Last night, I took a rare break to watch TV and watched American Haunting with Rick. The episode was about a guy that bought a haunted car. Problem was, the spirit attached to him. The wife insisted on destroying the car, which they did (amongst much drama) but the haunting continued. Nobody could figure out what the problem was. Turns out, he saved some parts from the car and hid them in the garage. I thought, you total and complete idiot. Getting rid of that spirit is like the clearance sale at K-Mart: everything must go. You've gotta crunch the spare parts too. And when a "cleanser" gave him a Circle of Solomon to wear to ward off more spirits (because he became a target through his "spare parts") I thought yea, forget that thing one day and you're back at square one. Crunch the spare parts and get some rock salt, since you seem to be a "Welcome" sign for demons.
How do I know so much about spirits and hauntings? From writing Anywhere But Here and Resonance. Both of those stories included enchanted objects, so I had to research how it happened, and how to get rid of it. Or, in the case of Resonance, how to make it somebody elses' problem.
It's amazing what you learn from writing. You pick up all kinds of fun facts that are only good for your writing. Well, in the case of writing mystery with urban fantasy and sci-fi, you hope it's only good for your writing. I hope I don't have to lay any demon traps anytime soon, although I'll admit that I've had to deal with some people that make me wonder if I need to run for the spray paint or amulets. I've thought it. Haven't done it, but thought it, definitely.
And one more thing: if you think, well they just need to find Jesus - you're right; and you're wrong. People of faith have the biggest targets on their head. If you're faith isn't true or iron clad, you're no better off than anybody else. And if you just use faith as "fire insurance" (as my Sunday School teacher likes to put it), you're the bullseye. Good goobly goo, people stay away from you for a reason. We don't want to be in the line of fire of that. Which reminds me, I had a devil's trap that some friends gave me from Salem, Massachusetts and I need to find that thing. I lost it during our last move.
How do I know so much about spirits and hauntings? From writing Anywhere But Here and Resonance. Both of those stories included enchanted objects, so I had to research how it happened, and how to get rid of it. Or, in the case of Resonance, how to make it somebody elses' problem.
It's amazing what you learn from writing. You pick up all kinds of fun facts that are only good for your writing. Well, in the case of writing mystery with urban fantasy and sci-fi, you hope it's only good for your writing. I hope I don't have to lay any demon traps anytime soon, although I'll admit that I've had to deal with some people that make me wonder if I need to run for the spray paint or amulets. I've thought it. Haven't done it, but thought it, definitely.
And one more thing: if you think, well they just need to find Jesus - you're right; and you're wrong. People of faith have the biggest targets on their head. If you're faith isn't true or iron clad, you're no better off than anybody else. And if you just use faith as "fire insurance" (as my Sunday School teacher likes to put it), you're the bullseye. Good goobly goo, people stay away from you for a reason. We don't want to be in the line of fire of that. Which reminds me, I had a devil's trap that some friends gave me from Salem, Massachusetts and I need to find that thing. I lost it during our last move.
But demons aren't all that I've researched. Did you know that genies are actually based on an Islamic spirit called the djinn? There are many theories of where they came from. Some sourses said they're the "fallen third" that went down with the devil during pre-creation times. Others say they were created before humans and were banished to what I can best call a "parallel universe" because God thought humans and djinn couldn't play well together. Turns out, not all of the djinn likes humanity. Some did and wanted to help and others didn't and wanted to cause problems. Now they slip through the cracks of the worlds, granting wishes at the price of your soul. Oh no, genies aren't the cutsie things you saw on Aladdin. The djinn episode of Supernatural is more on target. They grant your wish at a horrible price. Think the story The Monkey's Paw, by W.W. Jacobs. Move mixes the good with the bad, and adds the ignorance of the protagonist and the deception of the antagonist in the mix, but I'll leave it to the reader as to whether I went more or less sinister than Jacobs with this work. I'll say this much - it ended differently than I expected. But the ending, in a sick and sad sort of way, worked.
All of my research isn't about the supernatural, though. I thought I was fairly up on technology, until I wrote Blurry. Boy, did I learn a lot. For example, there's no way to keep up with it. I believe memory capacity is actually required to increase to a certain degree every year or two. I also knew that cell phones weren't secure long before the NSA leak scandal broke. Anybody can track you anywhere through cell phones. And as for my knowledge of firearms, this is where it started: I had to research guns for a scene in this novel. Did you know that most "amateurs" with guns usually go for handguns, but shotguns actually have better accuracy? 9 mm is pretty common, and it's generally easier for everybody to handle. Don't believe that the smaller millimeter is easier to handle, either, because a .32 or a .380 can blow your hand off. And a revolver of any caliber has a heck of a recoil. Semi-automatics are generally easier on the hands because they absorb some of the recoil from the shots.
Sci-fi can teach you a thing or two as well. For example, many of you know that I wrote my upcoming sci-fi novel, Splinter, a few years ago when I was going through a spell where I was disgusted with pretty much all of life. I was so angry that I wanted to destroy the world, so I did it through writing Splinter during National Novel Writing Month in November 2010. Well, it turns out that destroying the world isn't quite so easy. I'm glad I started planning that novel well ahead of time, because it took me 6 months and a doomsday plot to pull it off. I had to move Heaven and Earth to, well, destroy Earth. For all of you that think the planet is fragile, that's total crap. This is a tough old rock. For all of our problems, I think we're more likely to destroy humanity than we are to destroy the planet. We could all be gone and this world would keep on going. Honestly, we're studying the Book of Revelation in Sunday School right now, and I think that's exactly what it's going to take to take the world down. It's going to require supernatural intervention in systemically breaking us from the top down. The only natural thing that could scorch the planet is the sun going nova. That's how much it's going to take. Yes, we need to take care of the planet, but destroying it? I'm skeptical. We can break it, but we can't annihilate it. Not by our hand. Splinter is coming through Whiskey Creek Press in November.
Yes, it's amazing what you can learn from writing. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction - and sometimes it isn't.
That's all today. I hope you have a great week.
Bye!
Yes, it's amazing what you can learn from writing. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction - and sometimes it isn't.
That's all today. I hope you have a great week.
Bye!
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