Paranormal Fridays: Werewolves in My Bathroom!

Shocker: I was a the kid with the wildly overactive imagination. I was constantly making up imaginary friends of all sorts to play with--my favorite one being a talking car that transformed into a robot named "Yolkie." Actually Yolkie would drive along the sidewalk next to the school bus each morning, keeping me entertained with some wild acrobatic moves so I didn't have to be entertained by the dirty jokes being told by the intellectual powerhouses nearby.

This wildly overactive imagination can be a blessing and a curse. When I was young the curse came when my imagination interrupted during times in school where I actually needed to pay attention or when I saw scary movies and they literally came to life in the world around me.

When I was probably about six or seven I saw some werewolf movie on TV while my parents were gone. As usual I was the captive of my older sisters' television viewing tastes, and that night they had a taste for the scary. The movie was The Howling, and my parents would have killed my sisters for watching it (let along letting me watch it with them). but I do remember the ending involved some news anchor woman turning into a werewolf on live television. To my young and impressionable mind it was the scariest movie I had ever seen.

The truly scary part was when the werewolves I had seen on the television decided to sneak out of the TV set and into my bathroom. In the house I grew up in, I shared a room with one of my brothers. We had the good fortune of an attached bathroom, meaning we didn't have to compete with our sisters for the valuable bathroom real estate each morning. This blessing became a curse once the werewolves decided to lurk in the bathroom whenever the lights were off and the dark doorway stood gaping into my bedroom. Those tricky werewolves would leap into obscure hiding places every time I or anyone else would turn the bathroom lights on.

The werewolf problem was so big I was afraid to be in my room alone. This meant I really didn't play with my toys and instead watched sick amounts of Lavern and Shirley reruns (awful, I know). My fear of the werewolves thankfully changed quickly once my birthday rolled around.

On my birthday one of my friends gave me a Fox Racing sweatshirt. At the time I didn't know much about Fox Shocks, and so the fox logo looked an awful lot like a werewolf to me. I became one hundred percent convinced that when I put that sweatshirt on I looked like a werewolf to the monsters in my bathroom. Because I looked like them they wouldn't try to eat me. This in turn resulted in me wearing the sweatshirt a sick number of times in a row. It probably smelled like little kid sweat in no time.

After a year or so the werewolves became bored with the little werewolf boy who was living in the room attached to their bathroom hideout. They wondered where the human boy went, and so they left to find him. Conveniently the Fox Racing sweatshirt of mine no longer fit, and so I had to give it away (or maybe throw it away, considering how it smelled).

Spending It All And Not Holding Back

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place... Something more will arise later, something better."
- Annie Dillard

I have something to confess: with my first book I held back.

A lot.

Yes, that's right, I didn't really give the book my all. I viewed it as a way to dip my toe into the water, learn the process of publishing a book and leaving myself plenty of room to improve. Was that a good idea? According to the quote from Annie Dillard, no. And at this point in my writing career I agree with her completely.

I'm sure other writers have been guilty of this sin. To hold back some is easy and comes with human nature. Putting everything out there and giving it your all leaves you with no excuses or emotional cushion if your book doesn't do so well.

I used to run track in high school. One thing I learned early on was when I neared that finish line I couldn't just cruise and then suddenly pour on the speed and win the race. At least that was the case in the really competitive races, the ones you wanted to run in and win. You had to be fast as soon as that starting pistol rang out. You had to be on your toes (literally) with each step. You had to run until your lungs burned and your legs trembled, and then push your body harder and faster all the way to the finish line.

So that's what I'm doing with my writing, starting now. This next book I have coming out will be my best effort. I had already decided this before running across the above quote, so don't think I am giving the book my best partway through the writing process. And once this book is done, the following book will involve me putting forth maximum effort, running at a full sprint all the way through the finish line. This is how I'm writing all of my books from now on.

 I'm shooting for the moon.

"I Eat Dead People"

This is the big announcement I have been promising! I am now officially unveiling my soon-to-be-published paranormal middle grade novel. The title of the book is Gracie the Ghost Eater. And here is the artwork that will be used on the cover (final cover design will be revealed later):

As you can tell from the title of this post and from Gracie's shirt in the picture, Gracie eats dead people. What I mean isn't that she eats dead people, but dead people's ghosts. I originally came up with this idea about four years ago, and have been working on it since. Gracie's story has been a labor of love, one that I have put much feeling and a portion of myself into. I have never been so excited to get a story out in front of people.

Here is the official description of the book:

"Gracie eats dead people--literally. Really she just eats their ghosts. After her parents unexpectedly move across the street from a cemetery, Gracie starts eating more ghosts than ever before. The ghosts quickly become fed up with Gracie's growing appetite, choosing to trap her in the underworld. Gracie's only chance of returning to the land of the living is to complete three impossible tasks chosen by the infamous Ghost Council. Is Gracie up for the job or will she spend eternity with the ghosts?"

After I had originally thought up Gracie I began to tell my kids Gracie-themed bedtime stories. They absolutely loved hearing about the ghost eater's adventures. Eventually I took some of the stories and started fleshing them out into a book. The good news is I have plenty of other Gracie stories to draw off of for future books.

So look for Gracie the Ghost Eater in the near future. Stay tuned to this blog for exact details, and see the official Gracie the Ghost Eater Facebook page by clicking here.

The Big Announcement is Tomorrow!

I have been talking for months now about a secretive paranormal middle grade novel I am working on. It is finally time to take the wraps off the project! Tomorrow on this blog I will be officially unveiling the book in advance of its publication. So come back here tomorrow to read the big news!

Paranormal Fridays: A Good British Horror Flick

The Brits can put together a good horror flick. While they do have their buckets of blood movies like 28 Days later, the Brits can also be masters of building subtle dread and suspense, especially when it comes to the haunted house movies (just read what I had to say about The Woman in Black).

I have heard about the upcoming movie The Awakening, and it sounded good. But sadly many horror movies sound good at first, but then I see the trailers or clips from them and my interest dies off. Because of my experiences, I hold off on getting excited about pretty much any horror movie.

Well, the first ten minutes of The Awakening was recently posted online, and I am now officially very interested in seeing the movie. The acting looks great, it seems to have a real story and just in the first ten minutes an eerie atmosphere already starts to build. Rather than me just going on about it, have a look for yourself and then tell me what you think:

Is Google Making Lazy Researchers Out of Us?

I love Google--I really do--but I fear a disturbing trend has been rippling through humanity because of Google's popular search engine. Google has become so embedded in our society's research skills that some dictionaries even list the very "Googling" to refer to the act of looking up something on the Internet using Google's search engine.

I first learned about Internet search engines and research in high school, when I bought my own computer and modem and paid for my first ISP subscription. There were many search engines back then, with Yahoo and AOL dominating. Quickly I realized that most of the search engines spit out a bunch of senseless garbage for a good portion of their search results, even when you used advanced search techniques. Later when I started using Google I found it did not spit out as much senseless garbage, but in all honesty it wasn't much better.

I have used Google in various jobs as well as for school research (thank you, Google Scholar) but I worry that the service has made people lazy researchers. Maybe people were lazy researchers before, or they didn't research at all. I have a unique perspective on the whole thing now since I conduct a lot of Internet-based research and have worked for clients who are very much into the whole search engine optimization field.

Speaking of clients who are very into search engine optimization (we call it SEO in the industry) I have been exposed by them to raw search engine data. In other words, I have seen exactly what kinds of terms people are inputting into Google and other search engines. One thing that stuck me almost immediately was that people use search engines almost like they are talk boxes, asking the search engines specific questions such as "what's the best way to fix a splitting shoe sole" or "how do I get to Candlestick Park from my house" as if the search engine is going to come to life and interact with them like some sort of advanced android. Sometimes this simplistic search method works, but often it works because of people like me. You see, I have been hired onto projects to write Internet content that panders to these sorts of ridiculous search engine requests.

What's the problem with that? Well, the big problem is that a fair amount of content providers who pander to these types of searches often provide garbage content, some of which is riddled with inaccuracies. Some of these clients I have worked for in the past would actually not allow me to cite certain authoritative sources of information (such as research institutions, universities, major corporations, not-for-profit organizations, etc) and would introduce factual inaccuracies into my copy after I had delivered it. Let's just say I no longer work with these clients, but I see their websites pop up in my Google search results all the time, usually toward the top.

 One of my big peeves with Google right now is the mistaken belief so many people seem to have that Google is the authority on everything. Literally, I have met people who think if they can't find something out by doing some simple Google searches the thing obviously doesn't exist or is not relevant. I think these people don't realize how Google catalogs information on the Internet. I won't get into it here, because I could write a book about it (and then the information would change not too long after I wrote it) but let me just say it isn't a perfect process. That's why you can get all kinds of garbage results in your search engine results, including on the first page of the results.

For example, in my current line of work I look up information about all kinds of vehicles, from the 1800s all the way to the present day. I look up highly technical information about both mass-produced vehicles and those produced in very limited runs by boutique auto manufacturers. If I only relied on Google to find information about the various vehicles, there would be a fair amount of the very old and/or rare vehicles I wouldn't be able to find really any information about.

So how do I find information on rare vehicles (or about pretty much any other subject)? Often I completely skip Google and go straight to the websites of authoritative sources of information. I know websites that have detailed and accurate information about specific types of vehicles (such as German-made or American muscle cars) and so I go directly to those websites. Similarly, if I have a medical-related question I NEVER just search for an answer using Google. If I do, I invariably have to comb through results from dozens of quasi-medical websites that are riddled with false information. Instead I go directly to some trusted medical websites and comb through the information there.

 Really what I see is that people are using Google as a type of research crutch. These people don't want to think actively about possible sources they could go to directly. These people won't even do Internet searches for words or phrases related to what they are looking for. Instead these people want Google to spoon-feed them information. I think this laziness is dangerous and needs to be combated. Perhaps schools can teach their students how to really research on the Internet (I'm sure some do, but such efforts might need to be enlarged or deepened).

At the same time I know that people who how to really research various topics are valuable, so should I really be complaining?

Paranormal Fridays: What are EVPs?

If you've ever watched a paranormal investigative television show, you likely have heard the term "EVP." Maybe you figured out what the term meant, or maybe you were confused about it during the show. Or maybe you have never even heard the term EVP, but you are wondering what it has to do with ghost hunting.

EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena. In a nutshell, EVPs involve ghost investigators or even regular people taking electronic sound recordings in an effort to document ghostly activity in a location. The most common method of capturing EVPs is to use an electronic voice recorder to record all audio in a specific location. The idea is that the recording device captures talking from the ghosts that is usually not detectable by the people in the room at the time. By playing the audio recordings back later, but at a much higher volume, ghost investigators can then hear what ghosts are saying later.

Some ghost hunters rely heavily on EVPs in their research. They will scatter recorders throughout a haunted location as well as carry one around with them. They will even give any ghosts a general explanation of what they're doing and invite the ghosts to speak into the microphone. They ask questions, hoping ghosts will answer them. The only thing is they typically can't hear the response for at least several hours.


EVPs first came about when people like American professional photographer Attila von Szalay, Swedish painter Friederich Jurgenson and others either accidentally or purposely made audio recordings that when played back at a high volume appeared to contain communications from the dead. Soon others started conducting formal EVP experiments in controlled labs, with varying results. While some scientists have claimed to have captured unexplained voices in audio recordings, others have explained away EVPs as people interpreting meaningless data (i.e. static, white noise or background sounds) as voices saying specific words.

What do I think of EVPs? I do think there are a lot of scammers who use them, so as with other paranormal phenomena I'm always a healthy skeptic. I have heard quite a few recordings I would classify as suspicious because they are simply too phenomenal. I've personally never tried to take an EVP even though I have even lived in a few places I swear were haunted. In the end I know the reason why I haven't is I'm afraid of what I might hear. With one exception, the haunted places I lived in I felt were occupied by less-than-friendly ghosts (and that's putting it lightly) and I really didn't want to hear what they had to say.

Big Things Are Coming...

I am always working on multiple projects, and yet I haven't published anything new for almost a year. Part of the reason why is that life has been crazy lately. The other part of the reason why is that I have been experimenting with different kinds of projects, different from what I have done before, and so the production process is taking longer than usual.

The good news is that I have built a good pipeline, and the publications are about to start coming out in waves. Expect to see the first wave this fall, when I plan on printing three books. Yes, you read that correctly: three (3) books.

I have been mentioning on here for a while now that I am working on a top secret middle grade book. The book is going through revisions right now, and it is getting very close to a finished product. Look in the coming weeks for a big announcement of the title, as well as a reveal of the book's finalized cover.

I haven't mentioned that I am also working on a new edition of my first book, Shadow House. This new edition will offer several advantages over the older one, including a revised cover design and a much lower paperback price. I have also had the book edited again, and many language problems that appeared in the first edition will not appear in the second one. It was my first book, and I have learned much since I published it, so I am taking this chance to polish it up more to give readers an even better experience. I will not be changing the story--that was something I have grappled with for the past year or so. Instead I will be publishing a new haunted house book in the not horribly distant future (more on that another time).

The other book I haven't mentioned deals with my Shades of Night series. I originally started publishing the Shades of Night shorts as almost a type of experiment, unsure if they would even sell. They have done very well, and so I have decided to start bundling those stories together. This first bundle will be the first four stories, and will be available electronically and for the first time as a paperback. I know many people have been waiting to read my Shades of Night stories until they could hold the actual paper in their hands, and their chance is coming up very soon.

If all goes as planned, all three of these books will publish by Halloween. I'll keep everyone updated with exact dates as well as the books' cover designs on this blog and on my Facebook page.

Paranormal Fridays: Ghost Boxes

I have written on this blog before about various ways that paranormal investigators and others attempt to communicate with the dead, such as EVPs, Ouija boards and even the controversial Ovilus (or Puck). While some might think that we have hit a limit in the number of ways to speak with the dead, there are always new methods coming out. Interestingly enough, many of the newer methods involve using fairly advanced technology (much to the discomfort of some in the technology/science communities).

The ghost box is one such modern device that purportedly allows the living to communicate with the dead. Ghost boxes can come in a variety of shapes and sizes, with some of them looking very much like an older iPod. Whatever the shape or size of a ghost box, the function is generally the same. The device constantly feeds white noise. A voltage receiver in the device allows it to tune to specific AM radio frequencies. Some versions "sweep" or continuously scan the radio stations in quick order. The idea is that ghosts interact with the voltage receiver (since some theorize ghosts can affect electromagnetic frequencies) to make the ghost box "talk" to the living.
 
While paranormal investigators can record the audible responses from a ghost box, similar to how they record EVP responses, the ghost box offers even more flexibility. Investigators can hook up an external speaker or headphones to the device, allowing them to hear the communications coming through the ghost box in real time. So a ghost box in a way is like a hybrid cross between communicating with a digital recorder and an Ouija board. Investigators like the ghost box because it allows them to have more of a conversation with the dead, rather than waiting to hear responses to their questions hours afterward (as is the case with most EVPs). 

Part of the interesting lore surrounding ghost boxes has to do with the late Thomas Edison. The famous inventor has been rumored to have been working on a device that would allow communication with the dead. Some paranormal experts claim the device was similar in principle to the modern ghost box, but some critics absolutely disagree with this claim. Whatever the truth is, this lore and how people react to it is quite interesting.

If you've never heard or seen a ghost box in action, check out this video. This is from an investigation performed by Mass Most Haunted. They have an EMF meter next to the device to help detect electromagnetic field spikes during the communications, which are supposed to indicate the presence of ghosts. Watch the video and decide for yourself what you think of the device.