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.

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!