Early concept art and ideas

A ghost story is a mood (or a string of them) hopefully. If you don’t feel it, then it isn’t scary, and what’s the point? When I write, I think like a director. Yes, I’d love to see my book(s) as movies. The only reason they’re books is that I didn’t go to college to become a director (missed opportunity perhaps).

It took me a year and a half to write TPOADM because I took my time, and I cared about being proud of it when I was done. It was strange making an outline and then changing it as the story progressed. Part of writing (I didn’t know this until I tried), is putting yourself in EACH character’s position. You have to think like all of the people in the scene and figure out what they would do.

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show where you couldn’t get behind one of the character’s decisions? When that happens to me I blame bad writing. The writer was probably under a deadline, or they had to fit a show into 22 minutes or something. I hate that. For example, my first idea for TPOADM didn’t even have Holly in it–then I realized I needed more WORDS in the book and gave Tim someone to talk to.

Below are some of the “photoshop evenings” I spent trying to nail my idea of the book cover. My favorite is the second from the left, but in the end (because I could never get it just right) I went with “Mildred’s Fly Covered Neck”. There is a “neck” pic below, but I “borrowed” part of the picture from the internet and didn’t want to get caught.