One of *those* writers

Yes, apparently I am one of *those* writers.

I’ve been working on this ghost story for Michael Knost this week, based on a plantation house in West Virginia. First, of course, I had to do a butt-ton of research because I can’t write about somewhere like Mount St. Helens or Harlan, Kentucky without knowing the place like I’d lived there…or at least visited. Unfortunately, this particular house has been closed for renovations by the Army Corp of Engineers for a number of years, and they don’t list a scheduled date for completion. Even more unfortunately, there is very, very little on the house on the internet — one site seems to just copy and paste the information from another site — I swear I read the same paragraph twelve times.

If you dig hard enough, however, you eventually stumble across something…and I did. Hidden in the bowels of some obscure archaeology archive was a half-hour video special detailing the history of the house, and what archaeologists had dug up around the house. SCORE. That, mixed with various (also repetitive) reports of paranormal activity on the site, as well as a rudimentary refresher on the Civil War, gave me a suitable enough background to write the story. It’s called “Blue and Gray & Black & Green,” and I’ll let you know more details about the anthology when I’m able.

But that’s not where I became one of *those* writers. No…that happened when I was at darts Wednesday night, scribbling out the climax of the story where the titans clash. (Well, as much as one can scribble in a Word document. Who needs napkins nowadays when one has a netbook?)  I wrote a sentence, giggled like mad over my keyboard, and then read it out loud to Della.

“She made mention of his rudeness, and how visitors in a fine house should always introduce themselves properly. And then she tore his face off.”

So yes. I am one of those writers who giggles over her keyboard.

Heaven help me.