Give me a G.. G! Give me an R.. R! Give me an E.. E! Give me a Y… Y! You know what we want! Grey Rooms!!!! Welcome back Roomies…. and Happy Holidays! Season 4 is officially 4 episodes in and this week we’ll be bringing you the first four author blogs as you revisit the screams and terror of the rooms. To kick it off we are starting with some school spirit, as we welcome another brand new author to the team- Aijalon Lawrence! Let’s check in with her at the sidelines and talk about her season opener- Team Spirt.
GR: Welcome to the Grey Rooms Aijalon! You’re one of our new authors this year, How long have you been writing?
AL: Since around my sophomore year in college.
GR: I know that you’ve mentioned it to use before that this is your first “published piece of work” What got you into writing? And have you always written horror?
AL: Reading every Goosebumps books they’ve had in my elementary school really got me into it. I never really wrote until my sophomore year in college but I’m so bad at starting prompts/ideas and never finishing it. The Grey Rooms accepting stories really inspired me to sit down and finish.
GR: I’ve heard a few authors mention now that the terror of the rooms really inspired them to create. What would you say is your favorite kind of horror?
AL: Horror inspired by folklore definitely! Being born and bred in the south to a black and Native American family our storytelling is wrapped in fact and fiction, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, and why our traditions are the way they are.
GR: I love that tradition of passing stories down, and weaving them in through history. Though Team Spirit doesn’t seem like one that you’d normally pass down to your children. How did you come up with the idea for this story? And how do your story ideas normally come to you?
AL: One of family members (my dad I think) that told me if I don’t stay close and wonder off, those mascots would eat me cause they’re empty and hungry. A little childhood terror lol. Usually, it comes to me through my culture’s superstitions and everyday events that can go wrong.
GR: That would be absolutely terrifying as a child. Can you tell us about what it was like building this world that your characters live in-?
AL: I prefer writing the settings in different environments. For me it depends on how you look at it.
I try to deviate from the cliché; abandoned buildings, forbidden forests, and the houses built on ancient burial grounds. I think about places we go every day and place we think are normal; convenience stores, banks, things like that.
GR: Best piece of writing advice to authors just starting out?
AL: Just sit down and do it. Don’t say you’ll get to it later, just do it now.
GR: What projects are you working on now? (Or-Do you have any projects that are recently finished that you’d like to talk about/plug?)
AL: I’m actually working on a horror anthology.
GR: Ooooo well we’d love to see some of the new horrors you’ve been working on. May have to send a few our way.
GR⊗
