As the lights go out...
💀 Writing with my heroes & visiting Cornwall's newest scare attraction 💀
This week I’ve written my first article for Cornwall Live, part of Reach plc, which publishes over 240 regional and national newspapers in the UK. The reason that I gave up my former columns for Starburst and SCREAM was that I didn’t have enough time to write around my day job and wanted to concentrate on telling my own stories, but this was an opportunity that I couldn’t refuse.
Not only did I attend the launch night of Lights Out!, Bodmin Jail’s first dedicated scare attraction, I took my son with me and got to take him into his first scare maze and write about it for a local newspaper. If anybody else launching scare experiences, scare mazes, any sort of interactive horror experiences or performances across the UK wants to invite me to attend then I am always interested! I don’t think I’ll give the excellent ScareTOUR a run for their money (always my first port of call when planning for Halloween) but I do love an excuse to be chased in the dark by people wearing masks. Read the full article on Cornwall Live.
Scare events across the UK
As a lifelong horror fan, I’ve watched more scary movies than I can remember and written about horror films, novels and comics for some of the world’s biggest horror magazines, but have visited far fewer scare events and activities than I’d have liked. Any thrill that you can get from watching the latest slasher film in the cinema is nothing compared to being chased by a masked stranger wielding a chainsaw in the dark.
A couple of years ago I went to Alton Towers for the first time, timing the visit to coincide with their annual Halloween Scarefest, when I was able to be chased through their famous Halloween scare mazes and ride the Wicker Man rollercoaster flaming in the dark.
I enjoyed the mazes so much that as soon as I got back home to Plymouth I started researching similar scare attractions in the south west, and found that the biggest and best was FEAR at Avon Valley, halfway between Bristol and Bath. I convinced a group of workmates to go with me and it was an unforgettable experience, being chased by deranged clowns, watching a live exorcism and even being sent to wade through sewers with a failing flashlight.
The following year, we upped our game and attended FEAR again, stopping off in Bristol on the way to take part in their notorious Hell in a Cellar escape room first, which starts out with everyone in your group handcuffed in darkness, listening to the rants of a killer who’s due to return in 60 minutes. That October I also drove up to SCREAMFEST in Burton upon Trent, where their scare mazes included chases by chainsaw-wielding-rednecks through an enormous cornfield, a walk through a child’s nightmare and my personal favourite, speed dating gone wrong that sees you fleeing through a rock pub toilet.
The problem with these brilliant Halloween attractions is that they’re a long way away from Devon and Cornwall (SCREAMFEST was a four hour drive!) and that 12 months is too long to wait between scares. Lights Out! promises to be a year-round event at Bodmin Jail and I seriously hope that the event is so successful that it becomes the first of many.
I was also excited to discover myself at the end of the excellent Samoco Mojozine issue two, featured in a spread of about artist Jason Atomic’s visit to the 2022 Patron’s Day at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. That meetup with Jason and the equally-inspiring Manko Sebastian acted as a prelude to my interview with Jason about his eclectic life and career. I hope that our Patron Day meetings will become an annual event, after we met again in 2023 with artist Ethan Pennell.
As a sidenote, Jason and Manko sent me a care package in December that included home-made passion flower tincture, bee propolis and hemp oil to help us through the dark months, after hearing that my house is populated by anxious insomniacs who never sleep. It’s an odd comfort to know that the survivors of the kind of deranged lunatics I would seek out in my youth are now more likely to find solace in nature than in 8.4% bottles of White Lightning cider and whatever amphetamines could be salvaged from the bin.
My personal writing was on pause for a few months since October 2023, when I finished the most recent draft of my novel and send it out to readers for feedback. I foolishly thought I’d take a break to do DIY and redecorate our stairs and hallway, forgetting that my practical skills don’t match up to my ambition. Two gruelling months of toxic paint removal, sanding and painting later, I’ve hung up my paintbrush and resumed writing.
The transition away from at least a decade of solid focus on writing comic-book scripts and comics criticism has involved a steep learning curve, but my interest in prose has been revived and reinvigorated by the experience. I was excited when Will Christopher Baer, the author of my favourite novel, Kiss Me, Judas, emerged from the woodwork recently after a prolonged period of absence from any sort of public life. The prospect of reading new stories by him was already enticing enough, but since then I’ve put myself forward to participate in a writing workshop that he’s leading and I’m doing what I can to learn from the master of neo-noir.
It took me a while to find my inspiration with this new group of writers, but now my problem is that the story I started writing for the workshop is double the suggested word count and I haven’t quite reached the halfway point yet. Last year a screenwriter friend told me that my writing was too concise, because I was coming at storytelling from the brevity of comic-book scripts, and that I should let it breathe more. This is the result!
As a complete aside, I was searching to find an old article that I’d written online, and found a blog from around ten years ago, by a writer who said that he’s been inspired by my old column for Starburst Magazine to actively seek out, read and review comic-books published independently by UK-based comic creators. Seeing those words for the first time reminded me that when you put your work out into the world, you never know who it will touch or who will find meaning in it.
The only thing I’m listening to at the moment is a new playlist that I compiled of songs designed to get me in the right frame of mind to tell stories in the universe of this new workshop I’m taking part in.
That’s it from me today. The weather in the UK is wet and miserable at this time of year. I hope you’re managing to stop doomscrolling long enough to get outside and remember that there’s still a whole world out there, even in the rain.
Thanks for reading IF YOU GO AWAY. Please share this with a friend or get in touch if you want to discuss anything that I’ve written about.
Best wishes,
P M Buchan