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Posts Tagged ‘Ghost Story’

How We Write – Raise A Glass

Our prompts were: Fishing, into the wind, last place, haunt, drivers license, and glass.

The prompt glass, from my M3 writing group. There were several ways to go: a glass cup, window glass, a pair of glasses, someone being transparent as glass, or even someone with a glass eye. But, as usual, we didn’t take the easy way out. The prompt became a character’s last name.

One of the characters, Red Tom, first appeared in a short story based in our Dreaming of Xeres novel called The Infamous Couch Story.

Red Tom himself is based on a real person Orion knew called Red James. At one point in her life, she had just too many people named James in her life, so she renamed them Red James and Black James. As you do. Red James made such an impression on her, going from a long-haired flamboyant young man to the crew cut and three-piece suit wearing gentleman that showed up after many years away, that she keeps dropping him into stories.


Photo by Yutacar on Unsplash

RAISE A GLASS

He’d been watching the attractive woman for several minutes. She sat all alone at the bar, surreptitiously tossing glances at a group in the far corner. When they stood and raised a toast, she turned away with tears in her eyes.

“Hey, are you okay? You look really sad.”

She focused hazel eyes on him, tilting her head like he was a specimen in a zoo. (more…)

How We Write – Shadows of the Past

For the month of October, we thought we’d treat you to scary stories. This is the first one.

Our prompts were: Art of the state, after the gold rush, sex at sixty.

Orion originally wrote this one by herself. Here’s some of what the prompts brought to mind: Old, deserted gold-mining town, detour off Interstate, wizened gold miner as the caretaker of the town, no businesses left, there used to be a brothel (called Sex at Mile Sixty-Nine, which refers to an old stage stop), shiny metal statue on its side poking up through the wind-blown sand at the entrance or center of town depicting a minor politician or the founder of the town that the miner calls ‘Art of the State’ because it was put up by the state with no okay from the citizens. Maybe the town doesn’t like the person represented. Maybe the caretaker/miner makes a pass at the traveler, saying “Sex at 60 is a real bang, yes, sir!”

She used some of these ideas in the story, but it evolved wayyy beyond those ideas! Hope you the finished story that resulted.


Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

SHADOWS OF THE PAST

The road sign popped up out of nowhere, the first indication of life we’d seen in countless miles of prairie. At some time in it’s past it had probably been bright green, but now it was a weathered mossy-gray. Tilting every so slightly to the right, it proclaimed, “Treasure Trove, population: 2,117.” A barely visible arrow pointed off to the right.

Looking over at my husband, Alex, I winked. “Care for an adventure?”

The driver of our air-conditioned home-on-wheels fixed me with that lovely lazy smile of his. “Why not?” (more…)