You know those crazy moments where the light comes on and you learn something new about yourself? A few years back a person asked me (nicely), how I could write some of my darker tales and still remain in the light myself. We had a good discussion, and the question evolved of how I can pen darker emotions, darker beings, things that are scary.

That made me really, really think. After all, if I’m a good person, how can I write about horrible things? How come some of my very best stories (in my humble opinion) are the ones where I conveyed the most wretched of emotions? Where I showed readers my nastiest serial killer ever (the dude in TREACHEROUS WISHES Ellora’s Cave www.ellorascave.com) from inside that serial killer’s point of view. Yeah, this guy rivaled even Jack The Ripper, who is in DARK, DEADLY LOVE  (Samhain Publishing www.samhainpublishing.com).

After a little bit of thinking, the light bulb came on.

With a flash bang I suddenly understood why I write about that shadowy side. I know that without the dark there is no light. I also know that I love showing how good overcomes evil, and how true love honestly exists.

I explained that if I tried to write stories that were straight traditional romances, romances that sometimes didn’t deal with things as twisted and dastardly, that I couldn’t hook into the story as readily. This isn’t to say that I’ve never written lighter stories. Case in point, my contemporary romance MEANT TO BE (Cerridwen Press www.cerridwenpress.com). But there had to be something utterly compelling to me about writing that story.

Still, to stop writing about the paranormal, the serial killer, the danger that can be out there…well, that would just about kill me. It’s in my blood. Writing paranormal and suspense elements is part of who I am, built into the fiber of my being. I love to read it and I must write it. Dang it, I like a good scare and while I’m dipping the reader in hot romance, I want to sometimes scare the dickens out of them, too.

I believe that when an author is hooked in to their story and there’s something in the tale they’re trying to convey that matters to them, it shows. When an author is into what is called “deep point of view,” the author is into the head of that character, feeling what that character feels. Those are my very best writing moments.

So what does that say about me when I’m relishing writing from the bad guy’s point of view? Not sure. Perhaps I’m like the actors who cherish that juicy part of playing the evil person. I’m exploring a side we all have, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I definitely enjoyed writing the evil vampire who is featured in my vampire trilogy, DEEP IS THE NIGHT (DARK FIRE, NIGHT WATCH, HAUNTED SOULS at Ellora’s Cave.)

In the near future but possibly not until late 2011, I’m going to write another set of stories that lean toward a horror/gothic romance sensibility. They call to me in the night. Write me! Write me! 🙂 Wait, I have that other twisted, weird trilogy to finish first. Ah, so many ideas.

It wasn’t until I had this more recent conversation with my friends that I understood that the dark side has always been with me. Since the time I was a little kid I’ve always liked watching the spooky stuff, and I still do. My mother didn’t restrict what types of programs I could watch when I was a child, nor did she restrict what I could read. In my case, I think that was a good thing, because I already had a huge imagination and loved reading so much. For that I’ll always be thankful to Mom.

There are just as many people who don’t enjoy reading about the dark side as there are people who do. Do you enjoy reading about the dark side? And if you do, what do you like about it? Give it some thought. Wait…what was that? Was that a creepy, creaky door opening in the dark places of your mind? I’ll pick a winner at the end of the day to receive a trade paperback from my backlist.

Suspenseful, erotic, edgy, thrilling, romantic, adventurous.  All these words describe Denise A. Agnew’s award-winning novels.  Romantic Times Book Review Magazine called her romantic suspense novels “top-notch” and she’s received a TOP PICK from Romantic Times Book Review Magazine in erotic romance. Denise’s record proves that with paranormal, time travel, romantic comedy, contemporary, historical, erotic romance, and romantic suspense novels under her belt, she enjoys writing about a diverse range of subjects. The fact she has lived in Colorado, Hawaii, and the United Kingdom has given her a lifetime of ideas.  Her experiences with archaeology and archery have crept into her work, as well as numerous travels through the UK and Ireland. Denise lives in Arizona with her real life hero, her husband.  Visit Denise’s website at www.deniseagnew.com to read excerpts, enter contests and find links to her on Facebook, Twitter and My Space.

First, I’d love to thank Cynthia for allowing me to be a guest on her blog today.

I have this thing that I like. For as far back as I can remember I enjoy movies, books or tales of spook or horror. Tales that make you stay up at night listening for that bump in the night. Make you pulse pound and you wonder what is around the next corner. All the things that make you shiver. I love to shiver.

In my opinion there are different degrees of shivering.

Slight shiver – this is the one, which only gives me a little thrill. A little tingle that feathers my hair.

Body Shiver – the body shakes, your heart pounds, sweat breaks out and you start looking around to see what is lurking waiting for you.

Shiver so hard my teeth rattle and I drop on my knees – this is when you hands shake, heart feels like it is coming out of your chest, you are sweating and wondering if that sound you heard is for real.

I can go on and on about all sort of shivers but I’ll leave at the few above. When you tell someone to make me shiver it can be taken many way. It can be sexy, scary or spooky. All those shivers can encompass so many emotions. One shiver can tell a story of how a person is feeling. The movement in it self is it’s own story. It’s amazing how much you can learn from a shiver.

Being October and the month of spooky I am looking for the scare me type. This is when there are lots of scary movies on TV. The time I pull out my favorite horror and thriller books. When I look forward to the decoration and so on. In all of them I am looking for that shiver that makes your hair stand on edge. Then you laugh in that uneasy way. Put your hands over your eyes and watch with fingers sprawled. And wonder why I let myself be scared like this.

I love it. After all it’s all about making me shiver.

CONTEST: Share with me things that make you shiver. One commenter will win a chance to choose one pdf download of any one book from my available e-book backlist. One winner chosen from the comments below! Contest will end on 10/25/10 at 11:59pm EST. I’ll post the winner at the top of this blog post on 10/26/10. Be sure to check back.

Good luck!

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Taige Crenshaw is a multi-published author with books available at Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Liquid Silver Books, Loose Id, and Total-E-Bound. Taige has been enthralled with the written word from time she picked up her first book. It wasn’t long before she started to make up her own tales of romance. With novels set in today, in alternate dimensions, or in the future she writes with adventure, fun sassy heroine’s, and sexy hero’s. Always hard at work creating new and exciting places Taige can be found curled up with a hot novel with exciting characters when she is not creating her own. Join her in the fun, frolic, interesting people and far reaches of the world in her novels. You can find out more about Taige at her website: http://www.taigecrenshaw.com or blog: http://www.taigecrenshaw.com/blog.

Thanks to the uber fabulous Cynthia for inviting me to blog during this wickedly fun time of year!  I love Halloween.  Something about the cooler weather after such harsh temperatures and 100% humidity for several months.

I can still vividly recall walking down my street along with dozens of other kids as we went from house to house trick-or-treating.  There were parents holding flashlights and making sure no one ran off, but not once did I think anything bad could – or would – happen.  It was a night full of fun and scares, a night when things that go bump in the night are supposed to be out.

And every year my mother dressed me up in the same thing – a gypsy costume used with whatever we had around the house.  I loved it at first, but by the third year I was so tired of it I refused to go out unless we could do something different.  She gave in, but she wasn’t happy.

To her, costumes were meant to be something to put together from what was on hand, not store bought.

Fast forward to today…

Boy, how things have changed.  I don’t like my kids going trick-or-treating to houses and people I don’t know.  I’ve read the newspaper and seen the reports on TV.  I know the freaks out there.

As much as I want my kids to have fun, I want them to be safe.

But I think it would be really neat if my kiddos could know what it was like for me during Halloween.  Walking along the semi-darkened streets with my friends all dressed up, seeing if our neighbors could tell who was who beneath the costumes, and most of all seeing how much candy we could get.

What is your favorite Halloween memory?

I’ll be giving away a copy of the second book in my Dark Sword series, FORBIDDEN HIGHLANDER to a commenter.

To find out more about me, check www.DonnaGrant.com.  To find out more about the Dark Sword series, see pics of the Warriors, take the quiz, search the characters, or see the book trailers, check www.donnagrant.com/darksword.

hugs,

D

First up, thanks so much to Cynthia for inviting me to stop by!

When I was very young, I saw a book at the library called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The whole concept scared me so badly that not only didn’t I read the silly thing, I was completely freaked out for weeks. Eventually when I read it, years later, gathering my courage like a blanket around my shoulders, I was heartily disappointed. Whether or not it would’ve scared my younger self was no longer an issue. All I knew was that the build-up of fear hadn’t been worth it.

Years later I became somewhat of a daredevil when it came to scary things. Roller coasters, monster movies, bad boys on motorcycles… Yeah, that was me. I even up and moved to England for a year, all alone, and dragged home a husband. The immortality of youth made it easy.

But all that changed when I had my first daughter in late October of 2002. My fears morphed into very concrete, very pinpoint terrors that focused on her well-being. Suddenly movies like 21 Grams, in which Naomi Watts loses two young daughters to a car crash, became my A-No-1 horror scenario. Unlike deciding one day that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark isn’t so scary after all, I don’t think this particular child-based fear is going anywhere. Add to it a second daughter the following year, and you have the key to breaking me into cold sweats.

The crazy reality of life is terrifying enough, which is probably why I don’t go for scary movies that are possible. Saw, Hostel, and other “kidnapped by random crazy dude” tales just leave me frozen. It could happen. No thanks. I have enough horror show possibilities in my head without heaping on newer, more grisly images.

Instead I much prefer the good old fashioned monster movies that used to scare me as a child. Give me Aliens or Pitch Black any day, where people blow up mindless creatures. Sure favorite characters might be lost, but that’s the glory of well-crafted, suspenseful storytelling. It makes me feel something real even in an outrageous scenario. That little safety cushion of knowing it could never happen to me and mine that keeps it from being too scary to endure.

So bring on 28 Days Later and The Descent. Give me Dawn of the Dead and The Ring. They don’t bug me. But if you want to watch a gross-fest like The Hills Have Eyes or a family rip-your-hear-out tearjerker like Reservation Road or The Ice Storm, I’m afraid I’ll have other plans!

And all of this leads me to a little discussion about the nature of personal fear. I’ve identified mine. All the rest? Like going for what I want with regard to my career, or putting myself out there professionally? How is that scary? It’s certainly not harm coming to my family. Maybe that realization–the difference between real and imagined fears–helped me finally make a concerted effort toward publication. I started seriously in 2006, about three years after my second daughter was born.

Because compared to any of that, what do I have to lose? Another rejection…poor sales…a professional setback… None of it phases me anymore. I guess in the end, any reservations I had about those terrors became as harmless as the book I couldn’t read as a child. I grew up, got some perspective, and conquered those fears.

What about you? Anything terrify you now that didn’t before? Or fears you used to harbor that have since moved on? I’d love to know what makes you hide your eyes! I’ll draw a random commenter to win a copy of my latest, SONG OF SEDUCTION, available as a digital download from Carina Press. It’s all about people who face their biggest fears…and no monsters or crazy killers in sight.