Dear Subscriber,
It’s pretty cool when your revision scares your horror anthology editor!
From: Jane Nightshade <jane.nightshade@hellboundbookspublishing.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2023 8:23 PM
To: jamesmusgrave2122 <jamesmusgrave2122@att.net>
Subject: Re: The Babaylan
Yikes! Scary. Where did you get the idea for this story?
Jane Nightshade
Hi Jane,
I thought after reading my draft that you were too polite to me. The story really didn’t make much sense. Then I realized that the main confrontation should be between the demon ghost and the two women.
I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies for Halloween (my favorite holiday time), and the idea came to me as I was connecting the dots in the story. Also, as a Buddhist, and into parallel dimensions, I saw the time periods could be joined as we only have the present, which contains both past and the future.
The horror film I watched when I got the idea was Talk to Me, a great Australian movie about teens who connect with the purgatory of the dead by touching an embalmed hand. It’s not exactly what I did in my story, but I really liked the connection between the pregnant mother and daughter, and that “told me” to make certain that they come together to defeat the demon ghost of Speck. I even thought of a Speck joke:
What did the constipated fly on the prison cell wall say?
“I Speck not.”
Glad you like it. If you’re using images, maybe you can use the one I sent you:
Rose Aquino as “The Babaylan”
You can read the horror story draft I was referencing in my email here. Special to my subscribers before it’s published in the anthology along with other great stories. (Note: Rated “R” for graphic content for adults.)
Also, if you want to continue your Halloween horror story bingeing, then subscribe to my “Horror on the Installment Plan” service to get stories emailed directly to you:
Thanks for reading, and keep on “trick-or-treating”!
James
San Diego, CA
