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On June 16th, the Many Shades blog will be closed.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Great Writing Tools & Halloween


You all know how I look around for the latest and greatest writing tools to help us all be better writers...well...I’ve found another one.

The other day on my FF&P loop, one of the people there was talking about a program called Schrivener. The program sounded fantastic because it had a storyboard option with what appeared to be post-its all over it. The cool thing was you could rearrange those post-its any way you wanted. So, I hopped on over only to find that this particular piece of software was for a Mac. Imagine that...cool writing software...and it’s for a Mac.

Now don’t get me wrong, Macs are great and if I was a rich and famous author I would probably have one. But I’m not. I live in a PC household and it will probably stay that way for a while. I then went back to my group and commented about this. At that point I was directed to a program called Write It Now. This program is one of the most inexpensive, wonderful writing tools I have ever seen. It can basically help you with all your character charts, storyboards and anything else necessary to plan your novel. It even has a word processor but I’ll stick to Word for now.

Still, the abundance of tools for us seems absolutely fantastic. Another good point is you get it for a free thirty day trial. Once that period is over, you pay $39.95 or just delete it off your machine. Here’s the link so you all can see just how good this software really is: http://www.ravensheadservices.com/index.php


Saturday is Halloween and this is one of my favorite times of the year. I love all the scary things that they put on TV to get our attention. Syfy has the 31 Days of Halloween where they put some scary movie on every day. History has been abundant in their attention of Vlad Dracul as well as some really scary people in history. Now those are the ones that scare me since they were true!

Even Animal Planet go into the act with a two hour werewolf special. This was a departure from their regular fare and I was quite intrigued as it was presented in almost a movie fashion. I only got to see a few minutes of it as I flipped through the stations as I had it set to record in the middle of the night. I’ll let you all know just how it turned out.

So, if you like those scary, shape shifting, sometimes weird creatures...then this is the time of year for you! I love the fact that a lot of our scariest things are based upon weird and bizarre truths. Dracula, werewolves and yetis are but a few.

So here are the questions of the week: what scary thing do you like best? Is it based on truth?

Here’s mine: My favorite all time scary movie is Alien. I will always remember that last scene where Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is saying to herself, ‘Lucky, lucky, lucky.’ Yeah, right. LOL! And it is my understanding that this creature was based upon a much smaller parasite...the bot fly. Look them up, they are horrible. Now this may or may not be true as I heard it in a sci-fi convention years BUT I can understand if it is.

Your turn......I can’t wait to see your answers.

Last week’s winner of a copy of Shopping Spree is J. Rose Allister...congratulations! Next week you can win a FREE copy of Subtle Invasion, probably the scariest thing I have because it’s about alien abduction. And not the fun kind either.

See you next week! Have a great one!

Lynn

13 comments:

SiNn said...

im all for scary gore and fear unfortunatly holliwood has tamed down gore and fear because its not PC for some people i have to say I love real scary stories and events taht are so chilling makes you think oh wow that could of been me

Erin Sinclair said...

I can't stand horror/gore stuff. Give me a good thriller, keep you on the edge of your seat, don't let you breathe until the credits role kind of book, movie, play.

Alfred Hitchcock type stuff is my favorite, no one did it better than him. I love the unpredictable, what's going to happen next nail biters. I love mysteries especially if you're not sure if there is a supernatural or paranormal influence to it.

Erin

s7anna said...

I can't really watch gory or scary movies but there are a few that I'll watch while I'm hiding behind a sofa cushion :P
*Queen of the Damned
*Blade trilogy
*Underworld & Underworld Evolution

Happy Reading!!!
Anna Shah Hoque
s7anna@yahoo.ca

Lynn Crain said...

Ooo, SiNn, you sound like me. I love some of the horror flicks coming out. But they really have to have a story to them. In my eyes, there is nothing like a good horror flick.

Lynn

Lynn Crain said...

Erin,

I like them both. But like I said, they have to have a story and the gore has to be there for a reason. I just don't like slasher stuff to see the blood. Had too much of that in real life to get a kick out of it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynn

Lynn Crain said...

Anna,

I love those movies that you mentioned. THose are of the Urban Fantasy variety and I can't seem to get enough of them.

You'd probably like 'Blood and Chocolate' and I think the other one I like is called 'Doomsday' but not sure. They have both been running a lot on the cable stations recently.

Thanks for stopping by.

Lynn

s7anna said...

Hey Lynn,
I'm definitely going to have to check out Blood and Chocolate as well as Doomsday...thnx for the recommendations :)

booklover0226 said...

I think I prefer scary books. I read this one book, years ago and can't recall the title, which made me scream!

The book was about a detective in 1800's England. He's investigating fake séances and was present at one. Suddenly, his cover was blown and he's being chased by men in hooded robes. The detective jumps into a carriage and as it's pulling away, one of the leaps on and hangs on to the door. The detective tries to push him off and accidentally pushed his hood back. The man's eyes and lips were stitched shut!

And the screaming began......and it was me!

Sheesh, I need to find that book....

Thanks,
Tracey D

Lynn Crain said...

You are very welcome, Anna!

I just love those movies and since it's the time of year...LOL!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynn

Lynn Crain said...

Tracey,

I love scary books too! I am a Stephen King fan from way back and I remember I could not finish the book It.

I won't pick it up to this day and I've read a lot of scary stuff from the guy. But not that one.

Go figure.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynn

SiNn said...

Lynn i thought i wa sthe only one who hasnt finished reading It all the way threw i got half wy was scared stupid and hid under the covers with the lights on i HATE clowns to this day yet for some reason i like the movie lol Kings classic and i agree the movie need a good story line yet im sucha horror junky ill sit threw a boring movie line

and i love horror books too

Celia Jade said...

Although I'm not into horror and thrillers in general, I would say that Alien is one of my favorite scary movies and well done.

Celia

Lynn Crain said...

Me too, Celia!

I just love it.

Lynn

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