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Writer in the Garret

~ A writer living one word at a time

Writer in the Garret

Tag Archives: imagination

Beginning of the year…

09 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

imagination, inspiration

Or so it seems to me. Having spent so many years in school, September is my January and I feel a surge of possibility when it rolls around. The temperatures may still be in the eighties, but I envision digging out sweaters and jeans. I can almost smell chalk in the air and hear bells ringing to signal class changes. (Or my ears are finally going the way of all flesh.)img_2345.jpg

A few ideas are rumbling through the empty halls of my brain and I’m looking forward to exploring them. All I have to do first is pull weeds and clear out our old back porch so it can be torn down. A new porch will be built after that. Strictly speaking, that means September will be filled with all sorts of tasks that will stand in the way of writing much. But, that means the beginning of this creative year will actually be in October, a month I dearly love. So, still things to look forward to.

Watch this space.halloween-pumpkins-pd

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Has it been so long?

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

imagination, sorrow, Writing

Yeah, I guess so. Thanks to the world’s longest-running respiratory crap, the death of our beloved dachshund, Riley, and a generally bad attitude, I’ve left you all unburdened by my jaundiced point of view for far too many months.

DCIM100SPORT Riley the WonderDog

“Self,” I said to the blurry shape in the mirror this morning, “it’s time to climb back onto the horse.”

“Trite,” whispered Self.

“Self-righteous, critical bitch,” I muttered.

“I’m more of a pedant.” Self wrinkled her nose at me as I switched off the bathroom light.

Here’s the problem: My imagination has been lying in a bone-dry arroyo at the edge of a desert for a while now. Not even vultures fly over the spot anymore. But, I keep having these bizarre dreams and my long-suffering husband has described some of the things I’ve been saying while I sleep. The least embarrassing was my rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at about three in the morning. (I got all the words right.) You can take the creativity out of the writer but you can’t take the patriotism–oh, never mind.

The upshot of this situation is, I have to write whatever comes to mind, as sparse as that might be, until I stop these serenades. It’s too unsettling to think of some of the things I might say while under the influence of sleep. Hmmm, there’s the germ of a plot idea in that. Okay, I might give that some thought.

I hope all of you–the eight regulars who breathlessly await my ponderous insights–have launched upon a shiny new year. Really, I do. I’ve been in a funk long enough not to expect that for myself, but I genuinely hope you are finding life fruitful and absorbing. I hope the writers among you are producing vast quantities of clever words and compelling ideas. I hope kindness and reason fill the spaces among our thoughts so we might foster creative ideas.

My sentiments may be overdue, but they are, nonetheless, heartfelt: Happy New Year.

 

 

 

 

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October Redux and the wandering mind…

26 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en, Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

angst, imagination

I meant to give a heads up to y’all regarding last year’s post, 31 Days of Spooky Stuff leading into Halloween. (Recycling is a good thing.) Somehow the idea slipped out of my grasp. I just found it under a pile of bones in the long, dark stairway to the basement.

I have been struggling with the fourth Wisdom Court novel since summer, easily my least productive writing time of the year. Something about the plants growing in the garden, as well as insects exploring tiny jungles among trees and bushes call my attention elsewhere. And then there are birds. I’m distracted by the life happening all around me, from critters to children, and the plot points swimming around in my head spill out of my ears onto the encrusted floor.

Then comes the change. The solstice begins to build shadows in the corners, and the sun sidles south, peeking coyly over the horizon come morning, forgetting its bursting greetings in July. Leaves turn into gold coins.photodune-5768835-horse-park-ranch-in-the-fall-s

The nights turn chilly and darkness competes with light, often winning the contest. Ideas edged in fear and dread scurry for cracks in the wall, hiding themselves during the lengthening nights. The landscape shrinks and shapes become distorted.

Muddy beach and dead forest

Soon will come the mix of costumes and greed, of the somber and of fear. We will acknowledge the thin membrane between the living and the dead and we’ll gobble  candy to seal the deal.

Happy Halloween…

 

halloween-pumpkins-pd

 

 

 

 

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I’m materializing again…

23 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in books, e-books, SALE!, Wisdom Court

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

imagination

No, I haven’t died. I’ve been in a funk–what Holly Golightly called the Mean Reds. It happens sometimes: the fountain of insane notions in my head dries up and I stumble around thinking about such killer ideas as grocery lists and Things I Must Do. Also Things I Haven’t Done. Guilt stew with sad on the side.

Boring.

This time, however, I’ve sweetened the frustration pot by working on short stories–surely you saw my post about writing some set at Wisdom Court. You know, to flesh out characters, see who’s haunting whom? It’s harder than I thought (apologies to all writers of short stories) and I’ve been tripping over my pouty lower lip in the meantime. I’m almost to the point of posting one, so there’s that to force a shred of cheer into my brain.

Just moments ago I found more reasons to fight off a sense of doom: Wisdom Court Book One, Edge of the Shadow, is on sale at Amazon for 99 cents. Cheap thrills, folks, served up hot and haunting. Here’s your chance to see how the hoopla began; an opportunity to get in on the ground floor for not much money; a way to understand the ongoing cheers and applause…<crickets>   http://amzn.to/2s0hdA5

Nook Books at Barnes & Noble is upping the ante on Amazon, offering Edge of the Shadow for 99 cents, and Book Two, A Signal Shown, is selling for $1.99. http://bit.ly/2t4uXJO 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Three, All in Bad Time., is selling for $2.99.   http://bit.ly/2tDEJQy

 

Here’s your chance to revel in my three spooky novels.

 

 

I feel better now. I’m going to go polish that short story. And then I’ll write another.

Cheers!

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Walking into another story…

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Wisdom Court, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

imagination

I’m back at my computer, mind reasonably clear, determined to walk through a door of my imagination into another story. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world to let the dust settle from a completed project.

All in Bad Time, Book Three of the Wisdom Court series, came out mid-December. The customary post-partum respiratory bug took hold, and it’s taken a while to run its course.

I had a plan (see previous blog post, Happy New Year, Readers). I’ve begun three different short pieces about further events at Wisdom Court, but haven’t finished any. Yet.

Today is the day I find the words and shape the scenes. Today my characters will take life again and find the next pieces of the story.

Today.

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Happy New Year, Readers !

05 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Ghosts, Hauntings, Wisdom Court

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

imagination, winter, Writing

So I’m a little late. What are a few days among friends?

I’m trying to get my fingers moving, get my brain tumbling, get some words on the page. It’s snowy today, and very cold, so my primary impulse is to wrap up in a blanket and sip cocoa while I read what someone else has written. But what about my characters? The ones I set up a few weeks ago and left looking around, wondering what was to happen to them next. They sit there still, no voices, no ideas, no nothin’.

What I had in mind is to follow a thread about what occurs at Wisdom Court now. The three books containing the story arc I began with are now sitting on the bookshelf. (And available as e-books and trade paperbacks at Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Google, and God knows where else.)

What happens at a women’s institute when everyone there admits the place is thoroughly haunted? Sure, they found out why so many terrifying events happened, and how it all got started, but now what?

Don’t you think there would be a long line of spirits wanting their stories told? After all, the way ghosts are usually laid to rest is to find out why they’re ghosts–what evil in their lives made them hang around after they died. Who cares if that creates problems for Wisdom Court as a place where women can come spend a year working on whatever they want to do–have always wanted to do–completely supported financially and emotionally? Ghosts have rights! They deserve to have their stories told.

So the plan: provide a forum for the ghosts, pay attention to them, aid them on their way to the Other Side. Surely the women of Wisdom Court wouldn’t mind helping in their spare time. It’s true that being surprised by entities not totally in control of their abilities to communicate might be a little off-putting. Suddenly seeing an image in the mirror not belonging to the person looking at herself would cause some upset. There are worse things.

I would write the details of these encounters and perhaps collect them in an anthology at the end of the year. A noble goal, right? Well, sure, if I can get my brain functioning, my fingers typing, my will cranked up and humming.

Brrr.  It’s cold up here in my garret. I’m assuming that’s because of the snowstorm. I’m alone here except for my noble cat, Oreo. She hasn’t given any indication of other…persons…being present.

I’m going downstairs to put the kettle on for some cocoa.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 31: Happy Halloween

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Ghosts, Hallowe'en, Hauntings, Life

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

horror, imagination

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We’ve looked at many aspects of Halloween this month, most of them spooky. We’ve whistled past some graveyards, viewed some monsters born of All Hallows Eve. We’ve read a spirited story (get it?) by Denver author Douglas D. Hawk called “Moonlit Dream Girl.”

We read the story “Halloween Jack” by Christine Valentor, and better understand why we see his image everywhere on All Hallows Eve. We traveled to haunted places in the U.S. where ghosts still shift among historic buildings in CR Richards’ “Halloween Blog Hop.”

We curled up with a bag or two of Halloween candy (bought purely to sample for good quality, right?) while we watched old favorite movies that still make us shudder or give us bursts of nervous laughter.

Why is it we wish each other Happy Halloween? What does it even mean? That you hope people have fun scaring each other? That dressing in costumes will help you avoid the evil spirits out and about on Halloween night? That we’ll all get bunches of candy we shouldn’t eat to help us get to Thanksgiving? That all of us will enjoy our humanity just a little more by wearing that costume, by giving that handful of candy to a child, by remembering old magic in our cells, where it lives under our work clothes and serious expressions?

Maybe magic can be reignited by following rules learned in childhood, by showing our true identities–only for a short while–and by feasting on the food of the spirits for a night to protect us from evil.

Thanks to everyone who participated in “31 Days of Spooky Stuff.” Hope you get good candy.

You can still enter the drawing (to be held late tonight) to win signed copies of my Wisdom Court books: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

The winner of the drawing will be announced tomorrow.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 22: Werewolves a deux…

22 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in horror movies, Spooky movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

horror, imagination

were1I first saw The Wolf Man as a kid, watching it on one of Denver’s TV channels, probably presented as a “Fright Night” special. The story is basic, about a man newly returned  to his British home, at odds with his father, the lord of the manor. Lon Chaney, Jr., son of silent movie acting sensation, Lon Chaney, plays the son, Larry Talbot, as a sad outsider who soon falls victim to a nasty malady in the county: a werewolf bites him and thereafter he is forced to terrorize the area each month in search of blood. He searches for information–from the doctor, from the villagers, including the old Romani woman who finally tells him the truth. He is now a werewolf and there is no cure but death. His personal horror at what he’s become is what I best recalled  from my early viewing of the film. He fights to avoid hurting anyone, particularly the young woman who’s interested in him. He can’t connect with his father, leaving him alone with his terrible secret. It was that existential loneliness I remembered, heightened by its being filmed in black and white. Though the special effects were low-tech, the movie continues to have an emotional impact on me to this day.

wolf2

In the eighties, another werewolf movie was hot and happening: An American Werewolf in London. Two American students are backpacking across England, stopping at a Yorkshire pub for a pint. When they ask about the pentagram on the pub’s wall, the pub customers become hostile and the two leave. Warned to stay on the path across the moors, they are attacked by what appears to be a wild dog, and one of the boys is killed, the other mauled before the creature is shot. Of course, the wounded man is now a werewolf and will transform at the next full moon. Despite warnings from the shade of his dead friend, he ignores the danger. And when the full moon rises, he ends up killing six people.

Directed by John Landis, the film’s colors were garish and its special effects brilliant, especially the makeup by Kenny Baker, particularly in the transformation of the bitten man from human to werewolf. That sequence was almost nauseating in showing the biological details and the pain such a change would require. That was the most horrific thing about the story for me, the gag-inducing reaction to the sheer physicality of the process.

were5So, emotional horror as opposed to physical horror…There’s a place for both, no doubt, but I was struck, as I compared the two films, at how much more affected I was by the old black and white movie over the shiny, bloody one. I’m sure it says something about my esthetic state, but I’m damned if I know what. Both films are worth watching, especially during the month of Halloween.were3

 

Enter the Halloween drawing by commenting on the post. The prize: a signed copy of the Wisdom Court books, Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff, October 11: Three favorite Halloween decorating sites

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en, Symbols

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

imagination, trick or treat

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Halloween is coming soon. Here are several sites to give you ideas for decorating your space. Click on the links to find some clever ways to scare your friends, along with those trick-or-treaters just waiting for the night.

12 DIY decorations for a green Halloween  http://www.treehugger.com/green-home/12-diy-halloween-decorations-dont-pack-landfill-punch.html

16-easy-but-awesome-homemade-halloween-decorations-spider-web

16 Awesome Homemade Halloween Decorations  http://www.listotic.com/16-awesome-homemade-halloween-decorations/2/

05-diy-halloween-crafts-terrarium-fsl

Cheap Halloween Decorations: 12 Easy Homemade Ideas   http://www.rd.com/home/improvement/cheap-halloween-decorations/

Comment to enter the drawing on October 31. The prize is a signed copy of the Wisdom Court Trilogy, including the third volume, All In Bad Time.

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31 Days of Spooky Stuff — October 2: Haunted House

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hallowe'en, Hauntings, Wisdom Court

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

horror, imagination

552050_340069802746868_1757767987_nFor decades I’ve lived in an old three-story house in an older section of Denver. The first night I spent alone in it I was reading in bed, eyes growing heavy as the sounds of traffic and passersby ebbed. I was nearly asleep when I heard footsteps.

My husband had called me earlier that night from his father’s farm not far from Sterling, a nearly four-hour drive from the city. He was the only other person with a key to the house.

My pulse was beating loudly in my ears, muffling all other sounds. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the door, standing next to it, listening. I couldn’t hear footsteps, couldn’t hear anything really except my damned heartbeat.

Sweat broke out on my forehead as I stood there, almost feeling my ears grow larger to catch any sound. I argued with myself as to what I should do. Go out on the landing, look down to the living room, dark since I’d turned out all the lights? Call the police over just a sound? Before I could decide, I heard the footsteps again.

I knew I couldn’t just stand at the door all night. I’d swept the bedroom floor earlier, leaving the broom propped against the closet molding. Grabbing it in one hand, turning the door knob with the other, I flung open the door and clumped out into the hall. “Hello?”

I listened to the silence with every pore. Nothing.

Just as I was turning back to the bedroom, I heard voices and saw motion through the window over the landing. In the weak illumination of the apartment building behind our house I saw a man and woman climbing the stairs to the third floor. I heard their footsteps as clearly as if they walked up the stairs to where I stood.

That trick of sound has evoked fear again over the years, catching me off guard, freezing me for an instant as I make sure those steps are occurring outside the house. I just hope, if the footsteps are ever in this house, I can tell the difference.

 

Now it’s your turn to share, dear readers. Do you have favorite haunted house books or movies? Have you had a haunting–real or imagined–in your own houses? Share your comments and you’ll be entered in the Wisdom Court Sweepstakes, the prize a set of the Wisdom Court novels, including the new third book, All In Bad Time, all signed by me.

 

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