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Back to Blogging – Updates and Good News

Happy July, everyone. It’s been while, but I’m dusting off my idea list and getting back to work on the blog. At first, my goal was to take a short break, then when things happened in 2020, the short break turned into a longer one. I’m sure I don’t have to go into more detail.

But here we are now, back together on the blog. I’m so glad you’re here. From this time going forward, I hope we meet on a more frequent basis.

Let’s update.

Update 1:

My son graduated from HIGH SCHOOL! Listen, I thought I had it together, but I swear I was bedridden the Monday before the actual ceremony. You see, I enjoyed the IDEA of him graduation…moving on to his next phase in life, but damn, that’s my first boy-chick! Rest assured I got the mommy-is-having-a-breakdown blues out of my system and was able to enjoy and be proud of number-one son. (I only say he’s number one because he was born first. No shade to my younger son.) But oh, what a milestone.

Update 2:

After not writing for a long time, (which will be addressed in another blog post) I was finally able to produce a paranormal romance/drama novel which has been accepted as a first in a series by Totally Entwined Publishing. Let me tell you, after a long, long drought and many moments…well months, of self-doubt this is breath of fresh air into both my writing career and my personal achievements.

Let’s talk about how I got to this point. It wasn’t easy. I hired an author coach, who takes care of the whole author, as well as a writing coach who takes care of the author’s writing. I have to say, I am not sorry to have spent the money on either. Both coaches helped me focus on my style, my creativity, and the best way for me to get things done.

It wasn’t cheap, but I don’t regret biting the bullet and spending the money. The clarity and support gained in both my author and personal life, is well worth the dollars spent.

Lesson learned: Just because writing is a solitary exercise doesn’t mean you always have to do it alone.

Update 3:

We got a dog! In March of this year, we were the proud new family for Charlotte, who is apparently a Dogo Argentino. I posted her picture on Instagram, and a few commenters there and on Facebook said she looked like a Dogo. Mind you, I had to look up the breed because I’d never heard of it, and wow, it’s so true. Check out this lovely pup putting ALL of her white hair on my blue chair:

There it is. A brief update on me, and hopefully, a fresh start to the blog. Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you back here soon!

7 Ways to Improve Your Storytelling

Everyone loves a good story. In fact, telling stories is an effective way to connect with any audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching a class, writing a blog post, or recording a podcast. The art of storytelling should be a large part of your content creation because it’s an excellent marketing strategy. The tough part is coming up with these stories in the first place. If you read on, you’ll find seven tip to keep the ideas flowing so you’ll have just the right one for any situation.

Share A Recent Encounter

We “walk past” – via social media and real life – numerous story ideas every day. Stories happen to you and all around you. In order to harness these ideas, think about who you’ve spoken to recently, what you’ve been up , or who you’ve encountered either online or in person. Now, think about how you can tie that into a blog post or email you need to write.

A Past Conversation

Even the most inconsequential conversation can have an effect on the rest of your day. A brief chat shared with a stranger while standing in line, or even the snippet of an online conversation in the comment section of a post. Is there something you can use from that to create a story? Without giving away too many personal details, you can use the essence of that conversation to impart a message to your readers.

Childhood Memories

Stories from our childhood often shape who we are today. Is there a childhood memory you can tie into current events or circumstances? There’s bonus points if the memory from your childhood equipped you to get through a current situation. Readers enjoy connecting through shared memories.

Pay Attention to Your Environment

This morning, it was extra quiet around my neighborhood and I was surprised to be able to tune my ears in to hear so many distinct bird calls. I was able to pick out a cardinal and a blue jay, as well as the busy chattering of a squirrel. In addition, I was also able to hear a telephone conversation my neighbor was having about picking up groceries and taking them to a shut-in relative. While I wouldn’t use that specific basic story for my audience, her conversation reminded me how important it is to help out those who may not be able to help themselves and gave me an idea to use as a side plot in a story of mine.

Take Notes in the Moment

As a writer, I am always on the alert for a good story. Unfortunately, there are so many things to remember on a regular basis, that it’s hard to keep all those ideas in your brain. So, as not to forget those juicy storytelling ideas, either jot them down with the old-fashioned pen/pad combination or use the notes app on your phone. You’ll thank yourself later, I promise.

Have Meaningful Conversations

I have three children, and when they’d come home from school, I’d make a point of sitting down with them and chatting about their day. You’d be surprised at the drama going on within the walls of the school: and I’m not just talking about the students. Children can be quite astute, and they pick up on the gossip of teachers. I’ve heard about unplanned pregnancies, spats between teachers, and what teacher got called the principal’s office and why! So many stories, so little time.

Plot Twists!

Another good way to get people to pay attention to your stories is to surprise them. Hook your readers by connecting two seemingly unconnected things, such as, “How training my dog to fetch helped increase my wordcount by a thousand word per day”. That’s right! That’s an eye- catching title, isn’t it? I almost wish it were true. It’s a good example of how skills sets can transfer from one event to another, and would make a great story.

It’s so easy to lose one’s creativity when under stress. Sometimes you may feel the well has run dry and you can’t squeeze out one more story. But storytelling connects us as humans. Everyone loves a good campfire tale. This is why you need to keep your radar up for story ideas.

Until next time,

Dahlia D

Horror Movie Review – Hell House, LLC

Title: Hell House, LLC (2015)

Synopsis:
Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened. (from imdb.com)

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Opinion

Well, well, well. The found footage genre isn’t completely dead.

If you’re a friend of mine on social media, you should well know I’ve never met a found footage film I didn’t like. Well, scrap that, because I realized, yes, I’ve met a few I didn’t care for at all. However, I am fascinated by the whole genre of found footage horror films and never pass up a chance to screen them….if I can take it. Some I won’t see because the gross factor is too high. But that’s blog post for another day.

Hell House, LLC is a little gem I found hiding on Amazon Video. Sidenote- I got the prime membership just for the shipping, but the Video area is kind of like your favorite Palmer Video. I’ve been finding quite a few cool films included with my Prime membership. Back to the movie.

The premise is quite simple: A group of friends put on haunted houses each Halloween season in New York City. This season, they decide to rent an old hotel. The Abbadon hotel in Abbadon, New York. Now, I’m pretty genre savvy, so I knew that Abbadon meant something or other, but was too lazy to reach for my phone to look it up. No matter, because I simply like watching the story unfold before my eyes. Why do research when surely the filmmakers will do it for me?

As a found footage film, this is one of the better ones. There’s not a ton of shaky cam or people yelling profanity at the camera, which is good. The movie opens telling us of an incident that happened five years prior, where people were killed/injured at the opening of the haunted house. It then circles back to before the incident, where the haunted house was being set up.

I must say, this film offered me quite a few scares from places I didn’t expect and had me covering my eyes at one point. It’s fun and it holds together, pretty much, plot wise. There is very little blood/gore – it’s not a slasher film, but I tell you, it’s creepy enough that I remember some of the scenes from it a few weeks later.

Recommended – have fun!

Rating – B

Blogtoberfest – Zombies!

October is the month of being scary, right? But I’m a romance author, so I found a way to combine the two. Loving Among the Dead is the answer that I found. A mix of erotic romance and scary zombie adventure, it’s sure to get your blood racing in one way or the other. Here’s a blurb.

A survivor of a zombie apocalypse that’s ripped her world apart….

Nothing in her graduate history courses prepared Judith Graham for the monotony of her existence in the weeks following a zombie apocalypse. Hiding from the rotted world in her makeshift fortress, she subsists on dehydrated food and lonely thought.

When she gives up and decides to satisfy her need for a break in routine, she crosses paths with Sky Beckett, a high school physics teacher making his way to his Southern childhood home. Several passionate encounters coupled with Sky’s assertion that things are only going to get worse not better, spark Judith’s doubts about the isolated life she’s chosen.

But can an ever-cautious Judith find the strength to leave the false security of her past behind to create a new future with Sky in an uncertain world?

Click the book cover below to purchase:
Please note, this is an erotic romance with a heat level of 4.

Here’s an excerpt:

Judith Graham buried her parents on a Sunday. After a brief prayer, she placed her mother’s favorite plant at the head of her grave, and her father’s pipe—still full of tobacco ashes—at the head of his.

She brushed the dirt from her jeans, tucked the work gloves in her back pocket, and sat on the back deck sipping from a can of warm soda, watching the sun set. There were no tears. Her mother’s pistol was at her side, the gunmetal gleaming in the fading orange light.

Would it have made a difference if she had gotten home sooner?

The letter, written on her mother’s heavy monogrammed stationery, had been propped on the mantel, addressed to “Judith” in even, no-nonsense script. A marked contrast to the pale lavender paper, the black words indicated her father brought home the infection. She shot him in the back of his head when he started making gurgling, groaning sounds at the static on the television. Then she dug their graves, dragged him into his, and shot herself.

Stay hidden. Don’t trust anyone. Her mother’s final words to her. Jude was alone.

Her brother was south, somewhere, Alabama, the last she’d heard. Marcus did what he wanted, when he wanted. She was the good daughter who minded what her parents told her.

It wasn’t so bad at first. Between the initial shock of her parents’ deaths, and making defensive alterations to the house, there was no time or energy to think or feel much of anything.

Once the house was safe, the dehydrated food, water bottles, and toiletries arranged in the first floor den, the camp shower with its battery pump working and the lanterns loaded, there was lots of time to be lonely. Rereading favorite novels, patrolling the inside of the house, and searching for elusive ham broadcasts on the shortwave radio only filled up so much time.

She stopped looking at family photos because they made her cry, leaving her exhausted and listless, lying on the bed or the sofa or the floor for hours until the urge to pee roused her enough to move.

Her neighborhood was deserted. No walking dead bodies roamed the streets. Either her neighbors had gotten out or had been zombified in the confines of their homes, unable to juice up the physical memory necessary to open a door and escape. For that she was grateful. She’d had to smash too many zombie heads on her way back home from Philadelphia for her to revisit it with people she once knew.

3 Vacation Horror Movies

Vacation! Hurray, right? Who doesn’t love going on vacation? it’s a time to relax, have a good time, and drink fruity drinks on the beach or beside the pool. Traveling to a different country, a different atmosphere, it’s enough to give anyone peace of mind, right?

But….things can go horribly wrong, even on a wonderful vacation. You only have to check out these films to see what could possibly happen.

Aftershock:

A film starring Eli Roth, the mastermind behind the wonderfully gross Cabin Fever. Here, he and his friends take a vacation to Chile, where of course they want to party and drink. All the fun goes to hell, however, when there’s an earthquake and the physical infrastructure of the city falls apart around them.

Not a great movie, but it’s a different enough disaster film to keep you interested. I was brought up on disaster movies like Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and the (original) Poseidon Adventure that I was able to enjoy this effort with “the young folks”. Get some popcorn and have some fun.

Turistas:

I’ve seen this film titled also as Turistas: Go Home, so don’t be put off if you see either title. Again, a group of young people go on vacation to Brazil on what was supposed be a fun vacation. Instead a bus accident maroons them somewhere and well, bad things happen. Again, the premise is interesting, the setting of the jungles of Brazil is lush and beautiful, and of course some of those friends on vacation don’t make it out alive.

Fun fact: The director of this movie, John Stockwell, played the “best friend” in the movie “Christine” based on a Stephen King novel.

The Ruins:

Ah, The Ruins. One of the creepiest, crawliest movies I’ve ever seen. I might be extra squeamish, but I really can’t watch every scene of the film: some of the sequences are too much for me. Take from that what you will. However, this film, which is based on a book by Scott Smith (who also wrote the book A Simple Plan), centers around, you guessed it, a group of friends on vacation. They leave a perfectly good resort to go into some jungle to see some Mayan ruins. And, well, they got ruined.