Ghost Tour, Naperville - and An Announcement

 

Since it's Halloween, it seemed only appropriate to write about the ghost tour that Jim and I took with great friends Terri Reid (and spouse) and Donnie Light (and spouse) and a bunch of other buddies. We went on the ghost tour featuring the nearby town of Naperville, Illinois. And it was a blast.

Our guide was a very dramatic gentleman, ghost hunter, and story-teller named Kevin, and he was aided by a sweetheart named Arielle. Between the two of them, we were guided to different sites close to downtown Naperville to learn about tragedies from over a hundred years ago all the way through one that just happened within the last ten or so years. All of which gave rise to a haunted location. 

There was a monstrous train crash that took over forty lives, and some of those poor folks are still wandering the area where they died, totally bewildered about what happened to them. There was a residential-type house, one that once was a thriving business, that is occupied by a very dark entity. There was a little girl who haunts a grade school, although no one knows very much about her story: just that she turns up as a pink-clad little thing in pictures. I know Terri Reid is probably writing about this adventure over at her blog and undoubtedly doing a far better job than I can!

But there was one thing that Kevin said that still echoes in me because I (and Michael Penfield) know that he is right. Your house is haunted. He went on to talk about the footsteps you hear overhead when you know you're home alone, about the sounds of things moving that can't be explained by a draft or an open window, about the chill you sometimes get when you're in the middle of a heated home. Ghosts are everywhere, he claims. And Michael Penfield would agree with him. And actually, so would my mother. (Having your own mother tell you that ghosts are everywhere when you're growing up in a haunted house is quite the treat, let me tell you!) I know the skeptics would mock this, but inside of me, I know this is true. They are everywhere, and why shouldn't they be? They don't have the laws of physical existence limiting them any longer. And energy is everywhere.

That said, if you want to know more about Naperville and its ghost stories, I would encourage going on one of these walking tours. They're fun. They're educational. And unfortunately, they won't resume again until the spring. But keep them in mind!

As for the announcement, well, I would like you all to know that Cassie and Michael have a new adventure available at Amazon. It's shorter, a novella of about 30,000 words, but it is a ghost story and it does involve using their particular gifts to help resolve a particular type of problem. The story is titled A Trace of Ghost, and I hope you enjoy it. Review me, please, if you do!

Hunting Spirits is also available again, with different cover art. This one is a short ghost story and involves a teen named AJ Podalak, the daughter of a famous ghost hunter, and a vengeful spirit. If you haven't read this already, enjoy!

Ghosts in a Cemetery

The idea of a haunted cemetery is a cliche.

Cemeteries, by mere concept, are scary places for people who fear running into someone who is dead but somehow still popping up for a visit. (I am excluding zombies and vampires from this, by the way. I don't generally use the term "un-dead" when talking or writing about ghosts, simply because zombies and vampires are still walking around in their own dead bodies, and that's something quite different from the manifestation of a dead person's spirit.) If you are someone who believes that a person--or at least some aspect of a person--survives physical death, then a cemetery could indeed be a scary place. Especially if it's old, or has a lot of mausoleums, or - biggest cliche of all- has tombstones that are tilting or fallen over.

I also associate cemeteries with scary things and I have used them in my own work. Bridgeton Park Cemetery, which is based on a real cemetery or two close to where I live, has been popping up in my work since I wrote Dead of Summer years and years ago. My short story, Hunting Spirits (soon to be made available again!) begins in a cemetery. When I told my webmaster that I wanted my website and matching business cards to be "eerie", he immediately went with a cemetery-based theme.

When I was a little kid, there was a cemetery some miles north of my house that we would pass when we were bringing my non-driving uncle back to his residence after dinner with my family. I was (and still am) a sucker for a car ride, so I usually went along. And when we passed that cemetery, I would squeeze my eyes shut and not look until we were safely past it. I found out years later that the cemetery was actually the site of one of Chicago's most historical hauntings, but I didn't know that when I was a kid. I just thought the place was creepy.

Yet, as I have spent more time researching-, talking and writing about-, meeting people who see-, and collecting-, experiences about ghosts, the more I think that no ghost in his or her right mind would bother haunting a cemetery. The places keep regular hours and close at 5 pm, or 7 pm, or at dark, and a lot of them have locking gates. Why would a ghost hang around someplace where no one was ever going to see him? What would be the point? Better to turn up in someone's mirror at home, or in someone's basement, or even someone's car, don't you think? At least there would be some sort of reaction to that type of a visit.

Fall is approaching and if I turn my head to look out the window, I see the tree branches bending and swaying with a fairly brisk breeze, scattering already-browned leaves all over the grass and turning their branches into the bony, skeletal arms I will see until spring returns long months from now. I've read many times over that fall is when the "veil between two worlds" is the thinnest, when those denizens of the afterlife can more easily cross between their domain and ours. Halloween is a celebration of that. And I'm seeing ads already for holiday decor: witches, black cats, tombstones, and ghosts. These are the days, the times, when my stories make the most sense to me; the days and long nights filled with more than just darkness and autumn moons.  

And although I know that the ghost tour I'm going on at the end of October will more than likely include a cemetery, I think the scariest stuff I'll run into will not include any cemeteries. Meeting a ghost in one's own bedroom is a lot scarier, don't you think?

Writing Structure Upside Down

Normally, I try to address supernatural things in this blog: ghosts, cryptids/cryptozoology, ghosts, unexplained events, ghosts, and ghosts. But as I work on book 3 of the Bridgeton Park Cemetery series, I started thinking about opening lines for books. This is a common topic among writers and is featured (or should be) in writing classes because a story opening, which may be one line or an entire paragraph, is what is used to grab your reader by the throat so that they keep on reading. It is also to grab editors and agents by the throat for those working authors who submit their manuscripts traditionally. 

Naturally, I started thinking about my own story openings. Here they are, along with the title of the work they open:

Mary Beth is dead. There won't be any more dreams. (Dead of Summer)

The madness started in September, and to tell you truth, I hope it hasn't ended yet.  (Saving Jake)

"Okay, then," I said. "First question. Can a ghost follow you home?"  (Hunting Spirits)

The four-year old girl looked up and saw Uncle Tee stepping through the front door and coming toward her, her mother a little behind him - AND - No one knew exactly who started the Thursday night ghost stories, or when.  (Haunted)

Michael Penfield awoke to a presence in his room.  (Dead Voices)

The first two openings, for Dead of Summer and Saving Jake, were enough to get my foot in the door with an editor. Teresa Basile, who edited Saving Jake, is an unusually generous editor in that if she likes an opening line, she'll read the entire first page of a manuscript. I hear most editors will read the first paragraph. If the opening line doesn't cut it, well, so long, Charlie. Getting published can be brutal!

But I digress. Opening lines set the tone of the book and sometimes can encapsulate a large part, if not all, of the story. Next time you read a book, go back and reread the opening and see what you think of it, now that you know where the writer went. I'm partial to Stephen King when it comes to this: "Once upon a time, a monster came to Castle Rock" or "Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick" or even "Here is what happened." 

When I teach writing classes, I always spend some time having students come up with opening lines, and then we share them. Invariably, we always hear at least three or four of them where we wish we knew the rest of the story. It's a good exercise but a cruel one, if you want to know what happens next. In situations like that, even the author can't usually answer that.

On the other hand, endings are a completely different animal. I'm beginning to think that a line that is good for starting a story might be good for ending it, as well. When you take an opening and end the book with it, you leave the reader wanting more. Sometimes you might be writing a series, but maybe not. There are good and satisfactory endings like "They lived happily ever after" or Dumas" "...the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words: Wait and hope" from the Count of Monte Cristo, or Gaiman's "But between now and then, there was Life; and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open"  from The Graveyard Book. Great endings, all of them, that put a final cap on the story and leave the reader with a contented sigh.

Still, there is a part of me that enjoys endings that read like openings. I tried that with Haunted and for my trouble was told in no uncertain terms that my ending was really the start of the next book. I never saw it that way, but hey, if intelligent readers did, then who am I to argue? I'll write another book. Just to clarify things for myself, though, I put an ending on Dead Voices that made it stunningly obvious that there was another book on the way. I want my readers to come back!

But indulge me for just a second and go back up to the list of my openings. Reread them and pretend they are each the last lines of a novel. It's probably just me, but I think all of them would make really stellar endings. Really. It would invite the reader to keep going with the story in his or her own mind. I'm a writer. I like the idea of my characters taking on a life in someone else's thoughts. And I can't help thinking that ending with a beginning is a hell of a way to do exactly that.

This Writing Life

 

Ernest Hemingway had it right when he said "There is nothing much to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed."

My husband has also observed that I do much more "writing" when I'm not actually sitting at the computer. At odd moments while eating or driving the car or cleaning the bathroom, ideas that eventually go into making up my next novel spring up like dandelions and I need to write them down before they go away. Those little scribblings give me my jumping off point so that I leap into writing a scene as opposed to leaping off the nearest ten-story building. It's not easy to sit down at the computer and bleed.

So I am now feeling my way into working on a series. I had never meant to write one. I've always done stand-alone novels and coming up with new stories for the same characters is both easier (the story universe is already in place) and harder (now what do I want them to do?) My little struggles make me wonder what goes on in the head of someone like George R. R. Martin, who can write entire reams about his universe and not show even the slightest sign of drying up. How does he do that?

And then there was this blog thing. Back when I  submitted and sold my very first e-published story, Hunting Spirits, my editor said that I should expand my cyber-presence by starting a blog. Okay. A weekly blog. That sounded like a good idea. Not that difficult. HA! Trying to meet a weekly blog deadline with, at first, writing, school, and a grandson, and now with writing, jobs, and a grandson, is quite the challenge. I'm not always able to pick up the gauntlet that circumstances have tossed into my path. Not to mention slapping me across the face with it first.

But I keep trying.

So maybe what I'll start doing, as I once did, is write a list of possible blog subjects to discuss on a weekly basis. I want a blog entitled "Ubiquitous Ghosts" to live up to that title. And I do love scary stories.

So okay. I'll start working on that list and see if I can get better at this weekly appointment. Especially since my books keep advertising this site.

Thanks for your patience and for reading my work. I'll try to keep up my end of the bargain, too. But damn, that Hemingway sure knew what he was talking about.

Ten Things You Might Not Have Known About Me

Like the title of this one? It's also called "I have no idea what to write about this week." Nevertheless, a couple of thoughts popped into my head and one of them was a list -paranormal writer style.

1.  I once asked a ghost hunter, the sort of person who wants to measure and quantify spiritual activity, if it is possible for a ghost to follow you home. Without batting an eyelid, he met my questioning gaze dead on and said "Yes." Thus was born the opening for my e-story "Hunting Spirits."

2.  I watch all sorts of reality paranormal shows, and I read all sorts of collections of true ghost stories, but I rarely watch ghost story movies because they scare the living daylights out of me. Wuss.

3.  Completely out of character, unless you really know me, is the fact that the one writer I would really love to have a deep conversation with is Rudyard Kipling. He's one of my all-time favorites. And I can't bring myself to believe what everyone says about him.

4.  When I'm not writing enough, I dream in stories. And most of them are just downright weird.

5.  I believe monsters exist.

6.  I love tales about psychic abilities and ghosts, but vampires and zombies? Not so much.

7.  I am the only one in my immediate family who has never seen a ghost. Heard one? Absolutely. Dealt with one? You bet. Seen one? No. And I'm really, really okay with that.

8.  I find it nearly impossible to write without music, and without pain. Everyone who creates will understand that statement.

9.  Along with my younger daughter, I once took a class about the paranormal that was taught by a raging skeptic. I got some good information but the entire experience was quite annoying.

10.  The International Cryptozoology Museum is in Portland, Maine. I intend to get there, just like I intend to get to the All-Ghost Weekend in Ireland.

This list may convince you that I have several screws loose at once, but it's honest. I think if you read my work, and enjoy it, some of these probably apply to you, too!