Mother Ann

Ann, a non-believer in all things supernatural, has decided to spend the night in a hotel that is supposedly haunted.  No one really addresser the rumors, but as Ann enters the hotel, she can see why people would think that it's spooky.  The lady at the front desk, the old woman, and the old gentleman all seem like they're hiding something, and all Ann wants to do is disprove the rumors.  Welcome to The Norman hotel.

I got the idea for this back in March?  April?  My mother was reading about a haunted house and how people with the same name as one of the ghosts had encountered said ghost.  My mom wondered how the ghost would react to me, since I too have the same name as the ghost.  So, with this in mind, I decided to write a short story based on this conversation.

Here is an excerpt:


The older woman looked up at me with a sweet, warm, grandmother smile.  As she walked up beside me, she and the old gentleman stopped.  She folded her hands in front of her.

"Good afternoon," the older woman greeted, "I hope you have found your room to be satisfactory?"

I nodded.  "I did".  I looked around at the walls.  "This is a very lovely building."

She beamed at my compliment.  "Yes, thank you.  It has been in the family for generations."

I looked at her and smiled.  "You're the owner?"

"Yes, I am" she answered.  "Would you like a tour?"

I smiled at the thought that I could possibly ask her about the stories I had heard.  "Yes, I would love one."

The older woman returned the smile as she ushered me down the stairs to the next level.  As we walked, the old gentleman followed close behind, listening to the stories the older woman told, as if he had never heard them before.

She pointed out various ancestors as we continued onward to the next level.  Here she dug deeper into the family, expanding on their role in the family tree.

"And this is Ann," the older woman said, pointing to a picture of a young woman sitting in a chair beside a fireplace.  It was like looking into a mirror.  Her hair was tied up, but her face was familiar.  I was mesmerized by how similar we looked.  

"Oh, my name is Ann," I replied, pleased to have the same name as such a lovely lady.

The older woman turned to me, as if she were surprised.  "Your name is Ann?”

"Yes," I replied, wondering why she had asked in a horrified tone.  Her stare was as chilling as her body language: stiff, defensive, and fearful.  I looked at the old gentleman, who looked half as fearful as the woman; concern filled the other half.

I didn't quite understand what the tension was about.  I looked from the old gentleman to the woman, and back again.

She turned to the man, then back at me.

"Oh, well dear..." she began.  She folded her hands in front of her.  I looked back and forth once before she finished.  She gave a slight smile.  "It's just, I'm always so surprised when we get an Ann here.  It's such a wonderful treat."  She looked to the man, then tittered.  "Well..." she began, then smiled nervously and motioned for us to continue, possibly to direct my attention back to the tour.  I thought nothing of her reaction after that---she herself did not seem to think anything of it, maybe there was a chill in the air---and we began to descend once more.  As we reached the final level, she had one last story to tell.

~~~

I also recorded a video, which includes a couple more excerpts, and random talking about things that may or may not relate to the book.

And, without further ado, here is the link to Amazon, where you can buy the short story!

Thanks so much for checking out my blog!  Stay tuned for my next post.

Good night, good morning, good everything!

Planning A Box

In 2011, I had a dream.  It was such a detailed dream, that I decided to write a story around it.  Before NaNoWriMo came around, I did lots of planning.  Who are the characters?  Why does this item mean so much?  What actually happens?  Why?  Where does the story take place?  What's the story behind the story?

On and on I went, until I had filled up about five full pages in my notebook.  I even wrote out two full pages of the synopsis.

While none of this is a bad thing, I found out that I didn't know how to plan.  I'm usually a pantser, but this year, I wanted to go full on planner.

It didn't work out very well.  Once I started the story, I realized that I had planned myself into a box.  Since I had a pretty distinct outline, synopsis, time line of events, I couldn't allow myself to write outside of my research.

"This has to happen after that, but I feel like it's too soon."
"I don't really like the way A happened, but B has to happen after it, so I can't change it."

I finished the whole story in about 35k words.  I was done, but I was still short 15k.  What was I supposed to do?  I didn't plan for this.

Now mind you, this was: A, my second NaNoWriMo, and B, the second story I had ever finished.  I was a "new" writer, and I didn't know what I was doing.  I say "new" because I was starting to write stories about things other than Zelda.

I learned two valuable things from this experience:

1. I am not a planner
2. If I do plan, I must learn to leave holes, or give myself permission to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

Here are some tips for planners who aren't used to planning:

1. Do you know exactly how you want it to go?  Well, get rid of the idea that it's going to go that way.  Plain and simple.  You're dealing with art and creativity, which has about as much of an attention span as a kitten who just ate and woke up from a nap.  Shout out to all my cat people.

2. Have a set destination, but make a map.  There are many ways to get to one place.  Allow your plans to go into different directions than the route you chose.  There might be traffic or road work.  You never know.

3. "I'll cross the bridge when I get there."  That's a good motto for a writer, remember that.

4. Also, here's a tip: go talk to a planner.  I'm just trying to teach you how to not plan yourself into a box, they can teach you how to plan effectively, if that's what you want to learn.

Well, I hope you learned something.  If not, then I hope you enjoyed learning about my struggle.  By the way, I did finish the story with 50k.  I just added 15k of back story on one of the characters.  It's a good story, it just lacks...a point.

Writing is like math.  There is always a set answer (the end of a story).  It doesn't matter if you find it with a different method than someone else, it just matters that you get there.