Ghostly Blog Chain Blatherskite

It's that time again, time for the blog chain to commence! This group of writers is fantastic! You will find most have messy desks (which makes me feel so much better about my own), and they have some quirks that I share, and some that I just shake my head at! Here's the question this time:

What kind of quirky habits or rituals do you have regarding your writing? (or regarding anything else, if that is more fun.)

After following this chain from Mary http://marylindsey.wordpress.com/ , who started it (BAAAAAA BAAAAAAAAA), all the way to the last one to post, Elana http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/ (the only one WITHOUT even a desk to mess up), I have to say that YES, I have a messy messy desk, but no sheep like Mary. The only real quirk I have while writing is that I MUST be listening to music. Each major scene in The Crichton heir has a song that I played over and over while writing it. I called it “my mood music”.

I also have ADD (I dropped the “H” years ago, with so many kids, I don’t have the energy to be hyper too). The way my brain works is CRAZY. I start one thing, then another, then another, often forgetting what I was doing to begin with. I have to make lists if I have a lot to do, and I have to stick to them. The only way that this helps when I am writing, is that if you know anything about ADD, then you know that another "quirk" is hyper-focusing. YES, I will hyper-focus until my eyes feel like they will pop out of my head. Whether it’s research (I will spend HOURS and HOURS researching one thing.) or reading a book, or even writing. When you get in the “zone” everything else disappears.

Now, in keeping with my October theme, this post wouldn’t be complete with out a little ghostly tid-bit. Here’s where I start to get REAL quirky (my daughter just calls it WEIRD). Ghosts don’t scare me. Oh, they used to, as you can see from my previous stories. However, once you realize that fear comes from the unknown, and you spend hours and hours researching paranormal topics, not only on the web, but interviewing people, and even speaking to psychics (yes, I believe in them too, but not all…another post would require my thoughts on the charlatans that defraud grieving people), you realize that REAL people pose a far greater threat than the dead ones.

My beliefs would be considered quirky I suppose. I KNOW that ghosts exist, without a single solitary doubt. I’ve seen too much, heard too much, and felt too much to ever doubt the existence of them. Now here’s where things get subjective. I believe that ghosts are individuals who have died, but have not “crossed over”. They are stuck between this plane of existence that we live in, and the next, the one that our spirit moves on to (most people would call it heaven).

There are many things that keep a person “stuck”. Some die suddenly and often tragically. They are not even aware that they are dead, and become trapped. Others know they are dead, but led such a “sin-filled” life, that they are afraid to cross over, afraid of what may await them. Then you have the ones who just loved life so much, that they refuse to move on, clinging to a world they are no longer a part of.

Whatever caused the ghost to remain trapped, there are times when they can and do interact with the living. Oh, and they CAN travel. That I do know for a FACT, which I will go into a bit in my next post. I have even HEARD them speaking. NO, the voices in my head are my characters, I actually heard one on a tape recorder that was VERY loud, and VERY clear, and kind of attitudal, if you ask me. Again, that story will be coming up this month too.

Ghosts can be found in many places. Of course, there are cemeteries, you can pretty much bet that somebody is hangin around there (I have a really good picture of a guy that was doing just that….he was dead of course, and we didn’t SEE him when we took the picture, he just ended up in it), then you have hospitals. Now, I can tell you that OLD hospitals can be an interesting place to visit. I was invited on an investigation that I will post about later that was in an old abandoned county hospital, and let me just say that it’s hard to duck and dodge things that someone throws when you can’t see the person throwing them! Ghosts can also be found where they died (like a hospital), could be a house, a street where an accident took place, pretty much anywhere, but they do have the ability to “hitch a ride” so to speak. So you just never really know if you have a ghost looking over your shoulder while you grocery shop, or watch a movie, or even typing at your computer.

I will continue with my own personal experiences soon, but be sure to check out the next to post in the blog chain, Leah http://leahclifford.livejournal.com/ .

And I also wanted to thank David McMahon http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com/ for featuring me TWICE now on his blog! He's got a great blog with some really great people that have stopped by. Go check him out (okay, I meant his blog, not actually HIM)!