My No-No-Na-No post


I love NaNoWriMo. I love the camaraderie, the insane urge to pull 1700 words a day from my aching brain, the people I meet who are just as nutty as I am, and the crushing failure of not even coming close to 50,000 words. I've participated in NaNo the last four years and this was, by far, the worst I've produced at a whopping 350-ish words written on a plane coming back from Seattle.

Am I upset? Disheartened? Envious of friends sporting a snazzy new "winner" button as their avatars? Nah. It was never the end result for me - though I have to admit, last year's print out of my Winner's certificate was on the fridge next to the grocery list and Vyolette's smeary, licked on self-portrait for a month - it was always proof to myself that I could do anything I set my mind to. As long as my mind didn't have stray thoughts of showering or speaking to my children in full sentences.

Congratulations to my NaNo friends, those who persevered and those who fell by the wayside. I will rejoin the NaNo fray next November. This November was full of family and new projects that would not have been possible if I had never dipped my toes in your bad ass soup of prose for three years beforehand.

Photo credit: mhpbooks.com

Back fat roasting on an open fire, Zombies chewing on your nose...

Photo credit: unknown

Undead Fred busted a move and enhanced two Christmas carols to celebrate the season but his windpipe rotted away and left him only able to whistle awkwardly. Moan it with me now and happy holidays!


The Zombie Christmas Song

Back fat roasting on an open fire

Zombies chewing on your nose
Questionable carols being moaned by a choir
And folks are wearing ragged clothes

Everybody knows a liver and a ripped off ear

Helps to make the season bright
Tiny zombies with their eyes all aglow
Won’t find it hard to eat tonight

They know that Santa’s on his way

He’s got a sleighful of feet to give away
And every Undead child is going to hide
Attacking reindeer as they try to get a ride

And so I’m offering this warning now

If you want to just survive
Keep the kiddies away from the fire
And you may make it out alive
The Zombie Christmas Song



It’s beginning to look a lot like zombies

It’s beginning to look a lot like zombies

Ev’rywhere you go
Take a look in the neighbor’s den, glistening once again
With blood and guts and viscera all aglow

It’s beginning to look a lot like zombies

All they want is more
But the scariest site to see is the neighbor that will be
Hanging from his door

A pair of feet you can’t beat or a big hunk of meat

Is on tap for Lester and Mike
A musical box or a doll that can’t talk
Make the eyes of Angie burn bright
And mom and dad are happy when their kids are out of sight

It’s beginning to look a lot like zombies

Ev’rywhere you go
There’s some bodies in the well, everyone thinks it’s swell
When they float to the top and you tie them in a bow

It’s beginning to look a lot like zombies

Pile them on a cart
And the thing that will make them run is the promise of the fun
As they eat your heart

I have this great idea for a story...

... and I want you to write it. Then we'll split the royalties down the middle.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that a healthy portion of writers have heard this line at least once. While I am very flattered that someone feels I have the chops to take their baby and make it into a bestseller, I'm afraid they haven't quite thought through the process of actually writing the beast, finding an agent to love it (or convincing the agent they already have), garnering a book deal, editing the aforementioned beast into publishable prose, promotion after the book is released and subsequent book tour away from family and friends. All to give half of whatever you make to a guy you met on a bus with an idea.

Maybe I've been doing it wrong all along though? What if that idea did turn me into an couch-jumping Oprah book club Franzen-clone? I'd better start paying closer attention to the subway walls (and tenement halls) or the incoherent babbling from Palin. You just never know.

 I'll take my chances with the walls.  ;)


photo credit: getentrepreneurial.com

A Fowl Tradition


Traditions run deep in my family. So deep I have yet to see the bottom fall out of some of them.  As the holidays swirl us up in a never-ending dance of parties and parades, I’m struck by the one thing that binds us all together – food.  Yep. Somehow we all get our groove on when Grandma rings the bell for pie. Too bad my grandmother couldn’t cook to save her life. Years of burnt turkey, under cooked stuffing and questionable sweet potatoes made my childhood memories go by in a blur and no amount of therapy will get them back.

Our tradition started as my grandmother, a bride of eighteen, was cooking her first holiday meal for her in-laws and parents. The turkey smelled a bit odd but it was a nice fat bird with all the trimmings.  As my grandfather carved the turkey, Grandma Jane fluttered in the background, nervous that all her hard work was finally coming to fruition - in front of her mother-in-law.  Egads. The first slice fell nicely onto the plate followed by the second. Then, as he began to get more enthusiastic about parting the meat from the bird, it became more difficult. Smiling and telling people to start on the potatoes, he continued. He carved deeper into the bird, poking it with the blade when he saw a flash of red in the cavity. Then a glimpse of white. Throwing convention to the wind, my grandfather stuck his hand up the rump of the turkey and pulled out a red and white dishtowel my grandmother had forgotten to remove before roasting. Somehow stuffing a turkey (at least in spirit) with cloth became a tradition and for the next fifty years, my family has been picking gingham out of our teeth at Thanksgiving.

As traditions go, I may yearn for a table filled with sumptuous dishes full of flavor and well, moistness, but then again I kind of like our secret recipe. Some things were meant to stay in the family and torture generations to come.




Mom Hair

I admit it. I'm a bit vain about my hair, which until six weeks ago, was one-length and to my waist. A dream of chocolate and auburn swirls that swished around my shoulders and got caught in car doors and supemarket cart spindles. So what possessed me to slice off my locks an inch above my shoulders? Madness. Or was it? Let's compare, shall we?



Long tresses spun of angel tears:
1. Spent a mint on conditioner
2. When pulled back I looked like a librarian on crack
3. When down, I looked like a librarian on crack but younger
4. Never quite got all the baby drool out of it after they shoved locks in their mouths. Not just my babies either, all babies were attracted to my hair as though it were a food group



Mom hair:
1. Now matches my Mom Jeans
2. Age-appropriate -- if I were in my late 60s and rockin' the orthopedic shoes
3. Has been told it's "spunky." Oh god.
4. I don't get trapped like a turtle by my own hair when I lie on it at night

I vote for madness.

What possesses you to do drastic things to your hair?

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

photo credit: sapanavora.com


As a child, I swore that one day I would grow up to be a Supreme. It didn't matter that I was short, tone deaf and six years old; I would knock Diana Ross off her heels and take over. I had the hand movements; I could harmonize (in my own way) and could rock the feather boa as well as any of the rest of the girls. My mother had other ideas.

"Stacey, you can be anything you want. Why not be a nice housewife and have children?"

"No. I need to be a Supreme. Watch this!" And I would jut my hips out in time with the music, tossing my arms around with dramatic fervor. My sister's lipstick creating a band of red around my mouth, I pursed my lips and threw in a Jagger Swagger for effect.

"Stacey. Really. This is going too far. Besides, the Supremes didn't sing Brown Sugar, that was the Rolling Rocks."

"Stones, Ma."

"Right. Stones -- Rocks. Big difference." Throwing a wink my way, I knew she was teasing but this wouldn't crush my ambition to rule the Motown scene.

Until Barry Manilow came into my life.

Barry and I had a strained relationship. My mother loved him so the record player had him on loop. I tried to strut to Copacabana but with little enthusiasm. How could Lola compete with Ain't No Mountain High Enough? 'Nuff said. To make my mother happy, I stuck yellow feathers in my hair for Halloween to show I was cool. Of course, having a ten-year-old dressed as a hooker wasn't what my mother had in mind around the neighborhood begging for candy but she made the best of it by playing the song on the car tape player as she followed behind me to tip off the houses that I wasn't nuts -- I had a theme, people, a theme.

The 70s finally died a horrible death and I threw out my sequined beret for rubber bracelets and tulle skirts. I drew the line at a cone bra. That would have looked silly. Duran Duran covered my wall and I became Rio and I danced on the sand. Okay, on the sidewalk in suburban San Francisco. Whatever. In my mind I was on the beach being chased by Simon LeBon. Stop looking at me like that.

I flirted with punk bands, turned my nose up at Country and fell in love with Mozart during my teen years, but my heart stayed with the 60s and I memorized the top of the charts for the decade. The Beatles and Donovan, Doors and Joplin -- they're still inside with Diana Ross just waiting for my big moment. Now I just need my mom to turn off that damn Manilow tape and become the backup singer I know lurks inside.




Snappy, eh? This column originally ran at An Army of Ermas but I loved it too much to not recycle.

The Girls' Ghost Guide - looking for interviewees ages 10-14 yrs

The glare of lightning ripped through the night-filled house. Flattening myself against the far wall, I watched with my team as a figure pulled from the darkness and into a blurry slow-motion sprint. A woman in torn, bloody clothing stumbled with her arms outstretched, her mouth open in a silent scream as her unseen attacker chased her down the hall. The vision lasted seconds but the residual haunting had imprinted itself upon the house, always replayed when storms kicked up the atmosphere on a fingertip of land jutting into the Chesapeake Bay.  My breath escaped in a single quick rush as the temperature in the room returned to normal from the chilly air moments before. Giving my colleagues a quick wink, I knew this wasn’t going to be our average haunting. Writing down my notes, I suspected I would be interrogated later by the most severe skeptics – my five daughters at home who waited impatiently for my return with new stories of the paranormal.

THAT is how I started off my latest proposal for The Girls' Ghost Guide and it's getting a nice sliver of notice.  Thus I'd love to include y'all! I'm looking for girls, ages 10-14, with questions regarding:

    * ghosts
    * animal ghosts
    * spirit photography
    * how to conduct an investigation
    * what the heck do you do on an investigation
    * are television ghost hunters real or just good tv?

The Girls' Ghost Guide website will launch soon with quizzes, contests, photos and a question/answer forum.

Please email me for more information on contributing to The Girls' Ghost Guide at stacey.i.grahamATgmail.com.

Please visit Ask a Ghost Hunter and its sister site, Wee Ghosties : A Beginner's Guide to Ghost Hunting for more on my career as a ghost hunter.

Note: This is still in the proposal stage and does not have a book deal.... but I like to plan ahead. ;)

Queen of zomBcon... well, almost.

What does Bruce Campbell, George Romero and myself all have in common? Not a thing until zomBcon, my friend. After last weekend's zombie-fest in Seattle, we still have very little in common but I do have a handy program guide with my name several pages away from theirs so I'm running with it.

Seattle was lovely and rainy (I expected nothing less) and stepping through puddles with friends made the experience infinitely richer. New friends and fellow panelists, Jesse Petersen - author of Married With Zombies, S.G. Browne - author of Breathers and the newly released Fated (you go buy nooooooooow), and Scott Kenemore of The Zen of Zombies and The Code of the Zombie Pirate (damn you for being funnier than me) made my first con fantastic.