Those of you who are regulars to this joint will know that for a number of years now I’ve enjoyed writing a Christmas story around the Christmas period (I just don’t feel as Christmassy in August). Well this year, you’ll be glad to hear, is no exception.
I was even well prepared. Or at least I tried to be.
At the beginning of November I set all other writing aside and sat down to come up with an idea for a short story, a bit of flash fiction, whatever it would be… But there was a problem.
Whatever Xmas-idea I came up with just didn’t seem to spark any real enthusiasm. Perhaps it was that I had already written those stories or perhaps it was that every other year the Christmas story has been written at a frantic pace slap-bang in the middle of the festive season, I couldn’t honestly say.
And so I did some reading on the sorts of Christmas stories other authors would write and found that there was a firm tradition for writing scary stories and telling them on Christmas Eve. And that got me thinking.
I’ve had it in my mind for a while to do something a bit scary. I mean I’ve done a few bits and bobs that were quite gruesome (Three Men In A Boot, Shooting Jelly With a Shotgun) but nothing that was really disquieting, nothing that would give you the creeps… So I started thinking and decided that it was time to go for it.
Finally, after much procrastination, I came up with a few ideas… and I wasn’t sure which idea to go with… and then I thought… why not go for all four ideas… and so that is what I have done.
I am currently putting the finishing touches to Chills, Kills and Snowflakes, which will be a portmanteau of four Christmas-themed horror stories. Not all of them are ghost stories but they are all firmly based in the horror genre and once I’ve finished the final edits on them I will be whacking them out on this website as well as in eBook form so you can be scared on your ereader too.
