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authorrichardmay.bsky.social
Richard May
@authorrichardmay.bsky.social
62 followers 91 following 29 posts
Horror Writer | Cosmic horror is my jam | Recommend me your eldritch books and movies 🎦📖
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authorrichardmay.bsky.social
I'm joining a writing contest this month with this entry from below! It's the first chapter of a dark fantasy series that I plan to focus on next year. Think Mines of Moria, but that's the entire book, hah!

www.minkly.io/series/chapt...

#writing #writer #fantasy #horror #darkfantasy
Dungeon Deep
Rogham is a traitor to the crown. Lyn is a street urchin and a thief. Elric is a squire to the best knight of the realm. Though they never expected to meet, together they've been tasked with saving th...
www.minkly.io
November 4, 2025 at 1:19 AM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
I have a (hot?) take for the Riyadh comedy festival debacle.

I think the comedians should have gone and performed for free. Make a point you're not gonna take Saudi Arabia's money, but that you're still willing to share your art with the world.

Societies can improve through art.

#Riyadh #comedy
October 4, 2025 at 12:14 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
Finished my book! (Spores!)

Now comes the part of murdering my darlings (oh no!) to get this baby ready for prime time.

I'm sharing a chart with the evolution of the word count, for those who are data curious (big plateau in the middle was a long revision).

#writer #writing #horror #mystery
October 1, 2025 at 5:27 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
This week I wanna share that my short story SANDBOX has been officially published by James Gunn's Ad Astra!

It's one that's near and dear to my heart, a bit philosophical, and brimming with tension! Check it out!

www.adastrasf.com/sandbox/

#sci-fi #writing #shortstory #author #writer
Sandbox - James Gunn's Ad Astra
A look around. An empty white room with no windows. Features present: black leather armchair. White fluorescent lamps, constant buzzing from furthest left lamp (probable cause: defective ballast unabl...
www.adastrasf.com
July 30, 2025 at 7:38 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
This one is just a 9-minute read!

In this post I'm discussing the important concept of the Plot Twist and it's much more important cousin, the Turn!

What's the Turn? Well, you have to read the article to find out!

medium.com/@richardmaya...

#Writing #Creativewriting #Writingadvice #Writer
Turns and Twists
It was a bright and windy morning.
medium.com
July 27, 2025 at 12:43 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
This is some really good stuff! I really wanna know about this book now!
priestesshylia.bsky.social ✨ Hylia ✨ @priestesshylia.bsky.social · Jul 14
Creeping onto to the internet in the middle of the night to pass around another short story

This one is a sort of tragic romance, and piece of backstory for one of the characters in my book

open.substack.com/pub/hylia/p/...
Take Me Instead
You make my teeth ache in the best way.
open.substack.com
July 15, 2025 at 7:21 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
Just published another 5-min read on Medium! This one is about a contentious topic: what do you do when the book you're writing doesn't look any good?

Read the post to find out!

medium.com/@richardmaya...

#writing #creativewriting #writingadvice #writingtips #writer #authorlife #writingcommunity
Sunk Cost Wri
This is gonna be a contentious one.
medium.com
July 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
Thought of the day:

- Introvert writers might be better at sitting down and getting things done (they want to be alone with their creation!)

- Extrovert writers might be better at marketing their work once finished (they're born salespeople)

Agree? Disagree?
July 14, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Richard May
katharinetyndall.bsky.social
Why you'd like LET IT FESTER:
🍄 It's smart eco-horror with creepy cryptids and queer romance
🍄 It's a hundred thousand years of geological history made flesh
🍄 Weird horror involving freaky fungi and bronze-age burials
🍄 It's gay as hell

#BluePit📖 #BluePit #h #a #q #lgbt
Creepy picture of a slimy brown slug (suspected Arion vulgaris) munching on trooping fungi (suspected Hypholoma sp)
July 13, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Richard May
davidfarrow5734.bsky.social
HOUSE OF LEAVES x CLOUD ATLAS

For generations, Belgrave House has been growing, hiding a terrible secret. In this novel, spanning 100 years and 5 distinct eras, follow the stories of those who enter Belgrave. No one will leave unchanged… and some may not leave at all.

#BluePit 📖 #W #A #LGBT #H
top left: creepy mansion overlooking lake at night, top right: open door covered by vegetation, bottom left: big tree in empty landscape against gray sky, bottom right: black and gray spiral staircase from above
July 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Richard May
lilithwrites.bsky.social
DISSONANCE

A psychological thriller for readers who like

🩸Protagonists who can't trust their own mind
🩸Family secrets that come back to haunt them
🩸Small town lies
🩸Psychological warfare

Bonus excerpt attached! #BluePit 📖 #A #H #W #LGBT #DIS #WF #ND #OV
Excerpt “Before we do the press conference, I need to go somewhere.” “Where?” “Montgomery.” Zack’s head tilts downward, shadows casting over his eyes. “To talk to that teacher?” His tone probes at her, and even though it was a question, it feels much more like a threat. “You’re not investigating, are you? You know how dangerous that is, right?” She expected nothing less from him. After all these years, he was still their protector. Alex leans close to him, palms resting flat over her thighs and holding on desperately. “Please,” it strains her to hold eye contact, skin tingling, but she persists in boring her gaze into Zack’s. She begs, she challenges. Do not fuck with me. Please give me mercy. “Just take me?” His stare holds just as firm. Where Alex is a scrappy, determined thing, Zack has looked into the maw of something darker. His irises are inky and he uses it to barb through her. She blinks first.
July 13, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Richard May
sawduhst.bsky.social
🫀With 2 weeks left to their scouting mission, people wait for word back from their astronauts, eager to flee to a new home away from Earth. Unbeknownst to them, the co-pilot just got infected with an alien parasite, exposing the planet's deadly underbelly.
#Bluepit #Bluepit💥 #A #NA #SF #H #Q #LGBTQ
Cover page for the sci-fi horror pitch REDWORM, outlining specific content warnings such as: depictions of blood & body horrror. Second page of the sci-fi horror pitch REDWORM, showing the logline, page length, demographics, comp. titles, and genres of the story. specific text on the image will be pasted below: LOGLINE: 6 Astronauts are sent to scout a new planet for human re-location, only for one of them to get infected by an alien parasite, and must now make a dire choice: to either let people flee the rapidly decaying earth to a new treacherous planet, or to deny mankind it’s last hope of survival. LENGTH: ~150 pages DEMOGRAPHIC: Adult/New Adult COMP. TITLES: Venom ( Donny Cates, 2018), PARASYTE (Hitoshi Iwaaki), Dorohedoro (Q Hayashida) GENRE: Sci-fi, Horror, Psychological Third page of the sci-fi pitch REDWORM containing sample pages of the story. these pages depict bruce, the lead character of the story, hearing thuds in the night. he leaves the base to investigate the source of these sounds in a cave. he soon finds vein-like structures in the cave, seeming to lead to the source of the sound. Fourth and last page of the REDWORM pitch, displaying the last two sample pages. The scenes in these pages depict bruce stumbling upon a beating heart on the cieling of the cave, suggesting that this planet is alive & its own living organism. drops of unknown liquid ooze from the heart, containing other worm-like organisms within it. the final sample page shows one of these worms poppnig out of the heart, and falling onto bruce. The worm breaks through the helmet of his space suit, now digging its way to bruce's brain.
July 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Richard May
lizlasswrites.bsky.social
#TheBookery has:

🥨 Food descriptions galore like #LegendsAndLattes
🦄 Magical menagerie like #ThePhoenixKeeper
👨‍🍳 Cute shop (and shopkeeper!) like #TheSpellshop
🫂 Found family like #TheHouseInTheCeruleanSea
🔥 Sassy fireplace like #HowlsMovingCastle

What's not to love?!

#BluePit📖 #A #F #R #WF #Q
A graphic in the style of a Netflix title card describes The Bookery: Pride and Prejudice meets Studio Ghibli in THE BOOKERY, in which a bankrupt witch, her sweet-as-sugar pastry chef tenant, and the judgemental phoenix nesting in his bakery’s oven join forces against the magical real estate developer determined to bulldoze their shop—and the unconventional family they’ve built within. Along the bottom are comparative titles: The Phoenix Keeper, The Spellshop, The House in the Cerulean Sea, Legends and Lattes, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service.
July 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
authorrichardmay.bsky.social
So many great cosmic horror offerings at #BluePit!

Someone has to make a list to keep track of those goodies! Eldritch monsters feeling the love!
July 13, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Richard May
elainebuckner.bsky.social
My Darling Dreadful Thing X The Wicked Deep

When Clover's empathic abilities awaken, a ghostly presence visits her dreams, offering escape from others' emotions. But as kindness turns to obsession, Clover suspects they want to inhabit, not liberate.

#BluePit #BluePit📖 #YA #H #OV #PN #M #F #Q
Red-hued poster style of a veiled woman in distress
July 13, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Reposted by Richard May
kotegentarri.bsky.social
THE BRIDE OF THE KING IN YELLOW 💛

two lovers struggle against class and religion to be together- but can a play that turns all readers mad be their freedom?

Themes of:
-class/religious pressure
-eldritch horrors or insanity
-existential purpose/fate

#BluePit 📖 #A #H #SP #Q #DIS #amquerying
Title page for the work "The Bride of the King in Yellow" A gothic, masked figure in a red, ornate costume faces a shrouded, eerie figure in tattered yellow. Bold, stylized text and yellow vintage wallpaper A collage/moodboard of nine surreal, ominous images with a red and yellow color scheme. Features figures, landscapes, and abstract scenes evoking mystery and tension, and gothic energy.
July 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Richard May
kotegentarri.bsky.social
A MASTERY OF SELF 🎬

an actor is trapped in a nightmare of an identity crises after playing too many roles🖤

-speculative hollywood
-friends to lovers
- eldritch horror or real doppleganger?

ALAN WAKE II + THE TWILIGHT ZONE

#BluePit 📖 #A #H #SP #W #DIS #WIP
A moodboard of nine black-and-white images, featuring surreal and mysterious elements: a man in a cracked mirror, hands with strings, formal attire, shadowy figures, spirals, blurred crowd, and a woman with pearls, conveying intrigue and tension, Old hollywood dark energy.
July 13, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Richard May
kotegentarri.bsky.social
— A DROWNING AMBITION —

a zealous journalist turns up missing, so their rival makes it his mission to find her.

he finds her at a strange lighthouse…
she doesn’t recognize him at all…

and there’s a strange monster lurking on the bottom floor…

#BluePit 📖 #A #H #SP #W #DIS
A moodboard of nine images conveys a mysterious and eerie tone of mystery and thriller. Elements include a hand on fingerprint documents, turbulent ocean water, anonymous figures with cryptic text, a spiral staircase, a quote on moral dilemmas, a tentacled creature silhouette, missing person posters, a stormy lighthouse, and a bulletin board with clippings.
July 13, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Richard May
kotegentarri.bsky.social
DELIVERANCE 🩸

one chaplain, one peacekeeper, and one chronically ill patient all become apostles to an eldritch god on an island

-chronic illness themes (endometriosis)
- loss of identity
-dystopian sci-fi/horror

#BluePit 📖 #A #H #SP #P #DIS
A moodboard of nine enigmatic, grayscale images: a close-up eye, crowd with "fight back" text, hands in anguish, eerie hallway, portrait with red overlay, faceless figure, ghostly woman, torso with eyes, and solemn face. Dark, surreal, thought-provoking.
July 13, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Richard May
nickbadot.bsky.social
The Figure will stop at nothing to reach INFERNAMUS – the key to godlike power, and the only hope to save his world. He must cross dangerous hidden realms – thankfully, he isn't alone. But when a demon offers victory if he betrays his allies, he must weigh the cost carefully

#BluePit #F #H #A #Q
A depiction of hell: Devils push about hell's denizens all bathed in an orange glow. A winged demon with a pitchfork floats in the centre with a golden clock above his head Image credit: Ana Balala on Pinterest Art of Prometheus taking fire from the gods. A nude male figure in the centre with a red background, flames dance around his head and his lower body is covered by blue waves Image credit: Kobmastivarov on Pinterest
July 13, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Richard May
ewdocparris.com
28 WEEKS LATER x BLACK MIRROR x SILO
THE AURORA'S PALE LIGHT
On orders from his friend in the future, a dead war hero must prepare the world for a coming demon apocalypse then lead the survivors out of hell.
#BluePit 📖 #A #SF #H #P
youtube.com/shorts/ifHEN...
magicgenius.co/books/
#BookSky 📚🪐
THE AURORA'S PALE LIGHT: Superlatives
YouTube video by E.W. Doc Parris
youtube.com
July 13, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Richard May
kotegentarri.bsky.social
an #agentsguide to #Thoroughfare ♡
.°˖⋆ ℧ 𓃗 .°˖⋆

A western gothic horror in which a sunshine Apostle must work with a grumpy outlaw to save the western towns from an eldritch horror spreading a virus of death.

♡ This is a novella! 26,500 words ♡
#BluePit 📖 #A #H #SP #Q #DIS #amquerying
"Western-themed image titled 'An Agent’s Guide to Thoroughfare' features a cowboy on horseback under a starry night sky, flanked by illustrated revolvers." The pitch section with a background picture, aesthetic, and short pitch. Text: An Apostle shunned away in a Creedance amongst mountains and snow is summoned to assist an outlaw hiding amongst the desert plains..." A mysterious night scene with a glowing moon above a cowboy on horseback. A church is depicted alongside, with ominous red streaks. Text overlays describe a tale of an apostle aiding an outlaw against a monstrous threat. The mood is tense and atmospheric. A dialogue scene/snippet shows two people. Theodora, a woman with an intense expression, questions life after death. The Apostle, a blonde man, suggests life’s meaning lies in present love, not afterlife, adding a tone of reflection and calm. Alt text: A graphic with "COMPS, THEMES, TROPE" in bold. Left shows covers of "Tombstone," "What Moves the Dead," "Red Dead Redemption II," and "The Brothers Karamazov." Center features vintage and Western images as an aesthetic moodboard. Right lists themes like "Female rage" and tropes "Grumpy x Sunshine." Background shows a moody, dark setting with a church.
July 13, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Richard May
gunsmile.bsky.social
JOHN WICK x THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE

For readers who like:
🩸 dangerous criminal underworlds
🩸 secret occult organizations
🩸 married villain protagonists
🩸 no-nonsense women in STEM
🩸 attractive men covered in blood
🩸 terrifying body horror
🩸 the threat of an Elder God

#BluePit #BluePit📖 #A #H #W
A page from an old book showing a skull drawing and the word MORTEM, a well-dressed couple in shadow staring at you with glowing eyes, two skyscrapers looming overhead in the fog, several pistols lying in a cushioned case, a black hole, two doctors performing surgery, a man with his back turned and a woman's hand cradling his head, a cork board of documents and string, six figures cloaked in black and gathered in a semi-circle.
July 13, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Reposted by Richard May
woodenvelt.bsky.social
Wren swore she’d never return to Fenholt, but her pesky conscience got the better of her. Again. Now she’s desperate to keep a cursed necklace out of a necromancer’s grasp while dodging her old thieving crew. But is she desperate enough to trust a handsome priest of the dead?
#BluePit 📖 #F #R #A #Q
A graphic in shades of blue and gray with several images and text boxes. The background shows a black and white scene of a graveyard. One image shows a silhouette of a man and woman embracing. Another box shows a skull with turquoise flames around and glowing eyes. Another box shows an infinity symbol surrounded by fancy filigree. Text reads: Romantasy, Graveyard meet cute, slow burn romance, opposites attract, forced proximity. Adventure, humor, heart, and damaged heroes trying to do the right thing. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher’s Paladin series.
July 13, 2025 at 12:56 PM