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Screenplay: A collection of three-minute scenarios of people suffering: from minor indignities like getting pooped on by a bird to more, um, substantial matters like giant spiders getting loose in an elevator trapped between floors. Between each scenario: Napalm Death - You Suffer #HorrorWritersChat

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The Book: Twenty Seven The Pitch: Dead rock stars, all of whom died at the age of 27, come back as zombies and attack the corporate headquarters of Spotify. #HorrorWritersChat

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I’ve got people singing to themselves as they wander dark alleys, humming to remember a tune while drinking at the pub. A bandstand where brass bands & string ensembles play, and plenty of mentions of operas, musicals... Character’s opinions on music help make them legible. #HorrorWritersChat

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James Ryan @jamesryan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Shelly, from Maryland. Currently finishing up a serial killer novel set in Baltimore in 1891. I tend to use music functionally when writing. So, for example, I’ll listen to the same music my characters would listen to. Gets me into their headspace. #HorrorWritersChat

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Reposted by Shelly Blake-Plock

Tomorrow, 11 AM in LA, 1 PM in Memphis and New Orleans, 2 PM in New York, 7 PM in the UK: This week's #HorrorWritersChat Join us for 4 questions, a chat, and some self-promo at the end:

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 28/09/2026

Was in Niagara Falls over the weekend, among other things doing research for the next book in the trilogy.

Rupert Wondolowski @troublegnome.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reposted by Shelly Blake-Plock

It’s not officially fall until Lottie has her beatnik sweater on.

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Reposted by Shelly Blake-Plock

Mary Wyrd (she/her) @marywyrd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Thanks for joining us for the first (fictional) Horror Writers Chat Conference! Once you’ve answered the questions and interacted, share your promo with the hashtag #HorrorWritersChat IN THE COMMENTS on this post. Travel safely and don’t forget to keep in touch. Until next time...keep it spooky.

That’s it for this week. After you’ve answered the questions and interacted with other posts, it’s promo time. Comment on this post with your self-promotion and use the hashtag #HorrorWritersChat - To help increase visibility, please LIKE, REPOST, QUOTE POST, and COMMENT on the other promos. Background photograph (in duotone of red and black) of a hotel corridor leading to a door. The corridor is almost completely symmetrical.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 23/09/2026

“Hey Bram, while you’re here, could you sign my neck?” #HorrorWritersChat

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 23/09/2026

*Looks at the conference agenda.* Killers and the Killers who Kill Them. Co-moderated by Stephen Graham Jones and Bruce Campbell. *Checks time.* #HorrorWritersChat

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 23/09/2026

*Gets on at the 13th floor. Immediately the elevator drops toward the ground.* “So, hi. How’s everybody doing? Hey, anyone mind doing some proofreading for me? Would help if you know something about serial killers. And Baltimore. And the year 1891.” “Oh, sorry, I’m Shelly.” #HorrorWritersChat

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 22/09/2026

Received the nicest rejection letter today. A real charmer of a rejection letter. If I handled acceptance and rejection, my letters would be short, but sweet. Fuck yes. Fuck no. One of these would be circled.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 21/09/2026

Ended up getting two chapters done today. Good progress given the amount of research involved. I’m turning into the world’s most obsessed historian of 1891 Baltimore.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 20/09/2026

2,500 more words. Must write more words. More. Words. More.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 20/09/2026

Went to the book fair and still managed to bang out 5,000 words.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 19/09/2026

This is a guy half-way through his current book project.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 18/09/2026

Have had trouble writing the last two nights. Dealing with work, bills, rabid baby mice, demonic felines. You know how it is.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 17/09/2026

The Mets make the Orioles look like such a good baseball team. Can we just play them for the rest of the season?

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 14/09/2026

Finished another chapter last night. Small victories these days.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

And so I started work on my current project. It’s a mystery that takes place in Baltimore in 1891. I’ve never written historical fiction, so there’s been a learning curve. Given the amount of research, sometimes I’m only able to manage a thousand words. But the book feels substantial.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Next book I wrote very fast. It’s a modern Selkie story cast as a horror novel. All of the books I’d been working on since Chicago had been set in Maryland in the 1980s or 1990s. I was getting more satisfied with my writing, but needed to get out of my comfort zone.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Finally hit my stride writing a novel about a haunted restaurant. Characters, voice, POV, plot… all coming together now. And by now I’m writing over 3,000 words per day with occasional forays in the altitude of around 10,000.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Next piece was going to be a creature feature about fish who grow legs. So much fun to write, but halfway through I realized it wasn’t big enough for a novel. Shelved it as well as the subsequent two projects… first about AI wanting to die and the second about a death cult. Fun stuff.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

I put a lot into the characters, but the craft was shaky. Especially POV. So I wrote a subsequent novel. This one about a military containment accident that turns the population of an Appalachian town invisible. Better writing, but a bit on the nose.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

I drove out there with my dog. Left the city feeling uplifted. Dictated the full synopsis of a werewolf novel to my phone on the drive home. Once back at my desk, I wrote out the full 125k words. Took three months.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

In Feb of 2025, work went sideways for me. A decade of work in the open source space was being upended by all of the things happening in Washington DC. In October of that year, I visited my daughter in Chicago.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Realized subsequently that, like many people, I’d become very isolated in those years. So I sketched out an ensemble horror about an old wizard in the mountains. I didn’t get far, but I got the bug to write again.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

And then Covid. Holed up in the house, I wrote and recorded constantly. Invented imaginary bands. Imagined the players in those bands. Became obsessed with the concept of pseudonyms. Put out a ton of work independently, but under assumed names.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Another about consciousness as a recreational drug. I’ve since chopped that one into a short story. Throughout was working on a book inspired by Yeats’ Castle of Heroes. Fifteen or more years passed. Thousands upon thousands of pages of writing. All shelved. Put out a lot of music in those years…

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Ended up shelving the books. Nothing but blank stares for the poetry. Nothing but mild condemnation for the novel. But kept writing. A sci-fi novel about schoolmates who reunite for a funeral, visit the old school, and find a city beneath it.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Got a job teaching high school English, then Latin. Wrote constantly. Completed a book of poems and a strange novel inspired by Crowley. That was my first novel. An ensemble horror, which has continued to be my go-to form. That was some twenty years ago now.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Conversation somehow turned to James Merrill and the alleged use of a Ouija board to inspire parts of Changing Light. I think I said that I could learn more from a Ouija board about poetry than I could from grad school. Offer rescinded.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Had to make choices following graduation. By this time had two kids and another on the way. Was accepted to big creative writing grad program. Got in big argument with chair over methods of writing. He took issue with the amount of obscurity in my work at the time.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Married. Moved to new city. Went back to school, studying Greek, Latin, archaeology and art history. Got serious about writing. Wrote a novel-length poem about Baltimore. Protagonist was Cain. Joined Dudley House Writers Workshop. Met writers and read work at writing events. Started work on a book.

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Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Dropped out and spent time traveling, painting, writing, playing music. Was much more instructive than school. Landed poems and stories in magazines for the first time. Was forlorn recently, searching google to find that only one or two of the places I published even still appears online.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

In my first attempt at college I won a poetry scholarship. I later heard that the committee argued about whether to give it to me based on the fact I hadn’t written the application essay. My sister had. Except she hadn’t. I just wrote it that way to appear as though she had.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

I imagine I was pretty intolerable in high school. Became obsessed with Joyce. In a big way, writing took a backseat to reading. Lots of horror novels. Noir mysteries. Some sci-fi. But also Pound and Robert Lowell and eventually Pynchon. I don’t think I was all that easy to talk to.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

Around eighth grade, started taking writing seriously. Or as seriously as an eighth grader can do anything. Wrote a few stories, but gravitated toward poetry and songwriting.

Shelly Blake-Plock @shellyblakeplock.com · 13/09/2026

By fourth grade, I was the new kid in a school a hundred-some miles from home. Quickly forgot about home. New place became home. Still is. Anyway, that was the year they had me editing all of the other kids’ papers. I was a 4th grade red pen megalomaniac.