942 Words So Far... Meet Alcantara

Ok, so I'm off and running, I will be writing more later today but right now I need to go to bed. I have written almost 1000 words and haven't yet introduced my main character. It seems like the house is going to emerge as almost a character in and of itself, strangely. The house is named Alcantara, a gaelic name meaning something like a Crusades battle site. Here is an excerpt, describing Alcantara (which I am beginning to think of as 'her') What would we see if we dared to swing open the gate( also once painted white)? We would hear its creak, and if we loved the house as someone once had, we might remind ourselves to oil it later. But Alcantara’s gate has not seen oil since time out of mind, and it creaks still. The creak of the gate would send a frisson of fear up the spine of even the most courageous of explorers, but we have steeled ourselves, and will continue our approach up the stone path, with weeds shooting up between the cracks. They will brush along our ankles, up as far as our knees even, making our skin crawl as we slap them away. You would think, given the abandoned air of the home that silence would reign, but despite the strange lack of wildlife around the home, the home is not still, and it is not silent. The wind echoes through the limbs of the big willow tree in the front yard, a rustle normally so comforting becomes the chilling sound of a death rattle. The wind catches every loose board, every space between the wooden boards, causing a series of creaks, and groans, and sighs, and whispers. If we listen closely, we might even believe we hear our own names being called. Will we make it to the porch? No one has, not for a long while. If we made it there, if we opened the door, and stepped inside, would we be surprised by what we found? Perhaps so. For no one has entered the house, not for many a year, and yet somehow, it has the feeling of a house waiting for someone to return. The wind is scarcely heard once inside, for the house is old and well built. The walls are thick and intended to protect what takes shelter within. It will hold on to heat in the winter and it will stay cool in the summer because back then they knew how to build homes for the seasons. What happens to old houses? Why are they as they are? We might find ourselves wondering as we stroll the empty corridors. For somehow, when you walk the empty halls of an old house the past seems closer, like if you closed your eyes and let your mind wander free you might begin to hear things, a piano playing, maybe fading laughter, maybe the sobbing of a child. We won’t hear them, but we’ll sense we almost could if we tried. Part of us will feel horror at this, the other part will feel a strange exhilaration that’s hard to explain.

Down The Rabbit Hole (Again)

Welcome to my 2012 blog... I can't believe I am about to embark on this mad adventure again. Well, 5th time's the charm or so they say... My main character, Alice, is about to plunge herself down the rabbit hole, and I guess I have no choice but to follow her and see where it goes. A return to the horror genre is just what the doctor ordered. This year, I think it will be a haunted house.

At midnight tonight the train departs... again. Are you ready fellow novelers?