One of the most romantic things my husband has ever done is to whisk me away to LA where we stayed on the supposedly haunted Queen Mary. From there, we went to LACMA and saw Guillermo Del Toro’s At Home With Monster’s exhibit.
This year isn’t so grand, it’s simply spinning a wheel of horror films and watching them together. There’s so many I haven’t seen! A bunch of the classics like Repulsion, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the OG Nosferatu.
Between all the reading and films I feel like a horror sponge.
Last night we watched a Del Toro classic, The Devil’s Backbone, and once again I’m reminded of just how much I love his storytelling. Yes, it can be brutal, but it has a fairytale element I just adore. The colors, the details, the characters, all of it.
If anyone could ever make The Night Dredes a film, it would be RDT.
In other news, Stephen Graham Jones is coming to my little town, so I got My Heart Is a Chainsaw and I plan on reading it before he visits next month. I’d love for him to sign it.
I’m making great strides in my sourdough bread journey. I’ve succeeded in making loafs out of my starters and I’ve got a lump of jiggly dough on the counter. Things are a rising!
Going on 15k with the new project. I’m calling it The Cuckoos Nest for the time being. Writing a child main character is always a lot of fun, but when the main character is also technically the monster, it gets complicated.
I have to walk a fine line between readers being emotionally attached to my character without forgetting her true nature. It’s made abundantly clear in the beginning that Molly isn’t a normal little girl, she’s not even human, but even monsters deserve a safe home.
I’m at the part of the story where Molly is trapped in her home with an aunt scheming to take over her home and has fired Molly’s governess. And for Molly, there’s no other choice but to employ her unnatural abilities to try and drive her aunt out.
So, we’re going down the chaotic rabbit hole.
Wish me luck!
Shayna Grissom Writes 
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