Fiona Dodwell's Blog, page 6

My article appears in "TnT Paranormal"…. and Obsessed is now available….

My article "The Paranormal – Who Can We Trust?" has been published in the September edition of TnT Paranormal. You can check it out on page eight when you click the following link:

http://www.tntparanormal.com//BumpsintheNight/Bumps%20in%20the%20Night%20-%202011-09.pdf

Also, Obsessed is now available to purchase as e-book from Amazon and Damnation Books. If you buy a copy, I hope you enjoy it. Paperback version to go on sale soon – I'll let you all know when!

Thanks, enjoy your weekend!

 

What's going on?

Well, it's been a busy few weeks for me. I've been doing final round edits for my upcoming novel, Obsessed. I'd forgotten how tough editing can be, but I feel the story has surfaced sparkling and shining from the process. At this point, I want to thank Su Halfwerk, fellow horror author, for her help and input. She really helped me over the last few weeks, and I genuinely believe Obsessed is all the better for her contributions.

Obsessed is going on sale as E-book from September 1st, and the paperback will follow a few weeks later. I'll keep you updated on the paperback release as and when I get it.

If you want to bag yourself a bargain, you can log onto www.damnationbooks.com midnight, September 1st, where you can buy an e-book copy for next to nothing. There will be other titles going cheap too – including Darren Frey's The Blood Reapers and Demon, by Mike Emmett. I know I'll be buying some discounted copies!

Other news…. I am submitting my third novel, The Shift, for publication. Hopefully I may have good news for you soon, regarding that title.

I am trying my best to get my head down to writing my fourth novel. So far, only a general plan and various ideas, nothing concrete, but I'll settle down to write once my promotion for Obsessed is underway.

Promotional spots for Obsessed?

I have a blog tour booked for October, where I'll be giving away copies of my novel, taking part in online interviews and recording several radio interviews.

For September, I will be on various author websites taking part in 'Question and Answer' sessions and talking about my latest release.

Catch up with you soon!

 

I give women a bad name… ?

It's strange. I knew when I released The Banishing in March of this year, that I would face many different reactions from readers.

The novel touches upon some heavy subjects: demonic possession, marital breakdown and domestic abuse. It's hardly a light read – it was never intended to be. I don't want to spoil anything about the story, because as an author, I hope one day you might read the story yourself. What I will say, is that my main character Melissa puts up with some very horrific ordeals at the hands of the man she loves.

I recently had a comment from a reader of The Banishing. I won't name them (although they're happy for me to discuss their comments online). This person said that while they thought the story was scary in parts, and well written, they believed it to be bad for one reason: it gives women a bad name. "The story makes women look weak." "It sets women back by years…the weaker sex issue all over again." While I kindly and respectfully took these comments on board, I have to say I strongly disagree.

Women (and men)  all over the world, are suffering from domestic abuse. Living with violence. Whilst I personally can't imagine ever, under any circumstances, putting up with that in my life, there are plenty of women who do. Are these women weak?Are they women who have hope? Are they women who are, in fact, strong, fighting against something awful to help their marriage to survive? I can't pretend to understand, or to truly know, why women would stay in abusive relationships, but the fact is, many do. For many years. I do not believe, for one second, that these women are weak… Are they hurt? Yes. Put down upon? Yes. Disillusioned? Yes. Trapped? Probably. Perhaps they are naive, believing that they can be the one to "change" the person hurting them, with love and patience.

Statistics show that 1 in 4 women in the UK alone will suffer, at some time, from domestic abuse. On average, 2 women are killed  a week. There are thousands, worldwide, who choose to stay with the person hurting them. I, for one, will not look at these people and say they are weak, that they set the feminist movement behind. I do not have the right – I do not understand, I haven't been in their position.

I personally have a stronger, harsher judgement of the one's who abuse. Those who raise their voice, their fist, their strength against another. But that's another topic!

What I did with The Banishing was something honest: I tried to show how a woman can convince herself to stay with somebody that hurts her. It is not written as something I approve or disapprove or – it's just simply the story, and a reflection of the reality of many woman's lives.

I hope that others will know - if they read the story - that sometimes true strength can be something we can't measure from the outside. We can't hope to know the inside of a persons head when they are being abused. We don't know – we haven't been there.

~~~~~~~~~

If you've read The Banishing and have an opinion on this, I'd love to hear what you think.

~~~~~~~~~~

Trailer for my upcoming novel, Obsessed

Su Halfwerk, fellow horror writer and designer, has created this trailer for my novel, Obsessed.

Obsessed is released 1st September on e-book and paperback formats.

Bits and bobs: Writings, musings and news…

Fellow writer Diane Dooley (author of Blue Galaxy) had a lovely chat with me about horror, and being a female in this tough writing world. She is amazing – you can find out more about our online chat here: http://www.lucyvmorgan.com/2011/07/little-death-guest-post-by-horror.html

Meanwhile, fellow horror writer and fan, Luke Walker, has written an amazing post on the two delicious subjects of sex and death. You can read that piece here: http://www.lucyvmorgan.com/2011/07/little-death-guest-post-by-horror.html

Meanwhile, updates my end? I'm busy with edits for my upcoming novel, Obsessed, which is due for release 1st September.

Also, I'm writing two short stories, which hopefully will be added to this blog soon!

My interview played at Tenacity Radio's "Got Paranormal" show!

I was invited to do an interview with US programme, "Tenacity Radio", where I got to discuss my novels, my writing, and my opinions of the paranormal. If you're interested, please click the link below, my show is on the playlist. Radio Interview with Author Fiona Dodwell

Hot Gossip Hot Reviews….

The Banishing was reviewed over at the wonderful " Hot Gossip Hot Reviews "…. Here is a little of what they had to say:

"I had a chance to read this book, given to me by the author/publicist. I review many books for Indie authors and many of them still have work to do on their craft, but Fiona has a very clear voice and enjoyable writing style. Descriptive, yet engaging. I loved reading her prose, how she constructed her sentences, images, metaphors.

The story was very intriguing…

….I recommend reading this author and as a first read from her, I look forward to more novels by her!"

To read the full review, or check out their website, click below:

http://hotgossiphotreviews.blogspot.com/2011/06/banishing-guest-post-and-review.html?showComment=1308162241200#c2252320620694144660

The Banishing gets reviewed at the "Authors By Authors" website….

"A real page turner… the author kept turning things up a notch in a very dark, paranormal way right to the final pages." – Authors by Authors review on The Banishing
 
Fantastic website, Authors By Authors, that features interviews and book reviews, has taken the time to read and review The Banishing. Here is what they said:
 
"The first chapter of this horror novel evoked all sorts of emotions inside me, a whole spectrum of good to bad,  but mostly, above all of them, I felt compassion for the heroine. The story immediately drew me in and had me anxiously waiting to read Chapter Two.  
 
Ms. Dodwell is very good at building suspense, giving away only little hints to keep the reader wanting more. With the subject matter as sensitive as it was, the story kept you tied up in knots, never quite being sure, other than with the heroine, who you were mad at or rooting for, etc.  The main plot carried many twists, and the author kept turning things up a notch in a very dark, paranormal way right to the final pages.
 
 A real page turner with deep set emotions, ones that were so profound that they almost became the setting of the story, an entity in and of themselves.
 

 
 I definitely kept reading, wanting to know what was going on, and to see an end to the heroine's suffering.  Let me laugh here, because this was a true horror story, and in the end, what one gets is a partial HEA ending, partial Horror ending – a halving – which is fantastic if you are into such dark reads.
 
To check out Authors by Authors, click here:
http://authorsbyauthors.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-review-of-banishing-by-fiona-dodwell.html
 

Why I write horror, by writer Fred Rayworth

Today I am handing my blog over to horror writer and horror fan, Fred Rayworth…

 

WHY I WRITE HORROR

By Fred Rayworth

I grew up in the late 50's, early 60's, at a time when paranoia was rampant in American society. The Cold War was at a peak, the threat of nuclear annihilation just a pushbutton away, and the fear of the unknown came not from just that monster under the bed, but from some mutant freak created by radioactivity. We had this pounded into our heads on a daily basis with advertisements for bomb shelters, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my favorite, bomb drills. We felt a lot safer diving under a desk when the 100 megaton bomb went off just across the road.

Hollywood proved to be fertile ground with countless monsters created by mutations from radiation, or aliens coming from space to threaten our nuclear ambitions. Of course, along with that were the standard Dracula, Wolfman and the Mummy to add to the mix.

For a young preteen, it freaked me out to the point I was scared of my own shadow. My cousin would force me to watch monster movies whenever we'd visit my grandpa in Playa del Rey, California, I was exposed to the "worst" Hollywood had to offer. When I became a basket case, my grandpa had enough of that, dragged me to a movie lot and showed me the fakery behind it. On top of that, my dad made a big deal of pointing out errors in movies. One day it finally clicked and I became a hard-core fan. I couldn't get enough of those B-movie horror classics. The rubber monsters, the "inverted-ice-cream-cone" thing with seaweed hair, the gorilla suit with a diving helmet… the list goes on. One particular memory was the monster trading cards with bubblegum. They had the likes of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, all the classics. Let's just say, I was never scared again.

I write in multiple genres. Horror, or as I call it, icky bug, is one of them. One thing that is common to all of them is that all of my stories are adventures. When I write horror, it is still an adventure, just a scary, humorous adventure. It may not scare me, but if it scares my audience, so much the better.

When I started writing, my second novel was horror. At the time I was reading a lot of horror by the likes of Dean Koontz (before he went sappy), Carol Davis Luce, Elizabeth Forrest and a few others I can't remember. I wanted to do that. However, I wanted to create stories that harkened back to the monster B-movies of my childhood. Movies that I could only find in the cheap rental section at the video store. Movies that are now staples of Saturday evenings on the SyFy channel. Some may call them sci-fi instead of horror.

I've read lots of horror, and what I consider horror is a bit different from what many consider mainstream horror nowadays. There are so many subgenres of horror, that I can't even count them all. Most of them, I don't care for. There is slasher horror, which to me, is just extreme crime drama, more over-the-top than a typical detective story (many times without a detective at all). This is where the killer goes to extremes to torture and "off" their victims and the hero is just some poor schmuck trying to get away. To me, that is not horror, it is simply horrifying. In many of those stories, the hero dies. There is no payoff.

Then there is vampire horror. To me, that genre is just bloody romance. It is not the least bit horrifying or scary. It deserves respect as a genre all to itself but not as horror. There are a few exceptions including They Hunger, by Scott Nicholson. Now THAT is horror.

Then there is supernatural and ghost horror. That genre is horror and can be extremely scary, especially since many people believe in ghosts and there may be some legitimacy behind it.

Some authors ramble forever. Their horror is really a character study built around a horrifying plot of some kind. Nothing happens for chapter after chapter. I'm not a fan of that. I won't mention names, but there are some big writers out there that are famous for that. More power to them, but I'm not a fan of that. I like the author to get to the point. Nuff said about that.

My specialty is monster horror, many times with a supernatural element. There is a monster or monsters creating mayhem and the hero or heroine must overcome the odds to save the day. The story is scary but it is also an adventure. It's about the protagonist and his or her friends. It's how they have to figure out how to kick butt and take names, while fighting insurmountable odds, weird circumstances, and trying to keep the body count to a minimum.

I write horror to take the reader on a fun and scary ride, with a lot of humor. I am not out to depress people or give them crazy ideas (as in slasher horror). If I make someone think twice about going in that bathroom at night, or opening that basement door, or unlocking the rusty padlock on that old trunk, so be it. The idea is to have fun and be entertained, not throw the book down and be depressed or pissed off when they reach the end. I want the reader to get to the last word with a smile on their face.

What's going on? News, updates and links

It's been a busy few weeks for me. I managed – finally to finish my third novel, The Shift, which is a horror about a sinister care home in a quiet village. I've edited, re-edited and finally pulled it together into something I'm really happy with, so onwards and upwards with query and submissions! Wish me luck. I'll keep you updated if I have any news/feedback.

Now that The Shift is finished, I've started working on my novella, 'What Lies In Waiting' which is a story that's been itching to get out of me for some time now. I've written the first three chapters.

I thought I'd mention that there is an interview with author Steve Barber, talking about horror, humour and his writing. You can catch that here: http://dianedooley.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/oh-the-horror-a-conversation-with-steve-barber/

Catch up with you soon!