On Writing Horror by D.Melhoff (@dmelhoff) Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaway (A @Goddessfish Promotion)

About a year ago I wrote about how the subject of domestic abuse had affected me. As a writer, the end my first novel was the beginning of the worst writers block you could ever imagine. I didn't write a single word for over two months. I also suffered from terrible nightmares. So when the chance to feature D. Melhoff, author of the horror Come Little Children, became available I jumped at the chance. Does it have the same affect?

As you all know, the books I feature here are the books I want to read. However, I'm not a girl who ventures into the world of horror. That said, the blurb of Come Little Children has my spine tingling and will be the first horror I read. My review is coming soon! 

On Writing Horror

By D. Melhoff

The topic I was asked to talk about today is whether or not writing horror has affected my overall psyche. In other words, does the time I spend thinking about dark subject matter give me any more nightmares than the average person?

The short answer is: I don’t think so. Everyone’s scared by something; the only difference is, I write my fears down and try to pass them along to others.

It’s interesting, though, because you can usually tell what terrifies an author by the most vivid—and in some cases, most obscure—scenes in their books. These are the scenes that are so well described, yet sometimes so irrational, that they had to come from a place that still haunts the writer to this very day. The fire hose in The Shining, the clap game in The Conjuring, the girl crawling out of the TV in The Ring. In Come Little Children, there’s a chapter with a mouse puppet that people say is one of the scariest scenes in the book, and that’s probably because I had that mouse puppet when I was little, and I was always terrified it would come to life and bite me.

Which brings me to my ultimate point.

You may have heard some authors say that, for them, writing is a form of therapy. For me, it’s purely entertainment. Any issues that I’ve ever tried to work out by writing down don’t go away merely by banishing them to my word processor, and while it’s satisfying to articulate feelings and assign them to fantastical situations, I don’t believe the page itself holds any power over our inner demons. Those must be faced in reality, and while fiction is good for escapism, the worst nightmares live and die in the world that exists when you close your book and lift up your eyes.

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D. Melhoff is the author of Come Little Children, a supernatural thriller about a family of morticians who are connected to a string of paranormal murders in the town of Nolan, Yukon.

Come Little Children Book Trailer 

Come Little Children 

The Blurb

The Nolan morgue is more than just an ordinary funeral home. When their newest employee uncovers a supernatural conspiracy connected to a string of child murders, she must use every shred of her intelligence to stop a new breed of serial killer and escape the morgue alive.

Sneak peak inside Come Little Children 

The old hands worked carefully with the added confidence of having done this hundreds of times. Their maneuvers were quick and precise. Fluid. Surgical.

A scalpel touched a point between the nipples on the cadaver’s chest and drifted north, unzipping the skin exactly seven inches along the sternum. Shadows played out the rest on the concrete walls: the worker selected a heavier device and hovered over the outline of the body, flicking a switch and activating a high, screeching vibration that trailed through the air and disappeared into the silhouette’s chest.

Instantly the hum dropped an octave—ggvvrrrrr, ck-ck, ggvvrrrrr—choking and sputtering as it coughed up particles of bone dust.

Ggvvrrrrr! CK-CK! Ggvvrrrr!

The mist made a macabre Tyndall effect in the lamplight.

Beyond these specks, the worker turned off the electric saw and brought up a wooden box the size of a tea chest, then withdrew something from inside.

Something small.

Something odd.

It was too dark to see what the object was, but the worker handled it nimbly and lowered it into the body’s rib cage.

Enter the Giveaway

D. Melhoff is giving you the chance to win a $25 Amazon or BN gift certificate. Just leave your comments below. Remember the more you comment the more chances you have of winning so follow the tour here!

Who is D.Melhoff? 

D. Melhoff was born in a prairie ghost town located an inch above the Canadian-American border. He credits King, Poe, Hitchcock, Harris, Raimi, and his second grade school teacher, Mrs. Lake, for turning him to horror.

Connect with D. Melhoff

Official Website: www.dmelhoff.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/dmelhoff

Twitter: @dmelhoff

Google+: https://plus.google.com/113187803511896961240/posts

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/dmelhoff

Video trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0QAA607yo

Erin

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