I am not sure what possessed me to give this a try. I was not planning on writing a novel. I have a really good idea for non-fiction, and I have been waiting for some free time to work on a proposal. For some reason, though, I saw the buzz start about NaNoWriMo, and I just could not turn away. I had to sign up.
I have been playing with an idea since I signed up, and I was planning on writing a nice Middle Grade novel that expanded “The Seven Ravens,” one of the stories from The Brothers Grimm. I have always been a fan of fairy tales, and this one is not one that everyone is familiar with. I thought that would work in my favor. I’ve gotten used to the idea.
And then, yesterday morning, I found myself commenting on a blog post over at terribleminds – the type of post that fascinates me, but that I normally just read. This time I offered my take. Maybe it was because it was the early morning. Maybe it was in the spirit of the holiday. Who knows? The post asks whether or not people believe in ghosts. Here’s my comment:
I don’t know for sure that I believe in ghosts. I definitely believe in something. I am drawn to old cemeteries, and once I am there, I am compelled to stop in front of certain graves. Stories come to be about the person buried there. As soon as I walk away, I forget them – mostly. I only know about the stories because other people tell me that I’ve told them.
The creepiest experience that I had was while working on an oral history project in grad school. We were taking a tour of the county farm that we were meant to be studying, and as we stood on a hill overlooking the grounds, I found my eyes drawn to one spot in the field. It was under a tree, and I noticed that the cattle were not in that area of the field. I tried to look away several times, but my eyes were immediately drawn back to that spot. After a few minutes of pointing out distant landmarks, the guide pointed to that tree and the area below it. Turns out, there are more than 100 unmarked graves in that spot. That’s where the farms residents were buried if they had no family to claim them or the family was too poor to pay for a burial. Somehow, I knew that before he said it, just like I knew the names of some of the people who were mentioned in the stories we gathered before their names were given. It turned out that those particular people were buried in the field.
I sense things. I don’t think they’re ghosts. They’re more like memories. For a few minutes, I remember for them.
Weird, huh? I’ve never really admitted this before, either.
I even tweeted Chuck after I posted on his blog, telling him I felt like I’d just told a big secret. And then he said that it was “pretty epic” and would be the “hook of a compelling story.”
I thought about that one little comment all day long. I could see this story turning into something else. It’s not the sort of thing that I imagined myself writing, but I definitely have a lot to say on the subject. Now, I’m torn as to what I should be writing about. What do you think? Which path to follow?
Need some tips on how to make this whole NaNoWriMo thing work? Chuck’s got some thoughts on that to. Visit terribleminds.
My favorite piece of advice: “You have permission to suck – temporarily”
UPDATE: The deciding vote has been cast! I wrote a potential opening for the ghost story just now (when I should have been grading papers), and I shared it with Xe Sands, one of my Twitter friends and a very talented audiobook narrator. Her response was so positive and encouraging that I have to write it! This is what she had to say:
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