Julia Benally's Blog, page 14

Halloween Special: McNary, Indian Camp

WARNING: STORIES MAY BE TOO SCARY FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES
The names of the individuals have been changed to protect their identities.

The small town of McNary is kind of split in half. One one side is the main town, but on the outskirts is a part of McNary that the people like to call Indian Camp. It's been called that since before political correctness had a place in society.
When the roads used to be made of dirt and the forest was thicker, a girl went hitch hiking. As she headed for the highway, she ran flat into a hairy creature standing on two legs. She didn't scream, but turned around and walked back home. She tried to keep calm, because she was afraid that if she ran, it would chase her.

Closer to the old sawmill are a row of houses. There, a man I'll call Randy hooked up with a woman I'll call Marie. She had two children. One night, Randy and Marie decided to grab a pizza and a movie to bring back home to them. Everybody was excited and the kids were happy to stay at home.
When Randy and Marie finally returned to the house, it was night, and they found the kids outside. The kids ran to the car when they pulled in. Randy and Marie were a little upset the kids were outside in the cold and said they were supposed to have stayed inside. Marie asked them what they were doing out there.
The kids said they didn't like it in the house. The cupboards had started opening and closing by themselves, things had moved around on their own, and shadows had begun moving on the wall in the shapes of men. There was an eerie aura inside the house, like they were being watched.

Lots of the houses in Indian Camp are made of brick. New ones have been built, but they're not brick. If you ever slap brick, you know it doesn't make much noise, and it just hurts your hand if you slap it hard enough.
Two kids I'll call Nick and Jane were watching TV in the house alone. The sun had already gone down, but there was still just enough light to see outside. They had thin sheets as curtains on the windows, but the sheets weren't up yet. The house was an open floor plan so the kitchen was visible from the living room. There was one small window in the kitchen and a picture window in the living room.
All of a sudden, something smacked the brick wall near the kitchen window Boom-Boom-Boom! It was a staccato sound and it traveled across the house to the picture window, where it stopped. Nick and Jane thought someone was just trying to scare them. Later, when Nick realized nobody could make a sound that loud on the brick.

When Nick was much younger, he was playing with his friend at the end of his driveway. The whole family was outside just enjoying the evening air. From the mountain, a little under half a mile away, an eerie scream split the air. Nick said it was the ugliest scream he'd ever heard. Everybody stopped what they were doing, and then promptly ran in the house. Nick's friend sped back home.
At the same time, on the other side of Indian Camp, a group of kids were playing inside their house. Their mom suddenly stiffened up and she told everybody to shut up. They all fell still and she listened. A foul stench was coming through the window.
"Get away from the windows!" she snapped.
She sent the older boy to close the windows and then pulled everyone into the center of the house.
Near where the road leads to the main town, other people saw something big and hairy, standing on two feet, watching. They didn't know what it was. Nobody dared to go out to it.
Later, everyone told their stories to each other and realized it had all happened at the same time.
I hope you enjoyed these stories. And thank you to Nick for telling them to me and scaring my brains out.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Online dating services in review: 500+ trying to rob my cradle

Hi, everybody! I did something stupid again.

Creep-tastic Ingredients for Spooky Stories From A Queen of Horror: Miracle Austin

Hello everyone! Today, the talented Miracle Austin is here with me, discussing creepy writing! Enjoy, and learn from a master! Be sure to check out her books and other writings. They're absolutely fantastic and deliciously creepy.


Creepy Writing Tips

Salutations, readers, I want to take this time to thank Miss Julia Benally for inviting me to her blog. Before I dive into the topic above, I wish to introduce myself.

My name is Miracle Austin, and I’ve been writing off and on, since junior high. A few years ago, I rediscovered my love for writing. I must confess that I never thought I would become an author. Well, four books later, it is my reality.

As you may have guessed, my favorite genres to write include the horror and supernatural realms. I was introduced to both when I was a pre-teen and teen in the late 70s and 80s, via listening to a spooky AM radio series on Friday nights with my mom. Watching scary movies and later reading books by Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, R.L. Stine, and other authors sealed my passion for horror.

Now, let’s move on to a few tips I’ve used when I create my creepy tales…

FEAR:

You first need to ask yourself, what do I fear? Define your fears and how they make you feel, then use them in your writing. Also, explore what others fear, directly and indirectly.

IMAGINATION:

This is vital to any genre of writing. Don’t be afraid to tap into this magical world. Return to your childhood and early teen years—recall what lived under your bed or in your closet. Think about the things that scared you the most (maybe made-up monsters or real ones) and capture those things in your writing.

IDEAS:

The beauty of ideas is that they can sprout from anywhere—a memory, song lyric, personal conversations, book, magazine, social media post, movie—even a commercial or a reality TV show. Think on this: Stephen King read an article years ago about telekinesis in LIFE magazine. He took two unrelated ideas—teen bullying and telekinesis—and Carrie was born.

Furthermore, he didn’t like the first few pages of Carrie and tossed them in the trash. Thank goodness that his wonderful wife dug them out and encouraged him to continue, because she wanted to know how the story would end. Well, Carrie went on to sell millions of copies. The book along with the original movie and several remakes continues to sell today. I’m sure the movie will be remade again in the future, though the original will always be my fave!

Side note~ I would love to see a series based on Carrie, especially exploring Mr. White’s special abilities and Carrie’s early milestones, and possibly featuring her step-siblings. If Carrie had never been written, then Stranger Things may not exist today or may have gone in a totally different direction.

In other words, don’t be afraid to write about what moves you or mashing eccentric ideas together, because it could turn out to be a smash hit! It’s okay to think under, over, and beyond the box.

READ:

Of course, read what you enjoy. For me it’s horror, the supernatural, and poetry. However, I’ve learned to branch out, and I also read mysteries, romance, biographies, and westerns. You’ll be surprised, my friend, where those ideas, along with your brilliant imagination, end up taking you on your writing journey. So, read everything you can. Even newspaper articles can lead to creep~tastic stories.

~BIO~

Miracle Austin is a social worker by day and a writer by night. She’s a YA/NA cross-genre hybrid author.

Doll, her debut YA/Paranormal novel, won 2nd place in the YA category in the 2016 Purple Dragonfly Awards.

She’s a Marvel/DC/Horror/Stranger Things Fan~Girl who loves attending teen book events, comic cons, and diverse book festivals.

Miracle lives in Texas with her family, and she enjoys hearing from readers.



Twitter/InstaGram: @MiracleAustin7

Facebook: Miracle Austin Author

Website: www.miracleaustin.com

Dancing in the Pale Moonlight

Moon Dancer is my favorite short story. Like Seven Floors, it received buckets of hate before it was loved.
I used to live in the city. At thirteen, my family and I moved back to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, just in time for a high school full of kids who all grew up together. I was the "City Indian." In the end, it was all right. I made awesome friends and I had the greatest time of my life.
One of my friends and I would tell scary stories to each other. One day, she told me about a centaur lurking in the woods. I'd never heard of such a thing in my life, at least as far as the reservation was concerned. Centaurs belonged in Greek Mythology, not on the reservation.

After graduation, my friend died in a car wreck the next winter. Several months later, I headed off to Brigham Young University in the worst of spirits. I graduated with only one thing in mind: to write. Short stories were beyond me, but I really wanted to build a platform. I ended up writing a halfway decent fantasy, and of course, nobody would take it. I changed its title, revamped it several times, and nothing. So I put the story away.
Almost a decade later, after I'd been in the horror business, I wanted to try fantasy again. I pulled out the story, the name which has been forgotten, and began a major re-write. This time, I had new skills. Changing the title to "Moon Dancer," I cut out several characters. By this time, the monster had migrated over to "Toni's Land." Of course "Toni's Land" got published first. It left me with a fantasy story with no monster.

While thinking, I remembered my friend's centaur. Now there was a monster "Moon Dancer" could use. I redesigned the centaur to rival what had deserted over to "Toni's Land." I renamed my characters and changed the story's premise. In the midst of all that, I added a car wreck in the middle of winter.
My friend has inspired this story, but in no way reflects her family, except maybe their sorrow at her passing.
For my friend Deidre, "Moon Dancer" is dedicated.

Seven Floors, Long Steps to Completion

My short story taking place in Hawaii has finally come out. In fact, two went live at the same time. It seems to be the trend for my writing year of 2019. "Seven Floors" and "Moon Dancer"; "Coffin Walker" and "The Cowboy Cabin"; "I See You" and "Kittylyn." There's a few more months left in the year, so let's see what happens.

"Seven Floors" is about a young Hawaiian woman who accidentally unleashes an ancient monster (one of my own making) in the building where she lives and works as a janitor. She has to get rid of it before it eats her.

My idea for the story was actually inspired by a movie called "The Raid." It's a cool martial arts foreign film about policemen who raid a tall building trying to capture a crime boss, so it's kind of like "Dredd."  A severely ill woman made a brief cameo and I fixated on her. What if her husband never came and she had to get out by herself with that war going on in the halls? She lives like on the 30th story.

"Seven Floors" has nothing to do with martial arts or crime. I thought of putting the story in Phoenix, but I was tired of writing about Arizona. I wanted to go somewhere else. All this time I'd been giving nods to my American Indian side. What about my mom's side? Let's put the story in Hawaii, in the city where she used to live.

The story spilled from my fingers and was finished in a couple of days. I drew out my monster on a piece of paper, because I didn't know what I wanted. Sometimes when I do that, creatures appear. They must lurk in my subconscious.

Now it was time to add in pigin English. While I can understand it, because my mom speaks it at home, I couldn't write it.

We called up my grandparents and they collaborated with me on the pigin English. Line by line, my mom and I transformed the dialogue from standard English to pigin. With a Hawaiian joke book on hand for the spelling, we listened to comedians from Hawaii to get my mom in the mood for pigin. Being on the mainland as long as my mom has can dampen the pigin English, but it never goes away. It just sleeps until it's called out.

At the time, my friend wrote a guest blog post on dialect. She made the point that if I write HOW it's spoken, and not necessarily how it SOUNDS, that people will hear it in their head, but can easily read it. After I read through the post, I stared at my MS in rising horror. I'd written the words how they sounded, and realized I had problems reading it. Read Scarlett's post here because it saved my life.

Now I had a new challenge: making proper spelling without destroying the pigin. Talk about pain and suffering. As the hours ticked away, I slowly turned pigin into a readable thing for those outside of Hawaii. I hope. I had a better time myself, anyway.

And after all that work, editor after editor said no. One even dissed on my pigin English. She wasn't from Hawaii, had never been there, and talked about the place like it was some savage mysterious land. Magazines screaming for ethnic variety shot my story down. Magazines in dire need of monsters told me to get lost.

I write down where I send my stories to. "Seven Floors" was on its third page. My internet was going at a snail pace and on top of it, internet rates went up. Agh!

I ran to the library, USB in hand. I had one hour before the computer kicked me off. Like mad, I sent off every story that remotely matched each magazine I pulled up. When Schlock! Magazine appeared, I stared at the stories ready to go and decided "Seven Floors." What do I have to lose?

Two weeks later I got an acceptance letter.

It was a long, tedious ride. Kind of like what Kaipo suffered as she made her way down the seven stories with the ravenous monster on her heels.

Read "Seven Floors" for free here.

Thoughts on Peter Pan

I loved the cartoon, so I decided to read the book, too. I bought that thing with a special cover, only to find out that Peter Pan was almost like a little demon. He didn't even care when Tinker Bell finally kicked the bucket. Yeah, he did the clapping thing, but fairies don't live long. So later, he was like, whatever. Who's that?


The author said he's drawn to women who haven't been married or have had children. So here I am, single as crap, and thinking about some kid lurking in my room in the middle of the night. Ew. I mean, what if just his shadow showed up? I'm allergic to things like that.


The look of Peter Pan is also in childless women's eyes. I don't have kids. The next morning I'm staring in the mirror like a freak, wondering what in the world does that mean. Is Peter Pan looking out of my eyes? I started watching women who didn't have kids, searching for that look. Dude, I don't know. Where's that creepy little kid? Or is it because I'm so close to it that I don't see it? Or did Mr. Barrie write "Peter Pan" just to creep me out? Yes, that's it exactly.

Dreams of Ilo

I said before that I had dreamed of the Grand Apwor Karijin. He's not the only one I dreamed of. In fact, I dream of my Iling characters every once in a while.
When sharing a room with the sister who does the drawings, I slept on the top bunk. One night, I sat up, feeling I had somewhere to go. I crept through the house and exited through the back door. I headed across the highway and into the forest behind my house. Once there, I found a worn road leading to the reservoir.
It was still dark, but no wolves, bears or drunks wandered around like they usually do. After a while, I smelled cooking smoke. Stepping through a stand of trees, I reached a cookout full of people. Zhin was kneeling over the fire and Vijeren was across from him. Sibare, Miranel, N'Nar, and Rilkin were talking to one another. Other people were there, too. Some were characters I knew and there were others I didn't, at least not yet. Their faces were blotted. They were having a grand time.

Zhin turned to me and held his arms out as Vijeren shouted my name. I ran to them and everybody hugged me. Zhin put me on his knee like I was a little girl. My characters told me how glad they were to see me, and asked if I had time to stay with them and eat.
I looked up at the sky and saw it turning gray. I wanted to stay so much, but I had to go home. My parents would wake up soon and be worried. So saying, I had to tell them I only came to visit, but maybe next time I would stay.
With one last hug, Zhin put me down and I walked back through the forest to my house. Nothing looked off like it does in dreams as I returned to my room. I climbed up on the bunk, lay down on my stomach and opened my eyes.
I sat up and looked around, feeling a little wistful. I didn't feel groggy the way a person does when they wake up. Sometimes on twitter, people ask, "What would your main character do if they saw you?" I don't have to wonder. I know. Maybe one day I'll go back to the reservoir and they'll take me home with them.
Find "Pariahs" in paperback and ebook on Amazon
Synopsis:
In a land of monsters and soulless creatures, there is a secluded compound terrorized by a fallen demon-killer, the Grand Apwor. He's claimed its youngest occupant Vijeren as his son. The Grand Apwor can’t be killed, he can’t be escaped, and his punishments are severe and horrific. Somehow, he knows where Vijeren is at all times.
When a law enforcer named Zhin appears like a living flame, a family war that's been sizzling for decades finally ignites. It drags Vijeren in, revealing secrets of a long-forgotten past and a family torn asunder in recesses of lost memories. Only Zhin knows how to kill the Grand Apwor, but the answer rests on the love between a father and son--something that Vijeren doesn’t have...

Nightmare in the Making: The Grand Apwor Karijin

One night, before the tribe tore down the beautiful forest in front of my house and erected some sick looking houses with hideous yellow streetlights, I dreamed I was in the city four hours away. wanting desperately to get home, I went outside and found a kiderrin waiting for me.

A kiderrin is what Ilings use as steeds on Ilo. They're huge and fast. I climbed up on my kiderrin and it rushed home. It indeed feels like riding on a massive wave.

As I got further into mountains, everything grew misty and dark. When I finally turned into my street, there was a shadowy figure in a long cloak standing in front of my house. The thing's head reached the roof of the house. The air grew colder around this figure.
Jumping off the kiderrin, I raced to my front door, always keeping an eye on the eerie figure in the mist. It watched me, too. I sped into the house where there was light everywhere, and I slammed the door shut. I told everyone about the figure, but when we looked outside, it was gone.
Many years later, I decided that the Grand Apwor needed a bigger part other than a shadowy entity that seemed to be everywhere, directing unrealistic attacks on my main characters. Design time.

The word "Nri Kryne" existed, but it was something else entirely, and it too was more of a shadowy thing. In designing Karijin's powers, I asked what exactly was he. He was Zhin's opposite. So if Zhin is an Iskerkin, then what is the opposite of an Iskerkin? A fallen Iskerkin. Everything must have its opposite. What's a fallen Iskerkin called? Suddenly, "Nri Kryne" had a place. From there, the powers reared their ugly heads.

Now the next question, what should Karijin look like? After I got rid of the Berivors looking like bigfoots, I didn't know what to do with Karijin's appearance. He was creepy. So why shouldn't he stay creepy? The lights went on, Nri Krynes cursed themselves, so Karijin can stay looking like a hairy monster.
Thrilled to the bone, I began some major re-writes. The time for publication arrived and I began brainstorming a cover. At last, I hit on the Grand Apwor facing Vijeren beneath the Blue Moon. My sister drew the concept art and I translated it into paint. When I finished, I stared in shock at what I saw.
There was the creature in my nightmare.


"For a moment, both enemies connected, but the blood refused to be one. Zhin's body exploded in raging scarlet flames as the Apwor's burned with eerie blue and black. A blinding twister of red and blue fire rocketed from their frames into the air with a deafening BOOM!"
Pariahs, prt. 2, ch. 1, p. 136
Drawing by Nicomelia BenallyConcept cover art by Nicomelia BenallyPainting by Julia Benally
Paperback and kindle available onAmazonBarnes and NobleKobo

A Fiery Soul: Zhin

Zhin was an overpowered superman who cussed like a sailor. When my brother asked why anything even happened to the group with him around, it got me thinking. I read somewhere that overpowered characters couldn't develop, grow, or be interesting. I powered him down about 80%. Since I didn't cuss, Zhin's dialogue looked like this, *$%#@! Of course I couldn't have that, so I had to get creative with his words and how he insulted people. His personality stayed the same, more or less.
Zhin used to be a doctor with all kinds of tricks up his sleeve. Now he's not, and he only knows enough medical things to get him by. Being a doctor just made no sense in the long run.
Zhin's race is Berivor, but his power is Iskerkin. That power didn't exist and neither did his entire background, which has a huge impact on Vijeren and Sibare. The Iskerkin power came to life in the bloodheart scene in the forest. His powers flowed right off my fingers and I stared at it in shock. Seriously, you can't ask how I made it up, because that just appeared.
Confession time for his race. Zhin used to be covered head to foot in fur and he was much like a bear on two legs. In fact, I called his race "Bear Men." No imagination whatsoever. I was perfectly happy with him, and he may have been in the book like that. Here's where I confess. I got hooked on that show Mountain Monsters. One day, it introduced what the guys in the show called a Yahoo. They had a picture of it: a bigfoot-like creature with black fur and glowing eyes. I gasped in horror. Zhin looked like a bigfoot, a Yahoo, a Yeti, whatever you'd like to call it. Who in their right mind wants that in the family? I certainly didn't.
I jumped up and began a major character redesign on him and his entire race. The race name became Berivor. The only thing remaining from that yeti beast were the ears, claws and feet. All else became human.
The challenge for my sister when drawing Zhin was giving him his own look, and yet giving him a family resemblance to Vijeren, Sibare and Rilkin. I think she did a genius job.
"Grasping Zhin's arm, he seized his soul to rip it from his body. Had Zhin been anyone else, he would have instantly died, but he had a fiery Iskerkin soul.
As soon as Shehaz touched his spirit, it inflamed. Fire exploded from Zhin's body and consumed Shehaz's frame like a sweltering summer wind. The skin of his fingers peeled back, revealing white bone that blackened and cracked. The crevices glowed as if full of embers. Shrieking in anguish, Shehaz jerked his skeleton hands away and collapsed in a corner."
"Pariahs" pt. 2, ch. 6, p. 172
Drawing by Nicomelia Benally
Order your copy of "Pariahs" here on AmazonAlso available on Kobo and Barnes and Noble

A deadly little sunbeam: Rilkin

Rilkin started out as a...I don't know. He was just a character who showed up with a serious presence. I think he came in around page 600 in the notebook. I liked him so much that I put him in the beginning as a school teacher who hated kids. He only liked Vijeren because Vijeren didn't annoy him. Pretty soon, it was like, Rilkin's not a school teacher.
I thought maybe he's undercover...for what? I made up a situation that didn't work, but it transformed into the main conflict that it is today, and a law enforcer Rilkin remained. Even though I was all over the place, the idea of Rilkin's occupation was one of the first permanent pieces of "Pariahs."
I had several variations of Rilkin's personality, obviously the one where he hated kids, and now he loves them. He used to be a strict person with no humor. Now he's the exact opposite, and I like him better that way.
Lots of people on Ilo think he's baby cute. What do you think? Does he look like he can infiltrate dangerous circles and kill people with relative ease?
Now that Rilkin had detected his contact, he thrust the curtain aside with a great big "SATHILLA!" Sunlight shone in behind him, his energy flooding the compartment. -Pariahs, chapter 4,  p. 38Drawing by Nicomelia Benally
Buy "Pariahs" here on Amazon.