Ghosts vs. Vampires

I have never been much of a vampire fan. When I was a kid and watched monster movies with my family, I was always drawn more to ghosts or actual monsters. Vampires pretty much left me cold, and that was without even taking any of my blood. As I got older and began to understand the traditional lure of the suave, handsome, undead lover with the retractable teeth, vampires did even less for me. Even now, when vampires have been coming to the fore of paranormal interest in seemingly endless waves, I'm standing on the shoreline watching the waves rise and fall.

I still prefer ghosts. And as long as I'm riffing on other people's creative offerings, I've decided to put together my top five list of why I prefer ghosts:

5. Ghosts don't mind crosses. There are about a gazillion haunted churches in Europe alone, and the Catholic churches are even laid out in the shape of a cross. Not a problem for the spirit types.

4. Ghosts don't care about garlic. They'll still come to visit you even if your most recent meal included roast garlic on toast points as an appetizer, 40-clove roast chicken as the main course, and a side of garlic bread. In fact, if you go to bed after a meal like that, you're probably going to have haunted dreams.

3. Ghosts can be photographed. Those of us who believe in them, believe that, too.

2. Ghosts can be seen in the mirror. One of their favorite tricks is turning up behind you when you finish washing your face and bring your head up out of the basin to reach for a towel. (Who's that staring at you over your shoulder? The one with the totally white face and the dark, dead eyes?)

1. Ghosts can handle sunlight. They don't burst into flames, disintegrate, or sparkle when they're under the sun.

Just my humble opinion, but I think ghosts have it all over vampires.

That said, though, I've been feeling an overwhelming need to learn more about the fanged types ever since I found that leather-bound journal in the library the other day, a gorgeous old-world kind of tome that was totally blank except for a huge depiction of a dragon in the middle of it...

Scary Toys

Wow, it's going to be hard to leave behind that picture of Ryan Kelley holding Martin's books. Perhaps I should just stick it into random blog posts from time to time just for grins! It's a great picture.

On to today's topic: scary toys. There are a variety of ways toys can be scary. For instance, cheaper versions of Barbie-like dolls frequently look like a little like zombies. Imported toys can have all sorts of health dangers. And anything having to do with clowns? Let's not even go there. Yes, there are all sorts of ways toys can cause a fair amount of anxiousness.

But I'm talking specifically about the battery-powered items that sometimes come to life on their own. Anyone have something like that around the house? The doll that starts talking in the middle of the night? My niece had one of those and finally removed the batteries.

At our house, we have two toys. The first is a remote control "soft" car. The car itself is more plush than hard plastic so it won't hurt the child playing with it, and it won't damage furniture. Seems harmless enough, until it's one a.m., no one is near the car or the remote control, and it suddenly starts revving its own engine. Fortunately, the batteries in it died recently and we just haven't gotten around to replacing them. (Batteries probably last longer in toys that don't turn themselves on.)

The other one is a puzzle of barnyard animals that makes the appropriate animal noise when you remove the animal-shaped puzzle piece and then put it back. When all the pieces are in place, it's as silent as a tomb, heh-heh. Somehow, the horse piece has gone missing, and now this puzzle makes horse noises at me when I enter the room. Especially when 1) it's dark and 2) I'm home alone. I LOVE this because I understand that in order for this thing to make noise, someone or something needs to cover up the hole left by the missing puzzle piece. This toy will start neighing at me from its place on the shelf when no one else is around.

I got so annoyed with it the other morning (like five-thirty a.m. after Jim had left for work and I was alone) that I stood there in the dark and yelled at it to knock it off.

It did.

I still can't decide if that was scarier than having it talk to me.

I'm Just Glad That Martin Bartloff Is My Friend

Several months ago, I was a guest on my friend Martin Bartloff's blog site. The piece I wrote for him touched on a more than one topic, among them the Law of Attraction and an actor named Ryan Kelley. At the time, Martin was working on his first novel and wanted to contact Mr. Kelley regarding the book.

Apparently since I wrote that blog (see Martin's blog at http://martinbartlo ff.blogspot. com/ and check out the date May 4, 2009) Martin retreated into his wizarding room, picked up his wand, and played a little more with his favorite Law. The proof of that is this lovely picture of Ryan Kelley holding two copies of Martin's novel. I'm not exactly sure what else he or they have in the works but I would guess that since this involves Martin, almost anything is possible.

See, Martin had a story idea, wrote the novel, found an editor, found a publisher, lost a publisher, found another editor, got the book published, (all the while looking for Ryan Kelley who was the inspiration for one of the characters), hit the top ten of Amazon's YA book list, and then became e-mail pals with a certain actor --all inside of a year.

Did I mention that when Martin and I became e-mail friends --we didn't meet in person until few months after that-- he was delighted and perhaps not surprised to find out that I live in the same town where Ryan Kelley grew up? Martin's life is full of weird coincidences like that. Or not coincidences.

At any event, since I first wrote about Martin looking for Mr. Kelley, and now that we know how that turned out, I figured I should do a follow-up to that first blog.

It's the least I could do.

So he won't go back into his wizarding room, pick up his wand, and send something unsavory in my direction...

You can find Martin at http://www.martinbartloff.com/ and his book at Amazon.

Ghosts, Steampunk and Nick Valentino

Hey, I'm stepping aside today to let fellow writer Nick Valentino have his say. Which is pretty dang interesting to someone like me!

Ghosts in Steampunk?

First off, a huge thank you to Ophelia for letting me come on and guest blog today.

Ah! A blog dear to my heart! When I first started writing I wrote horror. Well, I still do, but that’s on the back burner for a little while. Anyway I wrote an entire six hundred page manuscript about a little Japanese/American girl that has grand supernatural powers. One of her abilities was she could speak with the dead. As she grows up she can hear all the ghosts around her. It takes a while for her to be able to calm the thousands of voices in her head and block them out. I love everything that’s remotely spooky.

So it should come to no surprise that yes my Steampunk novel, Thomas Riley has ghosts in it as well. In the chapter “Phantoms”, Thomas has an artifact in his pocket that gets broken. The room gets frigid, and Thomas is surrounded by a horror show of solid but not quite alive people.

It seems a bit odd to inject the supernatural into a Steampunk story, but I see the genre of Steampunk as basically limitless. Try this link if you want to know the skinny on Steampunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Most of the time Steampunk is all about the human mind. It deals with engineering, science, invention, creativity and ingenuity but I just couldn’t keep away from having some elements of the supernatural in the novel. Maybe it’s my own fascination that I wanted my hardcore science based characters to deal with a few things that were a little out of their comfort zone. I wanted to see how they would react to seeing a ghost. Of course they’re pretty confused by the entire encounter, which is how any scientist would probably react.

I know this may all seem a little confusing, but imagine an action story, filled with Sky Pirates, a twenty year war, and two inventors fighting their way through enemy territory to save a woman’s soul and all of a sudden they have to deal with ghosts? If that interests you, here’s the blurb to wet your appetite some more.

For more than twenty years West Canvia and Lemuria have been at war. From the safety of his laboratory, weapons designer Thomas Riley has cleverly and proudly empowered the West Canvian forces. But when a risky alchemy experiment goes horribly wrong, Thomas and his wily assistant Cynthia Bassett are thrust onto the front lines of battle and forced into shaky alliances with murderous sky pirates in a deadly race to kidnap the only man who can undo the damage: the mad genius behind Lemuria's cunning armaments.

Find out more at:

http://sirthomasriley.com

You can purchase signed copies at:

http://thomasriley.bigcartel.com/

or

http://www.echelonpress.com

Haunted Weapons

The supernatural is all around us. Ubiquitous, I suppose.

Last weekend, I spent my time not chasing ghosts, but hanging out with sword fighters. I kid you not. I have a passion for the supernatural and I have a passion for the martial arts, Eastern martial arts during high school and college, Western martial arts as a, well, kind of grown-up. I am lucky enough to belong to a group called The Chicago Swordplay Guild and every two years, we host the Western Martial Arts Workshop, where for about four days and as many nights, all participants can learn about wielding swords (long swords, broad swords, single swords, rapiers), spears, pole arms, knives, and other fun things, mostly from the Medieval and Renaissance periods, but some from more modern times. Two years ago I had a class on knife throwing. It was awesome!

At any event, because I work at the hospitality desk, I get to meet and talk to any number of sword-happy people, and this weekend they came from three different continents and a bunch of different countries. So I talked to folks from Alaska, Canada, Finland, Australia, German, England, and New Zealand. How's that for an international community? It's amazing how much I could learn about different histories and cultures in just short conversations.

But lest you think I have departed from my usual topic, here's the corker. One of our guests comes from something called the Oakeshott Institute (check them out at http://www.oakeshott.org/), an organization devoted to documenting the sword. Two years ago, one of their officers, who always comes to WMAW, brought along some of Oakeshott's display items, including an ancient bronze weapon that was recovered from the bottom of a lake. It dated back to very, very long-ago Greece, and like other attendees, I was allowed to pull on a pair of latex gloves and try it on for size.

I realize that I am studying an art that entails how to cut, thrust into, slash, dismember, and even disembowel another person. That's what sword fighting entails. However, picking up a real weapon that had been used, and there was no doubt in my mind once I touched it that it had been used, gave me a chill that took some time to shake off. I kept thinking, this sword has taken someone's life. This sword has blood on it...

I only mentioned the feeling I got to one or two other people at that time, but this past weekend, I brought it up with one of my instructors, and he said flatly, "That weapon was evil." He is not the sort of person who dips his toes much in my usual pond of interest, so I was surprised by that observation. He added, "That thing didn't kill just one person. It killed lots of people." Neither of us has any proof, but given the history and the provenance of the blade, I have no doubt he's right.

Next year, I get to go to the British Isles for an extended visit. Yes, we will tour castles, and yes, we will connect with some of our sword friends from that side of the ocean. Considering the long shadow an ancient Greek sword could cast -all the way to Wisconsin- I wonder what I'm going to run into there?

Check out the Chicago Swordplay Guild at http://www.chicagoswordplayguild.com/c/
Check out my ghost stories at www.opheliajulien.com

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors

Normally this space is reserved for special guests. Dead ones. But today I want to announce a new source for all things e-short story! It's called Echelon Press Shorts and is devoted to folks who like getting sweet snacks of fiction and nonfiction, as well as diving into complete novels and nonfiction books. Check it out here:
http://echelonpressshorts.wordpress.com/.

Echelon Press Shorts launches officially today, and to celebrate the grand opening, is offering free downloads from various authors during this launch week. You'll also get a chance to meet some of the writers, with Regan Black, Mark Vun Kannon, Mary Welk, and Michelle Sonnier being featured first.

If you really like reading, please feel free to join the party this month. And if you really like reading about ghosts, well, please feel free to check out the site and look for mine, Hunting Spirits! Check out everyone else's work, too. I know there are other horror and supernatural stories there because a bunch of us at this site like scaring the living daylights out of each other and also innocent passersby who wander into our clutches. Come by and visit today!

(Oh, regarding the picture: I couldn't find anything that showed a ghost making an announcement. Go figure.)

Next up: transient hauntings.

Do I Really Want to Know?

So what's your ultimate haunted house? Could it be Hill House as dreamed up by Shirley Jackson? How about Hell House from the movie of the same name, or maybe even the Overlook Hotel?

Here's mine: it's the house I grew up in on the north side of Chicago. If you had looked at it while my family lived there, you'd never have guessed it was haunted. My parents had terrific taste in decorating and the interior of the house was warmly furnished and inviting, with the deep blue carpeting and the furniture arranged to encourage conversation, whether from the depths of the sofas in the living room, or around the huge family table in the dining room. There was light, there was laughter, and there were lots of friendly people.

Unfortunately, there was also SOMETHING ELSE in that house and if I ever get the nerve up, I plan to research the history of the place and find out what went on there before we ever moved in. What could have happened there, to leave the echoes of a baby crying, of furniture moving in distant rooms, or the cold disturbances that swept past us all at will, caressing with chilly fingers and leaving goosebumps and an uneasy shudder or two in its wake? I have already made a couple of tentative forays into finding out who lived there and when and what happened to them. Given some time and some energy, I hope to unearth the entire story. After all, there's got to be some kind of reason for that bricked-up room in the garage...

Any how, let's you and me swap stories! You tell me about your haunted house, and I'll tell you a little bit about mine. But just a little. I know there's a huge, huge story in there someplace, and when I learn it, well, y'all will learn about it, too.

Be sure to order my new story "Hunting Spirits" at Quake! http://quakeme.com/