Weekly Blog November 4th, 2018: Ghost Stories

Hello Internet!

I hope everyone had a great week and had a wonderful Halloween. Spooky month is over, but I’m not done with it yet. I know, I know! It’s November. It’s basically Christmas. But not yet. I refuse to give in to the impeding Christmas creep that happens every year when Halloween ends. It’s November and it’s fall so I’m going to continue to celebrate that. Christmas has its time and that time is December. Sorry to start that with a mini-rant, but I just want to preface this Weekly Blog with that because I’m going to talk about more spooky stuff. Yeah October is over, but we can still be spooky. Anyway, let me diverge from that for a minute and talk about what I published this week here on the website. Last Sunday I published a Weekly Blog about Carving Pumpkins. I talked a little bit about the tradition and my personal connection to Jack-O-Lanterns and my memories of carving them. You can read all about it if you want to continue to ride the wave of Halloween emotions. On Wednesday I published some Two Word Horror Stories for Halloween instead of a regular Poem. You can also read my first round of Two Word Horror Stories that I published last Halloween if you need some more Horror in your life. On Friday, I published an Image Prompt Piece titled The Witch’s Cabin. It’s a short story following one man who is cursed and seeking a witch to help him. Honestly I didn’t think much of it, but everyone seemed to really like it so I guess I have to make some kind of sequel in the upcoming weeks. It makes me really happy when all of you like my stuff, so thanks for making my day. Finally, on Saturday, I published the tenth chapter of my Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Fanfiction titled Pokémon HGSS#10: Legend Of The Brass Tower. Jonathan, Beatrice, and new friend Zuki are all reading over to the burned ruins of The Brass Tower to hear about the legend of the Brass Tower and The Legendary Beasts. They also run into a certain red-haired rival, so go ahead and give that a read if you haven’t already. So that’s everything that I’ve published this week. If you have read them, great! If not, go ahead and give them a read. Or maybe give them a second or third read. I won’t complain.

Now let’s talk about a spooky subject that I didn’t get to talk about during the month of October: Ghost Stories. Now I’ll start this by saying that my dad is really into ghost stories and learning about haunted places. My Grandma and him will watch those Ghost Hunter shows on television while I’m in the back making fun of shows like that. I don’t think all people interested in paranormal things are like the people on those horribly scripted shows, so I don’t hold Ghost Hunters against anyone who believes in ghosts. I understand those aren’t exactly parallels. For me, I just don’t believe Ghost Stories or really in ghosts. I’m no expert on what happens after we die and maybe ghosts do exist, but I’ve just never seen real proof that ghosts are real and are haunting us. I guess there’s a faith-like element when it comes to believing in things like ghosts and I just don’t have it. Plus don’t ghosts have better things to do? Like in Horror Movies. ghosts always torment families and knock things off shelves and stack chairs or whatever. That just seems super boring to me. I feel like if I was a ghost, I’d find more creative ways to spend my time.

Now when it comes to Ghost Stories in particular, you might not be surprised that I don’t really believe in them. I think some of the history is cool when you are talking about supposedly haunted places like old buildings or natural landmarks, but the whole “This person died here in the 1800’s and now wanders around at 3:02 AM when it’s rainy and it’s an odd day of the month and Mercury and Venus are aligned” doesn’t really do anything for me. Obviously I’m exaggerating about the specifics, but I feel like a lot of Ghost Stories kind of run together. Maybe horror movies and their common tropes kind of ruin Ghost Stories for me. I’m not sure. I just don’t them believable and that kind of takes all the sting out of them. Like they aren’t scary if you don’t believe in the premise. And this is coming from someone who hates scary movies. I don’t understand why people love to get scared in a way that I don’t see any real positives in. Some scary can be fun like riding a roller coaster or sky diving. That’s dangerous and thrilling and it gets that adrenaline pumping through the veins. Scary stories, horror movies, and ghost stories. Again, they don’t do anything for me. Just not a fan.

Now I don’t want to take away from the people who love scary things and ghost stories. If that’s your jam, then that’s awesome. I don’t want to discourage your passions. I’m sure that you probably don’t care about Pokémon or Dungeons and Dragons and that’s cool. Love what you love and I’ll love what I love. I will say that writing horror is really hard. I don’t have a ton of experience with it, but even trying to write those Two Sentence Horror Stories were challenging. It’s hard to mix ideas of scary, horror, mystery, and uneasiness all into a compelling story with compelling characters and a cool concept. A quick example I will give is the movie A Quite Place is a mix of Horror, Science Fiction, and Suspense. That was an amazing movie that I really enjoyed, but not due to its horror elements, but the characters, the premise, and the world-building. It was amazing. And who knows, maybe I just haven’t read any good horror. My experience could be compared to only eating McDonalds and deciding I don’t like hamburgers. I don’t know. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy because I decide I don’t like horror and then don’t read any horror which just leads me to think I don’t like horror. Either way, I’m going to stick to my Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Young Adult Fiction. That is my bread and butter.

Thank you so much for reading that Weekly Blog about Ghost Stories. I know it was really rambley and went in weird directions, but that’s what you sign up for when you follow Allen_The_Writer. Sometimes it’s a conscience topic where I talk about childhood memories and sometimes I talk about Ghost Hunters and A Quiet Place while trying to explain why I don’t like Ghost Stories. Oh well. If you enjoyed that Weekly Blog, then feel free to give it a like. Or you can leave a comment down below if you really like this Weekly Blog. If you’re a fan of Ghost Stories or the Horror Genre, leave some book suggestions down below and I’ll be sure to check them out. Maybe you can change my mind about Ghost Stories. There are also a lot of other awesome pieces on the website so even if you didn’t like this Weekly Blog, you might like the other 300+ pieces here on the website. Finally, if you are jumping into NaNoWriMo then I wish you all the luck. I thought about it but I just don’t have the time while also writing for the website. For now I’m perfectly happy with just writing Blogs, Poems, Writing Prompt Pieces, and Fanfiction.

Thank you again for all the support and I hope you have a wonderful week!

-Allen_The_Writer

Header Photo Credit to The Crowl
https://www.thecowl.com/portfolio/ghost-stories