A Tribute...

Darren McGavin, an American Actor passed away on February 18th. He worked in both television and film.



This is my tribute to the actor Darren McGavin who I saw for the first time in a made for TV movie called " The Night Stalker ".

The character McGavin played, a reporter named Carl Kolchak was a writer AND a hunter of Vampires, Ghosts and Demons. Carl Kolchak didn't look perfect, he didn't dress perfect and he spent a large part of the show being abused by his boss, co-workers...even these actors playing shop keepers and cab drivers got to score points off of Carl.

If you were a kid (and I was 10 at the time I saw the first Night Stalker episode) you could relate...

And if you were a kid who wanted to write AND Hunt Vampires, Ghosts and Demons, well my gosh this movie was a gift from the Heavens. It was like someone threw open the doors and said..." here it is Anita, this is going to be your life."

Writing...Monsters.... the two can be combined.

I'll be darned.

So that's what I did.

I was already attending the " Rod Serling Academy " in the " Twilight Zone ", so I was more then ready for Kolchak and what Kolchak The Night Stalker taught me was that you could think outside the box. Heroes didn't have to be like James Bond. They could be smart and funny and less then perfect.

They could be someone like you or me....

That has been an invalueable lesson to me as a writer.

Thank You Mr McGavin.

AMM

The Legacy of Shrieking Woman and Cell Phone Man

Daily Writing Exercise: Guided Imagery
http://www.outbackonline.net/tram/activity2.htm
All Images Collected From The Internet
Date Completed: 02-24-06


These are little images, little sounds and smells and emotions that have worked their way into my writing. There is nothing profound here, just people being themselves and images that I catch and collect as I live my life.

I try to save them all and choose which ones to ‘keep’.

The reality is sometimes they choose to ‘keep’ you.



A few years ago a woman tried to kill herself by jumping off a bridge. The Authorities shut down the freeway so they could try to talk her down. That tied the traffic up and the conversations I heard that followed a few days later destroyed my faith in humanity.

Not only did I hear some of my co-workers echo these exact words; radio DJ’s said the same thing. “ Why didn’t she stay home and shoot herself or something? I was late for work because of her.”

During my lunch break the woman sitting next to me said, “ she inconvenienced a lot of people, how self centered can you get? No wonder she tried to kill herself she’s one of those ME people”

Those are real quotes, spoken by real people I know.


(This is where I work...if you were to stand at the black railing and look down you'd see the train tracks and my loading dock. This was taken after the eathquake we had a few years ago and that's why you see all the busted windows and damaged to the buidling itself)

The Railway tracks that run outside my warehouse are the ultimate story starter. Sometimes I go out there and just stare at them…and I’m sure they stare back.

One Spring a homeless man was sleeping by my loading dock and he was coughing so loud you could hear him up on the street. That street was full of buses and cars and at the time heavy machinery because the Earthquake had happened about three days before and we were starting reconstruction.

All you could hear was that painful coughing.

Now, up on the street and one building over is a very hoity – toity place called “ The Lofts”.

Basically you pay almost an astronomical amount of money to live in a brick building with an unobstructed view of a tavern frequented by the less fortunate members of society who live in the alleys and under the bridges here in Seattle.

So those are the Lofts and on the day a homeless guy was coughing his lungs up just outside the gate that separates my building from The Lofts a woman was over at the Lofts in the parking area with her son who was about four and she was shrieking…I couldn’t emphasize that enough shrieking “ LOOK AT THE TRAINS HONEY, AREN’T THOSE TRAINS PRETTY? LOOK AT THE TRAINS!” Everytime the homeless man started to cough.

I’ve seen people urinating on the walls; I’ve walked through vomit and seen some awful things on the street up by the Lofts

That woman minimizing human suffering and worse yet teaching her child to do the same was the lowest, most vile thing I’ve ever seen out there.

That image haunts me to this day, and I’ve used it in at least two forms in short stories at the Café.



About 5 years ago I saw a circus train outside my warehouse door on those railroad tracks. It had open beds and tied to the beds were big top rigging. There were empty cages for the animals and most mysterious of all were the private cars. I could see curtains in the windows but I never saw a living soul. No kidding. It was like that Circus Train was driving itself.

It stopped for about 10 minutes and then started back up again and was gone.

No I didn’t go near it.

I was afraid it might bite.



Last month I saw a drunken man, I couldn’t tell how old he was because his body was wasted and used up from his addiction wandering around in the middle of the street. The street was not empty. It was full of cars and buses and trucks.

Then he passed out.

I went out there and was able to pull him across the road to the sidewalk. It was easy because he couldn’t fight me and I’m use to moving deadweight from my previous job.

No one helped me; no one called the police or an ambulance. Though one guy did pull over, he was driving a silver sports car and he was on a cell phone. He pulled up and said, “ That was a waste of time”

Then he drove off.

I had to walk back to work to call for help.



Things like this happen around me every single day and there are other things I’d rather think about and remember and experience. Only then I’d be just like those people I wrote about. The Shrieking Woman and Cell Phone Man.

I’d only be seeing what I want to see.

What kind of writer could I be then?

A Salon Project

Daily Writing Excercise: Raven Writing Project
http://www.dailywriting.net/Ravens.htm
Date Completed: Work In Progress

Over at the Cafe there is an excellent Excercise called the Raven Writing Project

What I'd like to do here is adopt it to the following Poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne. It's dark, it's morbid and it's full of doorways. I'm going to set up the excercise page here and as the weeks go you'll get to see me create my own version of the Raven Writing Project.

So how's about it? Would you care to join me as I enter:

The Garden of Prosperine
by Algernon Charles Swinburne


Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

1ST STEP- RESEARCH:
Over the next few days I will be re-reading this poem. I will be collecting images and writing down thoughts that the lines inspire. I will also take lines from the poem and create some story starters.

When She Was Bad....

Daily Writing Exercise: Bad Girl On The Block
http://www.dailywriting.net/ColouringStories.htm
Completed on 2-22-06

I’d like you to meet a few Bad Girls who have worked their evil ways into my life and made it a bit more fun to be a writer.

First there’s Borgia Sainbury.

Her family owns and operates a cemetery in a place called Duwamish Bay.

Duwamish Bay is rather infamous for it’s cemetery…the one called Leaning Birches. It’s the only cemetery on the west coast that has an extensive system of catacombs under the cemetery. The cemetery above ground is so vast that there is no way to tell how many graves there are and they find more almost every single year. They’ve even found bodies entombed in fallen trees and buried in creek beds.

The Sainbury Cemetery on Mourning Ridge is small and exclusive and isn’t as well known as Leaning Birches and belongs to the Sainbury Family.

The Sainbury Family practices a somewhat dark trade. They are executioners. They’ve always been executioners and Borgia tends to their resting place.

When she was a young woman she had the nasty habit of poisoning people she didn’t like, animals who annoyed her, and she wasn’t above making her way into Leaning Birches to disturb the final resting place of individuals who really made her angry.

You couldn’t escape Borgia’ s wrath…even if you were dead and buried and sealed in a vault. She’d dig you up with her bare hands and finish you off again.

And she’d do it with a smile.

I could list some of her less then savory attributes: she’s driven, vindictive, she’s a cannibal and she’s not human. Oh, and she likes to kill things…dead things or living things. Doesn't matter which. In her mind she wishes there was something in the middle just so she could wipe that out too.

Now I’d like you to meet Suicide Bridge.

Suicide Bridge lives in a very ritzy neighborhood. Politicians and Diplomats and Judges and people who come from old money drive over her to get to their very big houses on the hill.

You don’t notice her because she’s not a very long bridge and there’s nothing remarkable about her except for the fact she makes it possible for you to drive over a very deep ravine.

I’ve been to visit Suicide Bridge and I can’t figure out why anyone would choose to spend their last minutes or hours with her but they do.

You have to drive up these narrow twisted little streets to get to her. If you walk you’ll be lucky if you don’t drop dead from the climb up. When you finally reach her you get a view of the shipyards and heavy machinery.

It’s all pretty bleak and impersonal and the air smells funny when the tide goes out.

For a while I saw Suicide Bridge as a Funeral Home right in the middle of a cemetery.

Those houses could easily pass for tombs and mausoleums because you will never see people out walking around in front of them or near them and when they do they do it with reverence.

How clever and cunning that Bridge is.

I wonder does Suicide Bridge enjoy what she does?

Of course she does.

She’s taken over 300 lives in less then 30 years and that makes her one of the most prolific serial killers that ever existed. And she’s done it without raising a hand.



Those are my Bad Girls and I really enjoyed talking about them.

When I do character profiles I have one main goal, I want to personalize my characters. It’s easy to write about people or places or things that I know about, that I’m familiar with. The more I understand Borgia or Suicide Bridge the easier it will be for me to discover their secrets.

In turn you’ll see Borgia in her Cemetery as clearly as I can and you’ll know for certain Suicide Bridge is just waiting for that one person to come along who’ll look over her railing into the shipyards and then…

I know these Girls and you’ll be able to take my word for it; they’re killers.

So go ahead and try listing anyway you like. Use words, phrases, and pictures or do what I do and pretend like your gossiping to a friend about this Bad Girl you once knew…

Wicked Words and Spotted Dogs

Spotted Dog Sundaes
Exercise: Composting
http://www.dailywriting.net/Composting.htm
Completed February 21, 2006

I love to collect words.

Specifically I love to collect morbid, macabre, maniacal words.

I love words that bring to my mind’s eye tombs and fog and phantoms and graves and shrouds and corpses, cats, werewolves, lunatics and ghouls.

I like to say words like embalm, witch, demon, and scalpel, malevolence, mystery, zombie, wicked and wail.

I collect words that make me feel sinister, shadowy and gruesome because I write tales of the strange and supernatural and of horror and mystery.

Once I began a story for the Faraway Activity based on words from my list. Here it goes:

There is a woman who is voiceless from wailing and wasted from weeping and Death visits her from Faraway at Midnight.

“How did this happen?” you might ask me.

Voiceless, wailing, wasted and weeping made me think of an abandoned insane asylum full of abandoned souls and the story of a woman shunned by death and time came to the Land of Faraway and it festers there still.

“Why would you write something like this Anita?”

Its part of my new philosophy on writing and I like to call it “ Operation Just Because”.
I don’t know, those four little words rattled around in my head for a day or two after I listed them and by the third day I sat down and there it was.

“What is this thing you call ‘Operation Just Because ‘? It sounds like you might have an attitude problem there Anita.

Oh, that’s simple; I got tired of trying to explain why I write the things I write. I don’t know why, I don’t care why, they’re stories and they want to be told. I want to write. So it’s you basic win-win situation.

Are attitude and philosophies related? There’s one for the old dictionary. I’ll have to look that up. Before I forget:

Dictionaries are a Writer’s Best Friend.

I don’t use an on-line dictionary for this. It’s not research; it’s a game I like to play when I don’t feel like working.

I get out my well used Webster’s Dictionary and pick a word from my list. Then I list the definition I’m the least familiar with.

Here’s the fun part, I turn the definition into the first line of a story.

Here’s my word and definition- I chose it because I was a Mortician and I never would have defined this word like this:

Embalm: To fill with sweet odors.

Here’s my line:

Alissa took the small plastic bottle of light blue embalming fluid from the shelf behind her and as she unscrewed the lid the light odor of tropical fruit juice filled the air.

It’s a throw away line, but it’s true. I thought embalming fluid smelled like fruit drinks.
So keep up here, that sentence brought to my mind a mortician with her hair tied back with blue yarn and you know, I might keep her and ditch the sentence. That’s okay, because now I have a rough sketch for a character.

See how this works?

Play with words, words are your friends and if they give you a hard time and won’t work for you don’t take them out and beat the snot out of them because they won’t cooperate. Go and have some fun, blow off some steam and then see what happens.

Something good I’ll bet.

Try it and see.

It Seemed So Real

Exercise: Daydreaming
http://www.dailywriting.net/Daydreaming.htm
complete February 21, 2006
all images collected from the internet

I’m reading a book by Barbara Sher called, ‘ Live the Life You Love’. It’s got some good advice and great writing exercises and one in particular has turned out to be a favorite of mine.

The exercise is called, “ Gather Your Allies “ and what you do is chose your very own support team. Your team can be made up of anyone living or dead. They can even be fictional characters or animals.

I chose Mae West, Vincent Price and Rod Serling.

When I get stuck in a story I ask Vincent to read back what I’ve written. We go over plots and ideas sometimes he even acts out parts. The thing is I have someone to help me visualize my story. It’s like watching a movie. All I have to do is listen and watch.



Then there’s Rod, I ask him for ideas. It’s begging really but hey, he can leave whenever he wants! Seriously, That’s my own Twilight Zone and I’m glad its there. This is where I go for my inspiration.


Now Mae…where does she fit? You might not know this but she use to write her own material and she was her own woman and she lived and played (very hard by the way) by her own rules. When I do well I can see her there saying, “ Kiddo, you got it.” When I do something gutsy like writing an weird story or when I went for the job in a funeral home or when I undertook anything else labeled “ non-traditional “ I saw that smile and I heard that voice and I knew to go for it because I knew I was on the right track.


Mae hasn’t failed me yet.

So when I see Vincent looking through the library at Riversleigh with a wicked grin on his face or when I can hear Rod say something like ‘ have you really thought about that shed behind the manor…I mean really thought about what could be out there? “ Or when I sit down and I can see Mae standing next to me watching me write with approval and pride well, you could say I’m talking to myself or that I’m daydreaming.

I think it’s more then that.

This style of ‘guided imagery’ or ‘daydreaming’ has become a part of my creative process and it works, it inspires me and somehow it’s made me feel more confident about myself.

It’s funny because now when I just let my imagination run wild and I go off and hunt monsters and sail pirate ships and explore abandoned insane asylums with my cat Wolfgang there’s been a huge change in the person going on those journeys.

Since I gathered my allies I see myself having those adventures now: not a new and improved Anita or the Anita I wished I could be.

I see the Anita that looks at me in my mirror every morning when I brush my teeth.

I’m not sure when it happened but my allies and my daydreams have taught me to like myself a lot more then I use to.

Unreal…isn’t it?

Advice From The Twilight Zone

You might not write " Twilght Zone Stories " but good advice is good advice so check this out. Comments in italics are mine.

Rod Serling Teaches Writing
Jeanne Marshall's Seminar Notes, 1962-63
ADVICE TO WRITERS

DON'T LET SENTIMENTALITY REAR ITS UGLY HEAD!!!
I’m not sure if this is what was intended butI wrote a story where I killed off a great character and I can’t bring her back because it would be cheating…this is a hard piece of advice to follow!

MAKE PEOPLE THINK... STUN THEM... GRAB YOUR AUDIENCE IMMEDIATELY
I’ve learned with ‘blog stories’ this is really determines if a story lives or dies because people want to race through these things. To work on developing this skill I’ve listened to about 100 hours of old time radio plays and it’s really helped me.

DON'T OVERLOAD DIALOGUE
Blah, blah, blah… I agree with this and it’s not hard. All you have to do is go back pull out the quotation marks and you’re done. I think of quotation marks as little tiny crutches in a story. Cast them off and walk I say!

HAVE A POINT OF VIEW... DON'T ACCEPT SOMEONE ELSE'S CONCEPT
Sure, sure try to be the only person to write about toxic wells or the living dead sailing ships around the world and see how easy it is to follow this. But you have to because when you write you MUST to listen to the story you're hearing in your head. If you don’t it will find ways to fall on the pen and stab itself through the heart and just DIE. I promise you that’s what will happen every single time.

OVERALL THEME LEADS TO CHARACTERS THEN ON TO PLOT
You know, some stories are plot driven or character driven…I prefer sitting down and figuring out the theme… you know, what exactly is this story ABOUT. Then I don’t get lost in your own forest of words and end up burning the place to the ground. Stephen Kind did that in the “ Stand “. He had spent years on that book and got stuck. Yes Sir…stuck, stuck, stuck…so he nuked the characters in the first half of the book and went on with the story. Yes, you read that right he killed them all. Stephen King can afford to do that. I on the other hand write for free and can’t afford to invest years in a project just to let it die. So I prefer to know where I’m going. I literally can’t afford NOT to know.

RESEARCH BACKGROUND FOR ANY STORY
I like to do this because I’ll actually pick up ideas for other stories as I go along. Plus it doesn’t hurt to learn something new every once and awhile.

CONTINUITY... TIE SCENES OR PARAGRAPHS TOGETHER
Because when you do that you get a story!

WRITING BEGETS WRITING
It certainly does Rod, it certainly does.

Lost and Found

Images collected from the internet

Daily Writing Excercise from: The Dig Tree Activity
http://www.outbackonline.net/dig_activity10.htm


Unfortuantely Burke was not so meticulous and the desire for glory clouded his decision making. The race to get to the Gulf first skewed his judgment and the final decision to head towards Mt Hopeless proved fatal. Most bizarre of all was the fact that Burke and Wills never left new markings or signs at the Dig Tree and so, when Brahe came back to check if they had returned, he thought the camp had been undisturbed. Was this a cruel twist of fate or plain stupidity?
Even The Camels Perished
Dig Tree Activity
Heather Blakey


Here in the United States there is the true story about a Colony of 112 men, women and children who disappeared from Roanoke Island in 1587. Legend has it they did leave a message carved on a tree, it simply said

“ Croatan”

I first heard about this Colony when I was about 10. Shortly after I started to have nightmares about a woman carving the word “ Croatan” into a tree with her bare hands. Then she turns around and motions for me to follow her.

That’s when I would wake up and run around the house and start turning every single light on. I don’t do that anymore.

Now I make my husband do it for me.

When I read about the Burke and Wills expedition in this project I thought they did leave a message; they knew they weren’t going to be coming back from the place they were walking towards.

I imagine that for them, putting this into words would have been like carving their own tombstones.

I can’t imagine it. How do you sit down and write, “ Meeting Death"
when really all you want to do is live. Its in our nature, the human body wants to survive even when the spirit and the mind know it’s not possible anymore.

They didn't write their message down but they left one all the same and in the end they told us what it was.

It would have read "went to Oblivion via Mt Hopeless."

I wrote about a character named Livia Cotard in a short story here at the Café called
“ Gone to Croatan “ In the end Livia does go to Croatan and in my heart I know I can never bring her back from there.

I’ve tried different endings and none of them work because that’s the rules of Croatan.

Just ask the Lost Colonists of Roanoke, or Burke and Wills.





Camels, like artists, have exceptional inner reserves. In her book 'Passion for the Possible' Jean Houston observes that creative geniuses have one thing in common. "They were each familiar with their interior world and believed that the ideas and images could spark their projects. Each has become an archaeologist of the mind, a spelunker in the cave of inner inspiration."
Even The Camels Perished
Digtree Activity


When I started taking writing classes as a child one of the exercises I loved went like this: the teacher would tape to the blackboard a picture or a news article or a word written in big block letters and you were suppose to write a story about it.

The majority of the stories had all the elements of the picture or of the news article or the word featured prominently somehow in their pieces.

All except for one student

She would look at the picture of the dog and write about a man she once knew that liked dogs. Only the story would be about the man and that he was really a Spy or a Vampire. There was never one single word about the dog.

I was that student and each time I did that I thought for sure I was going to score a low grade and find a note from the teacher in angry red ink saying “ didn’t you see what was up on the board?”

The thing is, I saw plenty on that board every single day. I’d close my eyes and see that picture of the dog and the stories would write themselves.

Visit the Dig Tree and then ask yourself, “Okay, let me look at this…” and then do what I did…what I still do…

Close your eyes and tell us what you see.

Doorways

Personality of A Front Door
Soul Food Cafe Excercise
http://www.dailywriting.net/Doors.htm>


This Doorway, it's there hiding just through the dark entrance way against the building, is Red and it's history is dark.

To me it represents true terror, true horror and it reminds me to respect the genre I choose to work in.

Characters in my stories like Livia Cotard from Gone To Croatan, Mr Night Fall and
Miss Praecox from the Faraway Project, and the Riders in The Amazing Benandanti as well as the Wardens Of Sawajinn from the Silent Knight featured on our recent Advent Calander have all come from behind this door.




"Come on in Anita," says this gate..."we know you well here. Come on in and listen to us for awhile. The stories we could tell you, the things we've seen."

And of course I oblige.



Rod Serling is everything I admire in a storyteller and when I see this picture I think of him and remember just one little step, chosing to go through that one door can take you to a whole new reality.

Doorways are wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

That's what makes them so great and so exciting to me.

Fears From A box of Chocolates

From The Chocolate Box :Write about your greatest fears and try facing some of them on the page
Completed February 11, 2006
http://www.outbackonline.net/choc%20box/choc_debil_debil.htm

You're not a well Woman some of my friends will tell me after reading what I write
(And note that's what my friends say) and other people just want to know where I get my ideas from. Then they tell me there's probably medication out there for what ails me and maybe I should ask my Doctor about them.

Seriously, I write about my Fears and my stories are how I deal with them.

The great Rod Serling once said he got ideas from lines in books, titles of movies and lines he heard or read in stories and movies. I guess the idea is you have to be open to what's around you.

The hard part of course is letting go and the real problem of course is not being afraid of what will come in.

But I'm learning to get passed that, I love to write my weird little stories and here's some of the places in my real life where I've found inspiration:



Diablo Lake is here in Washington State.

When I was a kid I thought the Devil lived in that lake and the hills were cut like that because the Devil would try to climb out and kept sliding back down again. I thought for sure he lived there and I refused to go anywhere near it.

I'm not kidding, when I was bad my Parents knew the way to get me in line was to threaten me with a trip to Diablo Lake.

I was about 7 at the time and I haven't been there in over 25 years.

I won't go near it.

Better safe then sorry.


Here's Devil's Elbow Bridge, I actually tore this picture out of a book when I was about 12 and had it taped to the inside of my notebook. When I look at this picture now and when I looked at it over 30 years ago for the first time I thought..."I'll bet no one human ever uses this bridge."

I still think that



Seattle's Underground

I work in a basement that's considered " underground Seattle" and it almost looks exactly like this and if you want to know where I get my ideas from...well...



I found this picture on line a year or so ago, it's a lighting storm and I believe this was taken in Seattle. It's funny because along with being done in by head- hunters (hey, sounds dumb but at least I'm not afraid to admit it) my number two fear is being hit by lighting.

I really haven't written about either one. I tried to write about headhunters once and I got so freaked out I actually padded it into the middle of another story.

So that’s how I’ve faced my fears and made them work for me and why I write what I write. From Weird little kid to the Weird Tales person from Deadwood Hall it’s been a great trip.

Anita Marie

Dialogue With An Imaginary Friend

A Chocolate Box Activity
" Dialogue with an imaginary friend"
Completed on 7-29-05
I just loved this excercise and it was the
blog entry I received the most comments on ever.
Amm

http://www.dailywriting.net/choc%20box/chochbox.htm
http://www.outbackonline.net/choc%20box/choc_imaginary_friends.htm


Aconitum napellus otherwise known as Wolfsbane


" Here " Kincross says from behind my right shoulder, " let me take a look at what you're writing. Is it about me? "

Kincross is quiet for a second, which surprises me because my Werewolf has never been the quiet type. This can't be a good sign, especially when the second turns into a minute and I hear her growl " an imaginary friend? Write a dialog with an imaginary friend? "

" That's what it says Kincross " I tell her.

" I'm not imaginary and I'm not part of your subconscious either " she says quickly.

" If only." I snap " You're TOO pushy and noisy to be imaginary. Go on, go howl at the moon or something, I have work to do "

" I want my story told. " she says darkly.

" I want to be six inches taller and fifty pounds lighter but it ain't gonna happen in the next half hour.So get lost, go kill a Vampire or something I have to get this exercise done right now. "

" Okay. I'm sorry Anita. " she says with feeling.

" That's alright. "

I can hear her talking to my cat, and then I can hear the chair at my husband's work desk, the one on wheels, coasting from one end of the room to the other. I can hear Darwin my cat chasing something around and I'm guessing Kincross and Darwin are racing each other.

" Anita? " she stage whispers. I use the word whispers very lightly. You could probably hear her over the end of the world right now but she IS whispering. And she won't stop she sounds like some weird primitive cave woman chanting my name AnitaAnitaAnitaAnitaAniiiiittttAnittta "

" WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW? DO YOU WANT TO BE TALLER IN THE NEXT STORY? YOUNGER? OR IS IT BLOND AND SKINNY? WHAT DO YOU WANT? "

" The phone is ringing. "

" OUT! Get out NOW! " I yell.

" You shouldn't talk out loud like that, people are going to start thinking your mental or something. " Kincross says, her voice dripping with concern and honey. Neither of which is in her nature.

" Is so in my nature...hey, what the heck are you saying about me there? "

" Are you watching? " I ask.

I look back and her eyes are narrowing, " Yes. "

" Once upon a time a self absorbed Werewolf got hit by a bus loaded with silver bullets and she died and never bothered her Author again. The end. "

" Oh very funny. "

I turn back to my keyboard and start to write and two seconds go by. Then a minute. No Kincross. I look out my door, under my desk. It's quiet it's actually...

" Go on, you missed me " my Werewolf says as she jumps down from the top of my bookshelf. She looks very pleased with herself and she sounds pleased as well.

" I really want to finish this. " I tell her.

" Oh, alright, but I'm not going anywhere...you know that right? "

I sure do.

Kincross is whistling, something I wish I could do and she looks over my shoulder again.

" I'd end there if I were you. "

" I look back and she actually pulls away. " FINE I'll just go sit until her Majesty is ready. "

And as I type away we both start snickering, " imaginary friend " we both say at the same time.

" Hey that's fun " Kincross says " let's do another one of these exercise things. "

"GET OUT KINCROSS"

And she actually does...for about two minutes.

What a record.

Red Death Project

Writing Project:
Red Death
http://www.dailywriting.net/Red-death.htm
Completed October 30, 2004

This was the first excercise I posted at the Soul Food Cafe.
I wished I'd saved the ones I did before on-line, but my bad.
This excercise contains several other projects and I suggest checking them
all out.
AMM

Seattle Herald News
Seattle, Washington
October 30, 2004

After nearly 20 years of silence the Prospero Lab over looking Lake Edmonds will be re-opened and it's secrets, now the stuff of urban legend will be revealed.

Tragedy

On May 18, 1984 the Prospero Labs opened and become home to some of the top researchers in the field of Genetics. It's believed the Labs employed over 300 individuals but it's exact count, who worked there and later what exactly was being studied and developed at the labs were never made public.

By later standards the Lab was small and somewhat unassuming. The one thing making it unique was the fact it was housed in the old King County Power and Electric Building.

Within a year of the Lab opening two more Labs opened on the same bluff over looking Lake Edmonds and those Labs dwarfed Prospero by 6 to 7 stories. These buildings were designed by one of the worlds leading architects and opened to much publicity.

Prospero was soon forgotten by the surrounding community.

However, on November 5, 1985 everyone in the Seattle area was made very aware of the lab again.

At precisely 11:15am an alarm sounded in and outside of the Lab. The alarm triggered a safety mechanism which shuttered the windows and doors. Within minutes the entire facility was locked down.

No one exited or entered the Lab or it's grounds after that point.

Cars to this day still remain where employees had parked them that morning. No one has been allowed to take anything from the site or even approach it.

Family members tried to gain access to the Labs shortly after the accident and were at first turned away by the Police.

Later they were turned away by the military and after that the infamous I-5 Wall was constructed.

Later, individuals were able to breach the wall.

Reports say that the doors and windows are covered by huge blast doors. Some people tried to break through the brick walls only to find the same material covering the doors and windows was laying just below the brick.

Urban Legend.

Soon after the accident the drawings began to appear. First on the walls outside the Lab itself. Then on the outside walls surrounding the lab and then the drawings began to appear on buildings throughout the County on car windows, carved into trees and drawn on the sides of buses, bridges and even garbage cans

"Anything you could paint or ink to stick to" a local resident complained to this reporter.

It's a very simple outline of a man's face in profile and it's always drawn in red.

"Have you noticed, " asked Janet Speidel a bus commuter who passes the Lab everyday on her way to work "that those weird little drawings are showing up more and more now? At this rate, they'll be on every building in town by the time they get those doors opened."

How does she feel about the Labs being re-opened?

"They shouldn't be opened. That's how I feel. First of all, who knows what the hell is in there? And no matter how you look at it, that place is a giant coffin. Opening it is just wrong. It's a grave now and we're desecrating it out of curiosity. "

"Let the dead rest in peace. That's what I say."

However, tomorrow morning, Halloween morning at exactly 5:30 AM the doors to the Prospero Labs will be reopened, the dead and their peace will be for the first time in over 20 years will be disturbed.

And the fate of those 300 plus workers will be revealed.

FROM A RADIO BROADCAST ON RESTRICTED CHANNELS....
October 31, 2004
5:36am

>>>>>>>>>>>For Immediate Release>>>>>>For Immediate Release>>>>>>>>>To be Broadcast on ALL emergency bands >>>Repeat>>>>>>>This voice Broadcast is to repeat every 2 Minutes>>>>>

Despite the fact that extreme measures were taken yesterday at Prospero Labs an accident has occurred at the former research lab.

No one will be permitted within the Seattle City Limits, no one will be permitted to leave.

Avoid all individuals displaying the following symptoms:Profuse Sweating, a dark red rash covering the eyes, mouth and nose. Some individuals may suffer mild to strong convulsions.

These individuals appear to sweat blood shortly before death occurs. Do not try to move or aid the sick.

Do not attempt to cover or handle human remains. Take every precaution to not have physical contact with anyone from this area.

Repeat:However, be advised a tall man dressed in Grey, has been seen at almost every site of widespread outbreak. Do Not Approach this individual, do not make contact with this individual he was seen exiting the building shortly after the doors were opened.

If you see him, do not approach this individual. Make no attempt to speak to or have contact of any kind to this individual.

In Precisely 2 hours extreme decontamination of this area will occur. REPEAT>>>>>In Precisely 1 hour 59 minutes......Avoid this area...in precisely 1 hour 58....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM ANITA WITH A LOT OF HELP FROM MR E.A. POE