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Showing posts from April, 2017

Deadman's Tome Podcast (Recap)

WCM -- William Marchese JD -- Jessie Dedman WCM: (Sometime after the show) I lay here, eyes set on the ceiling, I think crazy thoughts. Len plays on the speakers. "Steal my sunshime!" The world spins.  JD: (Last night into morning) After downing a bottle of wine and several glasses of Jack, I crashed into a drunken slumber. I woke to the sound of my son shouting dad over and over again. I thought it would go away, but the moment of silence was followed by a sudden body slam. My son was on my back beating my head like a bongo. WCM: And I wake up this morning and the Coronas don't hold my mind captive any more. See that trick of time? A Motrin and I'm good to go.  JD: My mind is free from any hangover, but the responsibility of being the best dad ever is not. Busy life in this household.  WCM: Last night we had a day-late show due to personal issues, but we persevered.  We talked about cursing, or as Jessie says, "cussing." How lazin

Pet (Movie Review)

Pet , directed by Carles Torrens, written by Jeremy Slater, Stars Dominic Monaghan, Ksenia Solo, Jennete McCurdy.  Leaving me amazed at the twists subtly presented throughout, Dominic Monaghan, of LOST fame, plays the good-guy-until-not amazingly well.  Pet progresses its audience from insane to pure psychotic as we see Dominic's character, Seth running into a crush from back in school on a ride home from work.  He becomes obsessed, then rejected-- and we all know those two things don't mix in a movie with this formula.  When Ksenia's character, Holly, refuses his advances, he kidnaps and holds her captive beneath the animal shelter where he works.  This movie took turns that were both expected and not expected, but the ending was where it strayed from the formula and made its mark.  At first I was confused, but it quickly dawned on me what had happened. You might go back once or twice to see where the pieces fit.  The ending, while not the grea

Weekly Musing 4/28/2017

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Another week coming to an end.  I've thought about this blog. And have put some ideas to the test. The Wednesday weird news is basically going to be something wacky, maybe trending, can tie in with horror in some way.  I will also try to write a piece of micro fiction from the weird news story I report. As a challenge.  About the flash, there is no limit to the size. So if the feeling strikes... Also, I may post two a week. Have to see if they come to me. I do claim copyright.  If you want, you can put your own flash to share in the comments.  Or, you can let me know what you want to hear about.  I will be attempting an overhaul of my site, as well, to make it easier all around to find things. Like fiction will be in one section, and other categories in their own place.  I've been pretty good keeping up with my plan of at least one post a day. Maybe I can up that. Lets see. If I see there is an extreme yearning, that you can't go on without me, i'll post m

All for Science (Flash Fiction)

It started as an experiment. No one was supposed to know they started testing on humans. Then it went to premature babies. They did it out of the country so there were no intrusions. Everything unrestricted.  Things were okay until they wanted to bring it back to the states.  That was a no no.  I ran the group that transitioned into the human studies, only one was above me, and he was the funding.  As things became intense, I found myself fielding questions from many organizations, trying to keep my head above water and not get into too many lawsuits.  Very soon things went south fast, and I was disappointed with the manner in which our financier was acting.  We needed test subjects, but no one wanted to volunteer after they found out what we were trying to do.  We were testing an alternative to cryogenic suspension. You saw this in movies like Alien and the other one where the couple woke up way too early amongst a group of travelers to another part of the universe.  I

Artificial Womb Grows Life (Weird News Wednesday)

So it's the middle of the week, Hump Day, and to get over the apex and start the glorious way down the proverbial hill towards the weekend, I'm going to share with you some crazy news.   I have a weird one for you. Growing life inside an artificial womb. According to the articles I've read, a Biobag keeps the animal in a womb-like situation while it comes to term. This could be helpful as an alternative for premature human babies.  The lamb fetuses were able to continue to full term after caesarean deliveries, which is about the equivalent of 23 weeks of human gestation.  The lambs were euthanized, except for one, to test how well they developed.  If all goes well, they plan to start trials on humans in maybe 3 years.  There are still a lot of hurdles to overcome--like lung development and other details--before it can fully get going.  Alan Flake, a foetal surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and lead author says, "I don't want

Split (Movie Review)

I was on the fence about Split by M. Night Shyamalan, staring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula.  Let me say, I like Shyamqlan's movies, a lot. A few have been a bit disappointing. Not in a this-movie-totally-sucked way, but not able to live up to the unexpected twist that pretty much put him on the map from The Sixth Sense. Let me be clear, his movies are great.  When one comes out, I watch it.  He just set the bar freaking high for himself is all.  With that out of the way, I enjoyed Split a lot. It is a new way of Shyamalan telling the story. It shows an evolution in his storytelling.  The actor who plays the main antagonist, James McAvoy, does a great job switching through many characters, sometimes on the fly, and does so in a very believable way. For me, a lot of this movie is what it is because of this.  The other actors were pretty great too, believable and not clichéd. There were moments, though. But it didn't detract from t

The Playground

I had just picked up my daughter from school and she wanted to go to the playground. I explained to her that we had to go to the supermarket, that it was late.  She didn't want to hear it.  "I wanna go t'the playground!" she said.  "We have to go to the supermarket."  "That's not fair!"  "I think it's very fair."  She started to cry. I looked to my wife, screwing up my mouth up and shaking my head.  Then crazy things entered my mind. The car felt as though it was shaking a little more than it did already. I pictured us broken down on the side of the road.  Bad thoughts invaded, evil premonitions; blood leaking from my wife's eyes. I began choking on the air. Grabbing my throat and rear-ending the car in front of us.  I imagined the sky darkening, frothy clouds boiling, extending out and covering the crimson sky. Blood raining down to the earth.  I gripped the wheel, held my breath.  Then I opened my eyes and

Pumpkinhead (semi movie review)

I am doing a story in an anthology called Monster Exist , and the monster I chose was Pumpkinhead . So I decided to watch it to have it's premise fresh in my mind.  The movie is about a country man who's son dies from a bunch of city kids out for a good time. Usual shit, right? But for such an old movie, this was done pretty well. The characters appeared shallow at first, but they morph into people with hearts.  The father summons the demon, after seeing a known witch to bring his son back, only she can't do that sort of magic. There is only one way.  While it may be considered a B-rated horror flick today, back then it had to have been a bit more than that. Because while there were some typical horror tropes, the story did well in keeping realistic and suspending disbelief.  Directed by Stan Winston, staring: Lance Heriksen, Jeff East, John D'Aquino, Kimberly Ross and others.  I will be writing a story based loosely off of the premise, with a Pumpkinhead-like

Deadman's Tome Podcast (Recap)

WCM: William  JD: Jessie Dedman from Deadman's Tome WCM: Last night on the Deadman's Tome podcast we had some nonsense bantering, and discussed conspiracy theories.  While some are proven to be true, it's important to be careful and watch out where you are getting the news from.  JD: Mainstream media will not tell you that Disney is conditioning the children for drone surveillance. Disney aims at kids, and profits from prying on them. Now they're teaching them that it's cool and normal to have your privacy invaded!  Why do you think this is happening? They don't want the kids to object to little shutterbugs flying around them, piloted by pedo pervs. Sick. Evil. But that's Disney.  WCM: We also discussed if it is better to type fast, or slow. Sort of came to the conclusion that both can be good for different things. Like fast for getting info onto the page that you'd forget, and slow for being more in touch with the words. Choose the

Weekly Musings 4/21/2017

Another week down, more crazy news, more writing done. Not as much as I'd like.  I am still tinkering with this blog, have an idea about what it's about. I've decided i'm going to try and post at least once a day.  One day will be a movie review of some sort.  Another day will be a book review, linked to www.unnervingmagazine.com where I review new and about to be released books.  Friday's i'll have a weekly musing, like this one, attempting to summarize the week and what went down--hopefully tying it all up. If possible, with some sort of insight, or internal lesson.  On another day, and these will be random, I will have a bit of micro fiction from something that happened to me, or a dream I had--nightmare. Or even just something I saw that didn't seem right...  I'm working on having guest bloggers on, one possibly my writing bud Gary Buller. Ideally we would both post on each other's site--we'll see where that goes.  Let's see

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (Movie Review)

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one of those sleeper hits that sneaks by mainstream quite often due to the behemoth that is Hollywood inundating the theaters with regurgitated garbage. A lot of horror fits into the small-budget category, unfortunately. Though, the teams still manage to make great flicks.  The Autopsy of Jane Doe is an independent film directed by Andre Ovredal, starring Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Olwen Kelly, Ophelia Lovibond, Michael McElhatton. (2017, R, 86 min.)  The movie begins at a crime scene with a female body disintered in a curious condition.  This unidentified young woman is brought into the small-town morgue of coroner Tommy Tilden and his son Austin, who are tasked with preforming her autopsy.  Once they start, though, slowly they are dragged into a world of terror.  The internal condition of the girl keeps getting worse as they find more and more details of what terrible things may have happened to her.  Putting the pieces together, the weather takes

The Force

I stand before the bathroom door, fingers turning the lock, the handle. Edging open, a force pushing from the other side. I push back on the polished wood, against the unspoken energy.  I imagine it standing on the other side, bracing delicately. Was it turning the knob now, resisting ever so slightly? I nudge the door, then yank it open. Nothing. It was a mere thought, a scary notion on a frantic mind. Time to get back to sleep, no more water before bedtime.  An unnerving sensation goosebumps my skin. The time reads 3:10AM. Witching hour.  The hall slowly encloses, ceiling creeping down. A shadow moves within the window.  Then the thick air becomes breathable and everything seems to fall around me, as though coming instantly out of a vacuum, crashing silently to the floor.  And things are back to normal once again.  THE END William Marchese Copyright

Challenge Yourself (Motivational)

This is a post about challenging yourself to do more. To try harder to get the dream you want done. When you see famous actors or writers living it up and wish you could be there, but then put down the article you're reading and click on the TV, does that get you anywhere? Yeah, you come home late from a hard day's work. In before the sun, out when it's just about to set. You're exhausted. That new episode of (insert favorite show here) is on. Damn, you just want to kick back with some fast food and  relax before the next grueling day. Right? Well, most people (and I say most because, of course, there are those occasions where the public figure was born into their situation), most are working their asses off trying to get things  together.  Maybe a blog (wink), maybe a TV script, anything. They work one, or two hours on it. They go to bed with no reward. Just an unspoken promise that maybe one day they will have their stuff out there.  Perhaps they

Kill Those Darlin--er, I Mean Pronouns

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Pronouns are a tricky thing we don't realize we overuse. Sometimes to the detriment of our readers.  Editing this, I realize  the two pronouns "we" could have been destroyed.  New: Tricky pronouns creep up to the detriment of our readers.   Of course that sentence can be changed a few ways, each way taken a bit differently. But I hope you get the point.   Pronouns pop up all over and is a really lazy way of writing. For example:  Samantha picked up her fork and dug into her spaghetti before she brought it to her mouth.  Four pronouns. C'mon.  Another thing I find when looking for these little freeloaders is they force me--at times--to write in a more active way.  Not all pronouns need to be removed, but a lot of the repetitive ones. Like:  She put her shoes on her feet before opening her door.  Can be:  Shoes on, she opened the door.  It's faster and killed three pronouns. Pretty concise. Recently, I was sho

Weekly Musings 4/14/2017

Hello, another Friday passes, ushering out another week of madness at the day job. When you have to juggle both writing and a job to get things done it becomes challenging, like working two jobs. Writing is round-the-clock, though. You get an idea, you jot it down. You think about that scene  for the book you're working on, or a new character that would be perfect for the short story your re-writing.  This is also a holy week, if you practice Judaism (Passover) or Christianity (Easter). The Stock Market is off so most banks and financial institutions are closed. That trickles down to me, having off Friday. More time to write. It's also been good during the week, because it had been slower and I was able to jot things down, or edit here and there.  I'm sitting outside a Starbucks near where i live, the café I usually haunt taking a break from my presence haha. Late i'll probably be in the attic, working on a few things. The reality is most of this was typed out

Show Vs Tell Vs Sanity

Show Vs. Tell has created many debates. Research until your face turns blue, there are many different perspectives. The choice is your own, though, keep in mind it is widely preached to Show rather than Tell.  The details of this subject  can get boring. Decent arguments have sprung up for both sides, but it all depends with which way you write better. Some are better in Tell mode, getting all fancy, but only some. And even then they are risking it if there is too much. If you want your story to read quick-paced like a movie, then Show is the way to go.  I'm in the Show camp. Tell has its place, I just believe Show allows the reader to become the character they are reading about, to get into their body, see through their eyes.  Tell can slow the pace of a tale, but too much telling and the story runs the risk of sounding like a text book.  Telling is more passive, where you can hide behind prose--which runs the risk of becoming ambiguous,making the story hard to fo

Decisions Desisions--Deciding What To Post

Deciding what to post isn't as easy as I thought; What works, what doesn't. What sparks interest in a reader to keep them coming back?  I don't want to be boring, with crap already  known, rambling on about only myself, yet don't want to be too advanced, either,  where new writers can't benefit. When starting this, I wanted to document the process of becoming a writer independent of a day job. That can be many things--not always a successful one. But I wanted to let people reading (and myself, when looking back on this) see each stage and the feelings that go along with it.  I got to thinking maybe life stories would be interesting, my day to day. Inspiring stories, or life lessons. Some may tie into writing; some chalked up to half-truth fiction created to tell a bigger story. Or maybe some techniques I've discovered. I have published a few stories thus far--even if the advice is unorthodox, if the writer has had some success, it's probably a wise thi

Friday Update

I’m going to try something new, to see if I can post more often to this blog--maybe once a week on Friday when I do my weekly writing session in a café before my miserable walk into work. There has been a lot of news I have not really talked about. One big bit of news is I had a story accepted into Unnerving Magazine titled Daddy. Not totally sure when this is coming out, sometime in the summer/fall. I am very excited for this news, yet feel shackled as well. Let me explain. So with each step forward, I become more confident, but I also realize how much my job is holding me down. That is the dilemma. The bills still need to be paid. I am also doing a guest host stint with Jessie Dedman on The Deadman's Tome. I have published with Jessie in two anthologies, great issues: the Krampus issue and No Safe Word--I submitted a flash piece for each. On top of all this, I am doing reviews for Unnerving Magazine. The way I look at it, I am attempting to force myself to read. As t