Tuesday, December 28, 2010

From the old bat's belfry


In this Holiday Season, all is about celebration and lights. Yet the darkness is still there waiting. Do we all carry a pre-civilization memory of the days when our ancient ancestors may have lived in caves and feared the night? Many dangerous beasts roamed the darkness in those ancient times, so there was cause for fear.

Today light is only as far away as the flick of a finger, yet we still fear darkness. With some cause, because danger still stalks the night, some humans being more dangerous than any beast.

If you happpen to believe in paranormal creatures--are they out there waiting in the dark?

Even if you don't believe such creatures ever existed, if you're like me, you still enjoy scaring yourself by reading about them. And in my case, also creating them to try to scare readers,

I've written about both kinds of dark predators--human and paranormal. And ones who are sometimes human, such as were-creatures. Do I believe in these paranormal beings? Yes and no. In real life, no. But while I'm writing about them, yes, they exist for me in all their complexity and unhuman ways, just as all my characters are real to me when I write about them. They have to be, so I can feel what they feel and care about the outcome. Which often makes it hard to leave them behind when I'm through with the story.

I've written about weres: Wolves--Racing With The Moon, The Volan Curse and a number of short stories and novellas. Dragons--Moondark and Darkness of Dragons Trilogy, plus a novella. Beasts--The Moonrunner Trilogy.

A more complicated one was Fire Griffin where meteorite "eggs" hatched into huge ravenous worms that morphed into griffins. These beasts then merged , literally, into whatever human who found the "egg" as symbiotes, enchancing the abilities of humans without harming them.

Others were magic dolls--Hugger Doll. Or vengeful ghosts-The Woman In White.

My preference is to write about were creatures not as evil monsters, but simply a shifter who may or may not be able to control his or her changes. Mine never run in packs, they're individuals who carry the shifter trait for better or worse.

I won't discuss vampires because mine are always evil. I have never been able to view a vampire as anything but dead. Not a living creature. So none of mine have yet been heroes. I use "yet" because I really do never know for sure what I'm going to come up with in the future. Keeps life interesting.

My December book is Ten Past Midnight and dark indeed. Stories in it include madness, a ghoul, an ancient Egyptian monster, and horny aliens. But two of the dark tales do end sort of happy for now.

All my monsters reside at my website: http://www.janetoombs.com/

4 comments:

Tabitha Blake said...

I love to read about all the dark creatures of the night. Whether they are sexy and romantic or evil and scary. They all give me the needed break for the stress of everyday life. Your book sounds like a really great read. Loved the blog!

Jupiter Family said...

Happy New Year!!
New Year's 2011 Fireworks Celebrations Around the World
http://fireworks2011.blogspot.com/
Demo on YouTube
http://youtu.be/QlQ3b0TfiFM

Anonymous said...

Loved the Interview, Jane, and your books sound soooooo "my fave"!

Wishing you great sales for the New Year!

Hugs,
Kari Thomas, www.authorkari.com

Brenda said...

Great post!
Paranormal creatures are so fun to write--they can be anything our brains think up.
In my novel I took vampires and made them more or less saviours, lol. I even gave them a history that mixes with ours.