A Face in the Darkness

She had gotten up in the middle of the night, stumbling her familiar way around the bed, past her sleeping husband, and arriving at the door to the hall and the bathroom just beyond. It was the sort of middle-of-the-night trip she knew to expect if she drank a little too much water too late in the evening. She didn't even think about it anymore: she woke up, went to the bathroom, and went back to bed.

Unfortunately, she had spent the previous afternoon watching paranormal reality shows that she had recorded beforehand, so making this nocturnal trip also involved keeping her thoughts focused on anything besides the dark and the shadows that turned her home into an alien and fearsome place. And she succeeded. Or so she thought.

As she was groping her way around the bed, literally feeling with one outstretched hand because the corners of the platform bed were sharp and merciless to unsuspecting knees, she glanced at the two framed pictures that graced the tall dresser to her left. During the day, she knew one picture showed her beloved oldest grandson as a newborn. The other was a dusty portrait of herself that had once held sway in her husband's office. 

And during that glance, that one quick look at those framed pictures, her eyes now adjusted to the dim light from the moon and the occasional street light that slipped between the slats of her blinds, she saw...a face. Not her own. Oh, she saw herself as clearly as possible in that midnight gloom, reflected back in the glass of the picture frame. But she also saw - a man's face, smiling at her over her shoulder, his cheek so close to hers that it would mean...

She didn't want to think about what it would mean. She dove into the bed and pulled the covers up snug, reassuring herself that her husband was beside her, refusing to open her eyes and take another look.

The man's face had been so close to hers that he would have had to have been right next to her, to be seen in that reflection. He would have nearly been cheek to cheek with her. And that smile on his face: she couldn't decide if it was friendly or leering.

***

This happened to me late last year and I have never written about it until now. It still gives me the shivers. I have no idea who he was. I just know that I saw him. The next morning, I moved the framed photos on the tall dresser so that they would no longer reflect me when I made any nocturnal foray. They would not reflect me, or anyone else right beside me in the dark.

Blogger Goblins

Maybe a better name for this post would be Blogger Demons. I should market bumper stickers that say "Got Demons?" and sell them at writers' conferences. I bet I'd make a fortune.

Yes, all of us writers have demons. Lots of 'em. Under different disguises. For some people, the mother of all demons is WRITER'S BLOCK. I know a writer who is so superstitious about this that he won't even say the phrase aloud. In fact, he gave me a book that contained those two words in the title, and taped the letter C over the B in the second word, thus changing the work to a discourse about Writer's Clock. Of course, he's heavily involved in theater, so I could probably scare four years off his life by walking up behind him and whispering "MacBeth" in his ear.

But demons come in all shapes and sizes. I have heard some successful writers talk about theirs, and I'm always blown away by what occurs to some people. I heard a best-selling author (believe me, you'd know his name, but it's not my place to air his confidences) once talk about his constant fear of not being able to write past page 40. That he would come to that particular page number and the book would be finished because he'd run out of plot points. I know a Young Adult/Middle Grade writer, also a best-seller, who worries that he is too old to write what he does, and that what he says will have no meaning for his target audience. Also clearly not the case, as he continues to sell and sell and sell.

My particular demons jump out of the floorboards and dance around the computer desk when I confront the blank screen and the blinking cursor. There are times I look at the screen and then get up and walk away. Coward! the demons hiss after me, chortling with glee. I come back eventually, and they start up again at once. On a good day, I can kick them all back into their little box under the floorboards, but there are other times... Well, best left to the imagination.

The blog goblin is the one that leers at me at the beginning of every week and says "What are you going to write about this time?" as he swings from his perch on the door to my office and hangs upside down. "You haven't got any idea, do you?" And he cackles.

If I could throw things at this little creep, I'd do it. But of course, if I start throwing things at the door to my office, my husband would have a fit about the damage done. And possibly have me hauled away by ambulance. So my battles remain internal, a struggle to find an interesting topic while munching on way too many Hershey miniatures and perhaps the odd bag of chips.

Today, the little hobgoblins have given me a topic simply by existing. Next week, I won't be so lucky. But maybe by then my muse will have come back from her 20-year trek through Everywhere-Else-But-Here and handed me a worthy idea. In the meantime, back to the Hershey bars. I wonder if goblns eat chocolate?

Ghosts + History = Magic

Some years ago, I was in a college class and the subject of THE BIG earthquake in Missouri came up. Most of the class had never heard about it and the instructor herself was not sure of the year, but I knew it. 1812. (Actually, it was December, 1811 through January, 1812 since it was a series of upheavals, but I was close enough.) And why did I know that date? Because of a ghost story I had read during childhood.

Recently, while doing my "research" and immersing myself in the paranormal reality shows on SyFy, Biography, A & E, TLC, and the History Channel, I started taking notes simply because I was learning not only history, but lots of little factoids that tend to stimulate the writer in me. For instance:

- Casket plates were metal plates that were attached the tops of caskets as identifiers during the winter when the ground was too frozen to dig graves. Since the caskets were stored in a community location, the plates were helpful in keeping the remains of loved ones organized. (Some people collect these things- would you???)

- In the 19th century, there was such a thing as a "baby farm", where illegitimate and otherwise unwanted babies and youngsters were placed. As is so often the tragic case with this sort of thing, the babies were sometimes killed and the poison of choice was arsenic, because its symptoms mimic cholera.

-  I now know of at least two man-made lakes, Norfork Lake in Arkansas, and Table Rock Lake in Missouri. Creating Norfork Lake entailed flooding 400 farms, numerous small towns, and also required moving 26 cemeteries. I have been to Table Rock Lake: when the water is still, you can see some of the buildings down at the bottom. Very eerie.

-  Phenobarbitol was used to treat epilepsy in the 1930's and '40's.

- James Thurber lived in a haunted house at one time and wrote about it in his book of short stories, My Life and Hard Times.

I could go on much longer, but I'm sure you all get the idea. It's amazing how much history you can pick up reading and watching ghost stories! When I was a kid, I loved tales of haunted locations, and learned smatterings of history along the way. As an adult, I've also learned to love history. When the two come together - for me, it's positively magic.

(This piece was previously published at the blog Young Adults You've Never Heard Of .)

Dead Voices

 So it's only been about six months since my last post. Sue me! Actually, I don't mean to be rude. I admire people who blog regularly. I can't seem to get the hang of it for longer than a couple months at a stretch, if I'm lucky. Still, it's not that I don't think about blogging. I just somehow never make it there.

Today I am here because: 1) I am between jobs that require me to leave the house. 2) My grandson is home sick so I need to be home. 3) Said grandson is also asleep so I get to be on the computer instead of checking on him while he watches Angry Birds videos, and 4) I am avoiding doing the breakfast dishes.

Mostly I came to say, to any reader who may happen upon this, that I know my follow up book is taking far too long and there are any number of reasons for this. But here's the primary one. (Readers who have emailed me and gotten a response -which should be most of them- will already know this story, but please bear with me.)

When I launched the Bridgeton Park Cemetery series, the only continuing character I intended to have was Bridgeton Park Cemetery itself. I don't tend to think of my work in terms of book series, and believe it or not, the ending to Haunted was the ending I intended. Anything after Steve's last statement would mean the beginning of Steve's story and the end of Cassie's and Michael's. So I stopped there and went on to the next, a work entitled Ghostwalk that involves an entirely different group of people. And the same cemetery.

While I was working on that, some interesting things happened with Haunted. Buddy and very wonderful and successful writer Terri Reid gave Haunted a review and a hell of a boost. The good news is that I picked up some of her readers and they wrote reviews for me, so my sales left me flabbergasted. The other hit-me-with-a-brick news? Everyone seemed to think there was a sequel coming with Cassie and Michael in it. I even had readers writing me to ask when that would be available. The technical term for how I felt when I read these messages is "freaked out." Here I was, chapters into the new work, and readers were asking for a completely different story with characters I had already bade a fond farewell to.*

After a LOT of moaning and groaning, I started work on a new Cassie and Michael story, Dead Voices. How's that going? Slowly. I'm just not as fast as Terri Reid! But please bear with me. I hope to finish this thing ASAP because I think some of the scenes coming into my head belong in book three already.

Sigh. Yes. I am now writing a CassieValentine/Michael Penfield series under the catch-all name of Bridgeton Park Cemetery. I never would have seen this coming, but here it is. Thank you to everyone who offered me an opinion, even those who let me know in no uncertain terms how much Haunted displeased them. I guess that qualifies me as a real writer! In the meantime, I hope to do better with this blog. Next week I'll try again for a scary topic, and from time to time I'll let you know what's up with the next book. See you next week!

* Read an article recently that said it is not always incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. Don't know if everyone will buy that, but I thought I'd give it a try!

Calling Forth the Restless

In my newest book, Haunted, there is a scene in which one of the characters remarks that reading or talking about ghosts will attract them to you. I hadn't been thinking about that consciously when May Parrish, my character, opened up her mouth and made that particular proclamation, but since it wound up on paper the thought must have been in me somewhere. I didn't give that specific bit of dialogue much attention until quite a bit later. And now I wonder what I was trying to tell myself.

Nonbelievers will assure me that the reason I hear more things happening in other parts of my house when I'm the only one home is that I am focusing more than usual on hearing creaks, thuds, thumps, and other disturbances. So of course, they explain, I will hear every single one of those noises, though I might not have noticed them otherwise. I suppose that is as good an explanation as any. Maybe it explains why, when I am tucked away in my office writing a ghost story, I always hear random rustlings, squeaks, and assorted sounds that pop off spontaneously and sporadically as I work. Some of these can be quite obnoxious: a heavy thud like someone dropping a cinder block in the other room, or maybe a series of creaks that suggest someone is approaching me from the other end of the house. Most of the time, if I'm working on a story, I try to ignore it. Most of the time, though, because I am working on a story, I wind up looking away from my monitor and glancing out the office door. There is never anyone there, but frequently the noises continue. And then I'll yell something like "Knock it off!" and things will quite down.

When I did newspaper writing some years ago, I had the happy annual assignment of collecting and writing up true ghost stories for the Halloween issue of the paper. I only worked on those stories during the day (while the kids were in school), and I have never forgotten the afternoon I was typing away merrily only to hear a loud bang against the inner wall of the garage, which was connected to our house. It was loud and violent enough to shake the shelf in the adjacent powder room and make the little items on it vibrate against the glass. Naturally when I got up to check, nothing had fallen over or tumbled down anywhere in the garage or in the house. I stopped writing immediately and finished the article when the whole family was home again, and the heck with the kids being in school while I worked.

This whole topic got me thinking: are there certain things that do invite restless spirits? I have a daughter who has always been uneasy around wind chimes because when she was a child she believed -and shared with me- that they attract ghosts. I have always loved wind chimes myself, but I must admit that since she told me that, I always hear an undercurrent of loss or sadness or something even more unsettling coasting along on the pleasant tinkling of the small metal chimes that I have hanging just outside my front door. If my daughter is correct, I must be a bit insane to hang these things so close to the entrance of my house.

And what about music? I know music inspires a whole range of emotions in me and I wonder sometimes if music can't attract a ghost or two. It's so tightly wound into the fabric of an era, surely a Benny Goodman album or some Scott Joplin ragtime could conjure up a nostalgic spirit.

I am writing this in broad daylight with a Depeche Mode song playing on the radio and the sunlight shining on the trees outside my window, but I know later I'm going to go home and transcribe this onto my blog. I wonder how I'll feel about the topic tonight when my grandson has gone to sleep and I'm alone because Jim is out of town again? For the sake of a sleeping child, a sharp Knock it off! is probably preferable than a scream, don't you think?

Haunted Lecture

 A few months ago, I wrote about the possibility of individual things being haunted, as opposed to actually having a haunted house. And I think I mentioned the name John Zaffis.

John Zaffis has a TV show on SyFy, for those who aren't familiar with his name, and it's called "The Haunted Collector." The show is about Mr. Zaffis's travels around the country to help people who are having, for want of a better phrase, paranormal problems. Mr. Zaffis and his team of investigators will go to the person's residence or place of business and try to determine if the problems his client is experiencing are related to items within the location. To date, he and his colleagues have rooted out weapons used to commit murder, jewelry that still had the spirit attached to it, animal bones, and at least one cursed object. And that's just a short list. Once a disturbed/disturbing object is identified, Mr. Zaffis will usually remove it and bring it back to his haunted museum, where it will be safely stored in a sort of privately owned Warehouse 13, speaking of the SyFy channel.

A few weeks ago, while life was truly insane, my husband and I took an evening off to go see Mr. Zaffis lecture at a local community college. What an engaging evening! First of all, it was a chance to see a noted paranormal investigator tell his stories in person. Secondly, what an audience! But first things first. Mr. Zaffis had an entire PowerPoint slide show with topics like ghosts and spirits, or demonology. For a supernatural fanatic like me, this was hitting the mother lode. Toward the end of his presentation, though, just when he got to the topic of demonic possession, the computer went berserk and zipped through the remaining pictures like a cheetah on steroids -but with less grace and more disturbing images- terminating the slide show in a most unceremonious fashion until the process stopped at his icon-filled desktop. Mr. Zaffis seemed about as startled as the rest of us and asked if the college had a ghost. I suppose this might have been staged, but anyone who could see the bewildered expression on the gentleman's face, and I could, would say otherwise. So the bad news was that we never got to see the whole show.

The good news is that he then devoted himself to a solid hour of Q & A from the audience. Did I say something about the audience earlier? There were any number of ghost hunters and paranormal investigators sitting in that lecture center, and all of them had a question. Quite a few people seemed to be looking for personal help. And then there were all the questions about the TV show itself. Mr. Zaffis explained the difference between what he really does and what is allowed on the television screen. He has his frustrations ("They won't let me show the kind of precautions I take whenever I remove one of those objects and store it away") but he is also happy to share his knowledge to those interested in picking his brain.

I don't get to see his program as often as I would like anymore, but I was thrilled to have a chance to see the man in real life. He's funny and down-to-earth, and I did find myself lying awake later that night, mulling over some of his more frightening tales. A bit afraid to open my eyes in the dark? Check. Very uneasy about wandering down the hall to use the bathroom at two in the morning? Check. Sleep a long time coming with all those weird noises originating in a spot just left and a little behind my side of the bed? Check. I must have had a great time!

Well, Where Have I Been???

And I was doing so well! I actually had a weekly post up for several months in a row and then life happened.

First, I accidentally got an almost full-time job as a medical assistant. Seeing as how I spent two-plus years of my life attending classes for this, not to mention getting certified in the field as well as in phlebotomy, getting a job as a medical assistant seemed like a good idea. But it sure takes up a lot of time.

Then there was the whole book thing. After lots and lots of discussion, coaching, advising, and more discussion with friends, with writers experienced at this, with my hubby, with anyone walking down the street willing to listen to a somewhat neurotic writer, I finally decided to self-publish my work. Hence, the picture at the top of this post. It's currently available as an e-book at Amazon. I soon hope to have it available in print, as well. Anyone who doesn't think self-publishing a book for the first time is not a lot of effort or doesn't take very long has clearly never tried it. Or is about twenty times more technically-minded than I am. I have hope for my own learning curve the next time around, and if not, there's always hubby.

That said, most writers I know who are self-publishing their work follow a fairly grueling schedule when it comes to output. Terri Reid puts these things out about every three or four months. I opted for every six months. Since I write ghost stories for the most part, releasing one around Halloween seemed like a good idea. And six months from that is April or thereabouts. I am currently trying not to panic.

At any event, thank you to everyone who has stopped by. This is an unusual post for me: most of the time I try to throw something paranormal into this space and hope to do so for next week's edition. So happy you came by to read this, though, and hope to see you next week with something more in line with a blog titled "Ubiquitous Ghosts"!