War's favorite Battlefield

I've been asked countless times, War, what is your favorite battlefield to fight on? And, though I have traveled the world, many universes, and each and every persons' mind... I must say that my favorite field to fight on was the sacred ground of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1863, two forces (inspired by me) The North and The South collided on this hallowed ground. Over 50,000 men lost their lives and far more were sent home having seen the devastation I leave in my wake.  

If you are allowed the opportunity to visit Gettysburg you will find it much changed from last I visited it.  No more wounded men and dead dress the field they are replace with placards and monuments.

Shops that used to be houses, hiding the townsfolk now house shops for you to purchase memorabilia or restaurants. How I long for the days of chaos, but no fear... go visit your favorite National Park, before I make my next appearance.  I assure you, it's much closer than you think.

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Fight on!
No matter the outcome, I always win. ~ War

Awesome Zucchini Bread Recipe

I love to bake. Hate to cook, love to bake. But, in the fall my baking goes crazy. The house is always full of yummy treats to make you gain an extra few pounds. So, today I’m going to give you one of my favorite zucchini bread recipes. I don’t even remember where I got this one, its written on an old piece of paper I keep in my drawer. Lol

All right, You ready?

Here is what you need.

3 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons of cinnamon (I use just a bit extra, no need to be exact on this)
3 eggs
2 cups vegetable oil (I ran out once and used olive oil because that was all I had and it worked fine.)
2 ¼ cup white sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. (Again, a tad bit extra doesn’t hurt anything.)
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts. (I never use the walnuts because I don’t like them.)

Now you are ready to mix and bake! Here’s what to do.

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. (I use all different kinds of pans.)
2.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
3. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
4. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl.
5. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well.
6. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into pans.
7. Bake for about 40 to 60 minutes depending on what size pan you use. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Take the bread out of the pan and let it cool even longer.

~~Stay Hungry, Famine Out  

Creating Monsters

Hey Everyone, Conquest here and we are going to talk about creating monsters today!
 
The character bio of the antagonist in your story is as important as the protagonist.  Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that the bad guy has to be as completely fleshed out as the good guy.  He needs personality traits, he needs general repetitive sayings, and he needs motivations.  A truly believable monster will have a definite reason for what he’s doing.

I try to think of it as an experiment in profiling.  Whether you are using a supernatural creature or a human being, you need to know how your monster came to be who he is today.  Fully knowing his back story will help you write him better.   You don’t have to give your readers his entire life’s story, but knowing it will help make him more believable.
Let’s take a look at some popular monsters and see how they add up in the believability category.

Frankenstein:
Made of many different men.  Amazing strength.  Lacking intelligence.  Capable of strong emotion.  (Uh oh....there’s the culprit right there.  Strong emotion is what drives poor Frankenstein.  Most of us can identify with him because we are also capable of the same thing. His emotion controls his motivations, so we understand why he’s doing what he does.)

Freddy Kruger:
Locked in spirit realm, can only interact when the victim is in a dream state.  Omnipotent in dream state.  Can control every aspect of victim’s dream.  Deadly.  Warped sense of humor.  Filled with rage.  Seeks vengeance on everyone he can find.  (Uh oh.....again strong emotion.  Freddy was burned alive by the parents of the children he allegedly hurt in real life.  He genuinely feels the need for retribution.)

Hannibal Lector:
Seemingly unemotional.  Serial Killer.  Highly intelligent.  Vicious, brutal, sadistic, narcissistic, psychopath.  Now Hannibal is much more complex than the previous two characters.  Throughout the books we see traces of humanity.  We do see some emotionally motivated actions, but for the most part he seems incapable of any real emotion other than anger.  Until you get to Hannibal Rising.  When you go back to the beginning and see all the traumatic events he endured, your initial hatred and disgust for the monster transforms.  By then we can clearly see how he ended up being who he is and why he kills.

These are the things that make a monster unforgettable.  And that’s exactly the type of antagonist you want to have in your story.  So when you are writing, don’t skimp on the bad guy.  Be sure he has grounded motivations for what he’s doing.

~Conquest~

(Willow Cross)

Good Eats from Conquest

This is a dish I actually thought up myself.  I’m always looking for ways to shorten dinner preparation because I’m ALWAYS short on time.  My two crock pots are my best friends when it comes to cooking as they are perfect for saving time and energy.

Crock Pot Pork Casserole

Ingredients
Sliced Pork Loin (up to 10 pieces depending on crock size)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 jar/can beef gravy
1 can corn
1 pkg. onion soup mix
4 potatoes
1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
Salt
Pepper

Place the sliced loin in the bottom of your crock.  In a separate bowl, mix the canned soup, gravy, and dry soup mix.  Add 1 can of water.  Cover the loin slices in mixture, salt and pepper lightly and cook on high for 4 hours.
After 4 hours, drain corn and dump into pot.  Clean potatoes (Pealing is not necessary. Your preference.)  Slice potatoes in quarter inch slices and press down into gravy mixture.  If you will not be eating for several hours, turn the crock down to medium.  If you intend to eat within two hours, leave it on high.
When you are ready to eat, stir pot and dish into bowls.  Spread the shredded cheese over each bowl to your preference.

My kids go nuts over this recipe.  I hope yours will enjoy it too!

~Conquest~
(Willow Cross)

Light'em up!

That has always been my motto.

When I come to visit you, it is not in the confines of your frilly, silly, safe dreams. No. I enjoy lurking in the unfathomable recesses of your most deep-seated nightmares; devouring the expression of utmost fear on your face firsthand, when you finally realize the reality of what my mere presence means- War has arrived.

Of the four of us, I am the one most in favor of conflict, in fact, you could say that I thrive on it. Through the ages, your society's constant desire to build something up only to tear it back has been my nourishment. I dine on your self-loathing, failed superiority, fear mongering, turmoil and inability to co-exist. For that I must thank you.

In the mundane routine of your daily lives, you don't realize that I am around just out of view spinning my amber webs of deceit. Like a mistress, I whisper to you, each of you exactly what needs to be said to entice you to spill the venom I have planted in your subconscious about your neighbor, friends, co-workers or even your wife.

As you can see, it's not only in far off lands that you try to fight me. I have infiltrated your very soul, your mind. Again, I must thank you. Because of that, I dine well. 

But, this is both, my gift and curse to you. You have been given free will and yet almost every time you chose to squander that freedom and seek me out. Unfortunately, you can never win where I am concerned. For I take neither side, I only devour everything.

Fight on!

No matter the outcome, I always win. ~ War

Annual Four Horsemen Spooktacular!

You are cordially invited to the Annual Four Horsemen Halloween Spooktacular. Click on the picture above to accept our invitation. We can't be sure that you'll survive, but you'll definitely have a great time. Come and meet the horsemen, play a few games, enter the rafflecopter and win some fabulous prizes by some pretty amazing authors.

I'm always ready to bring it, so step up! ~War

Writers of the Parapocalypse

Welcome to the blog of The Four Horsemen, we are the writers of the parapocalypse.

Today is the very first post on this blog and the first one is always a post where you want to make an impression, where you want to woo people with your awesomeness. The first blog post, however, is always a hard one for me. So, I thought the best topic for this first post would be to talk about friendship, teamwork and writing. 

I urge you, however, to check out the awesome description of The Four Horsemen in the left sidebar. Make sure to browse the rest of the links on the page as well.

The reason I want to talk about friendship, teamwork and writing is because that is the premise of The Four Horsemen. The four of us have been friends for quite a while and we have been working together as a team for about a year. About a month ago, we decided that we needed a name and hence, we became, The Four Horsemen. 

First and foremost, we are friends. Having met through social networking, which is a huge part of our careers. The team began simply as helping and supporting each other. We all have strengths and weaknesses that the others do not have, which is part of why working as a team can be so valuable.

Writing, is a passion for all of us and we are lucky enough to have each other, as well as a whole community of authors to share our passion with. This thing called writing is what brought us together and now we are lucky enough to have built friendships to last a lifetime.

Don’t think that working as a team is all roses and glitter though, shit hits the fan all the time. We learn through trial and error about this just like everything else in life. There are a ton of things about working as a team that are good, but when you have four writers with very different personalities all trying to get their way, things can go downhill pretty quickly. So, just like everyone else, we learn to communicate, to give in once in a while, and to be honest. These are the main components any team will need to survive.

We love doing things together as a team, which is the main reason for The Four Horsemen. There is something about the four of us and our chemistry together that people seem to like and we want to appease our audience, so this blog will be updated by all of us on a rotation. I promise, this blog is going to be fun, informational, and chalk full of the paranormal. So make sure to check in and see what’s happening here and there.

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to the fall season. We have some great fall posts lined up for you all!

~Stay Hungry, 

   ~Famine, out...