Sign me up please! Sounds fun
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As of 8pET (GMT-4) I am reserving the original story because it loses meaning under 5k. I’m going back to 8-12k to write the story it appears I really wanted to write. Back to the drinking borad to find a new topic.
Oh, and I just figured something vitally important out: End of summertime — getting an extra hour on Deadline Day. 
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Actually, in the UK the clock doesn’t go back at midnight, but at 2am. So you technically only have an opportunity to miss the deadline by 1 hour while being 2 hours late! 
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Welcome! Glad to have you on board!
Good to know we’re inspiring some writing!!! 
While @jaysen is nearly finished for the second time, I’m still in the reading-things-and-getting-inspired stage. I’m currently reading a collection of MR James ghost stories.
What are your favourite spooky tales?
Third… First story was … less stinky things are found in a porta-potty. Second story wasn’t bad for a mediocre, highschool (yr 9-12) essay. Now I have one I won’t send you because, to quote Mrs *, “I forking hate you! This is the one. It needs more not less. Why am I crying at this?”
An outline popped into my noggin walking the dog this morning. I have a pile of things that need to get done so I’m expecting this to be tomorrow. I don’t think it will be as good as my original planned submission. Of course, it could be. Then I will have written another short story collection that just sits on my drive wastinng electrons.
For anyone wondering, yes, I’m cheating. Rules someone well known told me (nothing new):
- Write what you know.
- Write what you feel.
- Make sure you uderstand what you feel.
- Shut the fork up and write. About what you know and what you feel.
- If your a$$ isn’t in the chair, then you aren’t writing.
- Get your a$$ out of the chair and learn and feel.
- WHY IS YOUR A$$ OUT OF THE CHAIR!?!?!?
The daft bastard was right. Granted all of this has been said on these forums for as along as I have haunted them. I’m giving one man credit for making me feel it, not just know it.
Off to see if this ghost will talk with me.
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Hey I’d love to take part too thanks! X
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Count me in. I’m starting tonight!
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Welcome @oof_itsalice and @Rimfrost!
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If anyone else gets inspiration from film, here’s a few semi-recent horror movies I’ve enjoyed:
- The Dead Center (2018)
- Hereditary (2018)
- The Lighthouse (2019)
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I have had a ghost story brewing for a little while now. This is the perfect impetus to push it to the top of the pile. I am planning on doing a sort of stripping run to see what I have in the pot. Then distill it down to something under 3000 words.
My entry haiku entry.
She lives alone now
He left her with no goodbye
Bones stir. The cat howls
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Hello! New here, noting my intent to submit
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Welcome!!
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I’d like to participate, if I may.
-jdw
I am a NiaD-adjacent writer. Even wrote a few unofficial chapters on the sly – my contact, just a voice on the phone, leaving chapter packets under a park bench in the dead of night.
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Hey @jdw and welcome! Absolutely you can come in from the cold!
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll take a look!
The one I always reference as a masterpiece of ghost fiction is “Ghostwatch” – simply incredible event TV from the BBC, although the broadcaster has subsequently distanced themselves from it due to its controversial and disturbing nature (Ghostwatch has never been repeated on UK TV, and is said to have caused the first recorded cases of people suffering from PTSD from watching a TV programme, amongst other “accolades”).
Watching it at a very young age “live” was quite the experience! I rewatched it 25 years later and – yup – that was too soon!!!
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I wouldn’t go so far as to call any of these masterpieces, though The Lighthouse definitely has more than one toe over that edge in my opinion. It was shot with vintage equipment to 35mm black and white film stock in near square aspect ratio, the lenses close to a hundred years old. I believe the camera itself was the most modern component (one of Christopher Nolan’s favourites), though you’ll l not recognise it as being the same equipment used to shoot Interstellar or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But if you aren’t taken by cinematography, Willem Defoe is an unstoppable force, with Pattinson coming in close behind. Although not everyone might appreciate its Lovecraftian ambiguity, it’s worth seeing at least once for any fan of the genre, and for the calibre of acting involved. For myself, I put it right back on 0:00:00 the moment it ended and let it keep rolling!
Hereditary is more your classic ghost stuff, though also an A24 Films production, so expect it to be a bit off-beat. Toni Collette gives everything to her character, as she always does, but what struck me about it most was its attention to detail. I don’t think there is a misplaced clue or prop anywhere (in sets rich enough to be confused with a Wes Anderson), and if something doesn’t make sense, it will be explained an hour or two later. I felt the latter half wasn’t up to the same par as the first, and in some ways the way it went down felt a bit derivative, but it does keep you sweating.
The Dead Center I found interesting mainly for how well it was done for the budget they had. I only picked it up because of Shane Curruth (of Primer and Upstream Color fame), but ended up quite impressed.
I’ve put Ghostwatch on my list, though it might be “interesting” finding it. Kind of seems like a War of the Worlds level of cultural event, for ghost stories.
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