In THE JOHNSON AMULET AND OTHER SCOTTISH TERRORS some of the stories
also resurfaced as chapters in THE BOOK OF THE DARK. What stories? And how did
you make that work?
Actually it worked the other way round. Episodes from the novel lent themselves to
being converted into short stories. For example, "The World of Illusion" is a short story
taken from the scene where Tony does the levitation trick with his schoolmates, and
"Flower of Scotland" is taken from the vampire's flashback to the night he was turned in
Dunnotar Castle. Obviously the short stories end differently to the scenes in the book to
give them a climactic ending, but the basic setup is lifted from the novel.
I think it's something to do with being a tech writer where you learn fast that bits of
writing are always reusable. :)
Moonlicht Nicht is an interesting ezine. Are moonlight and night really spelled with Cs?
How did that come about?
Moonlicht Nicht is a pet project of mine - an ezine of Scottish based supernatural
material, both fact and fiction. I'm accepting submissions of anything that's Scottish (or
with a Scottish theme) and supernatural or Fortean in some way. For example, the
current issue has an article on the possible survival of lynx in the Scottish Highlands, a
report on what happened when three psychics went to Rosslyn Chapel (a focal point for
new-age theorists), some real-life ghost stories and fiction and poetry from Scotland,
Canada and New England.
I started it to see if I could get some material that was more "old fashioned" in nature.
I'm fed up with modern, urban, horror...I want to create a place for submissions where
ghosts clank in chains, banshees wail on castle walls and wolves howl on blasted
heaths. And it's nice to take horror back to "the auld country".
Anybody that wants to submit can have a look over at
http://www.willie.meikle.btinternet.co.u...
The replacement of "g" with "c" comes from the old Scottish phonetic spelling of the
words. (If you can say "It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht", then you're a' richt.) As Mike
Myers so eloquently put it...."If it's nae Scottish, it's crrrraaaapp!"
Yours is one of the few vampire books I've read where the vampire isn't the hero, but a
creature straight out of a horror film. What do you feel abut vampires as heros?
