Lynn Kelley, Author

Last week’s post featured Ma looking strange and goofy, but far from macabre. Now this creepiest storyteller in cyberspace looks the part as she tells Cyclops Clyde, first short story in Trio of Haunting Tales. 

As you can see, it’s almost 7 minutes long. Let’s face it, many of you are short on time. If you’re in a rush, I hope you’ll keep Cyclops Clyde in mind for upcoming Halloween gatherings. It’s a fun, scary tale for kids.

Teachers – Please Note: This story is a good tool for teaching alliteration.

It’s been a heck of a week dealing with a big honkin’ monkey wrench, and I’m way behind in everything. So much for trying to tie up all those loose ends before my new grandbaby, Punkin, makes his/her big debut into our wonderful, wild and wacky world. Any day now. (Told you last week I’m on an alliteration kick!)

In the meantime, I’ll try to catch up with everyone’s blogs.

One last thought: I realize many kids don’t like spooky stories, but it seems like most of them do. Do you? Why do you think kids like scary stuff?

Would you believe I’m a big scaredy cat? Yep. There’s got to be a bit of humor in order for me to deal with that stuff!

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’m a cyberspace-cadet. I warned you in my profile. Back when I was a court reporter, I had to hide my kooky side and present myself as a professional.

Here, in my little corner of the web, I’m taking a huge risk by exposing my quirkiness. It could all blow up and I’ll have to dig a black hole to crawl into.

I hope you’ll bear with me as I share another vlog with you. It’s out takes of the first attempt to read my short story, “Cyclops Clyde.” I named the storyteller Ma Cob, but she wasn’t spooky looking at all, just weird, and needed an overhaul.

I’ll post that one next week, and that’ll be the last vlog I do for a while because my new grandbaby (nicknamed Punkin since we don’t know the sex yet) will be arriving in a week! I’m trying to contain my excitement. Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?

Anyway, here’s the first version of Ma Cob. The stupid hairdo wore me out. By the time I started recording, I was tired, tongue tied, and kept messing up. Over and over. The whole thing would have been a waste of time, except for a few silly out takes that might put a smile on your face.

Three wonderful blogger buds gave me awards.

On 6–29-11, Margo Berendson of Writing at High Altitude awarded me the Versatile Blog Award & the Irrisistibly Sweet Award, but she changed the questions and credits the Fantastic Book Reviews blog as the source of the questions.

On 6-30-11, Nutschell of The Writing Nut awarded me the Irrisistibly Sweet Award also, in which I’m supposed to list seven things about myself.

Then Gracie of I Am Writer…Hear Me Roar!, a teen blogger from Canada, surprised me with an award by listing my blog as one of her favorites. She didn’t notify me. I found out while reading her post, and she left it up to each blogger to decide whether they wanted to accept the award or not. I thought that was a cool idea.

I’m combining these awards. Let’s name it the Sweet’N’Versatile Blog Award. I’ll answer Margo’s questions, which pretty much cover the seven things about myself that Nutschell’s award calls for.

Before I answer the questions, I’d like to put in a plug for Margo, Nutschell, and Gracie. Check out their blogs. Each is unique in their own right.

So here are the questions and my answers:

1. If you were given a chance to travel back in time, what year or place would you go?

I LOVE time travel stories. This was hard to answer.  I finally decided on the Roaring ’20s, in a big city like New York or Los Angeles. I learned the Charleston in junior high. It would be a blast into the past to try my hand and feet as a flapper. I’d also like to check out a speakeasy. Did they sell beer & wine, too? I can’t stand the taste of whiskey. Blech!

2. Describe your writing work-in-progress in seven words or less.

Edgy. Teens. First love. Summer 1971. Betrayal.

My favorite book is The Good Earth. As far as my favorite fictional crush, I’m kind of old to be crushing on a teen, but if I was young again, it would have to be Peeta from The Hunger Games, my second all-time favorite book. Peeta’s a genuinely nice guy, and I bet he’s got hunky muscles!

4. If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be? And why?

I guess I’m a glutton for punishment because I’d pick O-Lan from The Good Earth. Her character captures the epitome of an indomitable spirit.

5. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see play the role as you?

I’m stumped. Any goofball comedienne will do.

Quirky, mediator, nurturing, spiritual, loyal, unorganized.

I’m passing the Sweet’N’Versatile award on to some of my favorite bloggers, and I’m pulling a Gracie and not notifying them, but will let them be surprised when they read their names. And it’s their choice whether or not they want to accept the award and pass it on:

Kristen Lamb’s Blog – Author of the best-selling book “We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media.” She’s overcome unbelievable odds to get where she’s at. No whining or feeling sorry for herself. She persevered and succeeded. Now she shares invaluable tips with us.

Gene Lempp – His Designing From Bones series, “where we use archaeology and the artifacts of human history to find and design stories.” In each post he leads us on fantastic adventures and offers us some awesome writing prompts. I highly recommend these posts to teachers to use in their classrooms. He also shares weekly links to Blog Treasures he’s found.

Ellie Ann – “Navigating Through the Week.” I just started following her blog, but she has a variety of topics, has a humorous voice, and a great imagination. Her Tall Tales Tuesday posts are hilarious as she weaves tall tales about other bloggers who leave a comment saying they’d like to be in the next Tall Tales post.

Haley Whitehall, Historical Fiction Author – She just redesigned her blog and needs her old followers to sign up again. If you’re a history buff, you’ve got to follow this blog. She also started a new Twitter hashtag for history buffs, #lightonhistory, where writers can meet up, help each other with research, and share their WIPs.

Writing YA and Other Things I Love – StephaniePQW has been working hard designing the breastplate for the model to wear for an authentic-looking cover pic for her novel about ancient Nubia. It will debut in February. She’s looking for new blogger friends, so I hope you’ll follow her journey toward publication.

Heather Kelly of Edited to Within An Inch of My Life. She’s so thoughtful and helpful to newbies.  Right now she’s hosting the Tour de Writing. This contest is actually helping me accomplish my writing goals, plus she’s offering some cool prizes to the winners.

Laura Pauling of Exercising the Write to Ramble. Lately her posts have been covering changes taking place in the publishing industry. She’s hooking us up with some informative links, and she’s getting lots of interesting feedback in the comments.

There are a lot of other blogs I follow and thoroughly enjoy, but I could only list a few. So I’ll leave each of you this question, and I hope you’ll share your answer in the comments:

If you could be a character in a fictional story, whether in a book or a movie, who would you be, and why?

On Friday, July 22, the mercury in Newark, NJ reached a record-breaking 108 degrees. I just heard on the Weather Channel that Abilene, TX is on their 47th day of triple-digit temperatures, and the forecast predicts temps of over 100 the rest of the week. Yikes!

Are you one of those rare people who love the heat? Or are you like me? I turn into a zombie. My brain feels so fried, I can barely put a thought together, let alone compose a sentence.

In June I went to Laughlin, Nevada with my mom on the senior citizen bus. The stingy slots forced us back to Room 1632 by 8:30 p.m., where a series of strange events played out.

“Sounds like an alarm clock,” Mom said.
“Sounds like a ticking bomb to me,” I said.

Most of the seniors from the bus were on our floor. Was the sound coming from some kind of health gadget? Perhaps a life-saving machine? We turned up the TV and waited for the noise to stop. It didn’t.

Never mind that our bathroom sprung a leak. Actually, it was more like a waterfall pouring from the seam of a rectangular panel in the ceiling.

Never mind that the engineer the hotel sent up to investigate the leak couldn’t hear the ticking sound. As soon as he knocked on the door, it stopped. “It’s probably the wind,” he said.

“No, it’s not the wind,” I told him. “It’s ticking and sounds mechanical.”

Never mind that the leak was fixed (broken overflow valve in the tub of the room above us) and that the second engineer who cleaned up the leak blamed the ticking on the wind, too. “Although sometimes in the summer we get complaints of ticking sounds when it’s raining. But it’s not raining now.”

No duh.

Never mind that when I asked the engineer what that rectangular-shaped panel in the ceiling was, he informed me it was just the AC unit.

Just the AC unit?

Never mind that I worried about water getting into the electrical AC unit and that a fire might break out or that a bomb might explode and blow us to smithereens.

Never mind that we tried our best to ignore the ticking, even though it got louder and louder and I wanted to scream.

Never mind that Mom called Room 1634 and asked the nice lady to please turn off whatever was ticking in her room.

Never mind that the nice lady said she had nothing ticking and the only sound she heard was from the elevators, which were next to her room.

We wondered how the lady’s room could be next to the elevators when our room was next to them, and when it dawned on us that the elevators were in between the lady’s room and ours, Mom ran into the hallway to check the number on the next room. It was #1630 and she had called #1634.

Never mind that the nice man who answered in Room 1630 said he had no machines running in his room, but he couldn’t sleep either because of the constant tapping on his window.

Never mind that we checked the windows and there was nothing out there. No trees (we were up too high). No birds (no ledge to perch on). No wind. No rain.

Never mind that once we decided there was no way we’d ever get any sleep with that noise, we called for another engineer to come up and put an end to the incessant ticking. Again, the noise stopped as soon as he knocked, and we worried that no one would believe us. Boy, were we relieved when he said it was no problem to move us to another room.

“Can you be ready in, say, 15 minutes?”

Mom and I looked at each other. “Um, no, I don’t think we can be ready that soon,” I said.
“How about 20 minutes?” he asked.
Mom looked hesitant.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“How about 30?”
We smiled. “Sure. We can be ready in 30 minutes.”

As soon as he was out the door, we scrambled to throw our clothes and toiletries into our suitcases and were ready in five minutes. We sat on our beds listening to the ticking until the bell boy arrived to show us to our new room.

The bell boy wasn’t able to hear the ticking sound either. He told us that there were rumors of hauntings in the hotel.

Hmm, that would certainly explain why the ticking stopped every time someone knocked, plus the hotel was old enough to have a history of ghosts.

Never mind that we pulled our suitcases down the hall at 1:30 a.m. in our pajamas. Mom wanted to change out of her nightgown, but I assured her that it looked like a summer dress, so she put a sweater on to hide the spaghetti straps. I threw a sweatshirt on and figured my capri PJ pants looked like a summer outfit, too.

No more ticking! Peace and quiet. Sleep at last. Zzzz . . .

I can’t say we woke up refreshed. The ticking sound was now a nagging mystery. How could it ever be solved?

I believe I finally found the answer. Tune in to my next post and I’ll share my thoughts.

All in all, it was quite a strange experience, and I felt like Mom and I were players in a sitcom or stooges in a hidden camera show.
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Do you ever find yourself in real life situations that feel like a scene in a movie, a book, or a play? What was it, and did it spark ideas for your writing?