Holiday Blues

When depression starts affecting your significant relationships, it's time to seek help. Especially if that depression is worse during the holiday season. And if you think your depression doesn't affect those who love you, think again.

I grew up as the child (mostly teen years) of a depressed parent who pulled something every holiday. Got to spent many Christmases by the tree alone, wondering what was going to happen next and sometimes afraid to laugh or feel the magic of the holidays because it would only anger or depress the parent more. And then of course the other parent would be too busy trying to comfort the depressed one to really be part of any festivities. I still get a twinge in my gut I hate every holiday.

So if you are depressed, do your kids and significant other a favor and try to do something about it. For your own quality of life, as well as your loved ones'. The holiday season is a time to reflect on the gifts you have, not those you might get.

Sometimes, in this economy or in an unhappy situation, it's difficult, if not impossible, to really appreciate the things that are good or those who want to enjoy the season with you and spend time with you.

Clinical depression can be selfish and we grow too focused on ourselves. But if you look hard enough you'll see something or someone good in your life. Maybe even some magic. So don't deprive others or yourself of the experience. Get help or let someone you trust help. Chances are they want nothing more for Christmas than to see you happy and have the gift of your time and presence...

The Ghost: Ghost of a Chance Part 3 (Conclusion)

Ghost of a Chance: Conclusion

Men started murmuring and women started gasping. Merry White shucked her cigarette tray and headed towards us. Miguel Epiñada, face suddenly purple, shoved his way towards the body.

I turned Angel over onto her back and saw her death stare, knew her fears had been all too real. Someone had tired of trying to persuade her to kill herself and done it for her, right in front of the Ghost.

Foam bubbled out of her mouth and her lips contorted. A sinking feeling came to my gut, as if I had just lost something I never really had.

I looked up at the gathering, seeing Miguel Epiñada peering down with a look that said his meal ticket had just taken the train. I didn't see much feeling for Angel in his eyes. Tears streamed down flapper girl's face, dripping onto her blouse and mingling with small pink stains on the material. She appeared on the verge of fainting. Joe Bodyguard had a scowl on his fat lips and was yelling something about nobody moving and killing whoever had done this to his Angel.

I avoided any contact with the foam dribbling out of Angel's mouth, since there was a slightly acrid odor I recognized. She had been poisoned, that much was obvious.

I gently placed her head on the floor and let my hand drift over her swelling eyes, to close the lids.

After I got to my feet, I went to the piano and examined the champagne glass. I waved a hand over it, wafting its scent into my nostrils. The same acrid odor.

I returned to the gathering, noting the bartender on the phone, most likely to the police.

"I demand an answer to this!" Miguel Epiñada shouted, fury on his face, now that some of the shock had worn off. "I demand to know who murdered my Angel." He said "my Angel" in the same way someone says my house or my car. Something he owned, not loved.

"I can tell you who did it," I said, looking over flapper girl, the bodyguard and Miguel Epiñada in turn. I put on the Ghost, then, and a gasp came from flapper girl, a growl from the bodyguard and not much of anything but annoyance from Epiñada.

"And who are you, sir? What connection have to my Angel?" Epiñada folded his arms, expecting an answer like he owned the world.

"I'm someone who used to care about your Angel," I answered, not because he had asked but because I needed to say something to get my own nerves under control. "Someone who perhaps still does."

"You say you…you know who did it?" asked flapper girl, tears still streaming, hands now quaking.

I nodded. "Carbolic acid—phenol—in her champagne and a lot of it."

"She was poisoned?" The bodyguard's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"She was poisoned," I said. "But the why…flapper girl can answer that better than I can."

A startled look jumped onto flapper girl's face and the tears stopped as if a spigot had been closed. "Me? How would I—"

I stepped over to her. "Phenol sometimes appears red or pinkish if it's not pure." I pointed to the pink dots on her blouse. I reached out, pulled the blouse down slightly to reveal whitish marks on her skin. "You were a trifle clumsy when you put it in her champagne. Phenol is absorbed through the skin, incidentally, causes gangrene after a while."

Horror replaced the grief on her face like a shade had been drawn. "I…I have no idea—"

"Carbolic has been sometimes used medically. You were a nurse. Your circus background might give you access to fake mediums, so I imagine you picked up some tricks. Angel told me she was hearing voices in her dressing room. The only question is, why?"

Flapper girl looked ready to deny it but a sudden flood of tears gushed and she bowed her head. Sobs wracked her body. "I…used microphones, wax recordings. I thought if I frightened her and was there to comfort her afterward…she…she would run into my arms. I loved her…" I told her so last night and she…she laughed…said I was a silly little girl. Said I should dismiss such foolish notions and find myself a man to change my ways."

"Well, that's just mighty peculiar…" came Merry's voice beside me.

"She said she had gone to see the man she was going to marry and that after this engagement she was going to find herself a new piano player." Flapper girl's head came up; makeup streaked down her cheeks. "I couldn’t live without her, don't you understand?"

Six years ago I would have understood. Now…now it just brought a sick feeling to my stomach.

Flapper girl screamed, "I never wanted to kill her but I couldn’t let anyone else have her!" She tried to make a break for it, but Joe Bodyguard grabbed her arm and held her fast. With the look on his face, I hoped there'd be something left for the police when they arrived. Miguel Epiñada seemed stunned into silence for probably the first time in his life. Outside, sirens wailed, coming closer, and I said goodbye to Angel…

***********************

Three hours later…

I sat on the divan in my brownstone, Merry's head nestled against my chest. A scratchy recording revolved on the phonograph, filling the dimly lit room with Angel's voice. I felt little of the satisfaction I usually did after wrapping up a case. When Angel died she took something of me with her, a part of my past, perhaps.

Merry sighed. "What that girl said, about Angel saying she had seen the man she was going to marry…that was you, George, wasn't it?"

"Angel always wanted something, Merry—usually only until she tired of playing with it, which never took very long."

"But if she hadn't…died…would you…?"

I knew the question on her mind: Would I have thrown her over for a beautiful torch singer with whom I obviously had a history?

I chuckled, reached up to her hair and produced a rose from midair. "Not a ghost of chance…”

The Ghost: Ghost of a Chance Part 2

Ghost of a Chance: Part 2

One hour ago…

After my senses cleared I quickly figured out Angel de la Ruse hadn't come just because some voices were terrorizing her. She had come because she had blown into town and remembered what we used to have and decided she wanted it again. At least for the moment. And what Angel wanted she usually got. Merry White figured that out a hell of a lot faster than I did and I am the one who is supposed to be the detective. But women can read other woman instantly and Angel and Merry had judged each other as competition, both promising to mark their territory.

I would have to let Angel down easy, but I was afraid she wouldn’t see it that way. She had a degree in tantrums, if I remembered correctly.

Before heading out to The Sapphire Lagoon I went down to a secret room just off the workshop in my basement. The hidden chamber, brilliantly lighted, contained the equipment I used in my outings as a detective. Because George Chance wasn't attending Angel's performance tonight—the Ghost was.

I stood in front of the three-paneled mirror and inserted small wire ovals into my nose, which elongated my nostrils and tilted the tip. I then darkened each nostril with brown pigment and used brown eye shadow to smudge the pits of my eyes. I gave my features a ghostly pallor courtesy of a powder box, then highlighted my naturally high cheekbones. Over my teeth I placed celluloid shells of old ivory. By the time I added a specially made suit and yanked a crusher hat over my blond hair I no longer looked like George Chance. I was just any other man, not especially attractive, yet nothing frightening either. At least not until I decided to pull my lips back to bear my teeth and cast a vacuous expression to bring out the Ghost.

Although I am a poor shot, I made sure my flat automatic was in place beneath the suit, which held myriad pockets stuffed with magical apparatus. Sheathed in my right sleeve I carried a double-edged throwing knife. That, I was good with.

I was ready for a haunt and by the time I got to The Sapphire Lagoon ten minutes later the place was starting to fill up. I slipped into the joint and took the three steps to the floor, selecting a table a half-dozen feet from the grand piano, atop which sat a sparkling glass of champagne. The Lagoon itself was a masterpiece in elegant blue, with royal curtains and glistening cobalt fountains spouting sapphire streams. Cigarette smoke infused with blue lighting gave the impression of floating smoky blue opals and glasses never stopped clinking.

At a glance I saw Merry White and Merry White saw me. She had wrangled herself a job last evening after I told her of my plans to help Angel. How she had done it I didn't really care to know but when it came to flirting her way into things Merry was a virtuoso. I am pretty certain the flaring white satin skirt rising eight inches above her knees and painted-on, red satin blouse that accentuated her bosom had a lot to do with it. That ten-thousand-watt personality of hers shined with each graceful step she took towards my table.

She carried a tray of cigarettes and cigars and as she reached my table she said, "Cigarettes?"

I nodded, and pulled out a billfold. "What's the lay?" I kept my voice low, and Merry glanced about, ducked her chin slightly towards the piano.

"See the girl?"

I did. She was boyish, dressed in a flapper style popular more than ten years ago, with flattened breasts under a loose blouse, a beaded headband and bobbed hair, short skirt and generously applied makeup.

"Who is she?"

"She's Angel's piano player. Spent some time as a nurse for the Stockbridge Circus, catering to trapeze artists who had ungraceful nights before landing a gig as Angel's protégé. Angel lets her chirp a number or two near the end of her first set. She's like a sister to Angel, comforts her after her frequent tantrums."

Merry took all too much pleasure in telling me that; I could see the twinkle in her sparkling green eyes.

"Next..." I didn't want to give her too much time to gloat on it.

With a flip of her dark hair Merry indicated a heavyset fellow wearing a rumpled suit and matching expression standing to the right side of the piano.

"He's Joe Pasquorelli, Angel's bodyguard. Bad one. Spent some time in prison. Rumor has it he ran some dope for Capone years back, and one of his girlfriends met with a mysterious death. He's got a thing for Angel."

"You discovered all this how?" I asked, amazed at what she'd been able to ferret in such a short period.

She winked. "Bartender has an eye for gams and honey-coated smiles."

"Oh," I said, not sure I liked that answer. "Anyway?"

Merry's eyes cut to another figure, who was leaning against the bar. The man had unkempt greying hair sorely in need of a clipping. It was wispy and hung nearly to his shoulders and he must have been looking at the underside of sixty. His suit was cut perfectly for his spidery frame and probably cost more than most men earned in a year. His gaze, narrowed, was stalking about the room like a jungle cat scouting for an antelope.

"Miguel Epiñada, a regular Svengali, from what I hear. He's Angel's manager and apparently, lover." Merry took quite a bit of joy in the emphasis she placed on that last word. It gave my stomach a twinge, but I wasn't sure why.

"Nobody with a reason for scaring our little songbird," I said, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing me react.

She shrugged, handed me change and danced off.

My eyes focused on the bodyguard, whose arms were crossed like two iron beams and whose eyes promised doom to anyone stupid enough to get in his way. I would have liked to pin him for Angel's problems but had nothing to go on other than that feeling I got around criminal types.

The tinkling notes of the piano distracted me and I saw flapper girl smiling a glowing smile as her hands glided over the keys and her eyes glowed warmly for the woman stepping from behind the blue velvet curtain.

I stifled a gasp and noticed Merry staring at me, her green eyes suddenly three shades greener because of the expression that must have been on my face at Angel's entrance.

Angel flowed like silk onto the top of the piano, swung her legs right and her shapely hips left. Her cherry-wood eyes swept over the room. I'd like to think she was looking for me.

Her blue-sequined dressed caressed her body the way men would have killed to do and its plunging neckline revealed glimpses of her ample charms. A sapphire necklace glittered liquid blue under the lights. Wisps of smoke danced around her, opal angels.

Her voice was as velvet as the curtains and the haunting lyrics of "Little Girl Blue" could have melted a glacier. She looked right at me when she sang it, though I doubt she recognized me. She did not know me as the Ghost; only six others did and of them only Merry White was at the Lagoon tonight.

I watched, mesmerized, feeling the same pangs of the yearning I had six years ago, but with age and wisdom knowing better than to let myself get too lost. I was here for a reason, to discover who was trying to frighten her and why. That meant I needed to get back stage, and with King Kong standing near the piano that might take some magic.

Angel finished her song, then took a long drink of her champagne while flapper girl tinkled the keys and Mr. Svengali eyed Angel like she was a gold-plated Stutz Bearcat. Angel made a peculiar face, glanced at her glass, then at flapper girl, who shrugged. Angel set the glass down and slid off the piano, wavering a second, then gaining control of herself.

She began to sing, the beginning lyrics to "Ghost of a Chance" unearthing something silky inside me. No one sang that song the way she did. But her voice seemed…

It was hard to put into words but something had changed from her previous song; something in her dulcet tones had cooled. A few moments later, at the end of the song, they became downright shaky.

An instant later she doubled over, clutching her stomach. I was out of my chair before I knew it, but even then it was too late. Angel hit the floor with a sound only the dead can make.

The Ghost: Ghost of a Chance Part 1

For the next few days, I’ll be serializing a short story I wrote for an aborted anthology a couple years back. It stars the pulp character The Ghost, George Chance, a magician detective (who later became The Green Ghost). When he went into crime-solving mode he “put on the ghost”, eerie make-up to make him more intimidating to crooks. The Ghost/Green Ghost didn’t last as long as some other pulp heroes, but he was an interesting character. So travel back to the early 1940s and help the pulp’s hauntingest sleuth solve a murder…

GHOST OF A CHANCE

Angel de la Ruse had the most stunning cherry-wood eyes, even in death. But the way she sightlessly stared up at me as I knelt by her side would haunt me until the day I joined her in the grave.

And a ghost is not easily haunted.

My name is George Chance and I am a magician by leisure, detective by choice. But I'll fill in the details later. Right now all that mattered was the dead woman lying before me and my failure to prevent her untimely demise.

People were gathering around us in the Sapphire Lagoon, forming a circle of horrified faces and widened eyes. One woman let out a shriek that rattled my spine, then promptly fainted, only to be caught by a fellow wearing a Marley Brooks suit. To tell you the truth, I was relieved she'd fainted, because another scream like that and I would have become a lot more unnerved than I was already…

***********************

Twenty-eight hours ago…

I probably should have expected trouble when I heard the rap on the door of my brownstone. Trouble has a way of finding me, especially since retiring from my life as a revue magician to "dabble" in mystery and detection. I run the New York School of Magic in my spare time, having made a fortune in prestidigitation, but when the opportunity arises I lead a double life, one where I aide New York's finest as a figure the underworld fears and reviles, a being called the Ghost.

The knock sounded again, a trifle more insistent, so I extricated myself from the divan and headed to the door.

I was right: trouble perched on my doorstep, the kind of trouble that made men's legs go weak and their minds surrender any semblance of common sense.

"Well, are you going to invite me in, or just leave me standing out here catching my death?" asked the raven-haired beauty poised on my stoop.

I should have left her standing out there, but chivalry got the better of me.

She brushed past me, walking over to the divan and nearly knocking over the vase holding a red rose that sat on a small table with a sweep of her chinchilla coat. No, that wasn't quite accurate. Angel de la Ruse didn't walk, she sashayed. The woman carried herself with a confidence that made men turn handsprings and women glare green-eyed murder. But, if I recalled correctly, that confidence was a veneer she painted on when she needed it.

I left the door open a crack because it suddenly felt a hell of a lot warmer in the room than it had a moment before. When I turned to her she swept back the folds of her fur coat to reveal a form-fitting emerald dress that made my mouth hang open.

"Well, what do you think?" She winked. My legs almost buckled. "Still the same old Angel?"

I tried a smile and struggled to walk straight as I came over to her. "You've filled out…" I am not sure why I said it but couldn’t think of anything else.

She laughed that airy little laugh of hers I remembered from our time together six years ago. She'd briefly worked in my act, but had quickly outgrown it—and me. I'd kept up with her career, even owned her phonograph record.

"It's been a long time, George," she said. I could suddenly see something in her cherry-wood eyes, eyes that used to turn my legs to syrup and my heart to jelly, that belied the self-assured air she affected.

Indeed, trouble had come to my door.

I gave her a small laugh I hoped sounded nonchalant. "I never expected to see you on my doorstep again, Angel."

She smiled a honey smile. "I'm singing at the Sapphire Lagoon tomorrow. I was hoping you'd be able to come. I'll sing 'Ghost of a Chance'…just for old time's sake."

I studied her face, which wasn't easy considering the tightness of her dress and the diamonds that dripped from the necklace caressing her olive throat. Something was wrong. She was here for more than simply inviting an old friend to a torch performance.

"What is it, Angel? What's wrong?"

She chuckled but the sound came without any humor. "You always could read me, George, couldn't you?"

"I thought so, up until the night you left without a word." Was that bitterness in my tone? I believe it might have been.

"Oh, that." She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. I remembered that gesture only too well. I still despised it. Everything had always revolved around Angel and the feelings of others came secondary to whatever she desired at the moment.

"I got over you."

Her laugh was more sincere this time. "Did you really?"

"I'm engaged." Now my tone was a trifle defensive and I didn't like that. Merry White, my fiancé, wouldn't have liked it, either.

"How nice for you." She paused, her cherry-wood gaze sweeping the room, then landing back on me. It was smoldering. It always was when she wanted something. "You're right, George. I did come for another reason. Lately…well, lately things have been happening. I need your help."

"Things?" I was a bit puzzled. Angel wasn't the type to ask for help from anyone. She was too used to extracting it through other means, mostly her womanly charms.

"I think something's after me, George, trying to frighten me to death."

"You'll have to explain, Angel. I'm feeling a little confused this evening."

She smiled and let her long finger nails drift over her diamond necklace to a spot just below between her breasts. "I imagine you are." The smile went away and fear replaced it. Not much about Angel was genuine but that fear was.

"I have been hearing voices, in my dressing room, sometimes in my hotel rooms."

"Voices?" Angel had a great many things lurking beneath her surface; insanity wasn't one of them.

"They tell me to do things, George. To kill myself, mostly, but they say other things, too. Sometimes they simply try to frighten me. I think I am being haunted."

"Sounds like a doctor might better serve you than I," I said, before I could stop myself. I didn't mean it, but Angel always had a way of making me say things I didn't mean. That had not changed in six years.

"I'm not crazy!" An edge formed on her voice capable of slicing a man in two. "I do hear them George. I hear them after every performance. Someone is trying to hurt me, destroy my career. When I arrived here in town I remembered the way you use to expose those fake mediums in your shows sometimes. I thought—"

"That you could simply step back into my life and make me do tricks, the way you did six years ago."

The look that crossed her cherry-wood eyes was not one you'd want to see twice, but it softened an instant later. "It's not like that now, George. I was young, then, I wanted to experience the world."

"Did you?"

"It experienced me..." Sadness crept into her voice and I might have actually believed then she was sincere. It was hard to tell with Angel and the years might have only made her a better actress. "Please say you'll come, George. I really want you to. I need you to hear those voices and stop them."

I did something silly then. I suppose I couldn't help myself, but it was something I used to do when I knew her. I reached up to the side of her raven hair and produced a rose from thin air, then handed it to her. I hoped she hadn't seen me palm it from the vase on the table next to me, since a stem's not the easiest thing to hide.

She smiled and accepted the rose, sniffed it, gazed at me with those eyes again and before I knew it I promised her I would be there.

"Seven o'clock," she said and started to step past me with her rose, but stumbled. I caught her and the feeling of her body in my arms…well, it was right up there with expensive Fleming brandy.

Women think men don't catch on when they pull the tripping trick, knowing that they'll catch them. But men do know. They simply don't care, because playing hero and holding the prize is all that counts.

She kissed me, then, her lips as soft and sweet as velvet wine. I almost lost the rest of my senses but pushed her back and set her on her feet before that could happen.

"Well, don't we all just have a nice case of the cozies…" a perturbed voice came from behind me. I cranked my head to see Merry White standing in the doorway, her expression matching her tone.

I grinned what could only be called sheepishly and from the corner of my eye I caught the look of challenge on Angel's face. Angel stepped by me, then brushed past Merry, who'd taken two steps into the room. Angel raked Merry with a dismissing gaze, then glanced back to me.

"We had something once, George. I'm sure we could again…" With that, she left, but her ghost might as well have stayed in the room.

Merry locked her arms together and started tapping her foot. I had the feeling the rest of the evening was going to be a long one.

Western Wednesday: The Ride Continues…

Hope to announce some pretty cool Western news soon. I’m pretty excited about it and I hope Western fans will be, too.

Well, the ride continues. After a week, the first draft of the new Western novel is complete and I am onto the second, about 70 pages in. Writing a novel draft in a week is nothing unusual for me. I have done it for 32 Black Horse Westerns so why change that habit now? I find if I can’t do that, the energy of that first draft suffers. I need that or get bored. It’s my clay, a sculpture in a vague shape of a saddle that eventually I carve into the fine detailed rig of a novel. I know who my players are now pretty definitely. After all, they told me along the way. I couldn’t stop them. They got spurs that jingle jangle and I just tag along for the ride.

The second draft is the difficult one for me. Ok, the first is difficult too but in a different way. The second is where the critical editor takes over from the happy go lucky creator. Every word starts looking like utter cowflop and I doubt myself, to the extent that I feel the whole book is one long stream of incoherent horse talk.

That settles down in the third and fourth drafts, but for now I hate the book and nearly every word in it. Of course, though we love them, we hate our kids sometimes, don’t we? This book is a kid in its teen years. Can’t wait to get it out of the house.

This is the part of writing I find no fun at all, but that’s ok. Because the moment you have the thing done that all changes and the sense of accomplishment (read: relief) takes over. Then of course, you have to saddle up and do it all over again…

My name is Chloe Everson…and I kick demon ass…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com and www.amazon.com

Western Wednesday: Writing Saddle

In a welcome bit of news from Robert Hale, Ltd., publishers of the Black Horse Western line (as reported by Keith Chapman’s Black Horse Extra), the company has decided to launch ebook editions of some of their books, beginning in January, 2011. Included in that release will be a Black Horse Western bundle of four novels, in various electronic formats. They will sell for a nice price, and later the line will grow to include individual titles. It’s great news not only for the writers of these fine books, but for readers and the Western in general. So all you truckers out there fire up your Kindles and Nooks and get ready to ride!

So over the past weekend I took the plunge and started writing my 33rd Black Horse Western. Most trepidation at not having done one for a bit over a year vanished the moment I typed the opening line. That’s the thing about writing. Once you start, it opens the floodgates. Words pour out (ok, not always, because sometimes the evil writer block gnomes taunt you), scenes whirl through your head and characters start doing what they damn well please.

I’ve put 22,000 words on it in about four days, reached a point where one of my characters told me they did not want to go the way I planned for them to go, and have to retool a bit. Fatigue starts to set in when reaching that middle territory, a few niggling doubts, a few prayers for the end to come soon. These things happen. The ride is a familiar if not always comfortable one. That’s what being a writer is. If you’re going to climb onto that hoss, best be ready for some bumps along the way. In the end, though, you get where you wanted to go and experience that feeling of exhilaration of riding the open word range. The hero has undergone change of some sort, maybe good, maybe bad, and the bad guys have learned the cactus of crime sticks you in the britches.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my mount’s waiting. My characters have places to go, showdowns to conduct. I can’t leave them waiting. I wouldn’t want them to get any more ideas about how to stray from my plot…

My name is Chloe Everson…and I kick demon ass…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com and www.amazon.com

Terrror Tuesday: More Movie Mayhem

It’s Terror Tuesday and we descend farther into the depths of the Pure Terror DVD set. It’s a bump in the night ride this, the good, the bad, and the worse.

#1 The House that Screamed. 1969. Something strange is going on at a French finishing school. Girls are said to be running away after objecting to the headmistresses often strict and beyond punishments. Obviously I know very little about this type of school because the girls all shower with clothes on…bummer. This is actually a pretty good movie overall and an interesting commentary on alternate ways to find the perfect girl.

#2 Death Warmed Up. 1984. I assume this is the Aussie expression equivalent of death warmed over, because this movie is like week-old leftovers. Didn’t make it far in and it’s becoming a pattern that whenever a movie in this set lists a production date of anywhere in the 1980s it means it is going to be horrible instead of horror. Tie this kangaroo down, sport…

#3 Frankenstein ‘8o. 1972. Ba-ba-ba-bad! Transplanted organs and serums, awful acting, terrible writing and just about everything else. Another I got 15 minutes into and couldn’t choke down anymore. Boris Karloff would be turning over in his grave.

#4 The House by the Cemetery. 1981. This one is passable, a little gruesome and reminded me of The Amittyville Horror in a passing way. Of course, some rental office is always trying to pawn off the house nobody else wants because the survival rate is distressingly low. And there’s a cemetery in the front yard, so who’d ever think anything untoward and grisly would be going on there anyway? Is it my imagination or do the actors in this movie have the slowest and oddest reactions to anything happening? At one point the wife complains how strange the new babysitter is…then promptly leaves her five-year-old with her all day. Comes home to discover the sitter nowhere to be found and the kid alone in the house and doesn’t even blink or react.

#5 Death in the Shadow. 1985. Dutch, dubbed and dreadful. Ten minutes of this was enough for me. A young woman searches for her real parents after her “mother” is killed by a hit and run driver. I decided to search for a real movie.

#6 The Embalmer. 1965. Italian. Takes place in Venice where young woman are vanishing, snatched by a guy in a diving suit and dragged beneath the canal waters. Want the perfect woman who stays beautiful forever? Well, kill her, fill her veins full of a special embalming fluid and stick her in a glass case. No nagging, aging or menopause and you never have to take out the trash. Of course the non-responsive sex is a problem…watchable. nothing great.

#7 The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave. 1971. Ah, murder and mammaries, who could ask for more? Seems an English Lord has a bit of a thing for busty red-heads who remind him of his dead wife and likes to bring these titillating tarts to his castle for wine and whips. Then something bad happens. Really bad. But is the Lord going insane or truly seeing his dead wife’s ghost? Is he a wanton killer or merely misunderstood? Not a bad movie, actually, decent twist at the end. Transfer’s a bit choppy/blurry but always a nipple to perk things up when the going gets slow…

My name is Chloe Everson…and I kick demon ass…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/

Western Wednesday: Climbing Back into the Saddle…

This month sees the publication of my 32nd Lance Howard Black Horse Western, The Killing Kind, for Robert Hale, Ltd. but I wrote the novel more than a year ago. I’ve taken a bit of time away from the genre to work on a number of pulp- and comic book-related projects, writing short stories, novelettes, scripts and editing anthologies. So I was a bit tentative to sit back in the saddle and grab the plot reins again this week. After all, after 32 books, would I be able even to think of a new plot, make it fresh in some respect—not to mention novels are hard work. Not that short stories, scripts and editing aren’t, but the novel is an entity unto itself. If the short story is a one night stand, the novel is a committed relationship.

But after a few initial butterflies, I found that worn spot in the saddle and half a plot poured out. Ah, easy peasy, just grab the reins and ride, ride, ride…

Um, not so fast, pard. Lulled by the soothing siren song of an easy first half of a plot, the next day I again climbed into the saddle, grabbed the reins, said giddy-up…and fell off the horse. Everything I tried struck me as retread. Then there were the sudden mind blanks and the nervous “oh-oh, where does the hero go from here and how does he get to there?” Getting in the saddle was not so bad, staying there was another thing altogether.

But alas it came together—mostly—and now I am faced with the scary thought of actually writing the damn thing. I’ve got my title, my main characters, my characters’ motivations, my loose trail map so I know where I want to end up. But whether you’ve written one or a hundred books, there’s always those moments (sometimes days or weeks) of self-doubt. Can I pull it off? Will I get bored halfway through and everybody will know it when they read it I hired a monkey to complete the manuscript? Will every word look like cow chips?

Yep, little dogey, it’s fun to get back on the trail. Well, maybe “fun” isn’t quite the right word. But it’s what writers do and I dare say if the fear wasn’t there starting out it would be time to quit. Complacency and over confidence have no place in western writing—in ANY kind of writing. Because that’s what makes a writer dig deeper, push through limits and do the best they can do.

So as they say in the oaters—let’s ride!

My name is Chloe Everson…and I kick demon ass…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com and www.amazon.com