Author: McKay

I'm a writer, a teacher, and a knitter. Not necessarily in that order on any given day. I'm also the McKay half of Ari McKay.
Diary

“The Quest for ‘Blank Caveringi'”, by Patricia Highsmith

McKay2 Comments

My fascination with ghost/supernatural/horror stories began at a young age, and at some point, I received a copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense, which anthologized several chilling tales by such authors as Raymond Chandler and Muriel Spark. I found this book again while helping my mother clean out her attic a few years ago, and I immediately snagged it, because while I found the entire book scary as hell as a child, there was one particular story that frightened me and stayed with me to this day, some thirty years later.

“The Quest for ‘Blank Caveringi'”, by Patricia Highsmith is the story in question. I didn’t remember the premise, but I remembered the “monsters” of the story, and I remembered the ending, which horrified me on some deep, primal level, although I’m not sure why.

Re-reading it as an adult, I have a different perspective, because the story is about a 48 year old academic who goes off in search of an island reported to be the home of giant, carnivorous snails, because he wants to be famous and have something named after him.

I repeat: giant, carnivorous snails.

Reading over it now, I have to admit, it has excellent pacing and a solid build-up to the ending which so horrified me as a child, but… snails? How could you not escape a snail, even a giant one? It’s like not being able to outrun a zombie. And how did they get to be carnivorous? WTF? If this were made into a film today, it would probably be a cheesy B-grade horror flick, worthy of the drive-in or MST3K, but at the same time, it’s a solid little horror tale, suitable for scaring the pants off less jaded children.

I think it’s probably more the sense of isolation and primality that create the fear factor here; civilization has no place on the island of the snails, and the professor made the standard mistake of most protagonists in horror stories: he wasn’t prepared.

And now the end of the story, which has stayed with me for so long:

Continue reading ““The Quest for ‘Blank Caveringi’”, by Patricia Highsmith”

Publications

Halloween story now available!

McKay

Ghost of a Chance is now available from Torquere Press! 

74 pages / 22900 words 
Ebook zipped file contains – html, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, mobi, epub for $3.99

Dr. Mason Beaulieu thinks rival ghost hunter Haywood “Fort” Fortenberry is sexy but too credulous when it comes to the paranormal. Fort thinks Mason is attractive but too cynical. When they’re offered a chance to be locked up in reputedly haunted Wisteria Grove on Halloween night, however, both men jump at the chance.

Storms and mysterious sounds keep them busy during the night, and they discover a mutual respect for each other’s skills. As the investigation continues, Fort learns the truth behind Mason’s seemingly dismissive attitude, and Mason finds a new appreciation for Fort’s open-mindedness. But when an unexpected intruder derails the investigation, they learn that more than just hunting ghosts can offer them thrills and chills.

 

Wisteria Grove is loosely based on the Myrtles Plantation, which is considered one of the most haunted places in the US. Ari and I had both heard about the plantation-turned-B&B, and we both want to stay there overnight, although we’re in total agreement that we wouldn’t sleep a wink! Personally, I’d love to participate in a ghost hunt one day, but I’m not sure I’d want to start my ghost hunting career at The Myrtles. I’d probably need to work my way up to that! 

As we kick off the Halloween season, we hope “Ghost of a Chance” gives our readers a few chills and a few thrills. 😀

News Flash

Spooky story coming soon!

McKay

October is my favorite month, and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so for years, I wrote Halloween-themed stories for whatever fandom I was in at the time. Two years ago, I wrote up a series of drabbles about Evan St. John from Blood Bathory: The History of Horror. Last year, Ari and I wrote a short ghost story about Micah Harrison, who moves into a haunted house: A Hundred Lonely Halloweens.

This year, we’re continuing the theme! On October 2, “Ghost of a Chance” will be released by Torquere Press. It’s a ghost story complete with a spooky haunted house on a dark and stormy night and two men trapped inside overnight.

Dr. Mason Beaulieu thinks rival ghost hunter Haywood “Fort” Fortenberry is sexy but too credulous when it comes to the paranormal. Fort thinks Mason is attractive but too cynical. When they’re offered a chance to be locked up in reputedly haunted Wisteria Grove on Halloween night, however, both men jump at the chance.

Storms and mysterious sounds keep them busy during the night, and they discover a mutual respect for each other’s skills. As the investigation continues, Fort learns the truth behind Mason’s seemingly dismissive attitude, and Mason finds a new appreciation for Fort’s open-mindedness. But when an unexpected intruder derails the investigation, they learn that more than just hunting ghosts can offer them thrills and chills.

ghostofachance

Diary

Speak the Speech Trippingly on the Tongue

McKay

One thing that helps keep Ari and me focused is deciding what we’re going to write, in what order we’re going to write it, and then making a list. Works with deadlines get priority on The List, and we also have a shared iCal calendar just for writing deadlines. Currently, we’ve just submitted a story and crossed it off The List, and we’ll be finishing up the rough draft of a Valentine’s Day novella this week. It’ll get a few days to marinate, and then we’ll edit it and send it off.

After that, it’s time to whip the rough draft of Blood Bathory 2 into shape! The draft is finished, but we need to add scenes we skipped over, mostly brief scenes establishing what the villains are up to, and then edit it. Considering it’ll probably be 100k-ish, that’ll take a while. We’re budgeting about a month to get that done, allowing for real life interventions, and once that’s finished, we’ll move on to the next thing on our list.

One of those things is Blood Bathory 3, the third and final novel that will wrap up our trilogy, although we’ll probably revisit that world down the road. The trilogy will be stand-alone, but the world we’re building will let us come back to it if we want to, and I think we will because we’ve enjoyed it so much.

I’m looking forward to writing the primary character I’ll be writing in BB3, and I think he’ll pose an interesting challenge. He was born in the 1500s, and for plot-related reasons I can’t divulge, he spent a rather long time more or less isolated from the world. Not cut off entirely but separated enough that his language didn’t have time to catch up completely to the modern world, so he still uses a fair bit of archaic language without realizing it. So I’ve been planning for his language — word choice, sentence structure — to be different, but I hadn’t stopped to think about how his pronunciation might be different until I saw this:

I love this. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the past, and I love that there are people who are so passionate about language that they’d go to the trouble of researching and reconstructing Shakespearean pronunciation. Not only that, but now I have a pretty good idea of what my character probably sounds like. Maybe not quite to this extent but I’m sure it still impacts his speech, which should make trying to communicate with some of the other characters interesting!

Suffice to say, going to London to see an Original Pronunciation production at The Globe is going on my bucket list.