Tulpas, Halloween Beers, and a Giveaway!
Every Day is Halloween #91: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton
Hi All!
How’s your summer? Are you as ready for fall as I am? I just saw a map of the United States that projected L.A. as being one of the few areas that would NOT have a hotter-than-usual autumn, so while my heart goes out to the rest of you…YAY for SoCal!
My life continues to belong to a house full of insane formerly-feral kittens (two have hopefully been claimed and will soon go to forever homes) and the Halloween season. Writing news (see below) is…well, meager but potentially good.
Hurray for pumpkin spice and Halloween! I hope your fall arrives with at least some chill (I’ll do my best to help with that).
Lisa
NEW STUFF I LIKE
Seems like lately I’ve been listening more than watching or reading, mainly because I sometimes keep music on while writing or commuting or just doing chores around the house. Lately I’ve been spinning three albums a lot:
Angélica Garcia, Gemelo - Y’know that thing where you’re driving along and you hear a song for the first time that’s so insanely good you lose track of where you are? That happened with me and Garcia’s powerful “El Que,” but this whole album - Garcia’s first in Spanish - is incredible.
Clairo, Charm - I’ve been listening to Clairo since 2019, when I fell for her song “Sofia.” I love her blend of distinctive and often surprising instrumental arrangements (backed by danceable beats!) against her frequently poignant, witty, and self-questioning lyrics. Favorite track on this album: “Sexy to Someone.”
Aurora, What Happened to the Heart? - If you know me, you know I’ve been obsessed with this Norwegian siren since I saw the video of her live performance of “Churchyard.” This album shows her broadening her remarkable voice into lower registers, and I can’t wait to see her live in November (it’ll be my third time). Favorite song here: this varies from day to day, but for now I’ll go with “To Be Alright.”
. THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT
My pal Miranda (Spooky Little Halloween) mentioned recently that Total Wine had started bringing out the 2024 Halloween brews, so of course I had to pick a few up to sample.
Oddly, none of the ones I bought are strictly pumpkin ale, but they all feature Halloween-themed cans (the one pictured above, “All Hallows Treat,” was an imperial chocolate-peanut butter stout - it was kind of like drinking an alcoholic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup).
So far I haven’t found my all-time favorite pumpkin ale, which is Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale (now THAT one’s got a scrumptious pumpkin flavor!), but it’ll hopefully appear soon (I usually find it at Total Wine).
And yes, I know there are also pumpkin spice liqueurs out there, but those are a bit too sugary for my palate.
STRANGE DOINGS
I’ve been working behind the scenes to really dig into the history of the Queen Mary’s infamous Room B340, and one idea I keep coming across is that of “thought forms.” What’s a thought form, you may be wondering? Well, it stems from a Tibetan Buddhist idea that certain very skilled spiritual adepts can think an entity into existence. These things are called tulpas and according to the mythology, they often end up taking on a life and personality of their own.
However, it was really early twentieth-century mystics who took an idea from Buddhism that really translated to “emanation body” and turned it into the idea of thought forms. In her 1905 book called Thought-Forms, theosophist Annie Besant discussed the idea at length and even defined three kinds of thought-forms: one that looks like its creator; one that looks like another person or even an object or place; and one that decides its own appearance. In regards to that last one, Besant suggested that the thought-forms were expressions of some emotional state, like affection or anger.
Those who claim to create tulpas call themselves – appropriately – “tulpa-mancers,” and they say that they often have to destroy their creation when they lose control of it.
If you remember “The Philip Experiment” from 1972, in which a group of Canadian parapsychologists claimed to successfully call up a ghost by first creating a complicated background for a 17th-century British nobleman named Philip Aylesford, you might be wondering – as I am! – if that was an example of creating a thought-form.
Or, in the case of the Queen Mary’s haunted stateroom, there’s some evidence to suggest that it was a set up as a miniature Haunted Mansion when Disney inaugurated a tour in 1991 called “Haunted Passages.” Did merely suggesting that the room was haunted actually create a haunting? Some believe it did.
A 2016 survey of online tulpa-mancers found that they tended to be neurodivergent and suggested that thoughtforms were a psychological way of countering loneliness.
I’m going to keep unearthing the real story of B340, but in the meantime I hope all of your tulpas are affectionate ones.
BEHIND THE SCREAMS
I realized I’ve never talked about the second movie I (co)wrote, the 1992 children’s fantasy Adventures in Dinosaur City.
The reason for not talking about it is…well, frankly, it was an awful experience that resulted in an awful movie. I was originally hired by the producer, a volatile Italian-Argentinian named Luigi, to co-write the movie with his wife, Wili. Luigi had recently produced a children’s movie called Spaced Invaders that had been a modest hit for Disney, and he was looking for lightning to strike twice. He and Wili wanted a writer who had a way with crazy slangy stuff, and they found me via my first movie, Meet the Hollowheads. Because I had experience with effects, they also brought me on as Associate Producer and Miniatures Coordinator.
I spent most of a year working on this film, beginning with the screenplay and going through to the very end of post-production, when I worked with a second editor trying to find ways to salvage this dog. Because it absolutely WAS a dog, one that I watched going off the rails from the day pre-production started.
I don’t have time here to go into everything that went wrong (because it was neverending), so just suffice to say that I wasted too much time and energy trying to save it (which is why I ended up with five credits).
The movie has its fans - just this week, in fact, I got an actual snail-mail fan letter about it - but I’m not one of them. If there was a good thing to come out of this disaster, it was that it made me realize I wanted to write things I could actually be proud of and so I turned to prose, where I found my real home.
THE WRITE STUFF
I just finished a rewrite of my fifth novel (if you’re curious, the others are detailed here) per notes provided by my agent. His notes were very good, both detailed and broad, and I worked on the rewrite for two months.
Whether you’re a traditional writer working with agents and editors or an indie writer relying on beta readers or writing groups, getting feedback on your first draft is essential. It’s easy for a writer to get so wrapped up in the world they’ve created that they miss obvious things, or don’t realize that twists that make perfect sense to them might not have been fully explained for readers.
If you’re a new writer, I urge you to solicit comments on your initial draft and take those comments seriously. You don’t have to agree with or use all of them, but you should take them all seriously. I found that I went beyond my agent’s notes sometimes, using those as springboards to find better ways to articulate certain things.
There’s no question that my novel is vastly better because of that feedback.
Now we cross our fingers for a sale…and if an editor who buys it offers more comments, I’ll be happy to work with those to make the book even better, because that’s all part of being a writer.
NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS
Most of my work for the last two months went to the above-mentioned novel rewrite.
I did place a new short story in an upcoming anthology that hasn’t been announced yet; all I can say right now is that I’m thrilled to once again be working with my favorite editor.
Transgressive Horror Resurrected includes my essay on Häxan (aka Witchcraft Through the Ages), and is currently running a Kickstarter campaign.
The upcoming anthology Bestiary of Blood includes my story “Anthill.”
I did a fun Instagram Live with Dr. Rachel Knightley, in anticipation of October’s Green Ink Sponsored Write in support of Macmillan Cancer Support (become a sponsor and get a free book!).
I’ll also be appearing in the “Masks and Costumes” issue of Weird Fiction Quarterly (and - surprise! - my story isn’t even about Halloween).
Two academic books I have essays in, Death in the 21st Century and The Many Lives of The Purge, are now available.
I’ll be writing another academic piece, this time for an upcoming book on “diabolical mothers” in cinema. My chosen film: Hellbender.
And lastly, I’m so happy that Atlas Obscura asked me back to teach my three-session History of Halloween course again! That’ll start on October 14th.
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
October 6 at 3 pm - I’ll be at Dark Delicacies signing the forthcoming coffee table book Videotapes From Hell (I wrote a piece for the book about Something Weird Video)
October 14th, 21st, and 28th - I’ll be live online teaching my Halloween history course for Atlas Obscura
June 12-15, 2025 - I’ll be in Stamford, CT for StokerCon
WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS
GIVEAWAY
A lost shipment of my author copies of Placerita was just found, so hey - let’s give away a signed paperback this month! Just leave a comment (sorry, this giveaway is only open to residents of the United States), and I’ll let the random number generator pick one lucky winner at the end of September.
Thanks as always for reading this far!
Love the idea of tulpas! I feel pretty sure that I'm gonna steal that for a short story.
Why do I keep reading this as "Halloween bears?" Haha! My favorite Halloween-adjacent beer is New Belgium's Atomic Pumpkin.