R.A. Evans's Blog

Once you see that your child is already good in reading and writing, this could be the perfect time to prepare him with his spelling skills. The way your kid would learn spelling words correctly can be taught using specific per-learning skills. It is important to practice your child and make him become a competitive reader and confident in spelling words correctly.

At the same time, teaching your child correct spelling should also be followed by teaching him with correct writing. If your child is having a hard time in forming simple words, make an extra effort to teach him how to spell.

You may enroll your child to a spelling program. However, you need to make sure that he has sufficient decoding skills. That means that your kid should be able to read 120 to 200 words per minute using a reading material that is matched according to his age bracket.

Your child’s name is generally the first thing he would learn how to write and spell correctly. Start teaching your child writing his name at an early age. Do this by allowing him to write his name more often. In this way, your child can easily improve in distinguishing alphabet characters.

You can determine his efficiency by counting the numbers of letters or small simple words he wrote. If your child has not met the criteria on the spelling and writing proficiency, you should take time and give extra effort in improving his spelling skills.

Teach your child to spell phonetically simple words. Your child’s ability to spell correctly would depend on his ability to say the words that make up phonetically simple words. Make sure that he has enough knowledge on phonics and that he can pronounce each sound or word combinations in a phonetically simple word. After which, he should learn how to write the letters that constitute a certain word that he hears.

Teach him how to spell words that have vowel sounds made up of sound combinations. Simple spelled words that have vowel-like sounds with letter combinations consisting of letter “ee” can be introduced to his lists of words.

Another way of teaching your kid is by introducing words that have rhyming sounds that are also spelled with the same sound combinations. You may introduce four letter words that are included in this class such as tree, free, tear, gear, seal and many more.

Teach your kid to spell monographs. They are words that may have root words, prefixes or suffixes. When the words are used in spelling, even a limited number of monographs can create thousands of words. Using these words can teach your child to analyze and identify words. By identifying a word would also enhance his spelling skills.

There are many ways to teach your child to spell words correctly. Start with the basic and do not push him to what he cannot yet do. Always remember to be patient and take extra time to pay attention to your kid’s spelling lessons. Prepare your child early so that he would not have a hard time learning simple words he can spell and eventually explore more complicated words in the future.

English writing is a skill that only improves through practice and it seems like these fresh technological solutions are able to assist us on improving our writing skills. If you look for new ways that will help you to improve your writing skills – read the following review. While conventional word processors mainly focus on identifying spelling errors, an advanced Grammar Application enables you to further improve your writing by checking entire text blocks for any grammar,go to more information how to spell program, punctuation, and spelling errors. The way they ‘fix’ your writing is interesting yet complicated; basically these solutions compare your sentences to their own ‘proper versions’ of similar sentences.

Many people say they can’t spell or are poor spellers and one of the most common complaints parents and teachers make is that a child doesn’t learn their spellings. The reason for this is mainly that most people are not taught an effective strategy for learning to remember how to spell words. Good spellers are people who have stumbled across an effective strategy for themselves and of course they are not necessarily aware of how they do it.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides the skill set to enable people to use their brains very effectively, especially for learning. One definition of NLP is ‘the study of excellence’ and so if we study excellent spellers we can teach other people to do the same thing. Contrary to popular belief there isn’t one strategy or ‘THE NLP spelling strategy’. However it is possible to identify some key processes that great spellers do well and poor spellers don’t do.

When we ask someone how to spell a word, good spellers will usually look up to their right, look at the word in their mind (their spelling database) and when they see it there, they get a good feeling down their midline – a positive yes! Ask a person who is OK at spelling to spell a word they will look up to their right, check it by sounding the letters out or sometimes breaking the word into phonemes and then get a positive yes. Ask a poor speller to spell a word and they will do a whole range of other things!

Many people say they can’t spell or are poor spellers and one of the most common complaints parents and teachers make is that a child doesn’t learn their spellings. The reason for this is mainly that most people are not taught an effective strategy for learning to remember how to spell words. Good spellers are people who have stumbled across an effective strategy for themselves and of course they are not necessarily aware of how they do it.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides the skill set to enable people to use their brains very effectively, especially for learning. One definition of NLP is ‘the study of excellence’ and so if we study excellent spellers we can teach other people to do the same thing. Contrary to popular belief there isn’t one strategy or ‘THE NLP spelling strategy’. However it is possible to identify some key processes that great spellers do well and poor spellers don’t do.

When we ask someone how to spell a word, good spellers will usually look up to their right, look at the word in their mind (their spelling database) and when they see it there, they get a good feeling down their midline – a positive yes! Ask a person who is OK at spelling to spell a word they will look up to their right, check it by sounding the letters out or sometimes breaking the word into phonemes and then get a positive yes.

Ask a poor speller to spell a word and they will do a whole range of other things! For example they may look up to their left and discover the word isn’t there, then they say to themselves ‘Oh no I don’t know how to spell this’, then they will look down and feel bad, then they will try to work it out phonetically and finally they get a yuck feeling and are still not sure!

Very few people really understand dyslexia. There is so much conflicting information and advice that it can be very hard to know what to do. That is a great pity because learning to read well is important for all of us.

This situation is caused by the complexity of underlying causes and patterns of dyslexia. When researching dyslexia you will often come across long lists of indicators of dyslexia, many of which seem to conflict. Most of us have at least one indicator of being dyslexic!

Our focus is to look at the underlying neural processes involved in reading. Once you understand those, it becomes far easier to understand the difficulties you see a dyslexic having. The puzzle of dyslexia begins to fall into place.

Let me give you an example. A very common pattern in dyslexia is lots of guessing of words and atrocious spelling. This type of dyslexic will often read a long word more easily than a short one. They can sometimes seem to be able to read rather fast, always rushing along with lots of little omissions and errors. Their comprehension of the text tends to be low.

This can all seem quite strange, until you know why it is happening. A child with a strong visual memory will often learn to sight-memorise words as the easiest way of reading simple books with a repetitive vocabulary. Then they guess the words that they don’t recognise from the context.

This is why the long words sometimes seem easier than short ones to this type of dyslexic; there is almost always more contextual clues to a long word. Spelling is hard for them because they are trying to recreate a picture of a word, not reconstruct it. They often do well in spelling tests however, because they have memorised the ten words overnight. A few days later those same words have gone again.

Many parents want to help their child learn to read and spell before they start school but don’t really know where to start- they would like a simple step by step guide. Here I give parents a good start – we call this Level 1- and its suitable for children as soon as they start to talk.

I would also like to see pre-school and prep aged children develop an understanding of the written code as early as possible bearing in mind their individual capabilities. I therefore encourage people to focus much more on creating opportunities for children based around their language development rather than age- and will be discussing in depth ways in which we can help children develop language skills, in another article.

Forget the end result – ie that children will love to read and be excellent at spelling and writing – let’s focus on giving children opportunities to understand concepts. If children are able to create the sound ‘buh’ then they are capable of learning the symbol that is used to represent that sound ie the letter ‘b’. If they can look at a picture that represents something- eg a house- they can see a letter and learn it is used to represent a sound- make sure you do this with sounds they can create with their mouths. Generally ‘muh’ ‘buh’ etc.’

Now please buy a copy of Asylum Lake so I can continue to facebook…er…write. So I can continue to write, that’s it!

Part of my morning ritual is checking my sales rankings on Amazon.  Some mornings it makes my day and others…well, let’s just say that no amount of Mountain Dew and Funyons can bring me out of my funk when my rankings are free-falling.  I’m like a yo-yo but without the cool tricks. (Not that yo-yo tricks are cool. I mean what kind of dark and mysterious writer would be interested in walking the dog or spinning his glow-in-the-dark Duncan yo-yo around the world, right?)

Right this minute Asylum Lake stands at #20,197 in the Kindle Store.  This means that exacyly 20, 196 other books are selling better than mine.  At first blush that may seem disappointing, but there’s a helluva lot of books out there. My thriller has been as high as #98 at it’s peak and as low as #35,000 during its basement period. The last month or so it has remained right about #20,000. I think it’s possible that Asylum Lake has reached it’s maximum exposure.

That being said, every time a new review goes up I see my sales rankings improve. I estimate that between paid sales and free days more than 50,000 people have downloaded Asylum Lake.  Add in print sales and there is a fairly large audience of readers who in some way, shape or form have been touched by Asylum Lake. Out of all those touches I have 89 reviews posted out on Amazon – and I am grateful for each and every one.

Some are critical reviews and comments from the world of publishing, but the vast majority are from readers just wanting to share their feedback. There was a time when a bad review would crush me. Now, I’m just happy to know that people have taken the time to read my creepy little tale.

Each review improves my status on Amazon – meaning Asylum Lake is more likely to be served as an ad or suggested read to possible shoppers. I can tweet about Asylum Lake and post endless updates into various facebook groups in hopes of enticing readers to dive in, but it’s the suggested reads on Amazon that really build traction.

So if you’ve read Asylum Lake, I thank you. Your financial and time investment in my work is very much appreciated. And, if you care anything about my health and Mountain Dew consumption, could you please post a review – no matter how brief – out on Amazon.  You know I’ll be watching.

Cheers from Bedlam Falls,

R. A. Evans

Author’s Note: Yes, I know, two years is a long time between titles. I could bore you with the details about why Grave Undertakings has been delayed, but instead I would rather seduce you with an excerpt. Grave Undertakings is coming…and soon.

The return trip from Grand Rapids to Bedlam Falls was uneventful—and quiet. Brady’s once music-filled life was now devoid of such entertainment. His iPhone, set to vibrate, had been tucked safely into the front pocket of his jeans—as if Ellis Arkema’s reach from beyond the grave was magically blocked by the power of a mute button.  Bottom line: you can never underestimate the power of denial.

The silence wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It provided Brady ample opportunity to reflect on recent events and try to determine what, if anything, could be done to set things right or at a minimum get things back to normal.  Not that normal was a state he was accustomed to—paranormal activity aside, his life had jumped the tracks long before his ill-fated return to Bedlam Falls. 

Brady’s heart sank as he pulled into the Up North House’s empty driveway.  Being alone, present unseen supernatural company excluded, was becoming more and more common now that school had started for Abby. At least that was the reason April had provided. Although, Brady had suspected there was far more to her reluctance to sleep over and, frankly speaking, he couldn’t blame her. But dammit, he thought shaking his head in exasperation as he made his way to the front door, did she have to hijack my dog, too!

As if in response to Brady’s silent plea, a series of sharp barks echoed from beyond the house and near the lake.  Suppressing a smile, his spirits brightened as he stepped from the porch and set off along the path leading along the side of the house.  With temps near eighty this late in September there wouldn’t be many more days to frolic in the sand, he thought, imagining April and Abby laughing and playing near the surf. Instead, rounding the corner and gazing across the fire-pit toward the lake, Brady spotted Frank Griggs reclining in a lawn chair at the end of the dock and, not surprisingly, within easy reach of a cooler that would surely be filled with ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. At the former sheriff’s feet, dripping wet from fetching tennis balls from the water, rested Manson—the behemoth of a rottweiler whom the Griggs’ had taken in while Brady’s childhood friend and meth addict, Jeff Frazier, was undergoing treatment at some spa-like resort in the Colorado mountains.  Sighing, Brady made his way toward the dock, shaking his head in silent acknowledgement that life, personally speaking, truly was stranger than fiction.

“Permission to come aboard, captain,” Brady called from the foot of the dock. In the simmering distance of the sun-rippled water he could see the dive team still at work dredging the rocky lake-bed.  It had been Griggs’ dubious discovery of the remains of a state trooper within the forgotten bowels of the abandoned hospital that had resulted in the swarm of law enforcement activity both on and off the grounds of Lake View Asylum. The armada of boats at the center of the lake was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Although played extremely close to the vest, the investigation was expanding and soon Brady knew uncomfortable questions would be posed.

“Captain, my ass,” Frank grumbled from behind a can of beer. “I’m just a bump on a log here, Mr. Tanner.  Just a bump on a log.”

Brady noted his friend’s sour disposition and approached cautiously, So much for Frank snapping out of his funk.  He eyed the man, unshaven and dressed in an old University of Michigan tshirt and jeans, with mixed feelings of frustration and guilt.

Although the official investigation was unfolding mere yards away from the retired lawman, Frank was irritated at how completely isolated from it all he had become. With each skeletal remain brought forth from the bottom of the lake the professional courtesy initially offered by the state police dwindled. Now, nearly two months after their arrival on scene, lead investigator Graham Birdsong and the rest of his team barely acknowledged the former sheriff’s presence. Not surprisingly, Griggs wasn’t taking it very well.

“Thought you and the missus were heading north for a long weekend,” Brady stated, “end of the season trip to close things down for the winter, right?”

Frank shrugged, his hand disappearing into the cooler at his feet. “Well, that was the plan,” tossing Brady a beer, he continued after a long pull from his own, “but things have changed, son.” Frank paused, staring out across the water at the asylum looming over the northern shore. “You know that better than anyone, I’m sure.” 

Brady was wholly unprepared for this type of thoughtful conversation; waxing philosophic had never been part of Frank’s DNA and the mere fact that he was discussing anything remotely close to feelings of any kind raised all kinds of warning flags. Brady stared hard at the man, noting the darkened bags below his eyes and the sunken shoulders beneath a mountain of imagined worry.

“Frank,” Brady offered, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder, “what do you say we…”

Griggs flinched at Brady’s touch, spilling beer down the front of his shirt. The man’s eyes darted to the bracelet around Brady’s wrist. “God dammit, son,” rising to his feet, Frank wiped distractedly at the watery stain spreading across his barrel chest. “Why you insist on keeping that cursed piece of plastic is beyond me.” New life flared within the man’s tired eyes and Brady shrank away from their fury. “Throw it away, Brady…burn it. Hell, send it back to the bottom of the fucking lake where it belongs.”

Brady sighed, turning his attention to the recovery efforts at the center of the lake. Imagined or not, he could feel the bracelet tightening against the flesh around his wrist. “How many, Frank? How many bodies have they pulled up—ten, twenty…fifty?  How many more do you expect they’ll find? And not just there beneath the water,” his eyes drifted once again to the asylum. “This isn’t about a cursed piece of plastic, Frank—it’s about something much darker…and deeper.”

The two men stood for several moments in silent agreement, taking in the structure looming over the northern shore of the lake. “Casts a long shadow, that’s for sure,” Frank stated matter of fact, a simple remark ripe with far deeper and sinister undertones—none of which were lost on Brady.

“That she does,” Brady muttered, brushing by Frank and helping himself to a beer from the cooler. Manson paused from gnawing on the tennis ball and rose clumsily to her feet, throwing herself forward against Brady’s legs like an overgrown housecat. Brady reached for the lawn chair to steady himself, fearful of toppling into the water with his freshly cracked beer.

“Jeff’s not gonna be happy about you taming his savage beast,” Brady joked, sipping at the foam running down the side of the can. “Next thing you know, Maddie’ll be knitting matching sweaters for you and the dog.”

Frank laughed, “That, my friend, wouldn’t surprise me a bit. She’s taken quite a shining to the mangy mutt…and his dog, too.”

Brady’s smile widened as he wrestled the ball free from the dog’s slobbery jaws and lobbed it into the water. Manson lumbered off the edge of the dock in pursuit. “It’s good what you’ve done, Frank—for Jeff. I know he’s grateful.”

 Frank winced as if pained, draining the last of his beer and dropping the can at his feet. “Thank Maddie, not me,” he muttered, his eyes softening as he spoke of his wife. “She has a soft spot for broken things and your friend is about as damaged as they come. If nothing else, maybe the mountain air will do him some good.”

Brady knew the rehab center in Colorado was top-notch and expensive. Jeff’s forty-five day stint was nearly over and at nearly a thousand dollars a day he hoped for his friend’s sake that the treatment would be successful. Methamphetamine addiction was a bitch for sure, but pissing away Frank Griggs’ money carried some serious baggage, too.

Manson returned with the tennis ball, awkwardly hauling herself out of the water and dropping it at Brady’s feet. The dog’s head was the size of a medicine ball, and at nearly one hundred pounds of muscle, the behemoth was rather imposing. Brady reached forward and stroked the dog behind its ears, recalling their first uncomfortable encounter outside his friends mobile meth lab.

“Eighty-three,” Frank offered, rousting Brady from his thoughts. The man’s eyes had returned to the activity at the center of the lake. “Birdsong came by earlier looking for you; real serious bastard if you ask me.” He paused, adding weight to his words, “says they’ve pulled the remains of eighty-three people out of the water. Men, women…hell, even kids.”

 Brady’s chest, like the bracelet around his wrist, tightened at the news. Captain Graham Birdsong, in addition to being the bastard Frank suggested, was also the chief investigator into what was, for the time being at least, a low profile yet highly involved case of multiple murders spanning more than fifty years.  Given the complexity of the situation, Brady could only imagine the questions with which he would soon be posed.

“Is it too early to plead the Fifth?”

Frank’s forced smile did little to calm Brady’s racing thoughts. “Worth a try, I suppose. Although something tells me he’s the kind of man who’s more concerned with answers than with rights.”

Although Brady had known this day would come, the thought of having to explain in any specific detail what the last several weeks had entailed was not something he looked forward to. However, Brady was equally curious to learn what the investigator had pieced together thus far. His brief experience within the haunted memories of the enigmatic Ellis Arkema had offered a staggering glimpse into the heart of the Lake View Asylum and, more importantly, into the mind of the man who preyed upon its most vulnerable patients.  

“A wise man told me once it’s not the answers that matter—it’s having the balls to ask the question,” Brady met Frank’s gaze and smiled. “Of course, that same man is by all accounts more than a few beers shy of a six pack.” He paused, letting the stinging compliment settle over his half-drunk friend as his eyes returned once again to the asylum. “Maybe it’s time the good Captain and I pose our questions and see where the answers lead.”

Unearth the secrets October 31, 2012

Author’s Description:
 
A Manhattan power couple survive a tragedy and attempt a fresh start only to be plagued by unexplained and disastrous occurrences…be careful what you wish for. At the age of nine, growing up in the French countryside, Julien Grenier witnessed the brutal murder of his grandfather. Now, at forty-five, he continues to be plagued by horrific nightmares and reenactments of that tragic event.

Living a successful though austere lifestyle on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Julien has recreated himself, building emotional walls that even his young wife cannot penetrate.
Though somewhat moody, Julien is a good man with a heart of gold, and a great sense of loyalty and responsibility; enabling his wife, Rachael, to turn a blind eye to his tightly-kept secrets. Rachael is thirty-two years old; an art dealer and playful free spirit, but after a home invasion assault leaves her emotionally unstable and destroys their care-free and content world, they relocate to a safer environment with the hope of a fresh start.
 
Kings Hollow is a quaint town, nestled in the serene Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. At first, their new home appears to be the miracle they prayed for, until a traditional children’s game begins to destroy their bliss; Rachael is no longer herself and Julien is experiencing a string of bad luck and unfortunate accidents.
 
At the center of it all is seventeen-year-old Sarah, a part-time caretaker on the property.
 
Can Julien and Rachael escape the nightmare of Kings Hollow…or is this just Wishful thinking?
 
My Review: 4 Stars
 
There is no light without darkness, and Wishbone, by newcommer Brooklyn Hudson, offers the perfect balance between both. Hudson weaves a a classic story of love and loss and how the spectre of dark memories can cling to people and places. The characters are deeply developed and well-written, offering fertile ground for Hudson to bury sinister secrets that are unearthed with chilling consequences. Wishbone is a ghost story with heart, soul, and enough goosebumps to ripple even the bravest flesh.

Editor’s Note: Thanks for stopping by a special Sunday edition of 7 Deadly Questions. Morgan Gallagher’s debut novel THE CHANGELING drops today! It’s a Bloody Good Read and I encourage all of you to check it out!

1. Most authors are happy writing one novel at a time. Not you. You up the ante by launching a trilogy. Tell me a bit about The Dreyfuss Trilogy and its inspiration.

Well, basically, it’s one very long book.  No, not really. The reason why I know it’s a trilogy, and why I’m launching it like that, is that my writing style is to see flashes of characters and scenes, and I then have to stitch it all together. There is a major section of the ‘story’ written, that I thought was the end of the novel. However, when I set in place all the other bits, leading up to it, it became clear it was two novels. And I’d written the end of the second one. I had the beginning pages of one novel, and the ending of another one entirely. And the ending of that novel, was not the end of the story. It was a climatic event that had been being built up too, over two books. So there had to be a third, to then resolve out the climatic event, and bring the narrative arc to a natural close.

It was quite a revelation, that there were two books in the pages in front of me, and a third to finish it off. But each segment is complete, and of itself. For instance, Changeling, the first novel, is a completely different type of novel to the other two. It’s an intense interior space, with two characters battling against each other, for the entire novel. There is mention of others, but there are no other major characters in the novel. A few support people in places, but it is just down to Dreyfuss, and Joanne. Lucifer’s Stepdaughter, book two, is filled to the gunnels with new people, places and stories. An entire vampire world opens up. Moonchild, book three, picks up the traces from the previous two books about what and where and when vampirism came into being, and unpicks the mythology of the vampires we’ve met, and is based on looking at human development and evolution. All interwoven with the character’s stories.

So I had the middle, really. The beginning, and the middle. I was always writing from that start point, to the end of book two. I could never have written Changeling, without knowing why it had to be the shape it is. And I could not launch Changeling, without knowing exactly where Lucifer’s Stepdaughter and Moonchild was going. There are integral to each other. I had to have the seeds of both, firmly planted in Changeling. Having all three set out as parts of a whole, it made sense to launch Changeling as part of the Trilogy.

Inspiration is a tricky one. I grew up in a very stark and impoverished Industrial working class area. A massive steel works, and a few scattered communities around it, with most people fighting to live elsewhere. But I grew up in a cosseted little pocket of it, as we had more money as we ran a couple of local shops, and I was both of that area, and kept out of it. I was shipped out to a private school every morning, and not allowed to mix with the people and children around me. That had been cemented when I returned to the house one day, as a very small child, after I’d been playing with other kids in the back yards, and it was discovered I had caught impetigo. All the local kids had caught it from the broken sewer pipe we were playing with. So local kids were not part of my childhood: I was raised in a house that locked the doors and cemented broken glass into the tops of the walls around our yard.

So I grew up with a view of two worlds, and the feeling I didn’t belong in either. And one of those worlds, was very dark and violent. When I was very young, we couldn’t sleep in the bedrooms on Friday and Saturday nights, as they had windows facing out into the street. And the running fights up and down the street, would sometimes result in objects coming in through the windows. So we’d bed down on the floor in the living room, as the window faced out into the back yard. That didn’t last for very long, as the police took back control of the streets, but I remember it clearly. I saw someone stabbed to death in front of me, with his blood flowing out into the gutter, when I was 15. Children and women were beaten regularly in this world, and it was to the women’s shame, if anyone knew about it. Men were beaten regularly too, but that was out in the open, with a crowd watching and taking bets.

But I also lived in the nice flowing world of privilege. I sat in a converted Victorian manse house in genteel Bothwell, for my school. I had every toy and book you could want. I had a horse, and spent my summers riding in green scented countryside, picking plums off the trees as I went. And my winters immune to the cold, galloping over the hard packed ground. I moved in and out of these two worlds constantly, and was always acutely aware of the dissonance.

As I grew up, I would sometimes notice that the nice girls in school with me, who were much posher than me, might flinch on occasion, and have a bruise on her arm that looked very much like another’s hand had grabbed it tightly. The monsters were in the posh bits too: just not as obvious.

So I grew up in a land where monsters lurked. And sometimes the monsters were in plain view, and sometimes they were completely invisible. I also grew up in a land that was lyrical and beautiful and filled with magic. But all magic has darkness, and there are monsters everywhere. I’m not sure if that’s inspiration, but it’s definitely the context in which I wrote Changeling. Nothing changed about that violence, and the hiding of the effects of it, as I grew and moved on. Many more life experiences fed into the narrative, and into Joanne and what Dreyfuss tries to do with her. And it would be nice if I didn’t understand that darkness as well as I do. But I do understand that darkness very well, and it has always informed my work.

2. Vampires seem to be everywhere these days. How do you make your story and characters unique enough to stand out in the crowd.

There is nothing new under the sun. We take the same stock of human experience and emotion, and recycle it all into different stories. My vampires have their own traits, which may or may not match others around at the moment. I made a conscious decision, some years back, to stop reading other vampire fiction. And in the main, I have. I have never seen, or read about, a twinkly vampire. (No offence to those who like twinkles. I’m sure if they’d been around when I was a teenager/young adult, I’d have adored them. And I still have the reams of poetry I wrote at the time, to prove that.) I do, on occasion, read other horror writers who have vampires. But it’s their horror work I read, that may or may not have vamps. I reread my ‘classic’ print vampires, when I want a vampire fest, and I watch vampire movies or television. I read stuff that’s interesting, but isn’t horror, that has vamps, such as the Anita Blake novels. But a vampire does not make a horror story, and a horror story does make a vamp. You can have vamps in any genre of fiction – thriller, romance, comedy. Something some people appear to have trouble appreciating. The current trend for ‘paranormal’ being added to everything is something I wasn’t expecting, and is a little disconcerting. I wonder if Stephen King was starting out today… would he be told that ‘Carrie’ was a paranormal thriller? I’m perfectly happy being a horror writer. There just happens to be vampires.

In terms of horror, I don’t like body shock horror, either in print or on the screen. I prefer the dark psychological horror. The horror in the mind. Humans are the basis of all horror, for me. My vamps are humans with complications – horrific complications. They need to drink blood, and feed off life. But they all start out as humans, who live human lives, before they are given, or have forced upon them, the Dark Gift. How do you live a life, if that is part of your basic need? And how do you cope with all that living, given how much of the world is pain and death? Equally, how much joy and passion, could you build into a life, if you had the time and money? But at what price? These are essential human questions, that we all face every day. Vampirism allows up to amplify the signal, and make more urgent, and obvious, the answers. Would you kill, in order to live? The answer in human history is that yes, most of us would, but no, some of us would rather die. The reader has to face what they would do, in Joanne’s place. She is truly trapped, and he traps her in her mind, and she cannot escape making a choice. What choice would you make?

In terms of difference, my essential difference is that Dreyfuss is a psychopath and there is no varnish to that. He was a psychopath as a human. There is nothing romantic or erotic or appealing about Dreyfuss. Whilst he may be intriguing, the reader will be repelled and sickened by his actions. The book is brutal, and it details violence graphically. He wants to tear her down to nothing, and rebuild her in his own image. You cannot understand the mind games, and the pathway Joanne takes, until you understand what it’s like to be completely owned and possessed by someone who is stronger and more powerful than you, who holds all the cards, and who controls the world you live in. Who understands human needs, and uses them to get what he wants, no matter how he is opposed. People often say that women in abusive relationships stay as they like it. From the outside, you cannot understand what has gone on, to reduce someone to the point they cannot leave. The book details that process, and you have to see it, to understand it. You have to understand what she’s rebelling against, to make sense of how her rebellion expresses itself. But there is no saving grace, no surprise twist about Dreyfuss: there is no dark vampire prince. No sudden discovery the nasty vampire is actually the Romantic Hero. Although there is… oh dear, I better stop now.

But I just will say, that if it wasn’t for Harlan Ellison’s ‘The Whimper of Whipped Dogs’ and Stephen King’s ‘Rose Madder’ I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to publish the book.

3. The reviews and blurbs for Changeling, the first book in the Dreyfuss Trilogy, have been amazing. Does that make it easier to sink your teeth into writing the rest of the trilogy (Lucifer’s Stepdaughter and Moonchild) or merely place more pressure on you to keep the momentum going?

Both. The excruciating process of trying to boil down 152 000 words of complex interaction and storytelling, into one paragraph, or even a sentence! Argh. There have been times over the past few weeks when my brain has been bleeding out of my ears, and dripping onto the floor. I’ve had to explain, and at times, defend, the novel, to the point of nausea. Condense, condense, condense… and find the true vein of what is there. Agony. Total agony. But so very useful. I have a confidence about it now, I didn’t have 8 weeks ago, when I decided to launch. In particular, the narrative itself. There is nothing that required change, no story edits, no redoing of sections. The closer I’ve got to expressing the essence of the narrative, the more confidence I’ve gained that the structure is sound. It survives the scrutiny, basically. And getting feedback from those who have read, and reviewed the book, that they have understood what I wanted to express… that’s been amazing. And made me itch to get back to writing the other two.

The pressure ‘tho. The pressure to perform again. Particularly since I know the other two are totally different in tone and structure. Very scary. We’ll see. I have this nightmare that I’ll be the writer who sold everyone a trilogy, and never finished it. And I also worry I’ll rush the writing, and perhaps not spend the time ignoring the books between writing ‘the end’ and the final main edit. I left Changeling for 9 months, from the words ‘the end’ to firing it back up again to run the final author edit. Even if I finished Lucifer’s Stepdaughter this year, it’s not going out until mid through 2012, at the earliest. That’s an immense pressure to hold fast, and stay calm, and do the work, not go for the print button as others are eagerly awaiting it. I already have people clamouring for it.

Although I do have some more to let free, before then. The week after launch, a new blurb for Lucifer’s will go up on site, and I hope to have the cover image done and dusted, by the end of the year. I know exactly how it looks. After all, I do know exactly how it ends!

4. Is the horror/paranormal genre viewed differently in Scotland than here in the States? Is the mythology of the vampire different?

Not so much the mythology of vampires, as we are in Vampire Central in the UK. From Stoker, who was Irish in fact, writing Dracula in the Reading Room of the British Library, to Hammer Horror, the UK is central to the Western vampire mythology. Within the Scottish context, Scot’s history and fiction has always been bloody. We’ve had a lot of body eating, body snatching grimness going on over the ages. The concept of immortals, with dark gifts and epic curses, is very common, and one I grew up with. Fairies in Scotland are not ‘nice’. They are six feet tall, covered in armour, and will hack your eyes out for cutting down their favourite tree. It’s a culture that’s comfortable with supernatural forces being part of everyday life. Even now, I’ll sometimes leave milk and honey out, to attract brownies to come and do my housework. (It does work, if you do it every night, it seems to make you more able to tackle the housework.) But it’s always a two edged sword. They can give, but they can take back. The original tag line to Changeling was “Be careful what you wish for…” and that is a very Scottish take on the world. A wish can be granted, but you might not like what you’ll get. There is always a price.

The vampire elements are very clear to see, within that whole bundle of beliefs, and they directly inform Changeling, as the Fair Folk often steal humans, entice them away. A human can stray into the mounds, spend the night, and leave to find 50 years have passed and their entire lives have gone, and they are sad and broken people, who belong nowhere. That’s a strong theme in my work: isolation, and being cast out.

The Fair also steal human babies, and leave Changelings in the cradles. Whilst this might sound quite quaint, there is a horror to this that belies belief. If you had a baby that cried all day and all night, that could not be comforted, that wasn’t thriving and was clearly ‘not right’… you deemed it Changeling. So you could put the baby on a bonfire and that was that. You hadn’t killed your baby, you had killed the Changeling, who had to be killed as it would only be a draw on the entire community. Somewhere, your human baby was living a good life, raised by the Fair. Cute.

That’s before you get to banshees and bogarts and selkies and the lesser fay. So yes, I think I can safely say, that growing up Scottish, can make a difference to how you see supernatural elements. As both being very common, and knowable and ‘normal’ and also being both light and dark. We have a nice line in lyrical savagery.

Just don’t do a ‘Disney’ Scotland on me, and make all our legends nice and cute and safe and whimsical. I’ll eat your eyes. That’s not to say you can’t have nice whimsical otherworldness, look at JM Barrie. But even Peter Pan has darkness. How can it be real, if there is no dark? Barrie did a wonderful Changeling, actually. His play ‘Mary Rose’, will have the hackles on the back of your neck rising, as you shiver with the pain of it.

5. How would your Dreyfuss character hold up in a fight against some other famous vampires of literature? Could he take Ann Rice’s Lestat in a street fight? Would Steve King’s Straker be able to stand against your vampire?

Should he decide to soil his hands with a gothic melodramatic like Lestat, he’d knock his block off. I’m not so sure about Straker. Straker is a mind game, Dreyfuss may not be up to it. Dreyfuss likes to think he’s a master psychologist, but he’s really not that smart. I suspect Straker would out play him. Dreyfuss is a complete loner when it comes to other vampires. He never goes near the others, and kills anyone who strays near his territory, which is a low kill count, as none of them go near him. And like many of my older vamps he despises the gothic over tones of the newer ones. So Lestat would be booted out of touch. (Please note that the author’s views are not reflected in those of her psychotic creations.)

6. If offered the chance for immortality by one of your ageless characters, would you take it? Why or why not?

Never. When we’ve worked out how to be humans for a hundred years or so, we can then work on living longer. Whilst I’m sure I’ll maintain that my lifespan was too short, whatever it turns out to be, immortality is a curse I’d not carry well. As long as I live to see my son settled and happy in his own life, I’ll be happy to move on when the time is right. Life is too hard, to keep doing this forever. And if I was the only one with the immortality, and therefore I was doomed to watch those I love, and care for, suffer and die… I’d rather jump off a cliff. I will rage against the dying of the light, but I’ll look forward to seeing what happens next. Energy can be neither created, nor destroyed, it can only be transformed.

7. How can people learn more about you?

By reading my book.  Do note, I didn’t say by buying it. You have to actually read it. I’ve told everyone I don’t expect them all to read it, but I do expect them to buy it!

Otherwise, here’s the now familiar set of links:

Buy This Book: Amazon UK Amazon USA Smashwords

Author Pages:   Ethics Trading Amazon UK Amazon USA

Contact Author:  Novel Blog Twitter: @DreyfussTrilogy      FaceBook

About Morgan

Morgan Gallagher is in her late 40s, and should know better, about spending her writing life with vampires. However, she has no choice, as they refuse to go away and leave her alone. She lives in the Scottish Borders, with her husband and their six year old son. A full time carer for her husband who is severely disabled, Morgan also works as a volunteer for several charities and is passionate about the rights of babies, children and mothers. She has campaigned vigorously against child detention during immigration procedures. She and her husband home educate their son and attempt to keep a never ending stream of cats under control. The North Sea pounds their fishing village every winter, and every major storm, the entire family are to be found in the car parked on the headland admiring the view. Apart from the cats, that is, who are at home dreaming of summer.