Life in progress

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A Haunted Visitation

July 19th, 2013: My trip to Kingston was interesting indeed. With so many strange goings-on, I can’t help but wonder if I somehow ended up in my own novel. Without giving too much away, this is how it went:

The Hochelaga Inn was much as I expected. Built in 1879, it has been well-preserved not only in its physical appearance, but for its ambiance as well.

A Welcoming Prayer

A Welcoming Prayer

Peace and rest, however, although perhaps wished upon me by the Management and Staff, were not what the Inn itself had in store.

Having not a great deal of money, but wishing to take an extended weekend away, I booked the cheapest room in the Inn for the first two nights, (Saturday and Sunday) and the Tower room–the most expensive–for one night (Monday).

My first night didn’t include much sleep. Three times during the course of my slumber, I was awoken by the fire alarm, which was situated on the ceiling beside a spinning fan, for no apparent reason. When I asked about it at reception the next morning, because I thought there might have been a problem in another room, they said they had no idea what had happened. Unfortunately, I was told, the Tower room was booked for that night, otherwise they’d have moved me in there early. So I gave back my room key with an assurance that I would be moved to another room for my second night at no extra cost.

The conversation between the two ladies I had spoken to at the desk, overheard after I walked away, went something like this:

“Her fire alarm went off three times last night.”

“Wooooo …” in a ghostly voice.

Okey dokey then.

Later, when I arrived back at the Inn after spending a lovely day wandering around Kingston and getting burned to a potato chip by the sun, I was handed the key for the Tower room.

“We were able to move you up there a day early,” the lady said without further explanation.

The house wants me in the Tower, I thought.

I happily I went up to my room to take a few pictures before dark.

The lower part of the tower.

 

The view from the top

It was a long day and I didn’t feel like doing much, so I sat on the bed with my feet up and watched a movie on my laptop. I didn’t bother to turn on the lights, and by half-way through the movie (The Brave, with and by Johnny Depp if you’re wondering) it was dark. That was when my friend decided to come along. I didn’t take a picture of my friend, and in fact I’m quite proud of myself for not throwing my laptop across the room. Let’s just say he had eight legs and appeared to be the size of Jaws as he scurried across my screen.

My second night didn’t include much sleep either. I think my camera catches quite well the state my eyes were in by Monday morning:

blur

A lovely blurred view from the lower tower window

I spent most of Monday driving around town. I went to the VIA Rail station, where my two main characters disembark after having met on the train, and I was able to record many small details such as the waiting room seat colours and the fact that there are sliding glass doors on both the back and front. I drove from there to where my story is set–where I imagine the house to be–to see how long the journey would take, as well as noting different things they might see on the way.

When I got back ‘home,’ the first thing I did was look for the spider. There was no sign of him whatsoever.

Yay! I thought. I’m going to get a good night’s sleep!

HA!

So I was downstairs talking to the lady at reception again after having spent a few minutes poring over a framed blueprint of the Inn, from 1920 when they were hooking up the electricity. The house had changed quite a bit, and we were having a lovely discussion about where the rooms were and the staircase that wasn’t there any more etc.. when she mentioned the ghost.

“There’s a ghost here?” I asked, my eyes like saucers, I’m sure.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’re part of The Haunted Walk of Kingston. You should go on it.”

All righty then.

From there I went to a bar. Okay, I went to a restaurant. But must say I indulged just a little. As it turned out, I was sitting on the patio waiting for my bill when a strange looking man wearing a black cape and holding a lantern (click on the Haunted Walk link above for a visual) exited the building that housed the restaurant. He stopped and stood not six feet away, waiting. It took me a few seconds to realize he was the tour guide for The Haunted Walk. (Like I said, I’d had a few.) So I thought it might be fun to talk to him.

“Excuse me, are you guiding the Haunted Walk tonight?” (All right, all right. Maybe I was sloshed.)

“Yes,” he replied.

“I’m staying at one of the places on your tour: The Hochelaga.”

“Yes, that is one of the places we visit,” he said politely.

“Would you like me to put a sheet over my head and stand at the window in the Tower?”

I thought he was going to blow a gasket.

“YES!” he exclaimed, all but jumping up and down in excitement. “The people would love that!”

So guess what I did?

 

DSC00436

At dusk. I turned on the lights in the Tower so they would glow.

After the people left (they actually pointed at me, standing at the very top window at the front, looking down) I turned on the lights and went outside to take a picture of the most incredible Hochelaga Inn.

And that night? I slept like a baby knowing the ghost was safely tucked in bed.

Spooky, no?

Spooky, no?

To this day the spirit of the place haunts me. My characters, whose footsteps I was privileged enough to walk in, are with me in a way they weren’t before. The sights I saw are imprinted on my vision, deep and immovable. I’m lucky to have been able to visit the wondrous settings from which I was able to tell my story.

If you’d like to visit The Hochelaga Inn, click here for their website. I highly recommend it for its ambiance, its breakfast, and for the experience of sleeping in such a beautiful old Victorian mansion.

My Gothic paranormal romance, The Magician’s Curse, which is set in Kingston and features a house that is inspired by The Hochelaga Inn, is available on Kindle, Kobo, and in paperback on Amazon, as well as on the shelf in the Novel Idea Bookstore at 156 Princess Street in Kingston.

Here are some more photos of The Hochelaga.

 


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#SoCS – Having to Guess

I’ve come to the conclusion that writing a series of books rather than a standalone is harder when you’re a pantser. A pantser, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a writer who writes by the seat of his or her pants, as opposed to a plotter, who plots the entire story out ahead of time. If I could just plot out where my characters are going to go after book three, I would know if their life beyond it was worth writing about. Because let’s face it, no one wants to read a book about people getting up and going to work every day, coming home, cooking dinner, watching TV and going to bed, ad nauseam. It’s bad enough that most of us do just that in real life.

Therefore, I can only guess whether my series will be a trilogy or if it will go on.

Don’t get me wrong – I love pantsing. Sometimes I’ll be happily typing along, minding my own business (because I don’t make up my stories. I just pluck them out of mid-air and transcribe them) and suddenly one of my characters will say something that completely blows me out of the water. Like, I had no idea it was coming. It’s by far the best part of writing. When you’re reading a book and you get hit by a sudden revelation, you can bet that there’s a good possibility the author was struck at the same point in the story with that same gong. What’s not to love about being hit by a gong? (I do enjoy stream of consciousness writing.)

If I was to guess right now, I’d say it’s going to be a trilogy. Yet I know I’m going to miss my characters so much that I’m not going to want to stop writing. Will they get up to more adventures? I guess they could. We all do, once in a while, right? If we didn’t, our boring day-in-day-out existences would drive us to eventually seek something more anyway.

Speaking of adventures, I’ve updated and edited an old post. It has more pictures now, as well as a few more links. I can only guess whether or not it will show up in your email if you follow me that way. I’m guessing it will, if you weren’t following me in July of 2013 when it was first posted. I urge you to read it if you haven’t already: it’s one of my best. Even if you have already read it, check out the new pictures. I’ll repost it in an hour or so. It’s entitled “A Haunted Visitation.”

John Holton 2016-2017

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. You can find the link to join in and read all the other posts here: https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-1217/

While you’re here, take a good look at the badge, for it may be the last week in which it’s featured! The contest is on right now for a new SoCS badge design. We have five entries already, which means there are only five slots left open. Click the following link to read more about it, see the entries so far, and enter the contest yourself: https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/08/the-4th-annual-socs-badge-design-contest/


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#SoCS – Bizarre Bazaar

One of the books I’m reading right now is The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King. I remember the first time I looked at the title, I wondered if he was talking about bizarre bad dreams because these two words cause a glitch somewhere in my noggin’ that makes me not know which is which. Or which has which meaning. If I think about it for a few seconds, I remember which is witch; I’m sure people all over have those words.

Did you see what I did back there? It was deliberate. Honest.

I wonder if it was some kind of witchery that made whoever came up with the English language (or any language?) invent words that sound the same that are spelled differently. You know, just to confuse us. Someone who, one day, was at a bazaar maybe and picked up a clementine and a tangerine and thought, “Well that’s bizarre. Two fruits that look the same and taste almost the same but have different names. I can come up with a language that’s that confounding!” And so English was born. From a little orange. Which is something else altogether.

And that’s the sort of post you get from Linda when she’s tired. 😛 Because really, she loves making up stories. They just sort of … fall out. Or leak out through her fingertips. Why the hell am I referring to myself in third person all of a sudden? It’s like I’m not me. Sometimes when I write fiction, I’m not me. I disappear and stuff comes out of me. Bizarre, isn’t it? Stuff of words and language and characters and sometimes it’s like I’m being taken over by something outside of me, something that guides me. Sounds scary, but it’s not. It’s freeing.

I wonder if this is how horror writers write. To think up something that we’d never do takes a certain je ne sais quoi. I know this because I write horror, but when I started this paragraph, I was thinking about Stephen King, who started this whole idea for a post in the first place. Damn it, Stephen! Yeah, I know it’s not his fault, but what to do?

But back to the whole “how am I able to come up with horror ideas that I’d never do in real life” question. I think it comes from fear. Fear of having things done to us by others who are capable of them. And with a vivid imagination comes a lot of fears, I’m afraid. Ha! I’m afraid. Get it?

Probably time for bed.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link and join in! And while you’re there, check out some of the other posts in the comments. https://lindaghill.com/2017/07/14/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-1517/

 


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It’s Alive!

My book–the one I’ve been saying I was going to publish for four years now (didn’t believe me, did you?)–is finally here!

It’s a story I spent months obsessing over, traveled for, went to outrageous lengths for–I sat in the Kingston Via Rail station, taking notes for the description of it; drove around the city looking for the perfect setting for the house in which the story takes place and then I parked my car there and walked halfway back to town to see what it would be like. I stayed in different lodgings – the university where my characters went to school, the house that inspired the one in the book, and a small motel near the train station. I even had a chance to interview a magician. I’ll be posting that interview soon.

But most of all I had a lot of fun writing The Magician’s Curse and its sequel. And I’m almost finished writing the third book. Not sure if there will be more: I’ve toyed with the idea of a prequel.

For now though, I can finally share part of this world I’ve lived in by myself for almost six years. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Magic and romance await.

On Kindle:
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Amazon UK
Amazon Australia
and Amazon where ever else you are in the world, as well as
Kobo worldwide.
The paperback is now available here on Amazon.com.

And I promise to stop the constant spamming now. 🙂


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Tinge – #AtoZChallenge

My dog adds a smattering of love to my life, and a sprinkling of privy to my back yard.

It’s no surprise that I love words. They are why writing, to me, is such a glorious challenge. Finding just the right one is like discovering a hidden treasure. It’s like fitting in that piece of a thousand-piece puzzle that I’ve been looking for for hours. And what makes it such a challenge? It’s the tinge a word can put on a feeling. The morsel that’s as small as a speck. The discomfort that’s really a vexation. The gladness that turns to euphoria. And the exhaustion that leads to zonking out.

Zzzzz…

No, seriously. I’m going to bed. Winston’s making me jealous.

***
Would you like a dash of amusement in your day? A pinch of jollification, perhaps? Then buy my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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Qualification – #AtoZChallenge

Qualification, schmolification. I can drive that rocket! Jus’ let me behind the wheel.

When I finished writing my first novel in 2004, I was hesitant to call myself a novelist. The way I saw it, the only thing that qualified me was the fact that I’d written 50,000 on the same subject. That something had a beginning, a middle, and an end; it had characters and settings and a climax. But it wasn’t ready to be published, and that’s what I thought qualified a person to be a novelist.

Then I wrote another book in 2006, and I started warming up to the idea that maybe I was a novelist, even though nothing had seen print. But still, I hadn’t taken any writing courses. I didn’t know if what I’d written was any good.

It would take almost a decade before I took a writing course, just to find out that I actually already knew what I was doing, for the most part. By then I’d started yet another novel and I was well on my way to calling myself a novelist.

And now… I’m still on the fence. None of my novels have seen print yet. Not one of the five I’ve finished, nor the three I’ve begun writing. But that tells me something. I see a pattern here. Do you?

I can’t stop writing novels. It’s how I pass my time. It’s part of who I am. I’m miserable when I’m not writing something. It’s not an urge, it’s a compulsion.  And the more I think about it, the more I believe that that is what qualifies me to be a novelist. I’m a novelist because writing them is in my blood.

So the next time someone asks me if I’m a writer, I’ll say yes, in fact, I’m a novelist. I write novels. They may be good, they may be bad, they may be unpublishable, but that’s okay. Because I do it for me. I do it because I don’t have a choice.

***
Whether or not I’m a qualified novelist, I’m definitely a qualified novelettist!  I have an A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette called “All Good Stories,” available for only 99¢ on Kindle and Kobo. It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 

 

 


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Occupancy – #AtoZChallenge

In the head of an author, multiple inhabitancy is par for the course.

Strangely enough, I didn’t have imaginary friends when I was a kid. I just made up stories in my head. Occasionally I wrote them down, but mostly I told them to myself over and over again, perfecting them–editing them, I suppose you could say–until I was ready to move on to the next story.

The characters of my tales inevitably took up residence in my head. Even now, when I go for a walk I’ll often see the world through the eyes of my characters. Sometimes another of my characters will walk beside me. I wonder if someone with extrasensory vision could see my characters with me, like an aura or a ghost.

This photo was not manipulated in any way – this is exactly how my camera captured the scene

P.S. I’m so sorry I haven’t been around to respond to comments for the last few days. I’ll do my best to catch up tomorrow. Hope everyone is well. 🙂

***
O look! You can buy my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.

“A delightful read!!” ~ Cheryl Lynn Roberts, 4 stars, Amazon Canada review

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories


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Horny – #AtoZChallenge

The difference between erotica and pornography is not love. It is word choice.

Yes, my thesaurus stuck me with the word “horny” for the letter H. I cheated on the letter G – I couldn’t cheat twice in a row.

Yet I’ve found something to talk about on the subject, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about writing on for a week or so anyway. I’ve come across the question a few times in the last few months: “What is the difference between erotica and porn?” The answers given on the various platforms have ranged from porn is dirty and erotica isn’t, to erotica is when you have a real relationship and porn is just for one night stands. Neither of these is correct, nor is it true that erotica only includes clean words, though word choice has a lot to do with it.

The short scene I’ve included below is one I wrote about three years ago. It is erotica, it is a bit messy, there are no swear words, and there is no sex. I think I may have linked to it a couple of years ago (it was on another site), so you might be familiar with it if you’ve been following me for a long time.

Enjoy.

“If you want to be a healthy young woman, you need to eat more fruit,” he said as he placed on the kitchen table before me a peach and a bowl of blueberries.

When our relationship was new, he explained that he wanted to wait until at least the third month before we slept together. He enjoyed the anticipation, he told me on our first date. The concept was new to me, but so far I had to agree. Now, as the second month was becoming the third, we both felt the tension of our abstinence.

He told me also that he wished to take care of me. Feeding me seemed a little extreme, but I decided to go along with it for the time being. To see where he was going with it. He hadn’t lead me astray yet, after all.

He turned his chair around and straddled it, sitting at the end of the table, to my right.

“Are you hungry?” He raised an eyebrow and I took in his smile, the roughness of his five o’clock shadow, his lean body all the way down to his belt, below which I could only imagine.

“Famished.” I clasped my hands together in my lap, not wanting to look down but hoping my shirt was unbuttoned enough at the collar to tempt him with a little cleavage.

He picked up a single small blueberry from the bowl and held it to my lips. I opened my mouth but he didn’t let go of the fruit. Instead he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.

“I want to put it on your tongue,” he said. “Don’t bite it.”

I allowed him to place it in my mouth.

“Press it against your palate with your tongue … move it around … resist the temptation to eat it.”

I moved the little nub of fruit around inside my mouth as I was instructed. It was firm and round and I couldn’t … I shifted it with my tongue to my molars and gently closed them until the blueberry exploded in a tiny burst of bitterness.

I blushed. “Sorry,” I said.

“We’ll try again,” he said, patiently. The one he brought to my lips next was larger. Softer. I knew it would be sweeter and more difficult to resist. The skin of it was wrinkled and on my tongue it felt malleable. This time when I pressed it against the roof of my mouth it gushed, yielding easily to the pressure.

“You really are hungry, aren’t you?” He smiled at me and shifted in his chair to ease his discomfort. “Let’s try the peach then, shall we?”

He held it out to me and I took it. It smelled as ripe and luscious as it looked.

“Bite it,” he commanded, his eyes half-lidded. “Open wide and …”

My teeth penetrated the delicate skin of the fruit, and the juice cascaded past my lips in a great wash of fluid. I tilted my head back to guzzle as much of it as I could, but some of it dribbled down my chin as the flesh of the peach made contact with my tongue. I took as much down my throat as I could handle; the excess dripped from the edge of my lower lip. I felt it drop and then trickle down between my breasts and I moaned.

Licking his own lips in sympathy, or perhaps it was lust, he stared at me, hard.

“Do you want some?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he whispered hoarsely.

***

If you’d like to read some more of my fiction, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob. There’s even a touch of erotica in it.

“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review

“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars

Click the picture to find it on Kindle, or get it on Kobo here: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-good-stories

 


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#SoCS – (S)ham

I’ve been called incongruent, in so many words. And it’s true. I’m a bit of a sham. (See what I did there with the word “ham”? Feel free to play around with my prompt words as you wish.) Back on topic: how am I a sham?

Thing is, what you see of me here on my blog is the real me. You could probably recognize me in a crowd just by the way I speak and how I conduct myself, simply because you know me from here. But aside from my more comedic pieces of writing, I am not what I write, fiction-wise.

I tend toward the dark and twisted. Why? I have no idea, other than the fact that the human psyche and what we’re capable of truly fascinates me. I explore minds like one might venture into a house of horror at a fair: with no idea of what I’m getting into, but thrilled and scared of what I might find.

My upcoming novel is in line with this theme. And I have to promote it. But how, when I have all this happy going on?

I have two choices. To start all over again with an author blog, and with it, all the work that goes into gaining a following. This will be on top of my plan to start a professional site for my new editing business. OR (going back to the fiction thing)  I can revamp my fiction blog, make a separate section for the lighthearted stuff, and make it all dark and gloomy, like my new book. Gloomy, but entertaining! Of course.

Or, here’s a crazy idea — write my darker stuff under a pseudonym.

I dunno. I have a hard time figuring out whether or not people could conceive of the idea that I can be me — as you see me here and know me — and still think of me as a Gothic paranormal romance/horror writer? I’m probably over-thinking it all. GAH! Stream of consciousness writing can go two ways: it can help us sort things out or help us tangle them up.

What do you think? Should I even change this blog into something darker? I’m thinking no. I need to be me somewhere.

socsbadge2016-17

This tangled mess of a post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link and see how you, too, can join in the madness: https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-1817/


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One-Liner Wednesday – To Pooh a Villain

I often come up with a line for something I’m writing — a novel, a story, a blog post — when I’m not near my computer, so I jot it down on my phone. However, my phone has this predictive text thing that remembers what I’ve written, and I don’t want it to remember any questionable words: you never know when you’re going to text someone the wrong thing by accident.

On this particular occasion, I wanted to write down a line that’s perfect for the villain of the novel I’m writing. With the change of a couple of letters, I was able to give my phone a good word to remember and still remember my badass villain’s line:

screenshot_2017-02-07-21-48-41

Being right gets me honey.

_____________________________________________________________________________

If you would like to participate, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do,
you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

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