Man, I am sick of this shit.

I made myself look creepy at a dance party. I like the ghoulish grin.

I hate my job. I work for corporate cartoon dickheads. Time to sew myself a catsuit. Hell here. 🔥🐈‍⬛

I still want to be Ripley, just without the alien DNA stuff. I don’t know why they did that.

Here’s some writing advice: 1) Do not listen to writing advice on social media. Seriously, I think some writers dispensing advice are trying to stop people from writing. No shit. 💩

Vampirella!

Consciousness is hurting my feelings.

Some mornings, coffee cup in hand, my husband does his famous (in our house) Indiana Jones impression. It involves Indiana drunkenly discussing his many crimes, his traumas, his penchant for violence, his pursuit of an underage Marian, etc. This is, incidentally, the reason I married my husband.

Home sick so I am searching for vintage book covers. Doesn’t everyone do that? I found two with wanton Southern women on the covers. I am also a Gulf Coast Girl. Might I suggest you pair this one with Sin on Wheels? Have yourself a sleazy Southern shindig.

Love seeing Kurt there smiling and celebrating his friend!

I can still sing all the songs from Top Secret. RIP, dude.

It’s been a while. I have been distracting myself from crushing anxiety and dread by dancing (and drinking lots of wine). 🍷 🪩 It’s mostly kinda working.

More reasons to adore this house. The wallpaper, the shaggy carpet, the candelabra.

I love this one. It has stained glass in some kind of sacrificial sun god setup, a creeping statue garden and faintly yellow wallpaper.

Writing tip: Look at art you enjoy. It will trigger your subconscious . . . or something. Look at a cover and think what the hell is going on in this book? Ask yourself, what fresh fuckery is this? Examples below: George Ziel art. Yes, that is Phoebe Cates.

These are from 19th century illustrator Theodor Kittelsen. The first is a mountain troll. I don’t know what the 2nd is but I love water monsters. The old woman brings plague with her broom and there’s a dragon too. Gorgeous.

All these years I thought it was “I’m your huckleberry.” And it’s not. It’s “I’m your huckle bearer” which makes more sense but is oddly disappointing to me, for no real reason.

I wrote a substack about Ingrid Pitt. I read her memoir. I admire her even more now. open.substack.com/pub/cynthial...

I think someday I’d like to return to nature.* *Get mummified in a bog and later unearthed to be shown as an oddity in a traveling show.

Manager told me to AI my work photo. The results were hilarious to me.

I'm watching The Blood-Splattered Bride, an Italian gothic horror from the 70s. It's perverse, lovely and disturbing, just as you'd expect. It's based on Carmilla but not really. It has nice gothic trappings but it's mostly an exercise in perversion disguised as feminism, imo. I recommend.

My son and I are home sick with flu. We watched Logan today. He loved it and was moved by it, although he mainly loved the claw violence. My heart is so full. ♥️

Anxiety. Watercolor, colored pencil, and white ink.

So I wrote a book about a pretty young woman and her trusty hell hound. It's available now at the usual places. I had such fun writing this one, ya'll.

I think the only way for me (and maybe others) to get through the years of cruel spectacles and heartbreaking news is to double down on the Things I Love That Distract Me From Real Life. So I recently bought Ingrid Pitt’s memoir. I intend to write a substack about her.

I watched Last Straw last night on Shudder. The movie surprised me. I thought it was one kind of movie but it turned into another. It’s a stylish film, smart, with good performances all around. I recommend.

This cover is so adorable. It makes me happy. It’s the kind of book I would have spied in the grocery store as a child and begged/bugged my Mom to buy.

Fuck that guy.

I have been dealing with Long COVID for the past 7 months. Today I went for a 15 min walk and I didn’t feel brain fogged and sick for hours afterwards. I listened to Ennio Morricone’s music for The Mission while I walked and felt elevated. Getting better, a little at a time.

It arrived! I put it on my work from home desk, next to my Medusa lamp, a place of honor. I love Medusa. I love my lamp. I wish she would hiss and spit at anyone who enters my office and damages my calm.

Today’s the day. My Grady Hendrix book is expected today. My horror heart just grew three sizes.

reading this in Humphrey Bogart's voice

I read this recently. It was really good. It is always interesting to see how other creatives create. It seems musicians want to get everyone together to create. Writers be like “can everyone just fuck off, please, so I can write?”

I absolutely cannot wait for this book. It arrives Tuesday. There is no other horror writer like Grady Hendrix. Full stop.

The first episode of our new podcast, Method & Madness, is now available. I discuss Moby-Dick w/ my cohost, Brad Kelly, how writers can use techniques from Melville's masterpiece in their own writing. Then Brad gets eaten by Cthulhu. Listen here: youtu.be/Xsdw9WnWb88?...

This is a Carmilla playing card apparently. Pinterest claims it’s part of a set but I couldn’t find the other cards. I think it’s adorable. I would hang it in my house, I swear.

Snow Day in AL. I watched my son throw snowballs at his neighborhood friends and slide down a hill in a plastic baby pool. Lovely. ☺️

I could watch Bryan Cranston dance all day. As a somewhat trained dancer, I have to say he can move. youtube.com/watch?v=VHIV...

That’s quite a quote for a wedding. I bet the wedding people wished they’d done their own research.

My book on Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is coming out Jan. 28. If you preorder the signed (by me!) edition, MZS.press will ship it to you! Images below! mzs.press/PRE-ORDER-SI...

Last night I fell down the YouTube Arrest Video rabbit hole. One guy was alone, treading water in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. He’d been on another boat but he either jumped or was thrown off it. When the water cops pulled up in their boats, he asked to speak with a supervisor. No shit.

I started a substack. I will probably write about stuff that calm my hummingbird brain, gothic things, horror, true crime, ballroom dance, creepy art, maybe some cat pictures. You know, the usual.

Sometimes someone will ask me for writing advice. This is my advice. 1) Sit on your butt. 2) Make some stuff up. 3) Write that stuff down. 4) Do it again and again. You can see why people seldom ask me twice for writing advice.

Actual footage of me reading a book in my house, being gothic as fuck.

Isabella Mazzanti. Carmilla.

I am finally reading Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. I haven’t read it before. It’s an unforgivable omission, really, on my part. I am not creeped by vampires but Carmilla makes my skin crawl. I like how she turns into a fanged cat though. Artwork by: Isabella Mazzanti

Dirty Dancing teaches that abortion rights are good and you should never date a guy who reads Ayn Rand, which is 90% of what you need to get through life

Please can I be young Barbara Steele in Italy in a blue velvet dress with pearls and raven hair and strange beauty?

I finished my latest novel. It’s called The Final Girls. My novel is already a success! How do I know this? Because I finished it. Soon I will put it in the world. Success.

Jonesy! The Final Cat. We love you, you stupid cat.