I hope all of you, my readers, have a wonderful 2025! For your writing prompts this month, you will get…
Read more →𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴, but now there are bodies. And now one, specifically a skeleton, has turned up in…
Read more →In Iceland at Christmas, a giant black cat, Jólakötturinn, The Yule Cat, roams the countryside and devours anyone who isn’t…
Read more →For this month’s writing prompts, explore the world of opossums, wake up in a room filled with books that won’t…
Read more →Fossil fuels are fuels (such as coal, oil, or natural gas) formed in the earth from plant or animal remains.
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Arsenic, cyanide, and strychnine are the classic poisons. The seemingly innocent little old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace, one of my favorite movies, used these three poisons in their deadly elderberry wine. One gallon of this toxic wine contained one teaspoon of arsenic, half a teaspoon of strychnine, and just a pinch of cyanide. Unsuspecting…
Miss Polly had a dolly, but instead of a real dolly, it was her daughter, Nina, that she protected from everyone and everything. Instead of being allowed to play with other children and get dirty, she was paraded around to show off how beautiful she was. Then she finally gets to talk to a boy,…
Are you looking for idioms and words that can be used to set a creepy tone to your scene or story? Do you want to use words that will send shivers up your readers’ spines? Is it your desire for those who hold your book in their hands to be frozen with fear? Will they…
Did the Protestant Reformation improve the quality of the lives of wives? Or did it make it worse? When the Anabaptist Swiss immigrated to the U.S. during the 17th and 18th centuries, what three faiths did they bring with them? Why did the Anabaptists believe that the powers of church and state should remain separate?…
The Protestant Reformation was not a time of peace. Travel back to the years 1524 and 1531 to a village in Switzerland near Zürich. This tumultuous time of change makes its presence known firsthand to the Schneebeli household in 1524 when the latest baby arrives two months early and leaves this world only a few…
Murder takes place in a small Denmark town, one where the last murder took place twenty-five years ago. This time, there’s not just one murder. But there is a horrific crime that was committed many years ago on this scenic little island that no one talks about. 1977 – Astrid has been locked in a…
Nursery rhymes are written for little children, so they should be sweet and innocent, right? Little children should not have experienced the horrors and reality of life yet, and these rhymes made to entertain them should not talk about them either. But not all nursery rhymes have innocent meanings. “Ring Around the Rosie” is one…
How many of you men out there dream of being pursued by lots of women? Is it your dream that just the mere sight of you makes them want you? Does your scent put you in danger of being attacked by them? What if there existed a pair of pants that could make these dreams…
What was the inspiration for this book? How long did it take the author to research all the colorful history woven into the story? Who was her favorite character? What are the author’s thoughts on self-publishing? What was your inspiration for this book? Many slender threads begin with romance and synchronicity, and so I started…
If you like to read about strong women, this is a book you will greatly enjoy. Hannah, a victim of human trafficking in 5th-century Sinai, is taken to a land in which she is unfamiliar with their ways and customs. She manages to rise above all the hardships she experiences there to become a woman…
Have you ever thought about using a mental hospital in your story? The reasons people were admitted to these institutions suggest many different story ideas. The cruel and inhuman way many of them were treated can also fill one’s head full of ideas about the patients, those who “cared” for them, and those who had…
Here are eight more creepy crawlies that live way too close to us. Wasps—paper wasps, yellow jackets, and boldfaced hornets—nest in rotten tree stumps, crevices in rocks, and in mud. A person can develop an allergy to their stings without warning. The daughter of a friend of mine, who had never been allergic to their…
From the brilliance of the phoenix to the brutality of the sphinx and the magic of the unicorn, these mythological creatures are amazing. Would a burning conservatory of phoenixes turn the sky red and gold? How crazy is a lunacy of werewolves? Do you think a flurry of yeti and a yearning of sasquatches could…
Did you realize we are surrounded by creepy crawlies? These creatures are enough to bring on scary dreams if you think long enough about them. One or more of these creepy crawlies could be used as fodder for a nightmare-inducing tale. If your character has acarophobia (an irrational fear of small bugs), murophobia (irrational fear…
According to dictionary.com, a superstition is a belief or notion, not based reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. It is an irrational fear of the unknown or mysterious. Many myths and legends, good and bad, exist about the owl. Some see them…
Did you attend an academy of apparitions? Would you be able to sleep if there was a racket of banshees hovering around your bed? Doesn’t it make sense that a congress of ghosts would roam the halls of the United States Capitol? Do you know of any graves that have been robbed by a shroud…
The Egyptians worshiped them. Noah prayed for them, but Pope Innocent VIII declared them to be evil. During the Middle Ages, they became associated with witches, and some were even burned. A group of them can be called a destruction, or you could call a group of them a cuddle. Egyptians and Their CatsAncient Egyptians…
There is no need to make up a creepy town name for your Halloween tale when there are so many already in existence. One or two of these unusual names belong to a county instead of a city. The states that have cities with Halloween related names are listed in alphabetical order, as are the…
The world can be full of scary things. What is out there that would scare a writer? Since there is a phobia for just about everything, it wasn’t hard to find specific phobias that would hinder a writer’s success. Some may even keep him from writing at all. If the thought of having one of…
What was her inspiration for this book? What made her think to have one character be both an angel and a demon? How much research did she have to do for this book? How many other books has she written? What are her thoughts on self-publishing? Where can her fans find her on the internet?…
Do you believe in angels? Do you believe in demons? Do you believe that one being could be both? Vivien is a reporter that lives in Crescent City. Working on the story about Hurricane Katrina left her feeling burnt out. Then something happens that reinvigorates the investigative journalist in her. After digging deep into the…
Imagine having a very rare type of blood flowing through your veins. Now imagine that someone very high up is in need of what you have. How smart would you be to put yourself on an organ donor list? The title of this book puzzled me. I had never heard of Bombay blood, a blood…
Could a land be so haunted that the residents of any houses or apartments built on that land are doomed? We’ve all heard about the possessed house in Amityville, but are you ready for the horrors of Hubertson? The supernatural occurrences at Hubertson and the land it is built on are subtle, but that doesn’t…
Have you ever had your own home-based business? Did you have the faith that you could make it a success even if no one else believed you could? Nikki is a single mom who was taught to believe that she could never succeed at anything. She left her rich husband to prove that she could…
