March Culture Pop and Life Update

Movies, TV shows, and books that inspired me.

March was an extremely busy month. I launched my book at the end of February, which meant March was filled with marketing of said book. My day job got busy too, which meant I didn’t have as much time to shamelessly self-promote as I’d have liked to, or work on writing projects as often as I usually do. It was also my dog’s fourth birthday in March, which unexpectedly put me in a bit of a tailspin. I still can’t believe my puppy is already four; that another year has passed and we only have so many left. My husband and I took a day off to celebrate her, taking her to two of her favourite parks, the pet store, and picked up sushi dinner. Here’s the happy (and tired from all the excitement) pup on her big day:

Outside of the chaos though, I’ve been very happy with how my book has been received. It’s been giving me the push I need to complete book two in the series, which I’m aiming to release late this year.

All this is to say that I didn’t watch or read as much as I usually do. I’ve mostly been having baths (chronic shoulder pain) and doom scrolling or playing video games. But the weekly horror movie group persists, and so did I.

We had a couple of unfortunate stinker choices in the horror movie watch group this month, but for me, one shined through the bunch: My Monster. It had a sassy monster, some romance, and REALLY cute granny sweaters. Like so cute that I was inspired and bought a vintage sweater after. After I’m done with edits of book two and it’s off to beta readers, I’ll be returning to a monster horror I’ve written. The movie, My Monster, showcased how to give monsters personality, whether the audience is supposed to be rooting for them or not. I’ll likely give it a re-watch once I’m ready to dive back into that project.

On the TV front, my husband and I have started watching The X-Files from the beginning. My mom used to watch it when I was little and the theme song used to freak me out. Thankfully, nowadays there’s the option to just “Skip Intro”, so I don’t have to relive that trauma. My husband hadn’t seen it before and we were both worried that it wouldn’t hold up, but it’s still really good. In fact, there’s some scenes that are more topical in today’s world than the early nineties. The writing is very sharp, and although not everything is scientifically accurate (that makes me sound like Scully), it doesn’t really matter too much. *Spoiler alert* I know that they do end up having a romantic relationship later in the series, but I’ve always valued shows, books, or movies where the forced proximity of a male and female stay platonic, so I’m enjoying these early seasons and am hoping to write something similar (work buddies with no romance) in the future.

I’ve been in a slump for reading lately. Most of March has been DNF’ing books that I just couldn’t get into. Most of them were good too, but my brain couldn’t focus. The one book I did finish and enjoyed immensely was A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher. This is the third book I’ve read by them now, and it did not disappoint. On top of Kingfisher becoming one of my favourite horror authors, I love the lengths of their books. This is a hot take, and I know that it’s not an often shared sentiment, but I really believe most horror books should be novellas, or at least regular sized at the most, not big tomes. I love reading Stephen King, but man, some of his books are just too long for my ADHD-riddled brain. With horror, I feel like shorter formats are great to learn just enough about the characters and get through the spooky without it’s shock value wearing off before the end. Fast-paced and snappy works best in my opinion, for horror at least.

Speaking of both Stephen King and novellas, I just bought Cycle of the Werewolf, which is a novella written by King that also includes some awesome illustrations. I’m about half-way through and it’s great. Good pace, still builds the terror slowly even though it’s a short format, and I love the illustrations. It’s almost like a hybrid of a novella and a graphic novel. I have a horror short story I wrote a couple of years back that I’ve been thinking about doing a graphic novel for, but I think I like this format better. Another project to add to my list!

Please help me out of my reading slump and recommend a book below! I’ve also just started First Time Caller by BK Borison, based on a booksta recommendation, and am really enjoying that so far.