Inspirations for Creepy

I love creepy. The spookier the better. In trying to figure out what to write next, I decided to give the Cobalt world a break and work on something dark and eerie (like Cobalt wasn't?). I'm still working out the details, and trying to decide between two different story ideas that are taking shape.

Like many people, I'm inspired by other stories, music, and imagery. The following are a few of my favorite spooky inspirations. For some reason, I find myself really looking forward to Halloween now.

Neil Gaiman's Coraline is just like an old-fashioned ghost story complete with nightmarish illustrations. The movie didn't disappoint either. Would have scared the crap out of me as a kid.

I just finished reading this one. The Ocean at the End of the Lane had its creepy moments, but was, overall, a beautiful story written by an amazing author.

I read this book as an adult and had nightmares. I can't see the upcoming movie being as creepy as the stories in this book and its sequels, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.

Stolen Babies knows how to do creepy when it comes to music and costumes. Heavily influenced by Oingo Boingo and Tim Burton, this band brings graveyards or nightmare carnivals to mind. Grubbery is about a couple of hillbilly cannibals who get a dose of karma when they find out their dinner doesn't like being dug out of their graves. :)

One of my friends on Facebook posted this great link on a gorgeous photo project that brings Grimms' fairy tales to life, and provides more than enough inspiration for surreal settings and spooky forests.

And then...

Like her sister before her, this creepy 8-year-old left a bunch of scary photos on my phone that she edited herself.

She also touched up this one of her sister, which is creepy in a different way.

Do you have any other spooky or disturbing books, movies, or pictures to add to my list?

Meanwhile, Cobalt is on an editor's desk awaiting approval or rejection and my fingers are cramping up from weeks of crossing them. Cross some of yours for me too, please!

Steamphone Shenanigans (Steam Powered Giraffe fans will see what I did there)

Just like Lia's thing is to troll my manuscript, it seems Emily's thing is to leave all kinds of crazy pictures on my phone. She'll frequently steal borrow my phone for Snapchat and Instagram, and I never know what I'm going to see when I get it back. The following are a few of my recent favorites:

Oh, and hey guys, look what I did to my new leather phone case! I glued some gears on it and called it steampunk. It's the closest I've come to steampunk in freaking forever.

Our 2013 in pictures

Blogging the other day was so much fun I decided to do it again! I thought I'd make some kind of year in review thing. No weighty resolutions, nothing fancy - just a buttload of pictures of memorable things that happened in 2013. But some funny things first...

A friend sent this to me from this fun blog. I died. Because everyone loves grammarrrrtically correct pirates.

Don't you hate it when Michael Buble messes with your presents?

And now. Lots of fun things happened this past year that I didn't have my camera handy for, such as when we went to Lagoon and I decided to put my phone in a locker after it fell out of my pocket on a roller coaster (thank goodness it was picked up by a park employee). Most of the time, however, I obnoxiously have my phone on hand to get lots of embarrassing pictures.

Like when I had too many kids to fit on the church steps on Easter.

Or when the kids did weird things at a museum.

We found strange but friendly livestock in our neighborhood.

And snakes!

Someone finally got a job and made something of her life.

And someone got really weird outside the mall.

I turned the big 4-0...

And we had a couple other important birthdays. :)

The cats discovered they're comfortable to sit on.

And I discovered a pretty (but uncomfortable) couch for $16 at Savers!

I lost weight (but not too much).

The girls freaked out over meeting this famous YouTuber in Salt Lake City (same time as the Lagoon trip), mostly known for his hilarious life stories.

We went on a midnight hike and picnic in the desert...

And brought home a cool pet!

Some of us suffered horrendous injuries.

And Emily kind of went insane or something.

We got lost in a lot of corn mazes. I mean A LOT. I didn't know there was so much corn in Idaho, I thought it was supposed to be potatoes?

And we geeked out over some pretty awesome movies.

All in all, 2013 was a pretty good year, and I'm excited to see what 2014 will bring!

While I was looking up a good Olan Rogers video to link to, I found this new video he posted about his Eat A Slice With Me tour. Wow. He's just an amazing guy. Apparently our part of the tour was a bit of a turning point for him, which he starts mentioning about four minutes in, and there are clips of the hours-long line we stood in. Worth every minute.

And now I'd better stop procrastinating on an assignment that's due in the morning! Have a wonderful, happy new year, all you nice peeps. :)

There are Steampunks in Reno!!

No funny last Monday because EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED and EVERYONE IS IN TOWN, so I've been a busy mama. But I wanted to share a fun thing the kids and I did last Friday. My friend Erica Mulkey (known by her performing name as Unwoman, and she's playing with Amanda Palmer in San Francisco this week, epic squee!) was in Reno, and she put on a lovely show for the local steampunks. So I dusted off my corset, the kids borrowed some of my clothes, and off we went... There really need to be more of "my people" here to attract more talent like Erica; on the other hand, I kinda like us being a rarity, as the shows are so affordable whenever they do happen to drift this way.

I got a few clips of her playing, although most of it had to be edited out because of my phone camera's bad sound quality. Oh, look at my little dorks jumping around in the background!

And then we went to Walmart afterward, and a little bit of this happened:

So speaking of Unwoman, Alyssa and I interviewed her a while back on Behind the Steam, in case you missed it...

And speaking of Behind the Steam, we just put up a review for Abney Park's newest album Ancient World, which is one of the last podcasts with crappy audio (I think we still have one more recorded with our old equipment) since I have a new mic and Alyssa has better recording software. We recently did a really fun (meaning bugshiz insane) interview with an overseas steampunk personality, and another one with one of my favorite bands, and we have a few more scheduled that have me fangirling all over the place!

Listen to two of my favorite songs off Ancient World and you'll see why I was so excited to review the album!

Oh, what's that...? I have to go make dinner now? I have to do laundry and clean the house? But I was so happy here! *sigh* Real life calleth. I'm going to be in Boise next week seeing my mom's new house, so I probably won't be blogging until I get back. Until then, give mama some comments! Done anything weird lately?