‘No, I’ve not read the Goosebumps’ books,’

‘Really? Not even the one with the ventriloquist dummies?’

‘No,’

‘Or the one with the haunted house?’

‘No… not that one either,’

‘How have you not…’ And so the conversation went for a third time that day, when I attempted to explain my purchase of three Goosebumps’ books. Similar to when you don’t know a particular person who is being described, and the person doing the describing just repeats the name of the person to you several times in the hope that hearing said name multiple times in succession is the only thing preventing you from remembering said person. Let’s call him Pete.

Or, while we’re on the subject, the stereotype of the British holiday maker in the south of Spain who just repeats, ‘Cigarettes por favour!’ at an increasingly louder and more threatening tone at the poor Spanish shopkeeper.

In the spirit of reading more horror, and while at a Sunday market while visiting some friends in Melbourne, I came across a collection of Goosebumps books and thought, three for $10, that’s a bargain. Unfortunately, they were three for $12, and as much as I was going to haggle, barter, negotiate, or angrily shout three for $10 por favour, I decided to draw on my experience as a market stall holder, and remember how nice it was when people just pay the asking price.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting this post to go in this direction. I would have assumed it would have been along the lines of how inspirational the native wildlife is for horror writing, as, you know, it is Australia, and we did see a small spider. But I thought the irony of being the only person in multiple groups of people who hadn’t read any of the Goosebumps’ books, but does write horror, was less obvious. And I got to crowbar in a reference to the market, which is a reference to the dog biscuits, which I’ve not referenced in a while. Basically, this is a ticking box exercise.

Also, I’ve just taken a stab at where the inverted comma should be in ‘Goosebumps Books’. No doubt it’s meant to be after the first ‘s’ or something.

There’s a certain degree of trial and error when it comes to scouting out a new location for a possible Dog Tails adventure. Generally, it starts by looking at a Topo map, then hunting around for DOC information which hopefully doesn’t have any anti-dog sentiments tucked away in it. Then it’s a small matter of driving the two plus hours on painfully straight, boring roads, to inevitably be greeted with a small red circle containing a black silhouette of a cute, fluffy dog with a thick ‘Not Today Mate’ line through it.

So fingers were tightly crossed last weekend when we drove the three hours to Te Kahui Kaupeka Conservation Park (not heard of it before, neither had I. It’s next to Mesopotamia… no, not that one… just to Google it). Arriving at the start of the 4×4 track that would take us into the park, the good news was that dogs were allowed. The bad news was that the weather was horrendous. We had left the warm, blue skies of Christchurch and arrived in what could most accurately be described as a blizzard. Snow filled, gale force winds hammered the truck as we negotiated a combination of rocky river beds and muddy, flooded, grassy areas. My co-pilots were two excitable dogs, eager to get out for a run, and able to provide zero reassurance as the bottom of the truck scraped along another jagged rock.

After a minor river crossing and with the snow continuing to fall, I asked politely if we could please turn around as I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. Huddled within my mates 4×4 for a tea and biscuits stop (including some Bitching Beer Treats for the dogs of course), we watched as the dogs were released to play in the blizzard. They seemed happy enough. Presumably they weren’t so tightly clenched during the drive that they’ll have to wait a good week before they get any kind of regularity back.

Now that I’m back home, I guess the trip could technically be called a success, but only in the sense that nothing really bad happened. Nothing good really happened either, but I guess you can’t win them all.

This entry was meant to start with a humorous comment on how Eskimos have over fifty words for snow. However, upon doing a quick fact check, it turns out that this idea is slightly controversial. Some people say it’s a hoax. Others claim that some dialects have several hundred words. In any case, the term ‘Eskimo’ is considered derogatory, so whether the perception is true or not, it is offensive.

Which is a shame as it made a useful introduction for how I’ve been trying to find 53 alternative words for ‘snow’, 43 different terms for ‘slope’, 40 various ways to say ‘beast’, and the most difficult of all, 42 unique modes of writing the word ‘door’ (as well for 4 dissimilar ways to repeat the same problem in one sentence).

This issue had arisen from a slightly lazy approach to writing, and assuming that I’ll be able to come up with a better noun during the editing process. When writing a story, instead of trying to think up lots of imaginative words for, let’s say ‘snow’. It’s much easier not to get bogged down in creativity and repetition, and just write ‘snow’. Then at some point down the line I’ll revise it to something more interesting. Which is fine, until you realise that there aren’t that many different ways to write the word ‘door’. Especially when it turns out it has been used 6 times in a paragraph.

On the other hand, ‘Beast’ is a great one, as you can go with monster, mastodon, behemoth, predator, creature, animal, bloody thirsty killer, monster again, beast a few times more, or any other heavy metal band name… like Cancer Bats. As you may have guessed, I’ve just finished writing a romantic comedy set in the Cotswolds, that features a large house.