Cover Quotes

Today's the first of five drawings in my Lost Month of Giveaways. The response has been fantastic, and humbling. I picked up some fun Texas-themed stuff yesterday and feel like kicking off the month with a little taste of my corner of the world. There's still four more prizes to go, so be sure to enter (see post below for details).

I'm reading Alan Lightman's Ghost right now. Of course, I picked it up because of the book's premise about a modest, scientifically-oriented man who must come to terms with a supernatural encounter. Mr. Lightman's credentials as a theoretical physicist, MIT professor and celebrated novelist shed immediate light on the insight he would give his protagonist. Maybe, though, it was the fact that Salman Rushdie provided this quote of Lightman's work: "at once intellectually provocative and touching and comic and so very beautifully written."

The opening is so first person, it's almost disconcerting. Rather like breathing in the exhale of a paranoid man. So much so, and so different from what I normally read that I'm simultaneously tempted to put it down and hole myself in the corner and keep reading. I guess the praise for the novel is what keeps me going with it. How can I deny myself a further look at the "allegory of the birth of superstition" and the "sympathetic picture of the kind of people who are often mocked or patronized in novels"? Am I really so uncertain in my own tastes that I'll adopt those of Joyce Carol Oates above my own? Do quotes really have that much impact on the sales and reading habits of our audiences?

Will I stick with it? I'll let you know. For now, it's a great study in character immersion.

When was the last time you picked up a book and invested time in it based on a quote?

To read a great Alan Lightman interview, click here.

Residual Energy - Mine and "the others"

The Night Caller is a finalist in the Great Expectations contest! Happy times.

The McKay House Bed and Breakfast in Jefferson, Texas is the inspiration for this story. I've been there twice and something keeps drawing me back. The innkeeper, Hugh Lewis, is so gracious with the house's history. He even took one of his six antique wall phones apart for me to break down how it worked.


I haven't stayed in this room, yet, but it's the one I had in mind when I chose a room for Lillie, my heroine. It has matching claw-foot tubs in the adjacent bathroom with a history of guests creating their own olympic watersports. As I tried to find things in the space to tie my hero and heroine together, I kept returning to this window. Although the view from it changed slightly in one hundred and twenty years, one thing remained a powerful constant between them. Any guesses?



This is one of two rooms in the cottage behind the property. The outer structure used to be slave quarters. After the Ghost Walk tour Friday night, we took this photo. According to our tour guide, a scientist and converted paranormal skeptic, any perfectly shaped orb of light captured by a camera's lens is unexplained or residual energy. See if you can find it. The next day at breakfast, we found out the tiny urn on the mantel *supposedly* held ashes of unknown origin.


On my website, you'll find more photos of the non-haunted upstairs bedroom I "borrowed" for my heroine's sanctuary, as well as the staircase found in several scenes. If you're up for a ghostly picture from Friday night's tour, revisit this April 07 post.

Brain niggle today: Breaking Benjamin: Until the End

Ghosts, Anyone?

I spent the weekend communing with ghosts. Not kidding.

Jefferson, Texas is a tiny, forgotten tourist town with a rich, sometimes dark history. Once the second largest city in Texas between the 1850s and 1870s, the population of wealthy civil war generals, riverboat captains, prostitutes, slaves and union soldiers created a dynamic of conflict worthy of the war itself. In the pages of Jefferson's history, you'll find human stockades for captured union soldiers, lynchings, gun battles, murders, infernos--all within a mile radius of the historical main street.

A regular destination of paranormal investigators, it's been featured HGTV, Sci-Fi Channel, Discovery Channel and the History Channel for it's ghostly activity. Even Stephen Spielberg couldn't last the night at the Excelsior Hotel because of the encounter he had.

After nightfall, camera in hand, I braved the cold with twenty or so others on a Ghost Walk to try to capture an image or sense of paranormal activity. Led by a wonderful guide, a self-proclaimed scientist and former skeptic, we toured the areas where reports of ghostly activity can be traced back to the 1880s through court documents, newspaper accounts and, of course, folklore.

The photo above shows McGarity's Saloon, one of our first stops. Many attempts have been made to renovate the building, but workers never stay long enough to finish the job. Owned now, but vacant, by a couple who lives near Dallas, it has been a boarding house, brothel and saloon among other things. Behind me, the dense East Texas trees concealed distant street lights and eliminated all possibility of reflection. Photography captures pockets of energy the naked eye cannot. Most sightings have occurred on the top floor in either the middle or right window. You be the judge.

This was my second visit to Jefferson, but not my first paranormal encounter there. At the fabulous McKay House B&B, in the upstairs room, exploring late at night, I found I couldn't breathe--like something was sitting on my chest. As soon as I walked into the hallway, the feeling disappeared. Before I knew the McKay house had its own ghost, I had found her.

Jefferson is an amazing town for history buffs and anyone who wants to get away from the city and step back in time. Make sure you bring your digital camera and an open mind. Once you leave, you'll be convinced.

What do you think? Trick of the lens? Dust? Humidity? Or the energy manifestation of the lawman gunned down here?

Mood Saturday night:: sufficiently freaked out