Separate but Linked

First of all, Happy Birthday Vinny Mauro!

I hope everyone had a lovely and Spooky Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertos, etc. Or a quiet, respectful one. I hope you enjoyed Spooky season!

In a previous blog entry, I mentioned I wanted my series to be separate but linked, and I mentioned a few series I’m planning without really delving into a lot about each individual series.

So, here I am to explain where I was on the night of the 23rd…er, oh, wait, um… it’s the 22nd, so… um…wrong…um…thing…circumstance. *Cough, cough.*

What I mean by separate but linked is that I have these characters who might be minor characters in one series, but main characters in another series. Take Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix. It’s about Daphne Artemis Somerled, a Banshee who is also part Siren and Vampire (read the book…I won’t give access to my excel spreadsheet, what I call The Bible, as it needs to be updated a lot…but also, it’s a HUGE file). She has three friends who are younger than her, and two of them are Demons while one of them is a Fairy (they look human). Those three aren’t main characters in the Sisters series. We see them, we get to know them, but they aren’t necessarily permanent to the Sisters series. Why? Because they’re part of the Legacy series—meaning they’re the main characters of an entirely different series.

What is Sisters about? Well, the first book touches on rape and how it affected Daphne and her family, not to mention her relationship with her love, Matthew Nicholas Minerva, Matt for short and outside of a Review. Daphne didn’t handle her rape or sexual assault very well for a lot of reasons, and she hid them from Matt. She didn’t want him to know about it. She didn’t want her friends to know about it either, but because of certain circumstances, where the book picks up in the beginning, they know about the sexual assault. Matt knew about the sexual assault. I don’t want to say much more because I’d like you to read the book. I tried to lessen the blow of things, like how Daphne dealt with it and that it happened to her, by giving the situation(s) to “monsters”, or as I call them in my novel, “Supernaturals and Creatures.” If you do read it, you may think that she had a very human reaction to a lot of things, and I did that on purpose. Supernaturals and Creatures have problems, too, and they don’t always know how to handle it, how to deal with it, what to do about it. There were situations where she acted a little more on instinct, and that was a result of not only her being a teenager, but also because she’s a Banshee, and the Laws of the Veil are pretty archaic and oppressive.

I’d like to touch on a lot of serious and hard and even taboo themes with my writing, and I’d like to tell the story through the point of the Supernatural and/or Creature. I’d also like there to be comedy and pop-culture references or jokes. I’d like there to be romance. I’d like to write something I’d like to read, and my books are something I’d read to escape. My guides all tell me I need to get better at daydreaming again, and I intend to work on it so I can keep my writing muscles limber and figure out what works and what doesn’t better, so that I can be a little more instinctual myself, so that I can be more authentic and honest. Or at least keep my characters, the protagonists, mostly honest and relatable. My main interest is in fiction writing, and in third person. It would have to be a very special project if I decided to write something non-fiction.

Let’s talk about Grave Matters: The First Necromancer to further explore what I mean when I say I want to touch on serious, hard, and taboo themes. In the first chapter, my main character in that novel, Lucretia Elvira Sinclair, attempts suicide. She technically succeeded as she did die and was brought back by a Necromancer. That’s just the beginning of that book. As you’ll read, there’s a character who is bisexual and she leans towards Satanism and Wicca. There’s another character who really loves getting Baphomet drawn on his arm and wants a tattoo of Baphomet. He prefers Satanism. I don’t want to say much more about this character, but he seems light and jovial enough, until he has a talk with Lucretia about his family situation, and it gets dark quick.

At the end of Sisters, Daphne finds out some very damning things about her friends. I’m making sure those things are addressed in (working title) Legacy: The Hiatus Summer (I’m thinking of changing it to “Cruel Summer” because I am that person…). How does Legacy start? With a murder. You don’t actually see Talon Wade Stoddard kill his aunt and her piece of shit boyfriend, but he is holding a cleaver and mentions to the 911 operator that he’ll be hanging onto it until his aunt and the piece of shit are declared dead, more or less. It’s quickly established why Talon killed them, and he listens to what his gut tells him about people, lets it dictate to him who he can and can’t trust and who he can and can’t open up to, setting things up for a new living situation for himself and indeed changing the lives of Jamie Sophia Blake, Kimberly “Kim” Persephone Brennan, and Taylor Veronica Baker even more than it already has by the end of Sisters.

Does your head hurt yet, or have you gotten out some white boards and red string? Because that’s what’s going on in my head with my characters: Meticulous planning of timelines and figuring out how and where and, most importantly if main characters of other series do fit and where they fit as minor characters in other series.

I’m doing this on purpose.

Yes, you read that correctly: I’m doing this on purpose. It’s what feels right and aligned for me and my writing more often than not. There were times I questioned it, but frankly, I can’t imagine anyone but Jamie, Kim, and Taylor being friends with Daphne—she wouldn’t open up to anyone else in the ways she opened up to them, trust anyone else in the ways she trusted them. I would know, because in previous drafts, Daphne was a loner and had no friends, except for Matt in one version, the version that started to morph into the version it became and that’s published on Amazon. It wasn’t easy or fun to write. Putting her with Jamie, Kim, and Taylor was fun, and it rounded Daphne out as a person. It showed that she wasn’t antisocial, that she could get along with girls that weren’t her sister. At its core, Sisters is about an unhealthy relationship between sisters, but I wanted my characters to feel real and complex, and for them to feel real, Daphne needed friends. Bryn, her sister, and Mike, their little brother, have friends as well, but the story is a close third person, which means it mostly follows Daphne, sometimes Matt.

There’s another character who I haven’t spent much time with, but I’m absolutely in love with writing him, and he’s consistent no matter where he pops up so far, and that is Conan Brendan Van Gale, Werewolf. He is just…flawed and complex, and I can’t picture anyone else having the conversation he has with Daphne at the end of Sisters. He will show up in Blood Scarlet, which is my vampire series, when I’m ready to write it.

There’s another character who is minor, and she is in my vampire series. I’d love to write a short story, possibly a novella, about her. She’s sadly a human, but I like her story: She’s a lesbian, and she struggled with that, and I’d love to write it as an aside, show how she ends up with her girlfriend, show their love story. It would make a nice, ultimately sweet pallet cleanser compared to everything else that’s going on in Blood Scarlet.

“What are you wanting to do with your vampires in Blood Scarlet?” you ask.

“It’s a deep dark secret,” I respond, “I have so many drafts of it, I really don’t want to talk about it. I’ve announced on Facebook before that it’s going smoothly or that I’ve started writing it, or I’ve gotten excited and told friends I’m working on it only for it to crash and burn because I’m not happy with the iteration of that draft. It’s another hard write, different from the hard write that was Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, but a hard write nonetheless. So, I’d rather not talk about it or what it entails or what it’s about, if I’m writing it or not, if I’ve started writing it or not. I’m worried to get excited about writing it, announcing that I’m working on it, and yet another draft falling through because I realize it’s not what I want, it’s inauthentic. So, it’s being concocted in my head, brewed and steeped like a tea or a potion.”

“Okay…so what is Disguise and Haunted about?”

“Well…did you read Sisters? If not, it’s okay. However…”

Towards the end of Sisters, there are new additions to the Review Panel: Killian Brone Muir, a Vampire (who is in Blood Scarlet), Kent Laurence Bulman (who Jesse’s grandfather in Grave Matters: The First Necromancer), and Luna Liliana Luminosa. She and her granddaughter are main characters in Haunted, which is about ghosts and psychics—and of course teenagers growing up and then eventually becoming ghost hunters. Or at least, that’s one of the many goals I have for Haunted.

As for Disguise… The main character there is Katya Natia Alois, a Werewolf, and for some reason, someone in her family decided she was going to be betrothed to Darius Demetrius Delaney, who is the big bad in both Disguise and Blood Scarlet. He was also a big bad in Sisters, but isn’t the primary big bad in Sisters. I make it seem like Bryn is the big bad there, but I can honestly admit that even I don’t know if she’s really bad and what everyone thinks she is or if she’s something else. The reader and I will find that one out together, as time goes on.

“Spooky Sukie, this sounds like a lot. Do I have to read all of these series, and do I have to read them in the order they were published?”

No. I mean, yes, it can be a lot, but I love it. I understand it could be a lot of reading…but here’s the thing: I’m trying to write it in a way that these characters are nerdy Easter eggs. If you read Stephen King’s work, it’s like that. I don’t know about you, but I get excited every time he makes an It reference in one of his other books, and if he makes a Dolores Claiborne reference…it’s pure bliss when he makes a Dolores Claiborne reference, let me tell you. She is definitely one of my heroes. My love for this self-reference stemmed from pop-culture reference in one of my favorite young adult books, Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause, when one of Klause’s characters is carrying someone over his shoulder and the character is singing or whistling “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo, and later to cheer up the main character, Vivian, her peers sing “Werewolves of London.” I got a rush because I knew both songs! It felt like “finally! Someone’s writing something I know about, something I can relate to, something I love.” I feel the same way when I understand Elvira, Mistress of the Dark’s references (I understand most if not all of her references, thank Goddess).

You don’t have to read Sisters to enjoy Grave Matters anymore than you have to read Blood Scarlet, Legacy, Haunted, or Disguise. Does it help if you do? Of course. Does it hurt if you don’t? I hope I’m writing it in such a way that it doesn’t. In Sisters, it’s mentioned that some Reapers were compromised, and so a different Review Panel was selected for the new Review, and it’s mentioned that they were compromised by a Necromancer. I kept it vague in Sisters on purpose. In Grave Matters, (I hope) I go into detail about how Jesse Humphrey Bulman had a Review for bringing someone back from the dead and the consequences of his actions as it pertains to Grave Matters. His use of the Reapers on the Review Panel to bring back Lucretia is what compromised them.

I’ll repeat it again: You don’t have to read one series of my books to enjoy another series. It helps, but you don’t have to.

That written, you also don’t have to read them in the order they were published—you don’t have to read Sisters and then Grave Matters and then whatever I put out next (although, right now, those are the only two out…you’re welcome to read the blog as much as you want…). But I do recommend reading Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix, followed by Sisters 2: Insert Working Title Here, Sisters 3: You’re so far off in the distance right now I can’t see you, Sisters 4: Haha! It’s cute you think I’ve planned this far ahead for anything. The same can be said for Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, Grave Matters 2: I have no idea what your name is yet, but it’s definitely not the second Necromancer because there’s already two in the first novel, Grave Matters 3: I’m coming for you/I can’t think of anymore nonsensical subtitles, so let’s just go with the Freddy Krueger rhyme… You get the idea: If you want to read Sisters, please read them chronologically, and the same goes for Grave Matters, but you certainly don’t have to read them in the order they get published.

I’m not sure where the idea to tie them together like this came from, but I’ve been in love with it since, and I’ve never been one to shy away from doing hard or difficult things. I’ve been writing from a very young age. It’s my first love, my passion, and I’m here for the long haul.

So, the long and short of it:

o   Sisters: Bryn Cassandra Somerled (Banshee), Daphne Artemis Somerled (Banshee), John Michael “Mike” Somerled (he identifies more as a Siren than a Banshee), Matthew “Matt” Nicholas Minerva. I’m not spoiling what Matt is. Banshees.

o   Grave Matters: Lucretia Elvira Sinclair (Witch and Manufactured Necromancer), I know I’ve blogged about Lydia before and she goes here, Jesse Humphrey Bulman (born Necromancer), Kent Laurence Bulman (born Necromancer), unnamed male character. Witches.

o   Legacy: Jamie Sophia Blake (Non-Traditional Demon), Kimberly “Kim” Persephone Brennan (Non-Traditional Demon), Taylor Veronica Baker (Fairy), Talon Wade Stoddard (Non-Traditional Demon. Demon’s and a Fairy, not a Faerie. In my books Fairy and Faerie are different.

o   Haunted: Luna Liliana Luminosa. Luna herself is a Bruja, and her granddaughter is a mix of Bruja and psychic. Ghosts, ghost hunting, psychics, possibly psychic phenomena.

o   Blood Scarlet: Conan Brendan Van Gale (Werewolf), Killian Brone Muir (Vampire). Vampires.

o   Disguise: Darius Demetrius Delaney (Half-Breed; Full-Blood Vampire and Full-Blood Werewolf, although Sisters points out the controversy of his lineage…it’ll probably get pointed out again, just to spite and bug Darius), Katya Natia Alois (Werewolf). Werewolf.

I hope I’ve explained this adequately…

Until next time…

Authentically: Keep it Spooky!

Headless Horseman of Santa Fe, New Mexico

If you’ve read my very first blog post, you know I’ve been writing about how I intend to write about the Headless Horseman in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well as the Oldest House in Santa Fe, as it ties into the story.

I thought about doing it this morning—I took the day off from my day job—and got really tired. I’ve been a little off this month—usually I feel like I come alive, and I’m happy and outgoing. These past two Halloweens have been rough for some reason.

I realized something else: Why didn’t I want to write a paraphrased version of the story from the book Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico by Ray John de Aragón? What was stopping me in my tracks about such a fantastic tale?

And then I answered myself: That guy’s a dick. Our Headless Horseman is a dick. That’s why I don’t really want to write about him.

So, this guy, before becoming headless, really liked this girl. The girl got a bad vibe from him and she and her dad came up with a codeword to use, since this guy was coming to dinner at their house for some reason, and the codeword (ha, ha) was “Calabazas” which means pumpkins. So, at some point, she tells her dad the codeword, and her dad’s like “get the fuck out of my house, guy, my daughter isn’t interested.”

So guy goes to see the witches, who live in the Oldest House in Santa Fe, New Mexico: 215 E. De Vargas St. Santa Fe, NM 87501 (it’s right behind Upper Crust Pizza, which is right next to the old St. Michael’s church in the down town Santa Fe area; Upper Crust Pizza is off of Old Pecos Trail; the Oldest House is now a museum. http://www.oldesthousesantafe.com/about%20us.htm). He tells the witches that he really likes this girl and wants a love spell to give her. They try to talk him out of it, telling him it’s really long and complicated. He demands it. They cave and give him the love spell. He leaves their house and is like “that’s way too long and complicated, imma try and cut corners.” He cuts those corners all right, and he tries to give it to the girl, but she’s so disgusted with him she won’t have anything to do with him. Pissed off, guy goes back to the witches and is like “your piece of crap spell didn’t work” and starts physically fighting with them. Big mistake. He has a sword, and one of the witches picked it up and cut his head off. With his own sword.

One of the witches cut his head off with his own sword in a fight he started with them because a love spell they gave him didn’t work because he fucked it up.

I haven’t been down town at night in a very long time, and I won’t go alone, but I hear that he haunts the downtown area, looking for his head…

I looked it up real quick to confirm: His bloody head went rolling down the street all right, and they say on certain nights, late at night, you can hear him galloping after his head, which apparently rolls as far as Alta Vista Street. (I’m not on Alta Vista Street at night, either; I am there as my work is somewhere on Alta Vista Street, which is how I remember hearing that his head goes as far as that; that was another thing I was thinking about this morning though: How the hell does his head go rolling from De Vargas Street all the way to Alta Vista? It would have to go down Old Pecos Trail, past a Methodist Church that sells (used to sell?) pumpkins, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pie—or at least they did before the pandemic—and then turn right at some point in order to get to Alta Vista. I’m probably thinking too logically about this; I’ve been taking some things way too literally lately.)

That is my very abridged version of our Headless Horseman. Because he was a dick, and I’m tired. Mostly he was a dick.

If you want to know more about the Headless Horseman and some other Legends and Lore of New Mexico, I highly recommend Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico by Ray John de Aragón.

Sorry for the shorter post; maybe I’ll do another one later in the week or a longer one next week.

Happy Halloween! I hope it was safe and fun!

Keep it Spooky!

Shout

I’ve been hiding that I’m Wiccan and witchy for twenty years. There were some off periods, but I always came back to it because it resonated with me in a way that nothing else ever has and I dare say never will. I mentioned in last week’s post that I’d found Wicca at a young age, when I was thirteen. I put myself through initiation when I was fourteen, and did what I could to study for a year and a day. I didn’t have access to the internet, and my parents are Catholic.

I tried coming out of the closet once before, when I was fifteen. It went about the same way as it did for my character Lydia in my new book Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, which is available on Amazon now in Kindle or paperback. I didn’t have Lydia’s guts—she was determined to be herself and she wasn’t going to compromise it. From a young age, she’d looked into not only Wicca and Satanism but also emancipation. This meant I had to do some research on emancipation laws for New Mexico for the time period. I had taken some classes to get a second degree in paralegal studies and got half-way through before I called it quits (I got an A in a horror movie film class and failed Torts, and there was no way I was going to take torts with the same instructor again, and they were they only one that taught torts at the time). We’d had to learn how to look up laws using a website and I miraculously remembered how to do that in this case, and luckily found what I needed and was able to work it into my book. Lydia emancipated herself as soon as she turned seventeen—I think there may be some terms and conditions between her and her parents, but that probably will be addressed a little in book 2 at some point. I don’t mention it in Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, but it will probably (hopefully) be mentioned in book 2 that one of the first things she did in her new apartment was put up an altar, right in her living room, Baphomet front and center as she leans more towards Satanism than Wicca, but likes both. I believe she also has Buddha on her altar, but I digress.

I didn’t have Lydia’s guts when I was fifteen. I don’t know that I’ll ever be as brave or gutsy as her, and that’s fine, it’s not for everyone. I wrote her for the outcasts that are outspoken and won’t compromise themselves because they know themselves so thoroughly and refuse to do so (which, if you look at Satanism, is entirely fitting: a big part of their religion is activism, so they’ll be at Pride, they’ll be fighting for separation of church and state, they’ll be fighting for women and women’s rights, they’ll be fighting for themselves in one way or another—not everyone can go public either because of work or family, and that’s fine; from what I’ve seen and heard, they’re very supportive and understanding of each other). I wrote Lydia for me, too: She’s the no-nonsense, stubborn one who mean what she says and says what she means. I would have looked up to Lydia, and in a way, I look up to her now, even though she’s in 2005 and seventeen, like most of the rest of her friends, where I left them at the end of this book.

When I had the conversation with my parents when I was fifteen, my instinct after was to hide. I’m also a goth, and that wasn’t readily acceptable either, but it was easier to maneuver and compromise; it was manageable, and it was something I loved, it fit me and I fit it. I’ve been goth for longer than I’ve been Wiccan and witchy by two years, and nothing deterred me from being goth, though my parents did monitor how I dressed and drew the line with my makeup. I wasn’t allowed to wear black lipstick unless it was Halloween, and I couldn’t get the baggy pants that had chains decorating them or holes in them from Hot Topic. Tight and fitted were okay…though it did draw unwanted attention from older “men.” Yep, I got hit on by guys who could be mistaken for being my dad or a teacher from school. One happened when I was thirteen and the other happened when I was fifteen. It wasn’t fun.

I did have a stint with color again in college. It was uncomfortable, and I repressed parts of remembering it. Color didn’t fit anymore than Catholicism or Christianity for me. It was a preference, like a lot of things. There’s just something about black that is comforting and soothing, just as there is something comforting and soothing with Wicca and Witchcraft for me.

So, if I’d been hiding my spirituality for twenty years, why come out? Why change?

Well, because I wanted to me be. I wanted to be fully who I am. I hid so much of myself from my family, and sometimes my friends, depending on my comfort level, that it got to be a lot.

When I was younger, I had dreams: I dreamed of being the next Stephen King, even though at the time I wasn’t a fan of his books. I think I’ve mentioned that I read Carrie when I was very young and hated it (rereading it as an adult, I liked it; not my favorite, but it had its strengths). I saw the movie and then read the book Dolores Claiborne and it saved me in a lot of ways, and I’ve been an even bigger Stephen King fan since (I liked the movies but didn’t give the books the time of day until Dolores Claiborne).

I dreamed that I’d get out of the Land of Entrapment, as my friends and I called it in elementary school. I had no idea where I’d go; the sky was the limit. I just knew I wanted to get out of New Mexico.

I even dreamed of getting my parents a house.

I dreamed that I’d be able to live the life I wanted to lead, I’d be a successful writer, I’d be making a living off of my writing, I’d be happy writing. I’d be far away from New Mexico, and I wouldn’t have to deal with people if I didn’t have to or want to. I dreamed I’d openly be Wiccan and witchy, and I’d write all the horrific things I wanted with as many steamy scenes as I wanted, with all of the Wiccan things I liked entwined in there.

The Outcast would be the protagonist. The monsters are the main characters, the sympathetic ones.

Life doesn’t always go as you dream or plan.

Something life changing happened when I was seventeen and a junior in high school. It was similar to the end of what happens in Grave Matters: The First Necromancer. I touch on it in the Acknowledgments and won’t touch on it much here. All I’ll say is that it changed everything. I was depressed from age 17 and started coming out of it just before my 21st birthday. I had a breakdown (I can’t remember if my current psychologist called it a mental breakdown or some other kind, but when I told him about it he said it had a clinical name—and he doesn’t do labels for stigmatic purposes). After the breakdown, I really started to snap out of the depression. I don’t entirely remember some of the earlier years of college unless I really, really try as a result.

I hadn’t planned on going to college, but I went to the University of New Mexico and obtained my Bachelor’s in English with a focus in Creative Writing and minored in Criminology (for some reason the terminology changed from sociology to criminology when graduating with a degree in English).

I never wanted a job with the State of New Mexico, never wanted to be a State worker, but…here I am. I’ve been with the State for almost ten years now (if there’s a Crossroads Demon in any way, shape, or form who’s tied to this, I’d like to talk terms ASAP). I’ve been with three different agencies, but it all goes towards a pension.

I definitely didn’t plan on living at home for this long.

But here I am: A State worker, living at home…and writing. And reading Tarot and doing Tarot as a business. And I’m out of the broom closet.

I didn’t want to ever have the conversation with my family about being Wiccan or witchy. I used to joke about coming out of the broom closet when so-and-so died because I didn’t want to disappoint them. As I’ve written, I told friends when I felt comfortable and like I could tell them. So why come out after hiding it so long?

Well, I wouldn’t hide that I’m goth, now, would I? I wouldn’t change that about myself, or my musical tastes and preferences. That would be…like being less than who I am. My music tastes are vast, and I do like a lot of different genre’s. Just this morning, I listened to a song by Arch Enemy I’ve never heard before, as I just found them, and felt a sense of calm and home wash over me and was so soothed. All weekend, I had “Every Day is Halloween” by Ministry stuck in my head and craved Type O Negative. And don’t get me started on Motionless in White or In This Moment.

Spirituality is a very different, more personal thing than music…or is it?

When people actually sit down and talk with me to get to know me, they get surprised: I like metal? I don’t like the outdoors? What’s wrong with me?

I love metal. It’s soothing. See the previous post, Motionless in White’s music works as lullabies as well as jams. So does In This Moment’s music.

I would like the outdoors a lot better if there weren’t so many people. As they say on the Morbid: A True Crime Podcast: “Fresh air is for dead people.” I like driving up into the mountains, but I won’t be hiking up there again anytime soon. The last time I’d tried, I’d been having a horrible day: Two guys were testing my boundaries, and I was in a bad mood. I decided to try and connect with nature and try to go for a hike in the mountains, so I did. It was a lovely day, which was why it was crowded. I kept my distance from people as best as I could and after a while decided to head home. I was climbing down to my car when a creep blew kisses at me out of his window as he drove by. I got in my car, paused to get water. I decided to let it go and not let it ruin my hike. It wasn’t like the dude was turning his car around to continue to harass me…except he did. I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could get on the road back into town, when I saw his car. He was getting ready to pull up along the side of my car. I peeled out of there. And that’s why I won’t go hiking anymore. (Before you say take a dog with you or ask what I was wearing, what I was wearing shouldn’t matter, but for poops and giggles, I was wearing black leggings, no makeup, my hair was up in a messy bun, tennis shoes, a black tank over a black sports bra and a little backpack. My dad and I do have a dog, who is an elderly and unruly German Shepherd mix. He wouldn’t last the drive into the mountains, if I could somehow manage to get him into my car in the first place.)

Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m content with myself. I’m happy reading by myself in a corner. Or writing in the very same corner.

That written, nothing is wrong with the people asking the questions, either. Different people like different things and that’s fine. Let’s not shame each other for those differences.

I know I keep writing it, but I like Wicca and Witchcraft. It makes me happy, it’s soothing, it’s fulfilling. I feel like it brings out my better sides, it makes me a better person overall. It centers me. Is it for everyone. No. Neither is metal, goth, or industrial music; neither is hiking or camping; and neither is Catholicism and Christianity.

I wanted to come out and fully be who I am. I didn’t want to lie anymore or hide. It was stressful and exhausting. It was hard. It was wearing and tearing on me and I didn’t realize just how much until after I came out to my dad and it felt like a big weight had lifted from my shoulders. When I came out publicly on Facebook and Instagram, it was like another weight had lifted, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I took the video of it in my car outside of Starbucks, posted it, and I took Highway 14 to Albuquerque, smiling, dancing and singing the entire way. I couldn’t contain myself. I’d done it! Is it how I wanted and pictured coming out of the broom closet? No, but it was amazing all the same. It made me happy to finally be me, to admit who I really am.

I could have let my books do the coming out for me. One of the big themes in Grave Matters: The First Necromancer has to do with spirituality and how (most of) the main characters find themselves, and find that they don’t prefer organized monotheistic religion. The thing was I didn’t want to let my book do the talking for me. I wanted to talk for me. I wanted to let it all out and be unapologetically and authentically me, finally. I didn’t want to hide anymore. As my psychologist and I have talked about before, “I want it all. I’m not settling for less.” That doesn’t only go for whomever my partner is going to be. That goes for myself as well.

I can stop shouting now. I’ve let it all out and written the things I can do without. So come on…

Authentically: Keep it Spooky!

God Is She

I was brought up Catholic, but from a young age, it stopped resonating for me. I could talk about that in another post, but I’m also thinking of writing about it for the introduction of my next book, as a prominent theme in the book is how Catholicism and Christianity didn’t work for my characters either.

Phew. Okay. Here we go, delving into that…talk about spelunking, am I right?

I think it stems from my love of horror movies, if I’m honest. I was afraid of so many things when I was a kid: Beetlejuice, Drop Dead Fred, Edward Scissorhands, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Pet Sematary 2, even Hocus Pocus. I got introduced to Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was way too young and the Internet was all too new. So, if I was such a big chicken, how did that switch around and what does it have to do with how I chose my spirituality?

Well, like I wrote, I was introduced to Freddy Krueger when I was way too young. My cousins played a clip they found on the internet, and it happened to be the clip of Nancy running up the stairs. At a party my aunt was having at her and her husbands house, some of the adults were watching New Nightmare, and I’ll never forget the first time I saw the kid’s babysitter getting killed in the hospital, dragged up the wall and into a corner of the ceiling.

I loved Practical Magic and The Craft, but my mom covered my eyes during the scary parts—my mom was usually the one covering my eyes any time anything scary or sex scenes were showing. We saw The Mummy seven times in theaters, and after a while, I got brave and told her to stop covering my eyes. We saw Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow three times in theaters, and that was when I got brave again and asked her to stop covering my eyes. “The witch looks a lot like Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas when she changes.” But with snakes, Mom. But with snakes.

Maybe part of my love for things scary came from the rainy days I’ve written about before: There was a girl I grew up with, and on rainy days, her grandma wouldn’t let us go outside and play. We’d bring in mud and make a mess. We could build a fort, but we’d have to put everything back. There weren’t much games we wanted to play inside—video games were a new thing, and I was horrible at them. I liked watching her play, especially in the haunted castle that belonged to Bowser…for some reason, I thought that was the coolest… But I digress. We’d end up telling each other scary stories. At some point, she got the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books by Alvin Schwartz. My second grade teacher read us “The Green Ribbon” during a reading session. I got pretty obsessed with that story, and I still am. I think a lot of us are.

I think that’s when I really embraced liking being scared—movies and stories. When I was in fifth and sixth grade, I was determined to face my fears. In sixth grade, I dipped my toes into horror with the promotion of Edward Scissorhands for Sleepy Hollow. I’m not too sure where Carrie came in, I just remember reading the book and hating it, but enjoying the original movie and the sequel. I decided to face my fears of Freddy and watched the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I have an incredibly extensive horror movie collection, and Nightmare on Elm Street is just part of that collection. I was very into slashers when I was younger—I wanted all the blood, sex, and rock and roll I could get, and horror movies fed that.

And then I started seventh grade at St. Michael’s Middle and High School. I didn’t know a whole lot of people, I was shy…puberty fucking sucks, no matter who you are. Horror and music set the tone. I’d tried some spells when I was younger, asking God to participate or partake or make something happen, like make this guy I thought was cute like me, make me pretty…mostly make this guy like me. (Thank goodness those never worked, in retrospect. Way too young.) Middle school was no exception: I’d pray and do some spells. The spells didn’t work, and my prayers didn’t feel like they were being answered. I felt empty. I didn’t feel like I was being heard, and I certainly felt misunderstood. I started questioning things…and then I found Wicca. I found it in young adult books I was reading: Sweep by Cate Tiernan was my favorite, and I’m rereading the series again this fall! Such an easy and nostalgic read. Circle of Three by Isobel Bird was another favorite that I’m also working on rereading. Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing was my third favorite; it was a little harder to get into, and I’m finding that as an adult as well, and knowing what I know now about writing for young adults, I can see why it’s a harder read, why Sweep could only go so far with things like cussing and horror and sex. Sweep is by no means horrific, not in the vein of R. L. Stine’s novels or even Stephen King, but there are some things that happen in the books that are chilling, harrowing, sad…and psychologically horrific. I don’t want to spoil a fantastic series for you if you decide to read it, and yes, I’d read R. L. Stine as well. Goosebumps was another show I was afraid of; I didn’t read the books, but I did get into the Fear Street Sagas so heavily that I own both of the omnibi and almost the entire series. The last book is elusive.

With Wicca, I felt heard. I felt understood. I also felt like asking for a guy to like me was petty and not worthy of my guides attentions. Asking for rain was okay. Making wishes on the candles I’d use during a bath or shower was okay. Calling the corners and just sitting there, in the middle of a circle, was okay. Meditating in the shower and dancing with the Undines in the meditation was bliss.

I’ve mentioned before that I struggle with depression and anxiety; I’ve mentioned that I got help for my cutting—that I told a teacher, that he told the school counselor, that my mom came to the school, I told her, she took me out of school for the day, we told my dad, I got a psychiatrist whom I saw until I graduated high school. I’ve glossed over a person’s suicide—they were younger than me, and I’m not going to touch on it out of respect for the person or their family. I got incredibly lost after this person committed suicide. I had been Wiccan for a couple years by the time this happened, and looking back, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I were Catholic. Suicide is a sin in most monotheistic religions—I could get into a certain forest in Japan that’s known for people going to it to commit suicide, but let’s not get into that just now. Maybe in the future, but not right now. I struggled with suicide and suicidal ideation when I was the person’s age—a freshman in high school. I got help, as I mentioned. I still struggle with suicidal ideation—the romanticization of suicide…but then I remember what suicide looks like after the fact. It’s not beautiful, it’s not glamourous. It hurts and affects everyone for a long time. Catholicism and Christianity teach that it's a sin against God and you’ll go to hell for it. There is even a special circle in hell for suicides, according to Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno.

The Gods and Goddess don’t like suicide either. But you don’t burn in hell for eternity because you killed yourself. It just hurts them a lot, hurts their feelings, upsets them and the balance. In high school, Wicca and Witchcraft was so new, the only way to really learn about it was reading books, and my parents monitored my reading, what I listened to, what I watched…I’m an only child, and I have a feeling they appreciated Regan’s Explicit Lyrics sticker on CD’s at the very least… Let’s not get into Regan in this post either…maybe later, but not right now. What I’m really getting at are Soul Contracts—I didn’t know those existed until I started working more with coaches Nikki Colmone and Kristen Ramezzana, let alone that they can be negotiated…except for the life and death parts. I do believe in free will in both Wicca and Catholicism and Christianity, but I really feel that it should be based on whether or not a person is a good person or not, and if they live as a good person. That’s something I can believe and get behind, not the “if you repent for your sins, you can go to heaven.” If that’s true, Ted Bundy just might be up there, and I’m good. I don’t want to meet Ted Bundy, who supposedly repented for his sins, among which aren’t just murder, but also rape and necrophilia. So…there’s that. I’m so good, please don’t put me anywhere near that guy.

All of this is my really long winded way of saying that Wicca and Witchcraft gave me peace and solace where Catholicism really brought out the worst in me. I was hypocritical, and I’ve always had a thing about hypocrites. I started hating myself because I realized how hypocritical I was being. Wicca and Witchcraft was more gentle to me, more forgiving. It brought out my better sides. It saved me in so many more ways than Catholicism. I was afraid of the dark—I still am, to an extent. I can’t sleep in complete darkness. I need to have a movie playing, and when it ends, the menu needs to play on a loop or play the movie again. I can listen to sounds…but…I have a bit of a problem with that…it’s a funny problem, really: If I listen to Beatfulness, for example, or my lovely Chilling app, I have a tendency to wake up in complete darkness, get a little scared and think “okay…that’s enough…” open my Spotify app, find Motionless in White, click on a song, and go back to sleep… Happy Birthday, Chris Motionless!!!

So, I get a little afraid of the dark and have a hard time sleeping in complete darkness. Part of my practice when I was younger was meditating before bed every night, and eventually doing a simple sleep spell for myself just after meditating. I’d see things in the dark—I’d tried to tell my parents, but they didn’t believe me, so I stopped talking about it. I got the feelings that the things I’d see in the dark weren’t good. If I told anyone, they didn’t believe me…until I told Kristen and Nikki, anyway. I’d been seeing Trickster entities, but didn’t know. Praying to God, Mary, Jesus, angels, anyone like that just made them laugh. But when I started meditating every night and talking with one of my spirit guides, the entities went away.

When I was Catholic, I was angry. I realize I was twelve and thirteen and going through a lot. However, Wicca and Witchcraft didn’t make me as angry as Catholicism did. When I was in college, I did try going to church again a couple times. My second year of college, I had a couple roommates that went to church with each other and they invited me to go with them and join their bible study. I trusted them both. I told them both at different points I had been Wiccan in high school and I was trying to figure out what I was, because I was depressed and felt lost. One of the roommates told the instructor of our bible study, and they had an intervention for me that I had no idea about in the Student Union Building on campus. I walked away furious. I hadn’t been practicing Wicca at that time. They didn’t want me to go down that path, they wanted to see me in Heaven. They needed to save me. I hadn’t been aware that I’d needed that much saving. I told talked with my other roommate about it. We lost touch with the roommate that held the intervention for me, but keep in touch—I visited her in Massachusetts in 2021. We bonded over having read Sweep—it was our favorite, to the point that she named her son after one of our favorite characters, and her son is amazing and brilliant, as is her daughter. I’m so grateful to have her in my life still, so glad that she embraced me and who I was, and who I am. (Yes, we went to Salem together, too, and a few museums with her and her kids. It was a wonderful vacation.)

Not all Christians and Catholics are bad—I do have friends who are Christian or Catholic. I have no problem with them, and I’m happy to pray with them, as long as it’s not forced on me, or it’s some kind of conversion. I don’t want or need to be converted anymore than I want or need to be “saved”. I’m perfectly capable of saving myself, and I have saved myself numerous times, with the help of my spirituality, beliefs, and inner and moral compass. This is part of what I appreciate about Satanism in particular: One of their Seven Tenets basically boils down to “don’t be an asshole. If someone else is an asshole to you first, you can be an asshole back, but never instigate it.” I try to approach people with respect and kindness, unless they approach me with disrespect and unkindness; this is applied for everything from my personal space to abusive comments to trying to save or convert me, just as it’s applied to their being okay with me and who I am to realizing that I’m not just my spirituality and beliefs. Yes, they are a part of me, but they aren’t everything that makes me. I’m a person, a whole person. Just because we don’t see eye-to-eye about this doesn’t mean we don’t or won’t have other things in common. I’m okay with agreeing to disagree on beliefs and have the theological conversations, as long as they remain respectful. If I feel disrespected and walk away angry, that’s not okay, and the same goes for the other person/people in the conversation.

This is a huge topic, and I tried to narrow it to a single blog post. I don’t want the entirety of my blog to be this or to be defending what I believe. This will have to do for now.

As the Devil in Repossessed said: “Mayii! I’ll…be…back…”

If you aren’t saying “Oh, shit,” in response, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life…go watch Repossessed! It’s a spoof on The Exorcist, starring Leslie Nielson and Linda Blair. It’s fun!

And in the meantime…

Keep it Spooky!

P. S. That introduction is now an afterword. Grave Matters: The First Necromancer is now available for Kindle on Amazon! The paperback will be available soon!

One Year Later…

“I’m not perky.”

Me either, Wednesday Addams. Me either.

“But I wanna be.”

No, Wednesday, no! It’s a lie, right? Right?

Yes, it’s a lie.

I went about this blog the wrong way. I started it when I had no idea what I wanted it to be. I got intense writer’s block with this blog because I got busy with a lot of other things, and I didn’t know where I wanted to go with it. It felt inauthentic.

I had thought I wanted it to be about New Mexico and anything spooky—thus the name (well, partly; my nickname is Sukie, and a young lady I grew up with did call me Spooky Sukie, as I mentioned in previous blog posts that I’m going to keep for nostalgia). I had taken a trip in July 2021 to visit a friend who lives in Massachusetts. Part of it was that I had never gone on a vacation or traveled by myself before. Part of it was that I needed to get away for a bit. Part of it was that I was considering moving to either Massachusetts or Rhode Island after the breakup mentioned in my very first blog post and in the dedication of my very first novel that I published myself: Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix. It’s available for purchase on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. Please look up the title, not my name in order to find it if you’re interested. For reference, the name on the book is my real name: Marinda L. Kippert.

I’ll admit I miss Boston on rainy days, and it’s been raining quite a bit lately. But I wouldn’t want to live in Boston. That written, I’m not very fond of living in New Mexico, either. I’d rather not get into details about why. I’m just not fond of it.

A lot has happened in a year: In October of 2021, I created a Facebook and Instagram to promote my writing and my book(s) as much as possible on my end. I also reached out to a wonderful, badass woman who has seriously changed my life for the better that fall (I can’t remember when I reached out to her specifically). Perhaps you’ve heard of Nikki Colmone or Kristen Ramezzana. I found Nikki’s podcast, Witchcraft and Wellness because I needed something positive, inspiring, helpful to listen to, something to help motivate me. The second my Instagram was up and running, I followed her. She advertised in her podcast one-on-one sessions, and I always thought someday. Someday, I’ll work with her. I’ll work up the courage to do a one-on-one call with her. Someday happened very quickly; she was launching her Womb Alchemy Academy, and it resonated. I contacted her. We had our one-on-one. In January of 2022, I went through WAA, and everything snowballed from there. One of the first things to do was an entity clearing; Nikki wasn’t able to do it herself, because she was pregnant at the time, and so we were to schedule with Kristen, which was how I met Kristen. On the heels of finishing WAA, I went into Kristen’s Money Magick.

I turned 34 in February—February 22, 2022 (yep, on TWOsday this year). I started reaching out to literary agents to get Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix off the ground and published. I’d either hear very polite “no’s” or nothing at all, unless I had accidentally reached out to what are called vanity publishers—we’ll publish your novel and we’ll do all of the promoting, but you need to pay us first. I launched a Tarot reading business around the same time I started to seriously consider Amazon Self-Publishing. I also somehow managed to come out of my broom closet to my dad. What is a broom closet, you ask? It’s very much like a closet for someone LGBTQ+, except the broom closet is for Witches. I was brought up Catholic, but from a young age, it stopped resonating for me. I could talk about that in another post, but I’m also thinking of writing about it for the introduction of my next book, as a prominent theme in the book is how Catholicism and Christianity didn’t work for my characters either. No, they found comfort and solace in Wicca/Witchcraft and Satanism. But we’ll get to that book eventually in this post.

I came out of my broom closet in May, and not long after, Money Magick started. It’s been nice not to hide it, to be able to tell my dad, whom I live with because I’m a state worker, I went to college and have loans and New Mexico is not only a poor state but an expensive one, “oh, hey, I have a meeting with my witchy friends” or “I have a witchy Zoom meeting” etc. I’ve also bought him a few Tarot decks, purely for the art, and I’ve offered to do readings for him, which he’s declined, and I respect his decline.

As of June 22, 2022, I published my book on Amazon. I couldn’t have done it at all without the friends I had at the time (some of whom I’ve outgrown, or vice versa), and I definitely couldn’t have done it without my psychologist or Nikki or Kristen, let alone the bands I was listening to on repeat at the time. I’m currently planning on doing an anniversary edition as well, but I’ve yet to really start working on it sadly. On July 22, I had a book signing, where I sold eight of the ten copies I’d brought with me to ReVamp, where I’d asked the owner if I could have the signing, and fruits and cakes were provided.

I’m back in the office for my government job part of the week. I’m not sure when we’ll be going back full time. My free time is precious to me, and I’m getting better at laying out my boundaries (thank you Psychologist, Nikki, and Kristen, and the friends I’ve made since joining Womb Alchemy, Money Magick, and the Underworld Club, hosted by Kristen! Awakening Witch Academy is soon to start!).

I’m between books right now, as I’ve finished Grave Matters: The First Necromancer.

(Can you see why I’d like to publish it by Halloween? Not quite? Well… There are ghosts, witches, and yes, necromancers!)

(But first…before it’s published…I really feel I should muster up the courage to come out of the broom closet on Facebook at the very least…there are reasons for this, of course, both personal and…well, come to think of it, I guess it’s mostly personal.)

And the rest of the year? What comes next after Grave Matters?

I’ve started working on Sisters 2, not to mention Grave Matters 2.

I’m researching Vampire: The Masquerade 2nd Edition as thoroughly as I can.

“But Spooky Sukie,” you’re saying, “what? Why? Don’t you know that Fifth Edition is out?”

Yes, I’m aware Fifth Edition is out. That’s where the heavy and thorough research is coming in. I can’t say too much on details, but I will say, I want my characters for a certain book in a series separate but linked to Sisters and Grave Matters to play Vampire: Masquerade, possibly also Werewolf: Apocalypse and Dungeons & Dragons. My books rely very heavily on timelines, and this particular book starts in the nostalgic year of 1999. That’s why I’m looking at 2nd Edition of Vampire and Werewolf (more so Vampire, if I’m honest). When I researched and looked at copyright years and publication dates, I found out very quickly (probably not the point of research papers in high school, but it’s definitely how I learned to look at/for copyright dates in books, and I’m forever grateful) that my characters would in fact be playing 2nd Edition. (Also, thankfully The Book of Nod had been published in 1997, and I couldn’t be happier about it! I read The Book of Nod so many times in middle school, and it’s still one of my favorite books to smell…er, I mean… *cough, cough* read. I meant read. Leave me and The Book of Nod alone, okay? We’ll be fine. Imagine my disappointment though, in finding out it’s actually more of a prop, it’s more used for people choosing to play elders, apparently…I still love it though, and want to reread it cover-to-cover, like I used to in middle school. Still, one of my characters gets to own it and read it!)

Hi, I’m a bit of a nerd. Welcome. You are here, you have arrived. If you’ve read this far, you’re here for this, you can close that browser any time.

Everyone else gone? We can go back to what we were doing? Great!

The other books I have in mind (hopefully) won’t take up that much lengthy research (she types and realizes she probably just jinxed herself, but she’s just blissfully unaware of it and how at the moment; talk about sympathizing with The Fool from the Major Arcana). The thing is, I’m just not sure what to write next. It was like this after having finished Sisters as well, when I was trying to get it published. I started so many other things while I was waiting to hear back from literary agents: First I thought to work on Sisters 2, because it was fresh in my mind…but I’m still trying to figure out a way around something that happens with the end of Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix, a loophole.

I felt like working on Legacy. I feel like Legacy is my happy place, which is a little weird and twisted…you’ll find out why in time. (Legacy follows a few more Demons and a Fairy. There’s also a Dragon! Well, two, but I’m working it out in my head.)

I made an attempt with Disguise (Werewolves), but realized I was starting at the wrong place with it, I needed to go back further with the character; show, don’t tell they taught in my fiction writing classes, one of the incredibly few things I agree with my fiction professors on (I’m trying to unlearn a lot of what they “taught” me; I much preferred my nonfiction professors, which is ironic because I much prefer writing fiction).

I tried working on Haunted (psychics, mediums, Brujas and Curanderas, as well as ghost hunters and ghost hunting). I’m very in love with the characters and the story, it just needs more editing and tweaking. And, of course, to be finished…. (And I just remembered: I need to do research on pretty much psychics, mediums, Brujas and Curanderas, so there’s that.)

Then I felt like working on Blood Scarlet (Vampires), but it felt like it wasn’t coming out right. For something that I’ve been around since I was fifteen, characters I’ve known for 20 years early summer of 2023, they aren’t necessarily getting easier to write as time goes on…it doesn’t help that I’m kind of wanting to find a different draft I was working on in 2017ish to steal a scene from it and make it fit better in this latest rendition… Around this time, I was getting the feeling that I needed to work on Grave Matters (witches). I really, really didn’t want to work on Grave Matters. I knew how it was going to start and how it was going to end. I just didn’t know the entirety of the middle.

“Your guides are telling you to work on Grave Matters. Work on Grave Matters,” Nikki told me in one of our one-on-one sessions.

*Cringe* Damn it, okay… I started…and found it was hard to stop until it was over. I think that could very well be another post—why Grave Matters was so hard to write sometimes, why I put off writing it, but once I stopped being lazy and pulled out my laptop, it was finished by July 4—Happy “Independence” Day! (That’s right, I’m not happy about it either. Visit the Rebel Witch shop for your very own “Keep your filthy laws off my Wombneverse” tank top today! Except seriously, Nikki and Kristen found the softest of fabrics from a storm cloud somewhere, I promise, and the design is absolutely wonderful and gorgeous!)

And now I’m here. Grave Matters didn’t need much editing or rewriting, not as much as Sisters had initially needed. I reached out to one of the friends I made from The Underworld Club, who had offered to edit if I wanted, asked if they’d mind editing Grave Matters. I’ve heard back, accepted the edits, and now I’m working on putting it in the format for Amazon Self-Publishing again. I have a cover picture for it already. Maybe when it’s published, I’ll get an idea or feeling on what to work on next…

Before I knew it, it was September 1st again. It was time to either renew my blog payment or take down my blog entirely. I decided to pay it out of nostalgia…and realized it’s not only another platform to promote my writing, possibly even my Tarot reading business, but it’s something I want to do. A lot of people suggested I do a writing blog. I didn’t want to and was very against it—I talk about it all the time, no one wants to read about writing. I’m still not sure what I want this blog to be, but I have the ability to make it what I want it to be.

But also, Happy (Belated) Birthday, Ricky “Horror” Olson! I had no idea I’d posted my very first blog entry on his birthday, and now the secret is out: HUGE Motionless in White fan, party of one here in New Mexico, please and thanks. And yes, in my first blog, when I tried to awkwardly gloss over what asylum I was looking up because favorite band, I was looking at pictures of Pennhurst for MIW’s June 9th, 2021 Deadstream when I saw pictures of Dean Winchester’s Baby and yes, I’ve very recently gotten my dad into Supernatural. Score!

Happy (Early) Birthday to Chris Motionless/Cerulli as well! Hopefully I’ll have another post up next week, but just in case…

All of this said, I’m hoping to be back soon with another post. Until then…

Keep it Spooky!

The Gateway Ghost

Please read the post titled “A Bit of Personal History” before this post. Also, trigger warning: a woman kills her children in this paraphrased retelling.

This is my paraphrasing of the story of La Llorona. I’ve heard many different versions of it over the years, spanning from the version Joe Hayes tells, both in person on Museum Hill when he visits Santa Fe—from what I’ve read, he’s from Pennsylvania, and I think he lives out there, but I could be wrong. I try not to know people’s exact locations, if I’m entirely honest… (Examples: I know Stephen King lives in Maine, and I have an idea of what his house looks like—Sister found a really cool picture of it in the library one day, and we made a copy of the picture. I still have it framed and hanging on my wall. I have no idea where he actually lives. I know, too, that George R. R. Martin lives in Santa Fe, and someone rang his doorbell and left a brown paper bag on his doorstep, and when he opened the bag, he found a copy of Stephen King’s Misery. I have no idea where he lives, either. I just know where to find his theater and book store. Because books. Hello!) I’ve heard Sister’s version of the story, too, and can’t recall much of it. I’ve even heard iterations of it on podcasts—I heard a modern twist version very recently on Deadtime Stories, one of their earlier episodes, and I know it was covered at some point by the podcast called Something Scary—I don’t listen or follow Something Scary so much anymore. It fell to the wayside, and then got deleted, to be honest. It’s partly Morbid: A True Crime Podcast’s fault. I got horribly spoiled with Ash and Alaina. They’re a nice reprieve from the horror sometimes—I think I’m still a little scarred from West Memphis Three, though, if I’m being honest. Or, maybe I’m also having a Morbid, Interrupted in addition to the Supernatural, Interrupted. (I know they’re in Massachusetts. I can’t tell you where they are, either, other than Massachusetts. They don’t want to be found, and I respect that.)

            Snuggle up, World. Get your cozy blanket ready and wrapped around you. Get your back against something solid, so that—hopefully—whatever’s lurking in the dark won’t be able to sneak up behind you. It’s Story Time on the Spooky Sukie Blog.

            Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maria. She was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen, and when she grew up, all the men in her village tried to woo her. They brought her flowers, they serenaded her, they brought her the finest silks from far away lands. Maria didn’t pay any of them any mind. She was too good for them.

            Then one day, someone new came to the village: The most handsome man Maria had ever seen, and he rode the wildest horses. All the women swooned over him, but not Maria. No, she paid him no mind and ignored him. He wasn’t used to that, of course, and took notice of her. He tried to woo her: he tried serenading her, too, and bringing her flowers. Maria ignored him, until one day he asked her to marry him. Of course, Maria said yes. They were married, and Maria bore him two children, but he traveled for business, and as the years went on, the longer he was gone from home. Then one day, he came home, and the children ran to him, and Maria started to run to him, but paused at the sight of another woman with him, a prettier woman, a rich woman (I don’t think Maria had been wealthy, and the other woman is usually depicted as someone classier than Maria, in addition to being another woman).

            Maria was heartbroken. She was furious. She didn’t know what else to do besides take her children to the river that night and throw them in. They screamed and cried for her, and she realized what she’d done and ran up the river, calling their names, trying to get within arms reach of them, trying to see where they might turn up next in the river so she could get ahead of them and maybe try and grab them that way…but then she tripped over a rock (from here, it’s said that she either hit her head on a rock and died that way, or she fell into the river and drowned as well; either way, she dead). They found her the next day (either she washed up, or it’s evident that she tripped and hit her head; maybe even both). They buried her, but they never found her children.

            In some versions, it is said that she was turned away from Heaven because she lost her children—she did the right thing in trying to get them back, but as she didn’t…so, she can’t enter Heaven. I guess Hell won’t have her either, though I’ve not heard why. This legend also has the makings of a cautionary tale: Don’t be so prideful. Pride come before a fall and all of that, which clearly, Maria had an abundance of pride from beginning to end, no matter the version or telling of the story. She still haunts the river(s), by the way, looking for her children. Either she gets confused, or any children will do, especially if they don’t heed their parents when they call for their children to come home because it’s getting dark, or it’s dinner time. Those children especially are ones ripe for La Llorona to try and take back with her…

            As mentioned in the first post, this legend has been adapted for the big screen most recently for a Conjuring installation; it’s meant to be a stand-alone movie, but of course, there’s an Easter Egg that ties the movie La Llorona to the Conjuring—or, more specifically the Annabelle—franchise. I saw the movie in theaters with a close friend and four twelve-year-old girls. The person that gave us our tickets informed us that the movie was rated R, and that if the girls left the theater, they needed an adult to accompany them. They were accompanied, and the kids and the adults had a good time (my friend and I ran out of nachos we were sharing. I was irritated at the small bag they’d given us; she very awesomely went to get us more, which we proceeded to continue to split). I was surprised to learn that my friend had this same childhood fear of La Llorona—she’d learned about La Llorona when she’d lived in Mexico when she was a little girl. We’d met through work, and while we don’t work together anymore, we keep in touch. (I graduated college just in time!...to get my dream…retail job…. I’m grateful for the experience, and I never would have met this wonderful woman without that job, let alone end up watching a horror movie with her and four twelve-year-old’s, which I’m always going to remember and look back on. Please don’t yell at me for “bad parenting”—the girls could have been doing worse things, like drugs, or wandering around the mall aimlessly and possibly getting abducted for who-knows-what. They were safe and in good company with each other and the two adults. A little psychological scarring never hurt anyone. Just look at the Winchesters. They turned out…um…well, I think Sam and Dean turned out just fine.)

            Speaking of the Winchesters and Supernatural, if La Llorona’s story sounded at all familiar to you—and you watch Supernatural, or you’ve at least seen the pilot episode…it might be because La Llorona has a lot of similarities to another legend: “The Woman in White.” Woman loves dude, dude loves woman, they have kids either in or out of wedlock, he cheats on wife or decides he’d rather marry “his peer.” If we really wanted to take a deeper dive into this, we could really do the damn thing and talk about caste systems and marrying within caste’s, but this is already reaching my personal limit, and this is Spooky Sukie Blog, not history lesson on caste systems. Bottom line, woman kills kids and haunts…a river, a road, whatever. If I’m spoiling the pilot episode for anyone, I’m sorry. I’m not going to tell you how Sam and Dean “help” the ghost, if that’s any consolation. I’m just pointing out that this might sound familiar because even Supernatural has touched on it.

            I’ve read on Wikipedia, doing some research for La Llorona for one of my books, that she also is somewhere in season 15…I have no idea where. I just know she’s apparently there. I’m excited to see what they do with her, but not so excited I’ve resumed my Supernatural viewing.

            I’m waiting until I have a Supernatural dream again, okay?

            Anyway…if this scared you…yay! I’m doing my job right! If not…I hope you liked it, and I hope you come back for more! In the meantime…

            Keep it spooky!

A Bit of Personal History

Hello, World! Welcome back!

            I feel like this particular story I’d like to tell you today needs a little bit of personal set up. So, here we go…

            I’m an only child, but I grew up with the family down the street. Both of my parents worked, and the short of it is basically that Grandma took me in and raised me as part of her family—we’re not blood related, but, as most people in her family, I have a nickname: Sukie. My “sister”—her granddaughter who is about a year older than me, added “Spooky” to the front of Sukie one day for giggles—well, that, and I kept shivering when she’d call me Spooky Sukie. She must have started calling me “Spooks” and “Spooky” right around the time that I started my horror movie phase (when I was 11 going on 12). I refuse to grow out of my horror movie phase. Even now, when I’m teleworking from home, all alone, listening to podcasts like Bridgewater, NoSleep, Deadtime Stories, and Scared to Death while I work, or even an audiobook by the King of Horror Himself (Stephen King), I just want all the horror…as long as I can have my back against something and the lights are on in the back of the house. I swear, I’m certain something’s going to contort-crawl its way out of one of the back bedrooms one of these days, right at the climax of one of these shows or books, and the cat and I are going to have a really rough time with it. We scare each other about once a week, and she’s still a great little coworker. More on that later, probably. Right now, let’s get back to my adoptive family for this set up.

            My “sister” is older than me, as I mentioned—I think she’s my Dean Winchester, if I’m being entirely honest. She didn’t psychologically scar me with clowns, and I actually profusely thank her for any and all psychological scarring, if I’m being honest—we wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t been like “hey, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Drop Dead Fred, The Hand that Rocked the Cradle, and, last but definitely not least Pet Sematary 2. Let’s watch the hell out of those back in the glory days of VHS.” And when the internet came around…I still remember my cousin, my “sister” and I crowding around a computer where they looked up a clip from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Not to mention at a house party, the adults were watching one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. And then there was Blockbuster and Hastings, where movies could be rented. I remember promising my “sister” up and down that I wouldn’t tell anyone we’d watched the scary movie she rented. I got so scared, I couldn’t finish, and I asked much later how it ended, and she graciously gave me an abbreviated version. Of course, I’m a loudmouth, and had nightmares, and told my parents that my “sister” had shown me Scream. Yes, I’d been terrified of Scream, and the movies listed above.

            I think what really did me in, though, was the rainy days.

            It rained here in Santa Fe, New Mexico the day I did my first post. As I drove through the rain, singing along now and again with various hard rock and metal bands on a playlist I’d made, I couldn’t help but smile, and wonder if I should watch a scary movie or not when I got home, or listen to a scary podcast, or read something scary. I have some incredibly fond memories of rainy days and winter days with my adoptive family.

            If it was raining, Grandma wouldn’t let us go outside to play, because we’d bring in mud, and what we could play inside was limited. Yes, we could build forts, but we’d have to put it away when we finished playing. Sister had a better idea anyway, and as far as I know and remember, it became the thing we’d always do on rainy days: we’d tell each other scary stories.

            I don’t know that other kids got into it the way Sister and I did. I can only remember it being me and her, or her cousin who was younger than us—he and I would always get confused as brother and sister, but again, I’m an only child. I remember it being very one-on-one, and I remember Sister had a way of telling stories that scared the crap out of me, and not just because she was reading to me from the famous Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. She had to get warmed up, though. One of the stories she’d always start with was basically a version of “Blue Beard,” but instead of dead wives in a room, he had an elephant or something benign in the room. Once, I interrupted Sister while she was setting the story up, and I told her to make it scary instead of random…but I was about eight or nine, maybe ten at the oldest, and wasn’t so articulate. She did switch up the ending, as she always did, then hesitated and asked: “You really want a scary story?”

            “Yes!” I told her.

            She hesitated again. “Well…I have one, but…it’s real. I don’t think I should tell you. You get scared too easy.”

            “Oh, come on!” I begged: “Please? I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

            She hesitated again, but after a lot of begging, she finally told me the real-life scary story.

            She told me all about La Llorona.

            I can’t honestly remember the version of the story Sister told me. I have no idea if it’s close to the legend, let alone if it was close to the book written by Joe Hayes, (“Storyteller,”) but I know she told me La Llorona (see previous blog for pronunciation) had drowned her children. I don’t remember her build-up, I don’t remember a lot of the story-telling Sister did for this story in particular. I can tell you how Joe Hayes told it when my cousin took her kids to see Joe Hayes with her mom and me a few years back when he was here in August on Museum Hill. I can tell you how the book goes, as I have an unsigned and a signed copy of his book. For the life of me, I can’t recall Sister’s telling of the story.

I remember asking how it was a real story, as she hadn’t gotten into that part of it. She hesitated again, but finally (after more begging) told me that La Llorona had drowned her kids in the arroyo near our house. (Apparently arroyo is Spanish for “brook”—I don’t profess to know it all, but hey, I learned something new! Anyway, supposedly, the arroyo’s in Santa Fe somehow connect to the Rio Grande River, which my mom and I always found to be kind of funny, as most of the time the arroyo’s are incredibly dry, unless we get one hell of a rainstorm, and I mean, it has to pour!) Sister hinted that there was more to the story, and I begged and begged her to tell me more, to finish telling me the story. Finally, she told me about her personal encounter with La Llorona, sealing the deal on how real she was. (I can’t recall much about Sister’s personal encounter, either, not entirely, anyway; it’s not my story to tell, and I’m not going to ask Sister to tell it. Some things are private and sacred. We’re all allowed our secrets. Besides, I’m sharing some of mine with you here. Enjoy!)

I made sure to ask Sister the logical question after that: “About what time does La Llorona come looking for kids?”

“Late at night.”

“Okay, but what time? Like, ten o’clock?”

“Probably closer to eleven.”

And that, World, is how I got into staying up as late at night as possible. I don’t understand my logic with that one either, and we’ll talk more about La Llorona in the next post! That’s right, you’re getting a second post today!

Keep it spooky!

Supernatural, Interrupted

Hello, world. Welcome! To my nightmare…kind of literally. Why? Because hi, world. Not “hi, peer review.” Not “hi, select few.” World.

            I’m a writer with a wide range of interests. I love reading horror, science fiction, paranormal romance, romance, ghost stories, true crime, and books about real haunted places.

            Oh, and of course mysteries, mostly cozies, but also Agatha Christie. And of course, literature.

            I’m a big-time Supernatural nerd. Once, I was trying to do research on a specific old asylum for…uh, reasons *cough, cough* and I was looking at pictures of this asylum, when I saw one of a car. I was 99% sure it was Baby. I saw it was a black car and immediately recognized it as a ’67 Impala, but I’m really not a car person. I went from studying an asylum to studying a car, and I saw the license plate was Kansas… I checked the plate number, and sure enough, it was Baby.

            It all goes back to Supernatural. And bacon. And pie…

            I exercise. Bacon and pie are called for sometimes, damn it. I’m honestly on the fence about drinking, and I don’t do drugs.

            I’m actually dragging out my Supernatural viewing. I’m calling it Supernatural, Interrupted. I’m interrupting it because I don’t want it to end. I’ve seen up to season 12—I haven’t seen seasons 13, 14, or 15. I’ve paused this viewing—I feel I need to be specific, because I’ve rewatched a lot—just after rewatching season 10, and haven’t started the rewatch of season 11 yet. I don’t mind spoilers, and I’m looking forward to the prequel. I just really don’t want it to end, even though I know I’ll end up rewatching it…again…and again…as I have before and will again…

            I’ve interrupted it with a slew of podcasts, audiobooks, physical books, music—like Stephen King, I love writing with music in the background, ranging from King Diamond, Cradle of Filth, and In This Moment to instrumentals and jazz, sometimes pop music… (I’m probably the only gal who considers herself goth that can bust out into a Carrie Underwood song, but we’ll swiftly move on from that—please no Taylor Swift. Not a fan. I was also twerking before Miley Cyrus made it a verb, thank you very much. Sometimes, I really miss college.)

            I’ve also gotten into The Office, and re-discovered Game of Thrones. I’d seen the first two seasons when the last season was airing, and, case in point on how little I care about spoilers, I went to a party viewing thing for the very last episode with my ex, where we watched the last episode. I know exactly how it ends, but here I am, watching it again. I questioned and worried about whether or not I really liked Game of Thrones or if I liked it because my ex was into it. It was one of these: “Oh, crap, real worst nightmare realized: Have I become ‘that girl’ who likes things because her man’s likes it?” The answer was nope. Never have been that girl and never will be that girl.

            Yes, I identify as being a straight woman. I look white, but I am a smidge Hispanic…and I happen to be from Santa Fe, New Mexico, born and raised. I graduated from University of New Mexico with a Bachelor’s in English with a focus in creative writing, and my minor was criminology (I took a lot of sociology classes). New Mexico is one of the 50 states. I understand German way better than Spanish. I might have taken four semesters of German in college…not because I’m a Rammstein fan or anything…definitely didn’t have a crush on Till Lindemann, either…er, I mean, uh, Till who?

            (Boy I hope my sarcasm and smart-ass-ness comes off as just those things. I’m also very sad about his arrest in Russia. I know he’ll be fine, but it doesn’t make me any less sad that it happened.)

            Santa Fe is one hour away from Albuquerque and is the state capital. It’s smaller than Albuquerque, which is considered a big city. If you watched Breaking Bad at all, I know the first few episodes were definitely filmed in Albuquerque off of Central Avenue, and the show itself takes place in Albuquerque and is based on a true story (probably loosely after a while—not saying it to be mean or cast doubt or anything, I’m just saying I really don’t think some of the things in the Conjuring franchise happened, either; my suspension of disbelief can swallow a lot, but there’s definitely a gag reflex and boy does that sound dirty, I’m sorry to any family members reading this, but for the public, you’re welcome for any and all psychological scarring—hey! It went back to Supernatural again, look at that). I’ve driven by the motel that was shown in the earlier episodes and, one evening after dancing until two in the morning, my roommate and I actually walked home, walking along Central from downtown Albuquerque to our dorm on the UNM campus. (I have no idea what episode they showed the motel in because hi, I stopped watching after the bathtub fell through the floor because of the acid used to decompose the body…Breaking Bad just wasn’t my cup of tea.) My roommate and I made it back to the dorm okay, obviously. We got cat-called once, and that was it.

            A lot of people confuse Albuquerque for being the state capital. A very brief history on why that is has to do with the railroad. Back in the day, when the railroad was all the rage, they wanted to build it through Santa Fe, but Santa Fe didn’t want it to go through…but Albuquerque was all about it and yes, pleased it until it was built. You’re welcome.

            Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Cimmaron…a certain triangle that may or may not be around Deming…ghost towns… Yep, New Mexico is super haunted! Just so you know. I knew this before I went on vacation to the Massachusetts/Rhode Island area to see a different college roommate, and my dumb ass asked her: “Hey, let’s go into the Bridgewater Triangle.” She asked me where it was, and I admitted: “I…don’t know.” (It turned out we were pretty much in it the entire time I was visiting her and her family. Dear self: You’re welcome. Way to pay attention to Morbid, by the way.) When I got back from the vacation, I thought: “Wait…New Mexico has just as much UFO’s and ghosts as anywhere else. There has got to be a triangle somewhere, right?” According to Google, there’s one around Deming. I intend to look into it further, don’t worry. In the meantime, I’d like for it to be noted that New Mexico gets haunted by La Llorona, too, just like Texas, Arizona, possibly Nevada, and, according to a certain film in a certain franchise previously mentioned, California. Also, Mexico. La Llorona (Lah Yo-Row-Nah), really gets around, apparently. Don’t worry, New Mexico has some other ghosts that sound like a real party.

            The Headless Nurse comes to mind. So does Santa Fe’s very own Headless…uh…Horseman? Pretty sure there’s a horse in there—the legend, I mean. I have no idea, he’s Headless, and you can supposedly still hear his head rolling down a certain street. Don’t worry. I’m going to write you all about it, and even suggest a book or two, if you’re really interested. (I’m going to cite the book either way, the choice to read it or not is entirely up to you.)

            Oh, how I’d like to get into all the ghosts! But at a later date, and we will. Trust me, we’ll get into all the things because why not?

            We’re even going to very briefly get into George R. R. Martin and his theater and book store—yep, those are in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he also lives.

            But for now, I’m going to go take care of some writing stuff. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first post, and I hope you come back for more!

            Keep it spooky!