Shaun Horton's Blog, page 12

Class 1: The Delivery (Part 2)

Hope you all enjoyed Part 1 last week. Click here if you haven't read it yet.  There's a link at the bottom of there to bring you back here, or you can just click Back on your browser (probably).

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The call came in just before 2200 hours. Wendy had just been dressing for bed when Captain Talassy buzzed her. She got her fatigues and her personal weapon as requested in almost record time, even for her.
Now she stood next to the other m...

Class 1: The Delivery (Part 1)

Master Sergeant Wendy Hallowell stood at attention in the back of the room. Four other people stood around the table in the center. Two Sergeants First Class, another Master Sergeant, and a Captain. Reclining in a chair at the far end was a man in a black suit. He sneered at the assembled military standing before him, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses.
"Upon your most recent promotions, you indicated you were interested in...special...assignments. That's what this is. I'm here to tell you ev...

31 Posts of Monsters: Ropen

It seems like people are predisposed to seeing things in the sky. Be it giant birds, angels, UFO's, or just about anything you can think of. So it should be no surprise when people claim to have seen flying dinosaurs, or Pterosaurs. In parts of Papua New Guinea, they see a strange light in the sky at night, which has become one of these creatures of legend.

Name: Ropen

Size: While sizes are hard to come by, considering most sightings are at a distance and are mostly the light the creature emits...

Closing out 2014

Whew. Another year come and gone. It's been long, and it's flown by. Some things have changed, some haven't.

Unfortunately, I have to say my writing has been a little sporadic. I've dropped the ball on my blog, and I've taken my sweet time revising and editing Hannah, while getting little done on any new works. That said, I haven't been completely idle. I put out a trio of short stories at the end of June in the form of Paths: Three Short Horror Stories. As well, at the beginning of November,...

Happy Holidays!

Christmas is on Thursday, so I'll make this pretty quick. I'm sure everyone still has shopping, wrapping, baking, and traveling to do for the holidays.

Some of you know I had my work Cenote free to download for the first day of winter on Sunday. I hope you grabbed one if you hadn't. Even so, it's still only $0.99 on Kindle.

Anyway, while I didn't exactly give away a hundred free copies, the giveaway was a great success in other ways. The short story got it's first review on Amazon, 4 stars even...

Creating a Monster: The Silver

So, my book Class 5 has been out now for over a year, and it's collected it's fair share of good reviews since then. Quite a few have pointed out my somewhat original alien creature, the Silver, as the man in black named it.

I do take a little bit of pride in the alien creature I created for this story, although I'll be the first to admit it's not the most original of creations. The only original thing might be how everything is combined. Since my post of The Hungry was so popular, I thought I...

NaNoWriMo and the best part about it.

Okay. I got some explaining to do. I've been slacking off on my blog again and that is unacceptable.

It's November for crying out loud, there's so much going on there is no reason for it. Thanksgiving. NaNoWriMo. Not to mention the two-year anniversary of my blog here.

I've also released a new novelette this past week. Reception has been pretty good already, so be sure you check that out if you haven't already!



A vacation to Mexico is supposed to be about sun, sand, and drunken debauchery. It's...

31 Posts of Monsters: Megalodon

The monsters discovered in fossils have always enthralled us, from T-Rex to Velociraptors, to Terror Birds and Saber-toothed Cats. Most of them, despite a few disparate reports, are pretty much fully accepted as being extinct. Some predators from the past have captured our imagination so much, though, that we can't help but imagine them still roaming the shadows in the darker, and deeper, places of the world.

Name: Megalodon

Size: Estimates range from 50 feet, all the way up to 90 feet in lengt...

31 Posts of Monsters: Jersey Devil

Before I even get started today, I'm going to point you up to the Giveaways page. I have a Kindle Countdown on Class 5 starting at 8:00 AM on Wednesday, and Paths: Three Short Horror Stories will be free to download this weekend. So be sure to check out and take advantage of these deals if you haven't before.

So, originally, I said I wasn't going to touch on supernatural creatures for this series. I then figured out there really aren't that many different types of cryptids. Sea monsters, Sasqu...

And there...dangling bloody from the door handle....was THE HOOK!

Seriously, can I get a show of hands? How many people actually remember THAT old campfire tale? 


That's not what I'm talking about today though. I'm talking about a different kind of hook. The writing kind.

In writing terms, the hook is the first line, or paragraph that catches your reader's attention and draws them in. It makes them want to read the rest of the story.

Now, despite what some authors think about hooks. I think you're okay with a little leeway. After all, nobody is going to r...