game based on the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft who has influenced many horror aficionados over the years.  It’s a game that really doesn’t have a happy ending.  In my experience you can count on your character ending up one of three ways by the end of a campaign: (1) dead; (2) insane then dead; or (3) just insane. 

Every time he brought out the Cthulhu books we would all shiver before the games even started.  And I’ll never forget the smile he had on his face whenever he asked us to make a sanity roll.  He smiled like that often.  And every time you failed a sanity roll, your character lost a few more marbles.  I loved the way that he could set the mood.  It seemed effortless to me.  I loved watching the characters’ descent into madness, struggling to hold onto any normality that they could as they fought to survive.  And I loved knowing that it was a hopeless fight for my characters.  (The characters at least had the comfort of believing they had a fighting chance.  The players knew better by the 2^nd damn game and that was part of the thrill.)



"Hounds of Tindalos" James Wolf Strehle



Which brings me back to what really scares me.  I can handle serial killer movies like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer or When a Stranger Calls.  Those movies never kept me up at night, because the killer could be defeated.  The characters at least had a fighting chance that eventually the bad guy would be overcome and there would be a few survivors.  It’s the Grudge or The Exorcist that really scared the hell out of me.  Situations where no matter what you do, you’re screwed.

If you had asked me when I was younger if I’d ever write stories with elements of horror in them I would’ve said hell no, not realizing that I already was.  I like taking perfectly normal characters living normal lives and thrusting them in unnatural situations to see how they cope, like Jacob in my vampire trilogy.  In my latest story that I’m currently editing, Dean is on his way home when he is murdered and now his ghost has to help his lover Andrei find the killer.  I wanted to write a story that not only included paranormal elements, but the personal horror of having all your dreams shattered with one bullet.  I wanted to see how Dean and Andrei would overcome their demons and move on.  Here’s a little excerpt:

“Dean, you can’t stay.”  Andrei closed his eyes, swallowing convulsively.  “Please, I know it doesn’t make sense.  And maybe one day I’ll have the chance to explain it to you, but you’ve got to leave me behind.” Andrei gathered what reserves he had left and slowly straightened and turned in his chair.

Dean stood behind him, his warm hazel eyes grave as they stared at each other.  He looked so vital and solid.  So goddamned fucking real.  He could be selfish and let Dean stay, and god, at first it would be wonderful, until it became obvious that Dean was like an old time LP caught in the same skipping loop over and over again.

Andrei blinked rapidly.  “Why are you here?  Is it to be with me?  Is it to help you find your killer?”

Inexplicably, Andrei heard the sound of a bird singing; a songbird of some kind, cheery and bright with the promise of sun filled days.  Then far off in the distance a baby began to cry, the sound rising and falling, melding with the bird into strange kind of melody.

Andrei opened his mouth to ask a question, but the fierce look of concentration on Dean’s face stopped him.  A picture appeared in the middle of the air, fluttering to the floor.  Frowning, Andrei scooped it up and saw a little girl with dark hair and smiling eyes.  “Is this one of the kids that Justin was talking about?”

Dean shook his head slightly and a line appeared between his brows.  A dozen more pictures fell, all of different little girls with dark hair, all about the same age.  “What else can you tell me?” Andrei asked.

More pictures began to litter the floor, pictures of babies, of robins, pictures of slim white men in trucker hats, ads of camper trucks.  More and more pictures fell, striking Andrei’s face and the back of his head; crying babies, laughing babies, until Andrei thought it would never end.

“For godssake Dean, stop it!”

The pictures vanished and when Andrei looked up, Dean was gone too.

Who else has a love/hate relationship with horror?  Tell me why you like or don’t like it as a genre.  And if you have a favorite movie or story share that too. 

Death and Storytellers

The Grim Reaper has this dark stigma surrounding him. He’s this guy who sneaks around just to steal away your soul away whether you like it or not. The whole reaping of souls thing is bound to hit the creep factor. Charon the ferryman, the Angel of Death, the Plague Hag, Yama and many more are all depicted as dark and grim creatures that are waiting to take ones soul to some unknown place.


Humans are great storytellers, which is why we get all these interesting forms of Death in mythology. It has to be one of our most interesting abilities. Our ability to take the unknown and give it a face or attempt to explain the dark and frightening has got to be in our genes somewhere. The ability to explain seems to make things less scary, not just when it comes to death, but with everything. Lightening, for example, is like billions of volts of electricity buzzing through the sky, but hey we know what it is, so it’s not as scary.

When it comes to death the Plague Hag, Pesta carried a rake and a broom, one meant you’d survived the black plague and the other meant you were toast. Charon, the ferryman, expected payment for the task of delivering your soul to the underworld, or you’d be trapped by the river for 100 years. But hey, we know what they are and that they’re just doing their jobs, so it’s not as scary.



I have a huge affection for the unknown. My curiosity is almost as big as my imagination, which is probably true of most writers. I’m not above taking the unknown and twisting it to my advantage. Taking myths like those surrounding death and asking questions is what I do best. What if there really was a Grim Reaper? What if he didn’t like his job? What if he had been reaping soul for so long, he’d become lost and lonely? Hell, the questions could go on and on, and they often do.

This is how I end up with a story. This is how humans have always made up stories, by asking questions. Whether it’s Death, or other fantastic question that created a myth, we writers use the foundation of those wonderfully dark stories and make them our own. And who can resist, really? With all those spooky myths and interesting creatures to choose from, there might just be a grain of truth in those tales. And maybe, just maybe, one of us got it right.

Wor(l)d Weaving

Why do you read so much?

This is a question that I have been asked so many times that I have lost count. Growing up I spent almost all my free time with my nose stuck in a book. When my mom wanted to punish me, she would take away the book I was reading. I got yelled at while reading at a baseball game when I was 14 years old. And even today, now that I have moved on to writing as well, I will spend weekends glued to my computer reading whole series of books in one sitting.

So, back to the question at hand (as some would phrase it), Why waste your time with stuff that’s just fiction?

To that I would reply, there is no such thing as just fiction, just a story. Stories, myth, fairy tales, these all illuminate deeper truths, deeper realities. They open worlds of truth beyond what we experience in our everyday lives. Author G.K. Chesterson once said, "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

In my day job, I work with families who have recently experienced loss; I work with patients who have just been given difficult or fatal diagnoses; I work with doctors and nurses who have just lost a patient. I come home at the end of the day and I know the dragon exists. I have been helping to clean up the dragon’s mess all day long. It is then that I need most to be reminded that the dragon can be defeated. Not that death and pain can be beaten or avoided but rather that despair and hopelessness are not the only answers.

It is then that I settle into my couch with a modern day fairy tale and my cats and I allow the words on the page to weave a world into being, a world in which the little guy can defeat the big bad, the ugly duckling can find true love, the cast off can become the beloved prince. Because, as Jon Foreman wrote, “Words have incredible power. Words create worlds. The words we use define ourselves and the world around us. They shape our reality. Our words determine our ideologies.”

The worlds created on the page are worlds full of magic, dark evil, mythical creatures and true love overcoming all that bears no resemblance to the “real” world. And yet, it is the same. Stories, myths and fairy tales can point out to us truths that go beyond fact. They are symbols of the deep well that is in us which is just out of our perception. They are the truth which casts the shadow on back of our caves.

So I must ask myself, would I be the same person I am today if I hadn’t grown up reading about King Arthur and Merlin, Harry Potter, Harry Dresden and many others, if I didn’t still read stories beyond counting about wizards, vampires, shapeshifters, and any creature a writer could imagine? I like to think not.

When I write my stories, whether they are in contemporary settings or in a paranormal setting, I try to create a world that, if not in it’s physical realities, at least in it’s symbolic realities, is a world I want to help create. My stories are almost always filled with broken, wounded or just dreary people who somehow manage to find hope despite whatever the world might throw at them.

What kind of worlds do you want to weave?