May 26th is Dracula Day, and seeing how I love anything with vampires, this is the perfect excuse for me to look up thirteen facts about bloodsuckers to share with you. (source and source)

1. The word “vampire” did not appear in English until 1734, when it was used in an Anglo-Saxon poem titled “The Vampyre of the Fens”.
2. A rare disease called porphyria (also called the "vampire" or "Dracula" disease) causes vampire-like symptoms, such as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and sometimes hairiness.
3. Documented medical disorders that people accused of being a vampire may have suffered from include haematodipsia, which is a sexual thirst for blood, and hemeralopia or day blindness.
   
4. Anemia (“bloodlessness”) was often mistaken for a symptom of a vampire attack.
5. One of the most famous “true vampires” was Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) who was accused of biting the flesh of girls while torturing them and bathing in their blood to retain her youthful beauty.
6. The first full work of fiction about a vampire in English was John Polidori’s influential The Vampyre, which was published incorrectly under Lord Byron’s name.
7. Female vampires were also often blamed for spreading the bubonic plague throughout Europe.
8. According to several legends, if someone was bitten by a suspected vampire, he or she should drink the ashes of a burned vampire.
9. By the end of the twentieth century, over 300 motion pictures were made about vampires, and over 100 of them featured Dracula. Over 1,000 vampire novels were published, most within the past 25 years.
10. Folklore vampires can become vampires not only through a bite, but also if they were once a werewolf, practiced sorcery, were an illegitimate child of parents who were illegitimate, died before baptism, anyone who has eaten the flesh of a sheep killed by a wolf, was the child of a pregnant woman who was looked upon by a vampire, was a nun who stepped over an unburied body, had teeth when they were born, or had a cat jump on their corpse before being buried (England and Japan), a baby born with teeth; a stillborn; a bat flying over a corpse (Romania); being excommunicated by the Orthodox Church (Greece); being the seventh son of the seventh son; a dead body that has been reflected in a mirror; red heads (Greece); people who die by suicide or sudden, violent deaths; people who were improperly buried; renouncing the Eastern Orthodox religion.
11. In folklore, the vampire’s first victim would often be his wife. This is why, in some cultures, when a husband died, the wife would change her appearance, i.e. she would cut her hair and would wear black for the entire period of mourning.
12. To destroy a vampire: burn it; bury the corpse facedown; drive a wooden stake through its heart; pile stones on the grave; put poppy seeds or wild roses on the grave; boil the head in vinegar; place a coin in the mouth and decapitate with an axe; put a lemon in the mouth; bury at a crossroads; remove the heart and cut it in two; put garlic in the mouth and drive a nail through the temple; cut off the toes and drive a nail through the neck; pour boiling oil on the body and drive a nail through the navel.
13. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) remains an enduring influence on vampire mythology and has never gone out of print. 

I hope you enjoyed these facts and are now more prepared to ward off vampires and ensure loved ones don't turn after they have passed. 😉

PS: I made a video to go with this post if you want to check that out.

March 2nd was Dr. Seuss' birthday and given how influential he has been in pretty much everyone's life, I decided to share 13 facts about him and his books. (source one, source two, source three.)

1. Geisel's first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times.
   
2. He based the Grinch character on himself to try to rediscover something about Christmas that he felt he had obviously lost.
3. He wrote and illustrated 44 books in his lifetime.
4. He purchased an old observation tower in La Jolla, CA where he'd write.
5. He coined the term “nerd.” The word first appeared in print in 1950 in Seuss’ book “If I Ran the Zoo.”
6. His final book was “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” published in 1990, before he passed away. The book sells several hundred thousand copies each year in large part because it is a perennially popular graduation gift.
7. He used just 50 words to write “Green Eggs and Ham” on a $50 bet with his editor, Bennett Cerf.
8. Cerf never paid up.
9. His books have been translated into 17 languages and have sold more than 650 million copies in 95 countries, according to The Washington Post.
10. He worked on “Design for Death,” a documentary that won the Oscar in 1947.
11. He thought the beginning readers Dick and Jane” were hopelessly boring. He wrote “The Cat in the Hat” with the intention of providing a more interesting alternative.
12. In 2013, a new book by Dr. Seuss was found by his wife and secretary. It was published in 2015.
13. When he wrote and illustrated a book, he used the name “Dr. Seuss.” When he only wrote it but did not illustrate it, he used Theo LeSieg. LeSieg is Geisel (his real last name) backward.

I hope you enjoyed these facts about Dr. Seuss. Did you have a favorite book by him? I recall having a few, and every Christmas we sat down as a family to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. If you liked this post and want to get early access to it and exclusive flash fiction, join me over at Patreon.

The history of the Ouija board is interesting. It started as an innocent toy. Now, people use it seriously, trying to contact spirits. There are tons of tales of hauntings from people using the board. Are they true? I have no clue, but I love to read about them and get a nice shiver down my spine.

Here are 13 facts that may make you rethink playing with an Ouija Board.

1. The first ever Ouija board was invented by a toy shop in 1891: According to various sources, it was a Pittsburgh toy and novelty shop called Danziger's & Company.
2. During World War I, Ouija boards could be found in almost every household in the U.S. (Kind of makes you wonder. Were people trying to contact soldiers who died in battle?)
3. In 1922, Ouija board sales outsold Monopoly: Three million Ouija boards were sold in the year 1920. Over the next two years, they jumped over the sales of Monopoly.
4. Ouija board got its patent without proper paperwork: Elijah Bond carried an Ouija board to the patent office and asked it to spell out the name of the officer. Which it did and the officer was so spooked he approved the patent without finishing the paperwork.
5. The Ouija board named itself when asked for it: They had no idea what to call it and decided to ask the board and that's what it spelled.
6. The word Ouija means "good luck": Apparently the word is Egyptian.
7. Emily Grant Hutchings said that the book "Jap Herron" was dictated by Mark Twain's ghost through an Ouija board.
8. People who take fatal decisions based on the boards are often related in one way or another: A mother-daughter duo played with an Ouija board after taking a lot of hallucinogenic pills and later burned their own house. Investigators found out they were related to a person who attempted to kill his dog after playing the same game.
9. The most demonic spirit in an Ouija world is called Zozo. Crazy fact here: I followed a Youtuber for a while who got an Ouija board. She got rid of it after the name Zozo was spelled out.
10. Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholic Anonymous wrote the famous 12-step recovery program using an Ouija board: Bill had a spook room in his house and he used to contact spirits in order to seek their guidance for his own research. He was also found to be on LSD sooo.....
11. Six intelligence officers with top-secret security clearances were arrested for messing with supernatural forces through Ouija board: The officials claimed the souls predicted the Gulf War and an earthquake in 1990. Later, they went AWOL on orders from the board. They were found and arrested for their misbehavior.
12. The 1973 film The exorcist abruptly stopped the Ouija obsession with a mass fear of spirit infestation.
13. The scientific concept on which Ouija boards are based is called Ideomotor Effect: The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. (source)

So, anyone want to play? Have you played with an Ouija board? Had an unexplained experience with one? Or is it all in our heads and done with unconscious movements that tell us what we want to hear? (If you liked this post, you can get early access to it and exclusive flash fiction over on my Patreon.)

​As you know, I love vampires. Tell me there is a vampire in the story and I am there. For a while, when it came to writing, it seemed like my muse only gave me vampire ideas. Vampires are never going away, but you don't have to be limited to blood sucking undead that burst into flames in sunlight. There are five types of vampires that are more than bloodsuckers.

Sexual Vampires
Also known as a succubus or incubus, a sexual vampire sustains themselves by absorbing the sexual life force energies of the living. This usually happens during an orgasm. Partners may be willing or unwilling. Bodily fluids do not have to be consumed. They can absorb the energy psychically.

Emphatic Vampire
This vampire is sort of in the same vein as a sexual vampire. The main difference is they aren't limited to sex. They feed on the emotion of the people around them. You probably won't find fangs on these vampires as they aren't consuming the emotion via blood. Emotion can be positive or negative, but most often if it is negative the vampire is feeding from, they are the cause of those emotions and can scar the victim.

Psi-Vampires
This type of vampire usually don't harm those they feed on. They live on life force and the ability can work on single victims or crowds. Usually, victims don't notice they are being fed on. Depending on how much the vampire takes, effects can be as minor as fatigue. It is possible for a psi-vampire to drain a person to death.

Fat-Sucking Vampires
This last entry is one I know little about. It was mentioned during MIParaCon on a talk about vampires. I made a note because this was a twist on the myth I had never heard. Can you imagine if the sparking Twilight vampires drank fat?

This vampire originates from Peru, and yes, it really does drink fat.  "A pale-skinned vampire/bogeyman who roams the Andes and kills peasants in order to drain them of their body fat, the legend of the Pishtaco was basically plucked directly from the real-life horrors experienced by the indigenous communities of Peru and Bolivia during colonization in the 15th century." (source)

So, there you have it. Four vampires who don't only suck blood. Which one is your favorite? Have you heard of any other vampires that don't drink blood? What is your favorite vampire story? If you liked this post, you can check out my Patreon where Patreons get posts like this before anyone else as well as exclusive flash fiction.