My Ghost Story

I love ghost stories as well as anyone. My favorites are "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James and "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson.

We once lived in a haunted house. I would wake up to see someone--or something-- standing at the side of the bed. My husband and sons backed me up on this, for at one time or another they all had heard or seen or something they couldn't describe.

My most vivid encounter happened on a beach in midsummer. We were vacationing on St. Simons, an island off the coast of Georgia. We took a day trip to Jekyll Island to see the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, where injured turtles are nursed back to health. Told that there would be a turtle walk that night, we decided to return in hopes of seeing one of these creatures crawl out from the sea to lay her eggs.

Our little group set out about nine o'clock. We walked along the beach, but according to our guide, there were no turtles around and about that evening. We had about decided to turn back when a jeep drove up. There were two rangers aboard and they proceeded to give us an impromptu lecture. As I listened, I became aware of someone standing close by my side. Too close.

After a few minutes I turned to give this person "The Look" to let her know she was invading my space, but there was no one there. I say she, because I had a distinct mental image of a fortyish woman, rather stocky and about shoulder-height to me.

I returned my attention to the stories the rangers were telling, but the sense of this woman standing so close as to be all but skin to skin distracted me. I looked again, but the nearest person--a man--was a good 18 inches away.

The sensation was so strong, however, that I moved to the other side of my husband, where I enjoyed the rest of the lecture in peace. The strangest thing about this encounter was that I was not one bit afraid. Annoyed and irritated, yes, but I never felt the least twinge of fear.

I often wondered if this woman was as pushy when she was alive as she was as a ghost. I imagined her as the kind of woman who edged ahead of you in line and elbowed her way to the front of the sales table. Maybe she saw us standing there and came to see what we were looking at and was trying to get closer, not quite shoving me out of her way.

Lately, I had another thought. What if she had died on that particular stretch of sand and was unable to leave the scene of her death? In that case, she was not invading my space, but we were invading hers.

Either way, I swear to this day that I physically felt somebody next to me when my eyes could see nothing but air. I leave you with this quote from Shakespeare:

Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Routine or procrastination?

Here it is, almost lunchtime and I got up early today to work on my blog. Really early. But first I had to have my coffee and read the newspaper. Then I did the crossword puzzle, because how else would I know if my brain was running on all circuits?

Then I went to my computer. I had to check my e-mail, and there were a few that I had to answer right then. And someone sent a cute video that I looked at -- only three minutes, right?

I noticed that my e-mail in-box was overflowing, so I deleted some of the old messages. Of course, I had to re-read them to make sure they weren't something I needed to save or do something about. After trashing them, I opened the trash file and deleted all 400 pieces of the previously deleted mail.

I have three e-mail accounts, so this action was repeated twice more.

Then I decided my workstation was too messy, so I went though the slips of paper where I had scribbled down urgent information, addresses, URLS I mean to visit someday, minutes of past meetings, invoices and a newsletter from a health organization that I had to skim in case it contained important, new information.

I finally turned to my blog site and entered my ID and password. My eye was caught by the list of blogs I am following and I just had to read Eliza Knight's, blog where she has posted a video on the worst jobs in history. This was really interesting, so I watched it and then checked my other favorite bloggers to see what they had to say this week.

And so the morning went.

It isn't that I don't want to get to work, it's just that so many other writers are posting so many great articles that I'm afraid I'll miss something if I don't look at them right now.

I don't know why I can't wait. I have a stack of library books, but I don't open my current read until I have finished my writing goals for the day -- usually around 5:00 which coincidentally is glass-of-wine time. This is when we turn on the TV for the 5 o'clock news (I read during commercials and the weather report). The TV is silent until then, so don't ask me if I saw Good Morning America or The View.

Maybe because the books and television set are in another room, their siren call is muted and I can ignore them.

Alas, I can't put the computer in another room and still work on it. What I need to work on is my self control.

Fashion statements then and now

My husband is not a fan of the droopy pants look. I'm talking about the guys who wear the waistband of their pants somewhere below their buttocks, exposing their underwear. So far his response is reserved to muttering under his breath and grinding his molars.

For some reason this "fashion" reminds me of another men's style popular beginning in the 14th century, when tunic hemlines became shorter to make men's legs look longer, exposing their "naughty bits" when sitting. The Church declared the Black Plague was a divine punishment for this sinful flaunting of private parts.

Then the working men began to take off their tunics and waistcoats in deference to th hot summer sun and worked in their shirts and breeches. The young men of the aristocracy gleefully adopted this "look" to the bewilderment of their parents. Unfortunately, removing the outer garments made the gap between the shirt and breeches (leggings that were laced to the shirt) even more noticable.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and so the codpiece appeared to cover the gap. Over time, this practical answer to propriety was decorated, padded and eventually shaped to represent a permanent erection.

After some 200 years of popularity, breeches grew wider (think of the Dutch) and the codpiece disappeared except for rock stars and comic book heroes.

I hope this currrent trend of exposing the buttocks, although decently covered by plaid, polka-dotted and striped drawers, won't last as long or I'm afraid my husband will grind his teeth down to nubs.

Yes, I can be tolerant when I put this look into historical perspective. But can someone tell me why so many young girls and boys are wearing their flannel pajamas to McDonald's and Wal-Mart?

My take on the future of print

People keep asking me when I am going to get an e-reader. I tell them I will probably break down and get one in the not-too-distant future because while I enjoy downloading books (we are 60 miles from a bookstore), I don't enjoy reading them on my computer monitor quite so much. If I'm reading for pleasure, I'd rather be in my comfy chair in the den.

But when people tell me that e-readers will make paper books obsolete in the near future, I beg to disagree.

According to IDC market research, 12 million e-readers were sold in 2010.That's a lot, right? But there are 312,175,400 people in the United States alone, leaving roughly 300 million people lacking this device. Further, the figures reflect world-wide sales, including China. The world's population is 6,960,965,142. Hmmm.

I bet these people aren't buying Kindles and Nooks and iPods for the same reason I'm not. They are expensive and fragile. I've heard people say textbooks will be downloaded into reading devices in all the schools in another generation. Please. I'd trust a first grader with my precious cloisonne vase before I'd give him a Kindle.

In this economy people are shelling out for mortgage payments and groceries, not electronic gadgets. They aren't giving up reading, though. I see people at the library checking out armloads of books. I see them rifling through the sale tables at discount stores and grocery stores. They visit used books stores and flea markets and estate sales and come away with precious books in their hands. If printed books disappear, what will these avid readers do?

Another argument is that printed books are a waste of natural resources My rebuttal is that trees are a renewable resource just like corn and wheat. Trees take a little longer to harvest, but they are a cash crop just the same. As for the price of paper going up, have you looked at the price of corn and wheat lately? Everything's going up.

We've had stories ever since the cavemen sang, danced and related their exploits in hunting or warfare. When printed books came along, did singing and dancing and storytelling fade away?

Drama has existed since the Greeks and was kept alive during the Middle Ages with the church's morality plays. Theater gave us Shakespeare. The traveling Chatauqua brought drama to the hinterlands of the United States and Broadway has entertained us for over two hundred years. Did live theater curl up and die when motion pictures came along? Did movies slink out of sight with the advent of TV?

I think printed books will be around until e-readers are cheap enough for anyone to buy and not worry about them breaking and having to be replaced. And I think that day will be a long time coming.

Wrongs and Rights of Getting Published

I was leafing through the October issue of Writers Digest (that appeared in my mailbox the end of August) when a headline caught my eye: "The gamble of posting your fiction online..."

What? I read the articles and discovered that "Many agents and editors are also leery of attaching themselves to writing that's already been published online--because once you post it online, it is considered published, albeit digitally."

I can't say I wasn't warned. I just didn't believe it. But now that I have been convinced, I am pulling "A Question of Boundaries" from my website. Alas, with but 3 chapters to go. Die-hard fans (are there any?) can request the final chapters and I will honor them with the title of Beta Reader.

Whew. Next time I will listen to my betters. Like the writers who get contracts after entering a contest. I have been leery of contests: they take a lot of preparation and there is postage, lots of paper and ink for printing out copies, and a fee.

The upside is that agents and publishers read the winning entries, which is better odds than getting them to read something in the slushpile.

So -- maybe I will reconsider. It's like winning the lottery -- first, you gotta buy a ticket, right?

So I'm going to enter. Not "Boundaries." because it does need a lot of polishing and editing, but one of my other finished manuscripts that has been looking for a home for far too long.

Yep, gonna buy a ticket.

What "The Help" has to say about marketing

My husband and I saw "The Help" yesterday. I'd read the book and was curious about the movie version.

I'd also read enough reviews so that I knew most comments were along the lines of How Far We Have Come, It Wasn't Like That With MY Family, or Thank Goodness That Can't Happen in This Day and Tine.

I wsn't thinking that at all. I was thinking of how Kathryn Stockett's book shot to the top of the best seller list and garnered a film contract. I'm pretty sure she wasn't Tweeting back in 2009, when the book was published. I checked her website and it was copyrighted in 2010, so that came after the fact also. As for a blog, she may write one, but I haven't found it.

No, her primary marketing tool was word of mouth.

You could see it working in the movie as the camera panned over scenes of women reading the book, cover prominently displayed. There were scenes of women talking about the book, face to face or over the telephone. People told people about the book and they bought it and told other people.

Isn't that the phenomonen we all wish for ourselves? That somehow our book would be talked about, praised, and finally pushed to the top of the Times best-seller list -- and stay there for weeks on end?

Last week a woman stopped me while I was walking. "I'm reading your book right now," she said and went on to flatter both the book and me to the point that I stopped her with a gesture. "My head is getting too big," I apologized. I thanked her for the kind words and said how much I appreciated hearing them.

In retrospect, I should have asked her to tell all her friends and relations the same things she had told me, and asked them to tell their friend and relations.

Facebook, websites, blogs and Twitter can do only so much. Ads are expensive. There are only so many book clubs in the area. In the end, it's whether or not people like your book well enough to tell their friends that will get the word out there.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed ...

Because it really is a good book!

My work partner and I have decided to phase out our little business. He and his wife are moving, and I would rather spend my time writing and promoting my own work. One of the services our business offered was developing and maintaining simple Web sites.

I say simple, because when I first started an image slide show and a mouse-over were considered about the height of technology. Things have progressed until I am not just bewildered by the advances made in the past 10 years, but realize I have no desire to learn. Frankly, my brain won't absorb any more technology.

But one customer asked me to please help him out and I agreed because he is a friend and because I really do enjoy the challenge. This is for a hospital in Liberia, so you can see why I was hooked at doing something a little different.

When I started playing with the overall design, I was struck by the similarities to writing a novel.

1) What is your site/book trying to sell/say.

2) What is the hook on the home/first page that will make visitors/readers click on/turn to the next page?

3) Is it easy to navigate/does the plot flow smoothly?

4) Do the illustrations/scenes add to the information/story?

5) After viewing the site/reading the book, does the visitor/reader know something he didn't know before?

6) Will the visitor/reader return/buy your next book?

I could probably think of more if I didn't need to be actually doing the work. Oh, there is one more:

7) Is the design/plotting so much fun that hours go by before you realize it?

I hope you are enjoying your writing. I know I am.