WEIRD WEDNESDAY

Guess this guy had a perfect tattoo for the back of the bald spot at the back of his head.

Liking My Author Page on Amazon

If you have read my books and liked them, please like my author's page on Amazon if you can.

Supernatural Friday: Monsters Don't Exist

Enjoy this original poem of mine. It is copyrighted by me, so just share the link with friends, not the poem. Thank you.

Monsters Don’t Exist

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Mother said that monsters didn’t exist

That they came from fast food or scary movies.

She lied!

And kept lying when the monster came that night

He instructed Daddy to change and attack,

To rip her throat out and tear out her heart.

Her eyes pleading as she screamed,

“Run! Don’t let the monsters catch you!”

But I didn’t run,

Why would I?

Then the monster held out its clawed paw to me,

And I took it, asking, “Can we play?”

He called me his dear child, the promised one,

“I’ll teach you all I know, how to do what I do,”

He said, “Just as the one before me taught me.”

And so among the fires and slaughter we went,

I skipped beside him, only stopping

To play catch with bodiless heads.

When we left that place near to morning

What remained of the township right behind us

Inhuman sheep leaving for desolate pastures.

Happy First Day of Summer

What are signs of summer? Temperatures rise. The water levels in ponds, lakes, and rivers drop. Lightning bugs brighten the night sky. Nature’s efforts in the spring to fully bloom prove fruitful as the green leaves of various trees shake and rattle in the cool summer breezes and flowers grace our gardens. Summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere on June 20, 7:09 P.M. EDT.

The timing of the solstice each year depends on when the Sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator. This always happens either June 20 or June 21 in North America, though it depends on the time zone, too.

The word solstice came from the Latin solstitium, from sol (sun) and stitium (to stop), reflecting the fact that the Sun appears to stop at this time. This also happens again at the winter solstice.

In temperate regions, the Sun rises higher in the sky throughout the day, and when its rays strike Earth at a more direct angle, this causes the efficient warming called summer. In the winter, just the opposite occurs: The Sun is at its southernmost point and is low in the sky. The rays strike the Northern Hemisphere at an oblique angle and create feeble winter sunlight.

The Sun hangs overhead at its most northern point at "high-noon" on the summer solstice. This then creates more sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere on this day then any other of the year.

Summer Folklore and Verse:

Deep snow in winter, tall grain in summer.–Estonian proverb

When the summer birds take their flight, goes the summer with them.

If it rains on Midsummer's Eve, the filbert crops will be spoiled.–Unknown

One swallow never made a summer.

Easterly winds from May 19 to the 21 indicate a dry summer.

If there are many falling stars during a clear summer evening, expect thunder. If there are none, expect fine weather.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: WEIRD FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

The one person with the mask--I heard of protecting your skin against the sun, but really?

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL DADS

Hope all fathers have a great day today.

Supernatural Friday: Scary, Dark Young Adult Fiction

What kind of Young Adult horror/paranormal do you like to read? Or children’s or middle grad paranormal fiction? Is it something like Twilight (which by the way, I cannot get into), or darker, even end of the world stuff, with zombies or monstrous vampires, werewolves, or even worse monsters? As that is currently what I am working on, a YA paranormal (with romance-sorry, guys), where the apocalypse is coming, I figured a good topic for Supernatural Friday today. My monsters are demons and there are angels, too.

YA stuff I’ve grown up, included Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle. That had been dark—sorts—though also science fiction and fantasy in nature. If you never read it, I advise to do so as a summer read. There are three more in the aeries after it, too.  There are also a couple of books by Ray Bradbury that are YA—sorts—Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Halloween Tree, that anyone can enjoy, just as I did years ago. For years after those, it seemed that there weren’t too many par normal YA being read much, not until Harry Potter brought kids and yes, adults too, into the fold.

Young Adult is where you can become a kid again, with that innocence and wonder that is prevalent in Ray Bradbury’s stories. Only a young kid or a teenager can find the right magic to battle the monsters. There’s something about innocence and wonder that all of us need to see and feel again. As I work on my own novel, I summon my “inner youth,” so I can make the wonder believable.

Books I recommend to Read this Summer:

Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

The Wolves of Mercy Falls serie by Maggie Steifvator

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

All of the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling

Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1)  by Christopher Paolini (okay, high fantasy, but I love dragons)

Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher (science fiction)

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Any Rl. Stine book

There is so much more, but this is a starting point. Anyone wants to, leave a comment with me titles and the authors in them, as suggestions for others who read this post.

HAPPY SUMMER READING!

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

Really? He couldn't have parked down below?

Supernatural Friday: Tribute to a Dreamer of Halloween, October, and Martian Landscapes.

Ray Bradbury

August 22, 1920 -June 6, 2012

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

~Ray Bradbury

 

 

Just a few days ago, a great teller of fantastic tales passed away, leaving us for that October Country beyond. When I heard the news, I was in shock, One of the authors I read since I was younger, who was one of those who inspired to keep on writing, no longer stepped on the ground of the same planet as me?  Memories of the few times I met him at conventions back in California assaulted me. No doubt now, he is able to walk along the Martian canals and see the planet with his own spirit that he told tales of in The Martian Chronicles. He will be able to be a boy again in that distant October Country, visit the mysterious carnival come to town, and climb that Halloween tree. Visit the vampires. See if the Illustrated Man still traveled the dusty roads. Taste dandelion wine again with angels.

He left us a legacy of stories that will never grow old, ones we can read over and over. I plan to read them again this summer in his memory. What better tribute I figure. He painted pictures for me with his words. Hook me with a hook better than any hook used by a young boy or girl going fishing along a creek on a hot summer afternoon. There’s comfort in his tales for me. A belief I can travel anywhere. That fantastical things do exist. Most of all, he pushed me even further to pen my own tales. I hope that one day when I step upon my own path to that October Country, I too will have left behind a legacy of words for others to cherish. It’s the only real tribute I feel I should give to him as a thank you for writing for us readers. For entertaining me and others.

Thank you, Ray Bradbury, you will never be forgotten. You will always be there with the others who inspired me years ago: Edgar Allan Poe, HP. Lovecraft, Anne McCaffrey, JRR Tolkien, and Shirley Jackson, plus others.  Most of all, thank you for giving us all the gift of your imagination; a most precious gift indeed.

My Story Bottled Spirits Released on BuzzMag.Com!

Yay! Today my dark fantasy short story, “Bottled Spirits” premiered on BuzzyMag, a . You can read it free at http://is.gd/xfAoAo

Please do leave a comment as the zine likes to see that.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

A Japanese cycle--perculiar to me.

Supernatural Friday: Vampires: Part 4

Most vampire scholars focus on the cultural roots of vampire lore, others have looked to physical origins. There is no scientific evidence of actual vampires, but there are a number of real medical conditions that might result in vampiric behavior or appearance.

One of these "vampire diseases" is porphyria. It is a rare disease, characterized by irregularities in production of heme, an iron-rich pigment in blood. People with the more severe forms of porphyria are highly sensitive to sunlight, experience severe abdominal pain and may suffer from acute delirium. One possible treatment for porphyria that might have been used in the past was to drink blood. This was suppose to correct the imbalance in the body, even though there's no clear evidence that this even did the trick. Some porphyria sufferers do have reddish mouths and teeth, due to irregular production of the heme pigment. It is hereditary, so there may have been concentrations of sufferers in certain areas throughout history.

A more likely physical root of vampirism is catalepsy. It’s a peculiar physical condition associated with epilepsy, schizophrenia and other disorders that affect the central nervous system. During a cataleptic episode, a person essentially freezes up. The muscles grow rigid, the body becomes very stiff, and the heart rate and respiration slow down. A person with acute catalepsy could very well be mistaken for a corpse.

Doctors have the knowledge and tools today that they can determine whether or not someone is alive. In the past, people decided based only on appearance. Embalming was unknown in most of the world until just recently, so a body would have been buried in the ground as is. A cataleptic episode can last many hours, even days, allowing enough time for a burial. When the person came to, he or she might have been able to dig out of their grave and return home. Others who couldn’t get out of their coffin; many skeletons have been discovered, showing they’ve awaken and scratches gouged in the coffin. If the person did suffer from a psychological disorder, such as schizophrenia, he or she might have exhibited the strange and disturbing behavior associated with vampires. Like currently, the man in Florida who attacked another and began to eat his face. Today’s society says zombie, but in days of vampire legends, vampires not only drank blood, but ate flesh too.  All the signs of an insane person.

The behavior of actual corpses might have suggested vampirism as well. After death, fingernails and hair continue to grow because the surrounding skin recedes and this may give the impression of life. Gases in the body expand, extending the abdomen, as if the body had gorged itself. If a decomposing corpse was staked, it could very well rupture, draining all sorts of fluids. Of course, this would be considered evidence that the corpse had been feeding on the living.

Maybe this might have fueled a fear of the undead; most root causes of vampire lore are due most likely to the psychological rather than physical. One kind of psychological is Renfield’s syndrome, named after Bram Stoker’s character in Dracula. Clinical vampirism is a recognizable, although rare, clinical entity characterized by periodic compulsive blood drinking and an affinity with death. The sexual element of this disorder as well as the hyper-violent behaviours displayed by numerous serial killers, the most famous being Jeffery Dahmer, has become an inherent part of the modern notion of the vampire.
Several notorious criminals in history are considered by scholars and psychologists to have been psychotic vampires, including Fritz Haarman, Gilles de Rais, the Marquis de Sade, John Haigh, and Elizabeth Bathory. These individuals appear over and over in non-fiction books about vampires. There have also been several cases of vampire crimes from the 1950s to the present. These include the Rudas, whose crime was connected with Satanic ritual, Richard Chase and Joshua Rudiger, who believed themselves to be vampires, and John George Haigh, a serial killer. There are many more in history, and most of all, modern times.


All cultures are preoccupied with death to some degree. One way to get a handle on death is to personify it -- to give it some tangible form. At their root, Lamastu, Lilith and similar early vampires are explanations for a terrifying mystery, the sudden death of young children and fetuses in the womb. The strigoi and other animated corpses are the ultimate symbols of death -- they are the actual remains of the deceased.

Vampires personify humanity’s dark side. Lilith, Lamastu and the other early vampire demonesses are the opposite of the "good wife and mother." Instead of caring for children and honoring a husband, they kill children and seduce men. Undead vampires feed on their family, instead of supporting it. It was the licing’s way of staking their own evil tendencies.

The appearance of so many vampire-like monsters throughout history, as well as our continued fascination with vampires, demonstrates that this is a universal response to the human condition. It's simply human nature to cast our fears as monsters.

Get Your Hot Mega Promotion Handout Here!

Earlier in May (May 4th actually), we three hard working authors (Shara Lanel, Pamela K. Kinney, and Kathleen Mix) put together a workshop and handout to present at the Virginia Romance Writers For Love of Writing conference down at Virginia Beach. We wound up with a 14-page handout chock full of notes and links on the basics and the latest ideas for promoting your book. If you were lucky enough to attend the conference, then you had a lot of workshops to choose from and probably found your brain filled to bursting. If you didn’t make the conference or–horrors!–didn’t make our workshop, we’re offering our handout here for download. Since I am not sure yet on how to put up a pdf link and haven't done it on my own website yet, so can do it that way, here is a link to it at Shara Lanel's website: Cutting Edge Promotion Workshop Handout

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

This house would make me dizzy just living in it.

Haunted Richmond II Releases August 2012

I am excited! My nonfiction ghost book, Haunted Richmond II, is now up for preorder on Schiffer Publishing's website. It will be released August 2012. ISBN: 9780764339646. http://is.gd/omrbyD

Book Blurb:

Return once more to haunted Richmond, where no building is safe from supernatural happenings. Visit Stories Comics, which holds more than just comics within its walls. Step back in time at Henricus Historical Park where you'll be welcomed by dead colonists, Civil War soldiers, and other haunts. Discover that not only is the Richmond Vampire out for your blood, but the Werewolf of Henrico waits for you beneath the full moon. It seems that the War Between the States is still being fought between ghostly Confederate and Union soldiers at Cold Harbor, Sailor's Creek, Parker's Battery, and Petersburg Battlefield. All this… plus a sea serpent, a lost city, ghostly cats, Bigfoot, a UFO, and haunted churches, parks, and colleges. So be sure to plan your visit now to a very paranormal Richmond. The dead don't stay dead in this town!

Thanks to All Vets-Memorial Day

Warrior Not Forgotten

Rest, dear Veteran,

You fought so hard.

Struggling through jungle,

desert sands, and mountainous range

Rode in ships floating on choppy seas,

Danger from uboats below or enemy planes above.

Enemy faces peeping from green folige,

Massive tanks rolling over dunes of sand:

You're someone's father, mother,

brother, sister or friend;

Somebody known somewhere,

And yet, a lonely cross marks your grave,

A flag fluttering in the wind its only companion,

It's all we know of one soldier, sailor or airman.

One tear shed, one heart broken,

But one life not given in vain.



This is an original peom by Pamela K. Kinney. Copyrighted, do not copy to share the poem on your website or forum, but share the link instead, so others come here and may know of the valiant heroes among our midst.

Supernatural Friday: Vampires: Part 3

Dracula, along with all those modern vampire books and movies (and even the flesh eating zombies since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, too) are inspired by the folklore of eastern Europe. History records dozens of mythical vampire figures in this region, going back hundreds of years. They have their particular habits and characteristics, but most fall into one of two general categories: Demon that become reanimated corpses so they could walk among the living and spirits of dead people that would not leave their own body.

The most notable of the demon vampires would be the Russian upir and the Greek vrykolakas. Sinners, babies not baptized, and those outside the Christian faith were more likely to be reanimated after death. Those who practiced witchcraft are also included, as they would be particularly susceptible because they had already given their soul to the devil in life. Once the undead corpses rose from the grave, they would terrorize the community and feed on the living. Not just blood, but the flesh, too.

Most of these legends account that these undead corpses must return to their grave regularly to rest (notice that it never said day or night—though night  would seemed the most fearsome time for evil to walk). When townspeople believed that someone had become a vampire, they exhumed the corpse to get rid of the evil spirit. They might try an exorcism ritual, but more often they would destroy the body so it would no longer have a form to use. Various methods include cremation, decapitation, even driving a wooden stake through the heart. Bodies might also be buried face down, so the undead corpses would dig deeper into the earth, rather than up into shallower ground. Other families might also secured stakes above the corpse so it would impale itself if it tried to escape.

Vampires in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania (part of Romania) were called strigoi. Strigoi are almost exclusively human spirits who had returned from the dead. Unlike the upir or vrykolakas, the strigoi go through different stages after they have risen from the grave. Initially, a strigoi might become an invisible poltergeist, tormenting its living family members by moving furniture and stealing food. Eventually, it becomes visible, just as the person looked in life. The strigoi returns to its family, stealing cattle, begging for food, and bringing disease. It also feed on humans, at first the family members; of course, eventually the myths changing to anyone else they happened to come across. In some accounts, the strigoi sucked their victims' blood directly from the heart.

The strigoi need to return to the grave on a regular basis, just like the upir did. If townspeople suspected someone had become a strigoi, they would do the same as those did to the upir, exhume the body and burn it, or run spikes through it. But after seven years, if a strigoi still hung around, it could live wherever it pleased. It was said that strigoi traveled to distant towns and would begin new lives as ordinary people. These secret vampires even met with each other in weekly gatherings.

In addition to undead strigoi, referred to as strigoi mort, people also feared living vampires, or strigoi viu. Strigoi viu were cursed living people who were doomed to become strigoi mort when they died. Babies born with abnormalities, such as a tail-like protrusion or a bit of fetal membrane tissue attached to the head (cauls), were usually considered strigoi viu. Also, if any strigoi mort living among humans had children, the offspring were cursed to become undead strigoi in the afterlife. When a known strigoi viu died, the family destroyed its body to keep it from rising from the grave.

In other parts of eastern Europe, strigoi-type creatures were called vampir, or vampyr, most likely a variation on the Russian upir. Western European countries eventually picked up on this name, how the term became “vampyr” and later “vampire" in the English language.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, vampire hysteria spread through eastern Europe. People reported that they saw their dead relatives walking around, attacking the living. Authorities dug up scores of graves, burning and staking the corpses (like those accused of being witches and even werewolves earlier in history were burned at the stake). In eastern European folklore, it was said that a vampire could be warded off by scattering seeds on the ground, either on top of the vampire's grave or outside your house. Vampires, said to be obsessive creatures, were compelled to count all the seeds. If you hid a nail in the seeds, it pricked the vampire midway through the count. The vampire would then drop the seeds and have to start all over again.

The vampire scare spread to western Europe. This led to academic speculations on the creatures, as well as vampire poems and paintings. It was these works that inspired an Irishman named Bram Stoker to write his own vampire novel, "Dracula."

Abraham (Bram) Stoker, a theater manager and part-time novelist, was not the first author to feature the vampire in a literary work, but his version is the one that really caught on. This is largely due to the novel's unforgettable villain, Count Dracula, as well as the foreboding setting. Stoker arrived at both elements through extensive research. He set much of the action in the mysterious mountains of the Transylvania province of Romania, and he based his vampires on eastern European and gypsy folklore.

Selectively sampling from several versions of the vampire myth and adding some details of his own, Stoker formed the standard for the modern vampire. Unlike the vampires in the eastern European tradition, Stoker's monster loses power in the sunlight, is repelled by crucifixes and has acute intelligence. Interestingly, Stoker's vampires do not have reflections, while many earlier vampire creatures were fascinated by their own reflection.

Stoker's research also turned up a name for his villain, based on a real Dracula. Vlad Tepes’ father was known as Vlad Basarab (inducted into the Royal  Order of the Dragon, a branch of the Brotherhood of the Wolf). From then on, until his death, Vlad Basarab referred to himself as Vlad Dracul. Dracul is a Romanian word for “dragon,” but also means “devil.” The suffix “a” means “son of,” so when Vlad Dracul’s second son, also named Vlad, was born later that year in Sghisoara, he became Vlad Dracula, Son of the Dragon. More often he was called "Vlad Tepes," meaning "Vlad the Impaler." This was in reference to his predilection for impaling his enemies on long wooden stakes. This form of torture and punishment actually came about due to both him and his brother, Radu, captured as prisoners of the Turks, and were allowed to watch the Turks do this to their enemies.

The real Dracula had a reputation for unfathomable brutality (a reputation many Romanians claim is inaccurate, but then again, they believe him to be a hero, due to defeating the Turks), but there is not much evidence showing that people believed he was a vampire. Stoker's fictional villain is not closely modeled after the real Dracula, though they are sometimes linked in movies based on the book. Stoker borrowed the name, as well as his social standing, for his vampire. Unlike the wandering, homeless strigoi, Dracula was written as a wealthy count, hiding out in a grandiose castle.

In the 1927 play "Dracula," and the film adaptation that followed in 1931, Bela Lugosi embraced this aristocratic notion. Dracula's familiar outfit – black formal wear and a billowing black cape, also was introduced. In the novel "Dracula," the count is described as a withered, ugly old man, more like Max Shreck's portrayal in the 1922 silent film adaptation, "Nosferatu," than Lugosi's presentation. But the suave Dracula caught on, showing up in scores of vampire movies, television shows and cartoons, even to this day, besides the creepier “nosferatu” version (like in 30 Days of Night, Salem’s Lot, and I Am Legend)

The vampire continues to evolve over the years, as novelists and filmmakers reinterpret and expand the mythology. In Anne Rice's popular novels, she takes vampires to the next level, giving them a conscience and a range of emotions. In her work, vampires are not necessarily evil -- they are presented as real, rounded people. On the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," creator Joss Whedon has pursued similar ideas, exploring the idea of a vampire with a soul and if you remember, his soulless vamps were called demons, not unlike the Russian upir and the Greek vrykolakas.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

A ggogle map shows what almost reminds me of the board game, Operation. 

Signing at SciFi Yard Sale in Virginia Beach, Va. May 26th

I'll be selling and signing my books at the Science Fiction Yard Sale this Saturday, May 26, 2012 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The address is 4844 Linshaw Lane, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Others will be there selling collectibles, books, DVDs, etc.. The event is free.

For directions:

Supernatural Friday: Vampires: Part 2

It is interesting that author Sherrilyn Kenyon has written paranormal romances concerning being called Dark Hunters (sort of vampires, but good guys), all going back to the Greek goddess, Artemis. The ancient Greeks had feared vampiric like the Lamia, a demon with the head and torso of a woman and the lower body of a snake (and I am not talking about the Medusa). One of the versions of the legend, Lamia was one of Zeus' mortal lovers. Filled with anger and jealousy, Zeus' wife, the goddess Hera, made Lamia insane so she would eat all her children. Once Lamia realized what she had done, she became so angry that she turned into an immortal monster, sucking the blood from young children out of jealousy for their mothers.

The Greeks believed in and feared the empusai, the malicious daughters of Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft. The empusai could change form and they rose from Hades (the underworld) at night as beautiful women. They seduced shepherds in the field, devour ing them afterwards. A similar creature, the baobhan sith, appears in Celtic folklore.

There have been creatures like vampires in the mythology of Asia. Indian folklore describes a number of nightmarish characters, including rakshasa, gargoyle-like shape-shifters who preyed on children, and vetala, demons who would take possession of recently dead bodies to wreak havoc on the living. In Chinese folklore, corpses could rise from the grave and walk again. A k'uei was created when a person's p'o (lower spirit) did not pass onto the afterlife at death, usually because of bad deeds during life. The p'o, angered by its horrible fate, would reanimate the body and attack the living at night. One particularly vicious sort of k'uei, known as the Kuang-shi (or Chiang-shi), had the ability of flight and take on different forms also. Covered in white fur, these fiends had glowing red eyes and bit into its prey with sharp fangs.

Nomadic tribes and traveling traders spread different vampire legends throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East. As these stories traveled, their various elements combined to form new vampire myths. In the past 1,000 years, vampire legends have been especially pervasive of eastern European contributions.

Next Friday, I will post about the folklore of the European vampires—who insoired the novel, Dracula and many modern vampire novels, and what most people think of as vampires.