Horror Story Contest Opportunity

Hey, this could be a western horror story. Double dog dare ya to write one. Go to www.ozarkcreativewriters.blogspot for information.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

It's Time to Get Scary!

We can't wait until next year to challenge you to a Halloween contest. We need us some spooky stories. Write a short story up to 3,000 words.  It doesn't have to be about Halloween but it has to be horror. It has to be scary. I mean really scary, because we don't scare easily and if you can make us cringe and cover our heads you will be the winner. No graphic anything. It's unclear when writers started thinking horror has to be a blood fest like Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It doesn't. True horror is usually very PG. We're not saying you have to be totally unbloody. A zombie beheading once in a while might be necessary. But you know what we mean. Now get to writing. The winner will receive a buffet breakfast at the famous, and very haunted Crescent Hotel. 

Deadline October 31, 2016. Send entries as an attachment toozarkcreativewriters1@gmail.com  Put Halloween Contest in the subject line. You will be notified if you are a winner by November 15th.

Really Scary Two Flash Fiction Horror Film

Just thought we'd share a few scary images to get your going. Or maybe these will keep you up at night...that's a perfect time to write horror.

Cactus Country Publishing

In June High Hill Press took our fifth wheel and traveled on the Oregon Trail from Kansas City to the western border of Wyoming. It was an amazing trip. We walked in the ruts that the wagons of our ancestors drove deep into the ground on their trips west. We sat on the banks of the Platte River and walked the same earth that Buffalo Bill Cody walked in Nebraska. We toured museums and scrounged through junk shops looking for old books. I found a few.

When we got to western Nebraska we decided to detour for a week or so and visit Deadwood, South Dakota. We stayed in a campground at the edge of Custer State Park and got up early one morning to do the wildlife loop in the hopes of seeing buffalo before the traffic jams started. We did. Hundreds of them surrounded our truck. I know this sounds strange, but when a big mamma walked up next to my window, I swear she stopped and looked in at me with that wise brown eye of hers. I was almost overwhelmed with how magnificent I thought they were.But even though they were beautiful and I felt some kind of kinship, I kept my window shut.

Deadwood was also amazing. And we spent hours at the Crazy Horse Monument. Another day at Mount Rushmore and our visit to that part of South Dakota was complete. I came away with a strange feeling that the people who live there now are much like the adventurous pioneers and gold seekers who first settled there in the 1800's. They have that devil may care spirit. You can see it everywhere. It probably isn't a place for a middle-class boring old couple to retire, and I wouldn't because of the winters there, but it was invigorating to visit. We actually think we're going to go back and work at Crazy Horse next May. I'll let you know.

The rest of the trip was wonderful, tiring, amazing, and sometimes surreal. We stayed a week in Riverton, Wyoming in the center of the Wind River Reservation. We visited a ghost town called Atlantic City high up in the Wind River Mountains. There the Mormon Handcart trails cross the Pony Express Trails and they all dissect the Oregon Trail and overlook the Continental Divide. Then we headed to Yellowstone, on up to Montana to visit Little Big Horn, down to the Devil's Tower, and then on in to Cheyenne. By the time we drug ourselves back to Missouri, with a huge case of altitude sickness, we were tired yet still excited about everything we'd seen. Just like a family reunion where Uncle George wants to show you pictures of his vacation every year...I'll share a few of ours here.