Why "The Conjuring" Scared the Hell Out of Me

**Warning, contains "mild" spoilers**

Ever since my 13-year-old decided she wants to watch horror movies as all her friends do, I've fallen back into the genre just as much as I was before having children. I can't really tell her she can't watch them, because I remember watching movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th in 8th grade (at a friend's house), and I know she'll watch them somewhere else if not with me. While I've become comfortable with her watching scary movies, I don't want her watching anything overly sadistic or mentally disturbing (accordingly, it will be a few years yet before movies like The Purge or Texas Chainsaw Massacre make her approved watch list). Personally, I'm more of a scary-thriller type of girl, and like something that makes me jump, but also blows my mind.

When my daughter mentioned she really wanted to see The Conjuring, I decided I better screen it ahead of time to make sure it wouldn't give her a lifetime of nightmares as the trailers looked pretty freaky. So during the daytime when I knew I wouldn't scare myself quite as badly, I gave it a run. And I'm pretty sure I'm the one who will be having nightmares for the rest of my life.

For anyone like me who was really excited about this movie, and maybe even considering letting their teen watch as I was, you need to know this isn't just a harmless ghost story. It involves a mentally disturbed witch, and demon possession. Think The Exorcist—ironically, that's one of the few movies I have a really hard time re-watching because it scares the hell out of me (pun intended). Just about every scene involved something that would make your skin crawl, or have you hiding underneath your blanket. Not only are there invisible and visible creatures lurking in this old farm house, but the mother and her five daughters are physically harmed, or otherwise messed with. And there's also a side story told of a creepy doll that makes Chucky look like an American Girl.

I loved the cast of characters. I've adored Lili Taylor since she first appeared in Mystic Pizza many moons ago, Patrick Wilson does well when faced with terror (probably from his experience on Insidious), and Vera Farminga plays a very likable heroine. Even the young girls did very well with their parts (it was a surprise to see Mackenzie Foy—a/k/a Renesmee from Breaking Dawn—in the mix). And the director James Wan certainly seems to know what he's doing on the set.

The worst part about The Conjuring? It's supposedly based on a true story. I watched the extended version in which they interview the clairvoyant woman who says this actually happened to her and her husband. The skeptic in me wondered why they wouldn't show us real footage if that was the case. The part of me who sometimes wonders if exorcisms are real nearly peed.

So, did I like it or not? Yes, the rather disturbed part of me really did. Will I be able to watch it again any time soon? Definitely not. Will I let my daughter watch it? Hell no. Unless she wants to wait until she's 18, she'll just have to sneak it in a friend's house like I did when I was her age. Let some other parent be responsible for corrupting her mind. Maybe she'll follow in her mother's footsteps and grow up to write about the paranormal.

Debut of Official Book Trailer for 'Cheating Death'!

I've been waiting so long for this moment, I could just die.

I finally get to share my newest book trailer with all of you! These are a ton of work, but also a ton of fun. This is another reason why I love being an indie author—I get to choose everything from the music to the images (which is as addicting as I would imagine crack to be). Sadly, only a few of the images are my own this time, but I found some excellent photography work that I thought was quite stunning. And the music was composed by a man named Bjorn Lynne. The tune is both haunting and beautiful—I could listen to it all day long (and I literally did).

So kick back, grab a cold beer—or soda—and enjoy!

Book Cover Release: Cheating Death

As promised, here's the cover for my fourth novel, Cheating Death, as well as a hot-off-the-press description!

Lysandra Brooks remembers everything about the day she almost drowned alongside her grandma, especially the set of mysterious eyes she saw at the bottom of the lake. Ever since then, she's been seeing strange things when she is near water - things that aren't really there. Because of it, Lysandra has the tendency to avoid anything that isn't on dry land. On her last day of high school, however, the biggest party of the year is set to take place at a fellow senior's lakeside mansion. Despite her fears, Lysandra decides to prove to her friends and herself that she can handle it.

But after a horrific night of drinking and drama that leaves Lysandra feeling lonely and confused, she nearly drowns for a second time, only to be saved by the new guy in town. From that moment on, Lysandra's world is turned upside down with the discovery of mind blowing secrets, including a revelation that something sinister is after her soul.

While I take great pride in doing all the design work for my covers - including the photography, this time I broke down and purchased a stock image. I really wanted something hauntingly beautiful and underwater as my main character nearly drowns twice in this story. The minute I found this picture I knew it was absolutely perfect.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, this is totally how I feel right now.

Cheating Death is (very tentatively) set to release some time in March. I really hope that I'm able to freak you out with this story, if only just a little. I know I've been losing a lot of sleep at night writing it, waiting for things to come bother me at night. As one of my cousins suggested, I may end up writing about rainbows and puppy dogs for a while.

Be sure to add Cheating death to your Goodreads list here!

Writing Things That Go Bump in the Night

Another confession: I love creepy things.

Okay not that kind of creepy (although I do totally adore this song and anything Andy Samberg or The Lonely Island create). But for the purpose of this post, I'm talking creepy like Se7en or Silence of the Lambs kind of creepy. You know, the kind that makes you look behind you twice before you run up the basement steps or the kind that plays tricks on your mind, making you think you're seeing things that aren't really there.

My fourth book has completely transformed from the story of a teenage girl whose life goes terribly wrong and falls in love with the wrong guy to the story of a teenage girl who sees ghosts, almost dies and has dark things chasing after her soul.

Yep, I'm writing scary stories again.

And I didn't realize before now just how much I missed it. My third book Shymers was a break away from the dark undertone of the first two, which was fine because I really enjoyed the change of pace. Don't worry, dear readers, I am still writing a sequel to it later on this year, but first will come this story that has undergone a major overhaul and is so much better than it originally started out to be.

With a change of plot also comes a change of title. What was once Falling Away has now become Cheating Death. And a cover reveal is on its way really soon! I did not do the photography on this one as I was set on using a picture of a girl underwater and I found an amazing image that I think is both beautiful and chilling - can't wait to show you guys!

In the meantime, I've traded some of my daytime hours of writing into nighttime so I can set the right mood. Yes that makes me way more jumpy (the other night I was seriously seeing things that weren't there, just like my character) and yes that means I will most likely be more irritable and have a harder time getting kids off to school in the morning, but in the end it will have been totally worth it.

At least I hope. Because I'm super tired and need a really long night's sleep.

Supernatural: Super Awesome!

Confession: I only work out because I know two hot guys named Sam and Dean are waiting for me.

For those of you who don't watch Supernatural, those are the two brothers on the CW series who hunt paranormal myths and urban legends mostly across the Midwest. I don't watch the show just because they're hot (because if I admitted that it would make me a cougar and I'm not ready for that kind of commitment). I watch it because it's so awesome - like X-Files awesome. And yes, I know I'm really late to the party considering the series is in its 8th season.

I've known about this show for a long time and I usually watch a lot of the shows on CW. For some reason, however, I didn't try watching an episode until a later season and just couldn't get into it. I have a bad habit of giving up on shows if I don't watch them from the very beginning.

Enter Netflix.

For Christmas we bought a large flatscreen with internet for our theatre room, so I decided to give Netflix another try. There are probably a dozen series waiting in my queue, but I really wanted to give Supernatural a chance. From the first episode I was hooked. The brothers have a relationship that's amusing to watch, the paranormal stories are so right up my alley and there's just enough of the scare factor to keep me satisfied and not overly freaked out.

So every morning when I have a hard time crawling out of bed and getting on the elliptical machine, I think of Dean's beautiful eyes the creepy stories that are just waiting to be told and just like that, I'm up. If only the Winchester brothers could motivate me to do everything hard in life...maybe I could reward myself for cooking and cleaning each time with an episode.

How Para is Your Normal?

Picture of clouds in our backyard. UFO cover?

Personally, I've never experienced anything strange that could be explained only as a paranormal encounter (if you don't count the weirdness brought on by a bunch of teenaged girls with a Ouija board in junior high or the really strange clouds that once hung over our backyard). Yet one friend told me that she always saw her grandmother's ghost after she moved into her house, while another swears she saw some crazy lights that could only be UFOs. A few of my Twitter friends recently shared very detailed stories of some pretty creepy things that happened to them that really don't have any other logical explanation.

House I grew up in. Haunted?

Last weekend I met a man who lived in the same house as I did growing up. It was a rather large old house, built in the late 1800s. There were servant stairways, old-fashioned radiators for heat and stained glass windows throughout. This 50-something-year-old man looked me in the eye and said he knew there were ghosts in that house. Whatever wisdom he held in those eyes actually gave me the shivers. All I kept thinking was how happy I was that I didn't know this 20 years ago.

Still, I remain a skeptic. We live in a time where just about everyone knows how to photoshop images. Old houses have old boilers and really creaky doors that don't stay closed. How much of paranormal stuff is a result of imagines fueled by television shows and scary stories? If you see a shift in shadows, it could just be your overactive imagination telling you that you saw a ghost. If you ever watch the ghost hunter reality shows, you know how those guys are good at scaring the crap out of themselves just by walking through these old buildings more than anything. And I always get a good laugh out of the "voices" they "translate". How they ever get actual words out of those noises, I'll never understand.

Relax, I found this one on the internet.

If there really are ghosts among us, I would think that every single person would have experienced an encounter of sorts. If there really are aliens that come and experiment on people in the night, I doubt the government would be able to keep a total lid on that kind of information.

I would love to tour a well-known haunted site (it's on my bucket list) or see strange lights floating in the sky. The very thought of it is exciting (did I mention I'm a big X-Files fan?). But I think the only reason I can get excited about these things is because in my heart I don't think it's real. Therefore, it's just fun entertainment. Or so I tell myself.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced anything that couldn't be explained by plain logic? I'd love to hear your stories!