Month: April 2010

  • Late Last Night…

    Last night was rough. After my last post, things kind of died down in so far as my spectral visitors go. Last night, it wasn’t just whispers bothering me while I was trying to sleep. I actually heard a man’s voice, maybe two. It was to the point where I felt I should go turn on the light and look out the back door to see if someone was trying to break in. To make matters worse, when I had gone downstairs around 1 am, there had been a smell of B.O in the kitchen and my stepdad had not closed or locked the back door. The voices didn’t start until after I closed and locked it, but I still wanted to go down and check even though I’d locked it myself. I try to be accommodating of ghosts, but if one would have manifested itself last night, I think I would have thrown a pillow at it.

    Then I woke up about 2 hours later at 3 with terrible heartburn. I went downstairs and took two tums. Then 2 hours later I woke up with terrible pain in my stomach (gas I suppose) and spent a good half hour whimpering in bed before getting up and going downstairs to hang out in the bathroom for a while. I was <-this-> close to making myself throwup when it finally stopped. Now I have heartburn again. Feh… getting old sucks.

    In other news, I am done editing The Quiet One. Official word count stands at 106740, which is about 20,000 words more than the Hobbit to give you some idea of its length. I’m going to be tagging a few people who I think might be interested or who have expressed interest in beta-reading. If you are interested, send me a private message with your email, and I’ll send it to you. I don’t need any editing done, just your impression of the piece and anything that doesn’t work for you or which is unclear.

    Just so you know, this is a horror novel, and there are very graphic scenes of gore and while there is no sex, there is sexual content and some of the characters have potty mouths. I won’t be offended if you decline reading. Horror’s not for everyone, but despite being a horror story, the story is about the characters, not the horror. The best description I can give is that it is a modern fairytale in the style of the Grimm Brothers- in so far as very bad things happen to people and there are witches,  shapeshifters, and vampires. All of the creatures used in the story come from mythology and folklore (not Hollywood) so the vampires will be like nothing you’re probably familiar with. The story centers around a nerd named Fiona, a very socially awkward and shy young woman, who gets thrown into a nasty situation by family politics she knew nothing about and has to learn to depend upon her new friends, rather than always taking the weight of the world onto her own shoulders. If you do decide to read and can think of a better description, it would be much appreciated! If I did not tag you, and you’re a friend of mine and interested, just send me a message.

  • My mother talks to orbs

    I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my house is haunted. My mother gets these fantastic pictures of orbs. I have albums full of them. She’s taken to talking to them, asking them to help with this or that, sometimes just asking them to show up in her pictures. I rarely watch those ghost hunting shows on tv, but compared to the pictures my mother gets of her orbs, the guys on tv are strictly amateur. Either that, or there was a massacre on our property because she’s taken pictures in the back yard so heavily orbed that you literally cannot count them all. They fill every available space like bubbles of carbonation in the air.

    Recently I rearranged my room to put in the air conditioner. I do this every year, not that I’ve run more than the fan when it gets stuffy. My allergies are such that it’s nearly impossible for me to enjoy a nice day by opening my windows, not without dosing myself with sleep-inducing medication. It really sucks. I can’t even leave my window open a crack at night because I’m such a light sleeper. But speaking of being a light sleeper, I moved my altar around so that it sits at the foot of my bed now instead of by the door. Ever since then, there’s been some phenomena, culminating with something “nudging” my bed last night.

    I can’t say for sure that it was moving my altar that did it, since I also had to go into the attic for my air conditioner. There is something in the attic that doesn’t like to be disturbed. I’ve known it since we moved in. Typically we have a live and let live arrangement. So long as I don’t go up too often, it refrains from coming down. Aside from opening the door to get my air conditioner however, it’s not like I’ve been plaguing it with visits. So perhaps it is some combination of going up and moving my altar. I’m tempted to ask my mom to ask the orbs to intercede, but after I cut my hair, my sister asked if I had a nervous breakdown. Don’t want to give the brat any other reasons to pick on me.

    It’s not an aggressive haunting, and I’m not afraid, but it’s distracting and a little startling when you don’t expect things to touch you or move out of the corner of your eye. There’ve been the typical mystery drafts of any normal haunting. However one thing the attic “ghost” did from the start was smells. After a few (extremely) nasty smells when we first moved in, that kind of stopped. Lately, I’ve been smelling all kinds of things, and not at all unpleasant, so I can’t even say if it is the attic ghost doing it. Seriously, right now I smell a kind of rose-water perfume. Sometimes I smell fruit. I’ve even smelled cooking when I know I’m the only one in the house, we haven’t had a neighbor in the other half of the house in almost six months, and no windows are open to let a smell in. I’d worry that I have a tumor, since phantom smells can be a symptom, but then there’s the other phenomena.

    I’ve heard things moving around in my plants, like a leaf has shifted but when I look over, there’s no corresponding movement to account for the sound. I’ve also heard sounds down in the kitchen like someone moving around, and sometimes almost voices. During the day I have my stereo on, more rarely the tv. At night, I have two sound machines to drown out noises from outside and the “whispers” that have always annoyed me when I’m trying to sleep. Lately I’ll sometimes hear what sounds like a voice under the noise. I’ve been thinking of leaving my stereo on all night along with my sound machines just so I can dismiss the “voice” as something else.

    Two nights in a row I felt something touching my hair and arm while I was at the computer, not with hostility but just kind of playing with my hair and sleeve. That would be creepy enough, but I was speculating on the fourth dimension as the dimension one goes to at death one night in a journal as I sat in my bed, and I swear I saw something move in the other room, like a leonine face and then later something moving out of the corner of my eye near my closet. And then, of course, last night when I was nearly asleep, something nudged my bed enough to wake me. I could hear it as it scraped by the bottom of my bed, like a large animal brushing past at least as big as a medium sized dog. Makes me glad I don’t have my bed on the floor any more, though I’ve felt my blankets sometimes move while I’m trying to fall asleep and just assumed it was normal blanket shifting caused by gravity.

    I’m to the point where I’m considering a cleansing ritual, just to make sure every thing around me has the best intentions. It could just be that I’ve been in the house too much and the ghosties are feeling a bit put upon by my continuous presence. Or it could be because I retrieved my air conditioner or moved my altar… or it could be a combination of three. Whatever it is, it’s starting to wear on my nerves. Now with this post, things will either get worse or better, as I’m sure the spirits wouldn’t be too proud to read over my shoulder as I type. In fact, twice now I’ve caught something moving just behind me at the door to the hall, and I know no one’s come home. So we’ll see. Could just be friendly spirits letting me know they’re around and support my writing…? Though from now on, I hope they let me sleep.

  • I tilt at windmills

    I have noticed since leaving my job that I can’t watch television. Not that I ever did watch it much, but I have no patience for commercials or the tidbits of the news that they offer to make you watch later. I never really did care much for either, but since leaving my job, I find them completely disgusting. I barely turn the tv on but once a week. When I see commercials, I think to myself: Do people really want these things? I try to figure out what about the items offered is so wonderful that people would care to have them, to spend money on them, to use them or enjoy them? It doesn’t matter what it is, cars, fast food, toys, department stores, etc. None of it interests me. Why do people like these things? What’s the allure? I’ve never had a real hankering for material possessions aside from books and a few other things that occasionally strike my fancy, a woebegone plant in a supermarket, occasional “pretty baubles” found for a steal at a yard sale. Beyond that, I just don’t care. I find it harder to care every day. Most of my possessions have been gifts or thrift store finds or things I’ve made myself.

    Am I a freak? I don’t care about money. Quitting my job was the best thing I ever did, despite the fact that I will need money eventually. So far I haven’t been able to find a job to replace the one I left, but I can’t really bring myself to worry. I don’t want to think about it. Since quitting my job, my life has fallen into an easier rhythm. I’m not stressed all the time. I stay indoors, and I write or read with only occasional forays into the world with my mother. I’d go off tramping in the woods if the weather hadn’t been so fine lately that everyone and their brother is out there already. And they just restocked the canal with fish, so all the fisher people are out there too. Better to wait for a less beautiful day so I can be out there alone. I’ve become even more of a misanthrope since I became unemployed.

    I wake in the morning and exercise. I never had time for it before, between working and then trying to do the work that doesn’t pay (ie writing) and the regular burdens of life (ie eating, hygiene, and sleep). So every morning I do some exercises; boy, I never knew how out of shape I was. Maybe it was just the stress that made me all flab-tastic though… I was certainly getting my exercise at Borders. Unlike some of my former coworkers, I was never one to stand around babbling. Depending upon the day, I either start writing or come online. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I come online first thing to update the webserial (only 4 more updates in Chapter 7). Every other day I start writing immediately. Tuesday seems to be my most productive day with anywhere from 5000 to 10000 words, and I average about 20000 words a week. I’ve started updating my word count over on the side bar if you’ve noticed.

    I basically watch tv once a week, and who knows how often I’ll watch once Lost is over. heh I’ll miss Lost when it’s done. I don’t know how I feel about V. It’s an intriguing remake, but in the end, that’s all it is. It doesn’t seem to offer anything knew, just capitalizing on the previous series with better science and effects. Lost, despite being suspenseful and shocking, has a good message… I think. It’s a human story… it’s about people trying to live, struggling to find a way to stay good people in a bad situation, a situation which it is completely impossible to make heads or tails of, but which taken in bite sized increments, is not impossible to deal with. It is, in fact, a story about life. Though the setting is fantastical and confusing, the story remains centered on the people, not the affects, not the smoke monster or the time slips. V doesn’t have that. V has the fear and the effects, but I can’t invest myself in the characters and some of them aren’t even believable as real people. V is just watching tv. Lost is seat of your pants, OMG what’s going to happen to these poor people next? I think when Lost is over, I won’t stick around to watch V, as much as I loved the original series. The original series was about people, even if it was completely cheesy. The new series is more about the drama with zero reflection.

    What I really hate about late night tv though are the commercials for the news. The news is always bad, and the worse it is, the happier the announcer seems to be. Is it that I’m not “invested in the story?” I don’t want to be, if it comes to that. I don’t want to watch the news and see horrible things done to people with no hope of things getting any better. I don’t want to hear about bombings and war, fires and murders. I don’t want to find out that everyone died, badly, at the end. I want the villains to be caught, the families to be saved, the wars to be over, the dictators to be overthrown, and the “bombing” to have been the result of an accidental gas leak. Even news of natural disasters make me sick any more… just another way for the Religious Right to capitalize on the suffering of people made weak with tragedy, a chance for them to convert by hook or by crook, to dangle food and water over someone’s head and say “jump for Jesus.”

    In the end, I would much rather dissociate myself from this reality and simply write. My stories may be grim, but they are people stories. Bad things happen, but my characters rise above them, learn from them, continue to be good people despite the tragedy, try to be even better people to those they love. They continue to reach out to others in ways I can’t any more. I can’t even look at tragedies like the Haiti earthquake. It makes me so angry. I wish I had millions of dollars. I’d go over there and make sure the Pagan Haitians had food and water too. I’d do the same in the other places that have recently had earthquakes and any place else struck by natural disaster like India with the tsunami a couple years ago. It’s important to help people, to reach out to them, but I am poor and helpless, and for all my compassion, useless to do anything to alleviate the pain of victims of earthquakes, wars, terrorism, crime… beyond wishing them well.

    I loathe the human race as an amorphous, nebulous thing, though I hate to see people of any creed or race suffer. In my writing, I fight this thing under many guises. I make my people strong and idealistic. They don’t buckle to peer pressure. They may be broken and scarred by the things they’ve seen and done, but they struggle on to overcome their social programming. This world is sick. I tilt at the windmills of our society’s flaws and overcome them in my stories for my peace of mind. If there is one message I think my writing and shows like Lost embody, it’s that we’re all the same. No matter who we are or where we’ve been, we suffer and bleed and strive to be better than we knew we were. We all fight against hate and selfishness, but it’s when we send that fight outside ourselves that we commit crimes against our own. People, look at yourselves and see yourselves for who and what you are. Better yourselves before you try to change the world. Help for the sake of helping, not to strong arm someone into your religion. Dogma never saved anyone. Compassion is the key.