Ghost stories…

I have been wanting to write about this all day, but things got in the way.  I had an amazing experience today at my daughter’s school, but to tell you about that, I have to back up.  My family takes many trips around Virginia.  I have been dabbling in genealogy for a while, but my grandparents think technology is the devil, and therefore have not “turned” loose of some papers I need, so I stubbornly refused to finish that side of the family.  However, that being said, I still enjoy the stories about distant famous relatives.  I researched a local witch a while back and wrote a really cool little historical fiction piece for a children’s magazine.  While traveling, I picked up another magazine that had local ghost stories.  I was telling my mom one of them when my daughter walked in and I promptly stopped speaking because the ending was terribly gruesome.  Two days later, my daughter comes home from school all excited, and said she heard the ghost story I was telling and knew the ending.  I was like, say whhhhat?

Ha, well apparently, her teacher has our local famous author come to school around this time every year and explain his process for writing non-fiction ghost stories.  It was just too coincidental for me that it was the exact story, and there was a permission slip to go listen to him.  His name is L.B.  Taylor and he writes the Ghosts of Virginia book series.  When I arrived at school, I talked to the secretary and she pointed to an older gentleman in a burgundy sweater who had just sat down in the lobby of the school.  I immediately went up to him, and started to introduce myself.  He stood to shake my hand like a true gentleman, and waited to sit when I sat beside him.  He probably didn’t know what to make of me because I immediately started talking about how wonderful it was to see him and I told him about my research into a local story.  He started talking about his methods, and I think we could have chatted for hours.  He perked up when I mentioned a certain old house that I believed I was kin to.  I then asked him what his favorite story was and it is in the above link to his name.  It gave me chills.  I will never forget when my grandmother passed on my mother’s side and sometimes feel her watching out for my girls.

Whatever you believe in, call it fate, the universe, or God, it was strange how this all lined up today.  It gave me some great ideas for future stories.  He said he didn’t have the “brain” to figure out fictional characters so he just told it like it was.  I told him I had cool ideas on spinning it into historical fiction.  Now to see if I can get those ideas where they belong.

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