Author Archives: amandamblake

Back from the dead: Friday Update

31 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Series

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Happy Halloween! Thanks for bearing with me on the playlists. I won’t do something like that for a few more years. 🙂

News:

Bewilderingly, though I supposedly have two short stories out today, neither of them appear to be available yet, so we’ll try again later. There’s still more ‘today’ for them to be published.

Works in Progress:

I’m still working on Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8). I took a day off to pare down a story for the Shallow Waters contest call, and then another day off because my morning was taken up entirely by a doctor’s appointment. It was hard to get back into writing it, which tells me that I’m ready for it to be done. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near. I’ll hit 90K words by end of day, but I think I have at least 30K more to write, which will take me until about Thanksgiving. Sigh. At least I have a few really fun scenes coming up preceding the story’s climax.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Addams Family
The Stepford Wives (2004)
Cabin in the Woods
SWAT series
Hannibal series
Matlock series
CSI: NY series
Halloween Wars series (finished)
Halloween Baking Championship series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to October 2023)

sugar high
sugar crash
cotton candy hair
of the dog that
bit her rabid
screamin demon
with a chocablock
pretty face

Halloween playlist: Add to Other Categories

29 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Photo by Tookapic on Pexels.com

And finally, we have a playlist subsection of songs that belong in other categories, but I added them to the lists after I’d already posted the categories in question. Thanks for playing!

Add to other categories:

  1. “Vampire” – Olivia Rodrigo (Vampire)
  2. “Bloody Pleasures” – Blutengel (Vampire)
  3. “Darkling” – Sirenia (Demons)
  4. “Vampire Ecstasy” – Aural Vampire (Vampire)
  5. “Heart of Lilith” – Inkubus Sukkubus (Demons)
  6. “Alive” – Complete Jekyll & Hyde (Jekyll/Hyde)
  7. “Lady Geneva” – Inkubus Sukkubus (Witches)
  8. “Somewhere at the Edges of Creation” – Nosferatu the Vampire (Vampire)
  9. “Black Wings” – Tom Waits (Demons)
  10. “Big Beast Eat Little Beast” – Toledo (Beasts)
  11. “The Music Lessons/Phantom Fugue” – Phantom: The American Musical (Phantom of the Opera)
  12. “The Witch’s Daughter” – Ashley Serena (Witches)
  13. “The Miller’s Daughter” – Nosferatu the Vampire (Vampire)
  14. “Graveyard” – Halsey (Dead)
  15. “X-Files Theme” – Tina Guo (Movie/TV)
  16. “A Day for Ghosts” – Delain (Ghosts)
  17. “Moonlight and Madness” – Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Darkness)
  18. “Haunted (Michael Diamon Remix)” – Beyonce (Ghosts)
  19. “Burn Your Village” – Kiki Rockwell (Witches)
  20. “Evil Woman” – Electric Lights Orchestra (Witches)
  21. “Abracadabra” – The Steve Miller Band (Witches)
  22. “Black Magic Woman” – Santana (Witches)
  23. “Drink with the Living Dead” – Ghoultown (Zombie)
  24. “Your Ghost” – Kristin Hersh
  25. “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) – David Bowie (Monsters)
  26. “Monsters” – All Time Low (feat. Demi Lovato and blackbear) (Monsters)
  27. “Calling All the Monsters” – China Anne McClain (Monsters)
  28. “Beautiful Monster” – Ne-Yo (Monsters)
  29. “Tonight is What It Means to Be Young” – Fire Inc. (Vampire)

Halloween playlist: Miscellaneous

27 Monday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

This subsection of my horror playlist isn’t technically a subsection. It’s just a bunch of songs that didn’t fit into any of the other categories and didn’t have enough in their subject matter to justify a separate category. I posted these at Bluesky over several days, so I thought I’d wait until I could post them all here.

Miscellaneous:

  1. “Time for Tea” – Emilie Autumn
  2. “Welcome to My Nightmare” – Alice Cooper
  3. “Fears Become Wishes” – Lily Kershaw
  4. “Severed Veins” – Fractured
  5. “Doll Parts” – LVCRFT
  6. “Creep On Creepin’ On” – Timber Timbre
  7. “Kill or Be Killed” – New Years Day
  8. “Running for Your Life” – UNSECRET (feat. Butterfly Boucher)
  9. “Somebody’s Watching Me” – Rockwell
  10. “Crushed Dreams” – Tristania
  11. “You Better Run” – Unions
  12. “Hatred” – Novakill
  13. “Dragula” – Rob Zombie
  14. “Nevermore” – Beyond the Black
  15. “Scaretale” – Nightwish
  16. “Tourniquet” – Rasputina
  17. “Darker Things” – Lily Kershaw
  18. “Transylvania Mania Blues” – Young Frankenstein
  19. “Twisted” – Aron Wright
  20. “The Mountain” – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
  21. “Omens” – UNSECRET (feat. Neoni)
  22. “Circus” – Tristania
  23. “Dies Irae” – Beyond the Black
  24. “Sister Rosetta” – Noisettes
  25. “Crushed Dreams” – Tristania
  26. “Bite” – LVCRFT
  27. “Western Questions” – Timber Timbre
  28. “Superstition” – Stevie Wonder (I also enjoy the Siobhan Magnus American Idol version)
  29. “Take It to the Graveyard (Boo-Yeah!)” – LVCRFT
  30. “Blood” – Sonata Arctica
  31. “Secrets in Your Head” – UNSECRET (feat. Jillian Edwards)
  32. “If You Ask Me To” – LVCRFT
  33. “Skulls” – Halestorm
  34. “Gelatin” – Soren Bryce
  35. “Boadicea” – Enya
  36. “When the Mirror Cracks” – Xandria
  37. “Bad Moon Rising” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
  38. “Poison” – Alice Cooper
  39. “2012” – Nemesea
  40. “Building a Mystery” – Sarah McLachlan
  41. “Toxic” – Britney Spears (see also Melinda Doolittle’s Postmodern Jukebox version)
  42. “Insane Asylum” – Detroit Cobras
  43. “Hotel California” – The Eagles
  44. “Thriller” – Michael Jackson
  45. “Disturbia” – Rihanna
  46. “New Flesh” – Grendel
  47. “The Phantom Agony” – Epica
  48. “Finger or a Nose” – Twisted Insane
  49. “Candles (Live)” – Within Temptation
  50. “Children” – Huntress
  51. “Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches” – Emilie Autumn
  52. “I Think We’re Alone Now” – Hidden Citizens
  53. “Black & Silver” – Xandria
  54. “Calling” – The Birthday Massacre
  55. “A Stranger’s Home” – Jack in Water and Lily Kershaw
  56. “Obelisk” – Timber Timbre
  57. “Not Alone” – Sara Bareilles
  58. “Let’s Dance” – Delain
  59. “Sweet Dreams” – Jessica Sanchez
  60. “World of Glass” – Tristania
  61. “O Fortuna (Epic Trailer Version)” – Hidden Citizens/”Carmina Burana” – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
  62. “Beware” – Xandria
  63. “Heads Will Roll” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  64. “Skin and Bones” – Ruelle
  65. “I Want to Be Evil” – Eartha Kitt
  66. “In the Air Tonight” – Phil Collins
  67. “A Little Priest” – Sweeney Todd OBC

Like a normal human being: Friday Update

24 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Novels, Series, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Photo by Elle Hughes on Pexels.com

To the tune of “This is Halloween”: This is 39. This is 39. 39. 39. 39. 39.

Let us not speak of it again. I’m not entirely sure what happens after 40.

News:

Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7) came out on October 18. A demon hunter from childhood meets a vampire and a werewolf who don’t kill, and they introduce her to a different world than the short, bleak life that she’s been raised in. This particular story was originally supposed to be a standalone, but the first two attempts to write the seventh Meridian novel didn’t work, and it shared some features with the standalone idea, so so I pulled them together to fix the problems. I’m really pleased with the result. Sort of like Skeletons (Arcanium Book 8), it’s a bit of a subversion of the usual themes in Meridian, which keeps things interesting for me.

Works in Progress:

I should reach 82K on Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) by the end of the day. Definitely at a difficult point, but I think as long as I get it on the page, I can fix it in edits. I’m actually having a really good time, during both the spicy scenes and the regular scenes. That happens when you have characters you like hanging out with.

I need to cut down a short story this weekend, but then I should get back into N&F.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Sleepy Hollow
The Haunted Mansion (2023)
Black Phone 2
SWAT series
Hannibal series
Matlock series
All Creatures Great and Small series (finished)
Is It Cake? Halloween Edition series (finished)
CSI: NY series
Halloween Wars series
Halloween Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to October 2023)

don’t mistake my
calm solitude and
solemn attitude
with local witch
in a moment
I can make
an abrupt and
wicked switch

Halloween playlist: Halloween, Actually

23 Thursday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today’s playlist subsection consists of songs about Halloween and the whole experience of it. Surprisingly short, to be honest.

Halloween:

  1. “All Hallows’ Eve” – Inkubus Sukkubus
  2. “Everyday is Halloween” – Dangerous Muse
  3. “This is Halloween” – Nightmare Before Christmas
  4. “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween” – Muse
  5. “Halloween Main Theme” – Tina Guo
  6. “Candyman” – LVCRFT
  7. “People are Strange” – Johnny Hollow
  8. “Who’s at the Door?” – UNSECRET (feat. Sam Tinnesz)
  9. “We Got the Treats” – LVCRFT
  10. “Halloween Song” – SMITH
  11. “Spooky (Little Girl Like You)” – Classics IV (Dusty Springfield also has a great version, but the Halloween lyric changed)
  12. “I Miss You” – blink 182
  13. “Jackolantern’s Weather” – 311
  14. “Everyday is Halloween” – Ministry
  15. “Halloween Dance” – The Reverend Horton Heat

Halloween playlist: Night/Darkness

22 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Photo by Alex Fu on Pexels.com

Today, we’re dwelling in darkness and embracing the night.

Night/Darkness:

  1. “Beware of Darkness” – Hidden Citizens (with Ranya)
  2. “Daughters of Darkness” – Halestorm
  3. “Black Hole Sun” – Haley Reinhart
  4. “Black” – Sarah MacLachlan
  5. “Light in the Hallway” – Pentatonix
  6. “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” – Twisted Insane (parody music from the series that shall not be named, but royalties probably not going in her pockets)
  7. “Paint It Black” – Inkubus Sukkubus (also Siobhan Magnus’ American Idol version, and the cellist’s from Wednesday S1)
  8. “Whispers in the Dark” – Skillet
  9. “Goodnight Moon” – Shivaree
  10. “Moon Trance” – Lindsey Stirling
  11. “Dead of Night” – Ruelle
  12. “Drowning in Darkness” – Beyond the Black
  13. “In Love with the Darkness” – Xandria
  14. “Afraid of the Dark” – Unions
  15. “In the Middle of the Night” – Within Temptation
  16. “Halo of the Dark” – Beyond the Black

Halloween playlist: Creature Feature/Monsters

21 Tuesday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Photo by Laker on Pexels.com

Today’s theme is creature features and monsters, so this is where the horror movie monsters that don’t have their own category hang out and monster mash.

Creature Feature/Monsters:

  1. “Venus Fly Trap” – MARINA
  2. “Bloody Mary” – Lady Gaga
  3. “The Invisible Man” – Queen
  4. “Hide and Seek” – Lerion & Lauren Paley
  5. “Black Widow” – Iggy Azalea (feat. Rita Ora)
  6. “Spiderweb” – Haley Reinhart
  7. “Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. 1: Incubus” – Kamelot
  8. “Mutate with Me” – The Humpers
  9. “Vulture” – Tristania
  10. “Black Vultures” – Halestorm
  11. “Balrog Boogie” – Diablo Swing Orchestra
  12. “Enter Sandman” – Metallica
  13. “Monster” – Lady Gaga
  14. “Teeth” – Lady Gaga
  15. “Some Kind of Monster” – Beyond the Black
  16. “Monsters” – Ruelle
  17. “I’ll See You in My Dreams” – Moonspell
  18. “Loverman” – Nick Cave
  19. “Lovely Creature” – Nick Cave
  20. “Goo Goo Muck” – The Cramps
  21. “Monster Mash” – Bobby Pickett
  22. “Frankenstein” – Gene Moss
  23. “Monster” – Panzer AG
  24. “Monsters” – Hurricane Bells
  25. “Spiders” – The Mist
  26. “Queen Bee” – Tina Guo
  27. “Monster” – Eminem (feat. Rihanna)
  28. “Boris the Spider” – The Who
  29. “Bodysnatchers” – Radiohead
  30. “All Along the Crooked Way” – Inkubus Sukkubus

Halloween playlist: Movies/TV

20 Monday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Photo by Huu1ef3nh u0110u1ea1t on Pexels.com

Today’s post includes songs from or about horror TV series and movies. I didn’t include just plain theme songs from the most common horror movies, although I have them in my full Halloween playlist, unless they were covered or altered in some way or if they were taken from someone else’s music. You can find horror theme song albums lots of places. Songs about specific horror monsters are in another subsection of the playlist.

Movie/TV/Theme Songs (about or from): (posted)

  1. “Dream of a Witch’s Sabbath” – Hector Berlioz (The Shining)
  2. “Tubular Bells” – Mike Oldfield (The Exorcist)
  3. “Ave Satani” – The Omen
  4. “A Nightmare on My Street” – DJ Jazzy Jeff
  5. “The Well”/”Television” – The Ring/The Ring 2
  6. “Your True Face” – God Module (samples from Nightbreed)
  7. “Twisted Nerve” – Kill Bill
  8. “Hello Zepp” – Saw
  9. “Monochrome Kiss” – AmaLee (Black Butler)
  10. “The Host of Seraphim” – The Mist
  11. “Vampire Hunters”/”The Brides” – Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  12. “Dangerous Type” – Letters to Cleo/”Dark Secret” – Matthew Sweet (The Craft)
  13. “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” – Tiny Tim (Insidious)
  14. “Swan Lake Opening” – Tchaikovsky (Black Swan)
  15. “Red Right Hand” – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Scream)
  16. “Aperitif” – Hannibal Season 1, Vol. 1 (includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations)
  17. “Purple People Eater” – NOPE
  18. “Pet Sematary” – Ramones
  19. “Haunted (from Fear Itself)” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  20. “Final Destination” – Within Temptation
  21. “Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula” – LVCRFT (feat. Spencer Ludwig)
  22. “Remain (from Old)” – Saleka
  23. “Carry On Wayward Son” – Kansas (Supernatural)
  24. “Closer” – Nine Inch Nails (Se7en)
  25. “You’re Not Here”/”Letter from the Lost Days” – Silent Hill 3 (Silent Hill movie)
  26. “Rain of Brass Petals: Three Voices Edit” – Silent Hill: Revelation
  27. “Opening (Sarah’s Theme)” – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
  28. “Hatching Baby Raptor” – Jurassic Park
  29. “Into the Fire” – Dokken (Nightmare on Elm Street 3)
  30. “Cry Little Sister” – Blutengel (Lost Boys, I Know What You Did Last Summer)
  31. “Mary, Mary [Stigmata Mix]” – Chumbawumba
  32. “Danse Macabre” – Camille Saint-Saens (“Hush” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer))
  33. “Fun with Knives” – Velvet Acid Christ (Event Horizon samples)
  34. “Cold” – Aqualung and Lucy Schwartz (Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1)
  35. “Straight to Hell” – LVCRFT (feat. Sabrina Spellman) (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, to the tune of “Skeleton Sam”)
  36. “Ghostbusters” – Ray Parker, Jr.
  37. “In the Acts of Violence” – Dawn of Ashes (samples from Alien 3)
  38. “Spooky” – God Module (samples from Return of the Living Dead)
  39. “Be Careful What You Wish For” – Wayfarers/”The Wish Box” – tomandandy (Wish Upon)
  40. “Running Up That Hill” – Kate Bush/”Master of Puppets” – Metallica (Stranger Things)
  41. “What You Feel”/”Walk Through the Fire” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Once More with Feeling”
  42. “Bad Romance” – Lady Gaga (Hitchcock movie references)
  43. “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” – The Cramps
  44. “We’ve Only Just Begun” – The Carpenters (1408)
  45. “Eyes on Fire” – Blue Foundation (Twilight)
  46. “Once Upon a Dream (Young Ruffian Remix)” – Lana Del Rey (Maleficent)
  47. “Love Crime from the Wrath of the Lamb” – Siouxsie Sioux (Hannibal Season 3, Vol. 2)

Halloween playlist: Dead/Zombie

17 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today’s subsection of the Halloween playlist is in honor of the dead and those risen from the dead.

Dead/Zombie:

  1. “Dead March” – Suicide Commando
  2. “Dead of Night” – Depeche Mode
  3. “Life, Life” – Young Frankenstein
  4. “Skeleton Sam” – LVCRFT
  5. “In the Woods Somewhere” – Hozier
  6. “Dead is the New Alive” – Emilie Autumn
  7. “Back from the Dead” – Halestorm
  8. “Spooky Scary Skeletons” – LVCRFT
  9. “Cemetery” – Headstones
  10. “Dead Man’s Party” – Oingo Boingo
  11. “Ain’t No Grave” – Hidden Citizens (feat. Adam Christopher)
  12. “Skeleton Tree” – Auri
  13. “Dead Heart Beat” – LVCRFT (feat. John Kassir)
  14. “Corpses (A Zombie Love Song)” – God Module
  15. “Carrion” – Fiona Apple
  16. “Death Couldn’t Tear Us Apart” – LVCRFT
  17. “Jesus was a Zombie” – Zombie Girl
  18. “Garden of Graves” – Rua
  19. “I am Stretched on Your Grave” – Kate Rusby
  20. “Skeletons” – Maddie Poppe
  21. “Raise the Dead” – RAIGN
  22. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” – Blue Oyster Cult
  23. “Battlefield” – Panzer AG

Waiting for you: Friday Update

17 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in A Few Thoughts, Series, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

News:

Nothing to share this week.

Works in Progress:

Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8) is definitely looking long. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went past 120K in the first draft. Nothing wrong with an ambitious novel, but it definitely tests my patience.

Taking an extra day off a week is helping, though. Usually I only take one day off a week, but October is complicated anyway, and I needed the extra 3K-word days to help me feel like I’m moving forward more. Of course, it makes me crave the days I did nothing but write and could get 21K words a week instead of 11K. I’ll survive. I’ll hit 69K by tonight. In my list of nine story beats, I’ve crossed out four, and I’m almost through five.

Can’t believe that when this novel is done, I’ll have finished writing the Meridian series. Feels like a whirlwind. That’s taken years.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

The Witches (1990)
The Craft: Legacy
Haunted Harmony Mysteries: Buried at C
Dracula Untold
SWAT series
Hannibal series
All Creatures Great and Small series
CSI series
CSI: NY series
Halloween Baking Championship series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to 2023)

i don’t understand
why the celebration
as we creep ever nearer
to your cruel revelation

why would you encourage
unnecessary acceleration?
long as you’re spared damn
the rest of the population

i cannot condone the
vacuous participation
in widespread violence
and genocidal devastation

all in the name of
joyful damnation
by a merciful God
of glorious creation