I stared blankly at an equally blank page of 'word', trying for quite some time to figure out exactly what to say about what I have just been reading and seeing. The problem as I see it is that there's been an error in my life to date. I recently became a film reviewer here at 'The Ginger Nuts of Horror' website, and an assignment which came my way was to review 'Dead Still', a SyFy channel offering from The Booth Brothers. It stars Ben Browder and Ray Wise, two names I was familiar with and liked the work of, so all was well.

(click here for an exclusive interview with The Booth Brothers)

Once upon a time I was a little girl reading Cyndy and the Lighthouse, but then I grew up a little, and thanks to my Dad's love of old Universal horror movies, I spent Saturday nights tucked under a blankie on the sofa, watching those films with a bag of chips and a bottle of Tango. Whilst my sister and friend Tracey hid under the blanket, I revelled in the delights on the screen. Thus, my love of horror was born.

 I'd started writing about the age of 9 and was always meant to be a horror writer I think, my first entry into poetry, a piece about a vengeful Lord who chops of the head of his bride. He was Lord Windsor. My teacher was suitably unimpressed, but I never let that deter me, reaching my teen years as a writer of Fan Fic; X Files and Star Trek: Next Generation.

To coincide with the launch of his new serialised novel The Quarantined City,   Ginger Nuts of Horror welcomes James Everington the  author of The Shelter and Falling Down. James is one the rising stars of the UK genre scene.  James joins us today for a guest post where he gives us some "Hypocritical advice". 

I’m sure you’ve all read columns like this before, where some author you’ve likely never heard of offers advice about the best way to write. And I’m sure some of you have had the same nagging thought as I have: does the author really do all these things? All the time?

Recently Spectral Press released the first episode of my monthly serial The Quarantined City, and as I was invited by Jim to write a guest post I thought I’d focus on how to write episodic fiction. So I’ve put together a list of hints for anyone considering such a project. They’re all sensible and logical and realistic, as far as I can tell.

But guess what: no, I didn’t follow these all of the time; some I didn’t follow at all. So as well as the advice, I’m also going to let you know where I’m being a hypocrite.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Anyway, on with the advice.

Was Jack the Ripper a monster, larger than life, beyond our comprehension?  From all that has been written and dramatized about the killer, one might think so. But perhaps he was merely a man, with the fears and frailties of an average human being.

If I could go through his pockets, I’ll bet I’d find that he carried common, everyday items that helped him maintain his physical and mental wellbeing in the world of Victorian London.  If that’s true, it would tell me that, although he was an extreme danger to society, he was subject to the physical and emotional trials we all go through in life.

It's the 6th annual 'Women In Horror' month and thinking about new books and stories I've read that have been by women has made me realise (again) that my reading as a whole is woefully behind and less than it should be. So, all I can really do is give a quick rundown of some stuff I've read in the past that I've utterly adored and which also just happens to be written by women.

By the way, you might be wondering why we have a 'Women In Horror' month. If you don't know, or if you're one of those people who makes statements like 'Well, why don't we have a 'Men In Horror' month?', I think a little judicious use of Google searching should help you out. I'm not going to go into it here...

Okay, let's begin:

Looking at the title, it could be taken a lot of ways, I guess, but for this article I plan to split two ways: four things publishers can do wrong when creating an anthology, and four ways writers can pretty much kill their chances of acceptance into an anthology.