The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde With the advent of Christmas season, one’s thoughts naturally turn to sugar plum fairies. And ghosts. Yes, ghosts. What, Christmas doesn’t conjure spectral images for you? There’s a precedent. Think A Christmas Carol, now a standard eighth grade December read. Since I was short of time this month–who isn’t?–I went searching for a shorter example of ghost fiction. Imagine my surprise when…
I could always tell when Dad was going to make his four-hour spaghetti. He would haul out a metal contraption and bolt it to Mother’s bread board. Sporting primitive funnel and hand crank, it looked like a medieval torture device for dolls. Into the funnel Dad would drop onion wedges and celery stalks. Out of the bottom would slither glistening, pale green snakes. Right now, that’s how my brain feels–my thoughts, like the onion and celery, twisted and inextricable. The…
The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman Ballantine Books, 336 pages Source: Pleasanton Library I read a favorable review of this book on the Haunted Travels website and decided to check it out. After I was thirty pages in, I realized I had read this novel before. Here’s the interesting part: I enjoyed it more the second time. I think it’s because I wasn’t trying to figure out what would happen, and I could just relax and enjoy the flow. The…
It’s what we writers want, right? To have bright readers, well, flock around us? For today’s episode of Writer Unleashed, I’m going to let you in on a handy dandy resource to help you gather fans. It’s a book called 55 Ways to Promote & Sell Your Book on the Internet by Bob Baker. I came across an excerpt of this book as a free download promotion from BookBaby and liked it so well I bought the company. Actually no,…
Sadly, the annual Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge has met its inevitable demise. I feel so fortunate to have found this reading challenge in my first year of blogging. It was great fun, and I’m already looking forward to next year! Best of all, I will continue to peruse the posted R.I.P. reviews in my quest for the quintessential ghost story. To check out the hundreds of other reviews in the realm of the creepy at Stainless Steel Droppings, click here. By…
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury How apropos to read and review this novel the week before Halloween. The story takes place—you guessed it—the week before Halloween. Will Halloway and James Nightshade are small town teens, reversed mirror images. Think light/dark and good/not-so-good juxtapositions, and you’re on the right track. Will’s father, a reluctant hero, fears the ebbing of his days. Meanwhile, a carnival of dark magic comes to town with paranormal forces aplenty–a skeleton, a demon, a…
R.I.P Challenge As writers we always hear, “Connect with others who share your interests.” Everyone tells you to do it, but no one tells you how to do it. In my case, I find it hard to connect with folks in the ghost fiction genre because, well, there is no ghost fiction genre. Some ghost fiction comes to us from top-drawer masters like Henry James and Toni Morrison and are shelved in Literature. I’ve found some ghost novels in the…
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill I do a writing assignment with my students called “Which is Better—the Book or the Movie?” Doesn’t matter if it’s a black-and-white classic or a Technicolor blockbuster, my students invariably plant themselves on the side of the book. (I don’t know if the knowledge that I’m a writer enters into their logic, so we should probably factor in the suck-up component.) Ironically, I don’t always agree with my students. For instance, I’m…
Many fiction writers and memoirists seek inspiration from reading poetry. I’m not a regular poetry reader, but I never tire of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and I enjoy Frost, Cummings, Crane, Rich, Dickinson. I’m going to let you in on a cool writing exercise (great for both writers and teachers) courtesy of nonpareil writer/academician Sara McAulay, founder of the popular ezine Tattoo Highway. Sara’s assignment is simple: pull out a poem you like, study it, and let…
Read a banned book! Celebrate your subversive inner self! I came across an interesting post at Insatiable Booksluts. Did you know this is banned book week? This year it takes place from September 24th to October 1st. The American Library Association sponsors this week to promote awareness of our right to free speech and free (as in unhindered) reading. Think about the literary censorship and mind control of the Nazis and the Cultural Revolution and our very own McCarthy. In fiction,…
No doubt you’ve heard that quote attributed to activist writer Mary Heaton Vorse: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” Okay, it’s a cliche, and writers are trained to give cliches a wide berth, avoid them like the plague and otherwise handle them with kid gloves. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But in the case of the seat-of-the-pants axiom, it’s true that much of writing depends upon…
Black Rose by Nora Roberts This is not Hamlet, nor was meant to be. Instead, it is a fun romp through the land of the good and the haunted with a satisfying measure of revenge thrown in. The prologue introduces Amelia, a jilted Victorian mistress (circa 1892), who wields revenge for her suffering from beyond the grave. To read my post on prologues, click here. Enter modern day Roz—tough but fair, hard-driven but forgiving—with ex-beau complications of her own….
Putting Your Manuscript on a Diet I’ve got the…I’ve got the…I’ve got the word count blues. Had ‘em for a while. I remember the day I walked up into the sky for twenty minutes. (The cable cars were in the barn; the Powell Street line in the throes of renovation.) It was Presidents’ Day weekend 2011 at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, and I was a starry-eyed, breathless (from my uphill hike, admittedly) attendee at the San Francisco Writers Conference. By…