Hello my Freaky Darlings,
What I’m about to write is probably going to piss off a few people, but fuck it. I’m going to say it anyway. You are more than welcome to disagree.
You’ve probably all noticed the latest must have thing for all writers to have these days is a newsletter. If you haven’t noticed you’ve probably been living under a rock. You may want to crawl back under that rock until this latest phase ends.
Somewhere along the line an industrious author declared that the latest and greatest marketing tool is the NEWSLETTER and now it seems everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and if you don’t, most writers look at you like you’re nuts and say, “What do you mean you don’t have one!”
As a result every author and their cat is trying to get their readers to subscribe to the latest marketing trend. Every time you click on an author’s website or blog an annoying box pops up that asks you to subscribe. In an already pretty busy day, you first have to fill in your email address etc before you can get to the post you were actually there to read. Thankfully there’s that lovely little X in the top right hand corner that I rather enjoy clicking while I mumble “Fuck Off,” and then continue to read the post that I was interested in in the first place. But while I read it I’m slightly annoyed with the author.
At first it didn’t really bug me, I even subscribed to a couple, got a few free books that I still haven’t read. But now every time I click on an author’s website there’s that fucking box demanding that I sign up. And then there are the messages being deposited in my inbox. I now just hit the delete button. Don’t even get me started on the emails demanding to know if I’ve read that free book yet and why I haven’t left a review on Amazon for it.
I get that there are some authors who genuinely see the newsletter as a way to say thank you to their fans and who want to make it an epic experience for their readers. A way to give back for the support they’ve experienced. If you’re one of those authors then good for you. But unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the majority.
There are now so many authors jumping onto the Newsletter bandwagon, and doing it badly, that’s it’s lost its whole reason for existing. It’s lost its power and has become spam. It’s now like those authors on Twitter and Facebook shouting “buy my book.” Instead of doing it on Facebook and Twitter they’re now trying to do it in my inbox and I’m sorry but to that I say Fuck Off!
I have enough emails to deal with every day. I don’t need any more spam.
Besides, my readers can already subscribe to my blog and there’s plenty of free stuff to read here, I don’t need to now also bombard them with a newsletter as well. It’s just over kill.
How about instead of jumping on the bandwagon and doing what everyone else is doing, we try to figure out something else. Something different. Something that works just for you. Something that makes you unique. I know that’s what I’m going to try. I haven’t got a clue what that is yet, but it’s certainly not going to be what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is telling me I have to do it.
MMY: I’ve always been a dark little girl. I think horror is delicious and a healthy way to explore your fears in a safe environment. When the book closes or the lights come up, you ultimately get to go home and crawl into your warm bed. You felt that emotion, that thrill and excitement, with no harm to you. Horror is a way to live life fully without harm.
bloodlust, he is still elegant and has intricate rules that he follows. That juxtaposition and depth of character is something unusual. 
nobody wants that.
As a teen I discovered a collection of Writer’s Digest books on my parents shelves. Not all of the stories appealed to me, but one author in particular captured my heart. Upon reading Edgar Allan Poe for the first time, I found myself hooked. I made my way through those books, hoping to discover more short stories like that first one. Soon after I started visiting this local used-book store that kept all their horror books in the basement. I used to spend hours down there, reading and selecting my next book. I’d visit that bookstore at the end of each semester of college to trade in my school textbooks for horror books. It greatly saddened me the day that store closed. Anyway, those initial discoveries planted the seeds of my love for a frightening story.
When the story necessitates I’ll do whatever research is needed to make things as real as possible. That’s what you want after all, to plop your readers down into what feels realistic, where they can become part of the story instead of just being a reader. That’s difficult to achieve, so you need to utilise every skill at your disposal. I think this is where the whole “write what you know” originated, as I’ll often hit upon things I know quite well. But it’s also fun to write what you don’t know, and challenge yourself.
I’m a world-watcher. I look at the world around me, and I’m also naturally inquisitive, and I’m always asking questions – why did this happen, why did that person do such and such – and I’m always playing a big “what if” game in my head. What if that old abandoned middle school was haunted? What if a cab driver got lost on his route, and just ended up driving forever? What about that creepy-looking school bus sitting on the side of the road, early in the morning? So I look at the things around me, I ask questions about them, or I say to myself “What if…” and that naturally leads to writing.
When I was younger and in college, I listened to music – but I discovered a curious tendency to force the story to meet the constraints of the song. Since I started getting serious about writing, absolutely silence to write first drafts, though I can edit or type up second drafts in the middle of a train wreck.