Stop on Unfinished by Suzanne Gravelle Virtual Tour

Today author Suzanne Gravells is stopoing by on her blog tour to talk about her book, UNFINISHED.



When life overwhelms you and you cannot take one more moment of the chaos that is happening all around you… if it’s feasible grab your keys and take a drive.


We know that a change of scenery, favourite music, quiet streams or majestic mountain ranges have calming healing affects, even if it is only for the moment we are enjoying them.

We all have thoughts of running away but we know even if we do, we cannot get away from our selves, our thoughts travel with us. For me I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, to be able to think, start a thought and finish it without interruption or influence from those around me.

A drive out to the country is what most people can do and usually that is enough to blow some of the convoluted thoughts back into perspective but for me it had to be wider than that. I wanted space, wide open space and a drive out to the country was not going to be enough for me.


So I sold my home, resigned from my career, kissed my children and grandchildren good-bye, got into my truck and starting driving, I call it… my Self Imposed Exile.


60,000km and 17 months later I am still driving. Coast to Coast 3 times, North, South, where ever the wind blew me, I went there. Today I am still driving working on my 4th trip heading West.

We all have had terrible, devastating, heartbreaking moments and we feel as if we will never have a moment’s peace, nor do we think we will ever get over what happened to us, we wonder if life will ever be normal again, whatever normal is.


When a heartbreak ripped the structure of my world apart it brought me to my knees and I could not breathe or think, the only thing I wanted was to be alone and on the road. I did not want to subject my family and friends to what seemed like constant drama and sorrow. Professional therapy was suggested but I could not sit still so my therapists had to be compact. I had to be able to pop in a CD when I was driving or open a book when I was sitting still and this worked very well… for me.


During my self imposed exile, I was able to piece together why the heartbreak was just heavy enough to bring my life crashing to the floor. I came to understand it was not just the heartbreak, I had heartbreaks before, it was the 30 years of taking care of everyone but me and I was exhausted. But it was not until I started journaling my journey did I see how my mind started to calm down and I began to think clearer. As I read through my journal a very clear story had started to form and I had no choice but to share my remarkable journey that is still…Unfinished.





For more information about Unfinished by Suzanne Gravelle, visit http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Suzanne-Gravelle/dp/192700506X and you can follow her journey on her BLOG



About Unfinished:


This is a true story of a woman who experienced such a profound awakening that she could no longer live the same way, the same life she was just one week before. She could no longer ignore the woman who was screaming to be set free from the ties that bind her to a life she no longer desired or recognized. The transformation to become the woman


she really wanted to be has propelled her upon the most remarkable self-discovery journey of her life. She sold her home, gave up her career, kissed her children, grandchildren and friend’s good bye, got into her vehicle and just drove away…ALONE. Where was she going? 30,000km later she finds herself in the most unlikely place to try to piece her life together, trying to make sense of the constant feeling of being UNFINISHED. To order your copy – http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Suzanne-Gravelle/dp/192700506X



About Suzanne Gravelle:


Suzanne Gravelle is 49 Years old and has 3 children, 2 grandchildren who live in Nova Scotia. At the time this book goes to print she is single and homeless by choice, still travelling, seeking that place of comfort she will eventually call home.


She spent most of her life living in Nova Scotia but her formidable years aged 10-25, were spent living on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She resigned as a Real Estate Agent in Nova Scotia, to embark upon this most incredible journey, driving, exploring Canada and writing this book. To read Suzanne’s extended bio, visit http://bookpromotionservices.com/2011/11/10/suzanne-gravelle-bio/

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

Whoever thought this up decided to do a different kind of Christmsas tree this year and made a Dalek tree. Is it weird to you or not? Would you like this in your house?

Signing My New Ghost Book in Williamsburg, Virginia This Afternoon!

I  will be  signing my new release, Virginia’s Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations at the Barnes and Noble at Williamsburg's New Town Shops , 5101 Main Street, Williamsburg, VA, 23188 today, Black Sunday, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm.   757-564-0687

Signed books make great Christmas gifts!

Supernatural Friday: Legend of the Mistletoe

Kissing under the mistletoe is more than just a chance to get your honey to kiss you. Besides the Christmas holly, laurel, rosemary, yews, boxwood bushes and, of course, the Christmas tree, mistletoe is an evergreen displayed during the Christmas season. It is symbolic of the eventual rebirth of vegetation that will occur in spring. More so than any other of the Christmas evergreens, it is a plant of which we are conscious only during the holidays. Mistletoe has long been regarded as an aphrodisiac and fertility herb. It may also possess abortifacient qualities, which would help explain its association with uninhibited sexuality.
Kissing under the mistletoe got its start in Celtic rituals and Norse mythology. In Gaul, the Druids considered it a sacred plant. It was believed to have medicinal qualities and mysterious supernatural powers. After preparing for a sacrifice and a feast under the oak, they hail the mistletoe as a cure-all, bringing two white bulls with horns that have never been bound before. A priest dressed in a white robe climbs the oak and with a golden sickle cuts the mistletoe,. It is caught in a white cloak. After sacrificing the victims, they ask the god to make the mistletoe propitious for them. There was belief that a potion prepared from it will make sterile animals fertile and that kit was an antidote for any poison.



Mistletoe and the kissing are traced back to ancient Scandinavia. It was also the plant of peace there. If enemies met by chance beneath it in a forest, they laid down their arms and maintained a truce until the next day. This ancient Scandinavian custom led to the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe.


But this tradition went hand-in-hand with the myth of Baldur. Baldur's mother was the Norse goddess, Frigga. When he was born, Frigga made every plant, animal and inanimate object to promise not to harm Baldur. But the goddess overlooked the mistletoe. Loki took advantage of this oversight and tricked one of the other gods into killing Baldur with a spear fashioned from mistletoe. The demise of Baldur, a vegetation deity in the Norse myths, brought winter into the world, although the gods did eventually restored Baldur to life. Frigga pronounced the mistletoe sacred, ordering that it should bring love rather than death into the world.

HAPPY THANKSGIVNG

Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my readers. May you all, whether in the US or other parts of the world, have a blessed day.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY

Beginning of November for the first Weird Wednesday we had a woman with a turkey hat. Now, with one day away from Thanksgiving we have a man wearing a turkey. What a turkey!



Check Out My Guest Blog on Hauntings at The Demon Stole My Pencil

Today, I am guest blogging about "Hauntings" at The Demon Stole My Pencil

Supernatural Friday: Myths, Legends, and Folklore

Everyone participates in the reading of legends, myths, or folklore at some point in their lives. Who hasn’t read Greek mythology in school, or the folklore of Paul Bunyan, or tall tales of famous, real people like Calamity Jane or Johnny Appleseed? And what about urban legends? Urban legends are myths told in modern society, in cities or online, unlike many of the old tales set in the countryside. Even now, these get passed around in emails or are posted on the Internet—stories about the serial killer with the knife hanging around Lover’s Lane, Bloody Mary, the terrible smell under the bed in a hotel room or even the computer virus story that may have been true three years ago, but is still sent out as a warning.



A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions told about someone that existed in reality, once upon a time, but the true events have been twisted, making them more fascinating. Legend includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility,” defined by a highly flexible set of parameters. These may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened. There is the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arose, and in which the tale may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh, vital, and realistic. It is kinda like that game you played with your classmates in school, where you whisper to the next person a story, and by the time it comes full circle, that story has changed drastically from what it began as.


A myth is a sacred or traditional story that concerns the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to be in their present form. Myths serves to unfold a part of the world view of a people, or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon. Parables and allegories are myths. Nothing is supposed to be real about it at all, even if someone mentioned in the story is a real person, like some famous Virginians in this book. There are stories told about their habits or life that are not true.


Folklore is the traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people, transmitted orally. It is popular, but unfounded beliefs. Or, as Merriam-Webster says: “traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people.”


The flavor of people and their culture, all interwove with day to day life when settlers came to the New World. They brought with them their folk tales and beliefs, and founded new ones in the new country. Some old stories mutated into different ones. There were older tales told by the Native Americans who were already living in Virginia before the white man came. Then, when slaves were brought to the New World, they brought with them tales from Africa and changed them, molding them to fit their new home.


Today, in modern times, we continue this with urban legends. Who hasn’t heard of the killer with the hook in lover’s lane? Or who hasn’t said, “Bloody Mary” while staring into the mirror, hoping to make a ghost appear? There’s the hitchhiking woman dressed in an evening gown that is picked up and climbs into the back seat, giving directions to an address to the driver. Once they arrive at the house, though, the driver discovers that she has mysteriously disappeared. When he goes to the door, he is told that his hitchhiker is the daughter of the owner of the house, who had been killed just after she left a party several years before, never making it home. But stories like the hitchhiking ghost existed long before they ended up as urban legends. I know I’ve read stories when it was a buggy or wagon being driven, not a car. So how many urban legends started as folk tales by those who colonized America?


Many of the legends and folk tales told by our ancestors have some kind of moral attached to them. These may be warnings. Watch your womenfolk and children, so that marauding Indians could not kidnap them. Don’t dare approach some old woman living in the woods for a much needed potion to rid one of an unwanted pregnancy, for she may conjure a spell and convince you to crawl into her oven to be cooked.

All of the above are the start of human storytelling, most likely around the campfire at night and told by the village shaman or official storyteller. What stories do you remember and still like to tell?

 
Like to read some myths, legends, or folklore? You can find some Virginian ones in my book, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales. And with Christmas fast approaching, books make great gifts. This one can be read by children, grade 3 to adults.
 

Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations Reviewed by Chesapeake Style Magazine!

Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations got a great review in Chesapeake Style Magazine. There's a print copy, but you can read it in the online pdf of the magazine at http://is.gd/RWgCcv

The review is on page 13 (my lucky number by the way!)

Weird Wednesday

Every year at Thanksgiving, I gathered that this family-owned turkey farm paints a handful of turkeys with vegetable dye, turning their white plumage neon. Thinking he wanted to make these birds more attractive to sell? 

Supernatural Friday: eBay Purchase

This short dark fantasy story is copyrighted to me, Pamela K. Kinney, so please do not take it and share it on your blog or elsewhere. Instead, share the link with friends and have them come here to read it. It is based off the old nursery rhyme, Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.

eBay Purchase

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Judy Linnea watched as her husband set down the jack-o-lantern on the front porch. He stood up and stretched, then sauntered back inside the house. Peter took his dark hooded sweatshirt out of the hall closet and slipped it on. He turned to her. She saw nothing on his face but a blank page, a few wrinkles and a graying five-o’clock shadow the only thing written on it.


“Heading out again, Peter?” she asked sarcastically. “You never stay home with me anymore.”


A strange little grin flitted across his lips. For a minute a chill raced up her spine, burt she shook it off. No way the man would hurt her.


“What’s the matter, Judy? Do you think I seeing another woman or something?”


She snorted. “You? Magic would be a more real possibility, then your lazy butt cheating on me!”


The strange smile grew wider, as if only he got the joke. Not even pausing to give her a kiss on the cheek, he stepped past her and went outside. The door slammed shut with a loud bang.


Judy stared at the door, shocked. Least he’s always gave me a kiss before. What’s the matter with him these days?


Actually, he’d been acting strange ever since he had brought home that pumpkin the day before Halloween a week ago, carved a face on it and set it out on the porch on Halloween, all lit up. Funny thing, he removed it the day after, and didn’t throw it in the trash as usual, but took it indoors. Until today when he put it back out. Very strange behavior, even for him.


Well, whatever’s up his butt will have to be puzzled out later.


She had cookies to bake.


Just before she could head to the kitchen a woman’s giggle came to her ears. The sound came from outside, just outside the front door, if she thought about it. Frowning, Judy opened the door and stared through the screen door.


Empty. Only the porch furniture and the damned pumpkin. Judy was about to shut the door when someone giggled again.


“What the . . .”


Puzzled, she realized the sound came from the top of the porch steps. Except no one stood there, only the pumpkin. Judy shoved the screen door open and stepped out.


She stood next to the jack-o-lantern, staring down at its face that Peter had carved into it. Eyes like mirthful crescents, the nose, an upside down triangle, and the mouth was a slash so malignant that for a moment she shivered and took a step back.


Another giggle filled the air.


In dawning horror, she realized that it came from the jack-o-lantern. Something slithered up one side, long and black-green.


“Oh God, a snake!” Where was freaking Peter when she needed him? She hated snakes.


Judy tripped over her feet and landed on her butt. Her face was close to the slithering thing that curled around the orange flesh of the jack-o-lantern. She noticed that the ‘snake’ had tiny red horns that rose from the top of its head and as its yellow eyes stared into hers, a tiny red flame issued from its opened maw.


She screamed, trying to scramble to her feet and failing. The creature hissed, more flames filling the air along with the sound—the thud-thud of something pounding from inside the pumpkin.


The jack-o-lantern split apart, and pieces fell onto the top porch step in front of it. A miniscule body, dressed in a tattered crop top, denim shorts and green sandals staggered out, a tiny sledgehammer gripped in her minute hands. I was a woman with orange eyes and blonde hair, all in a Barbie doll face. She gazed up at Judy.


“What the hell are you?” asked Judy, unable to move a muscle. Had this creature hypnotized her?


The woman gave a nasty smile.


“I’m Peter’s new wife.”


“Excuse me?”


“Peter realized that your software program that came with the package of tomato seeds he had bought last spring was defective. But the seller on eBay who sold him this pumpkin said to carve it and insert the new software program, then right-click, and I would come alive. I’m to replace you.”


“Come on, we have to hurry, as Peter is expecting a dinner of steak and mashed potatoes with home baked pumpkin pie tonight when he gets home. I need to get to the store.”


Judy’s vision wavered and she tried to stand, but found that her legs wobbled like rubber. Her vision dimmed but she saw another odd thing about the jack-o-lantern that she hadn’t noticed before. A long, white line attached to a two-button computer mouse snaked from behind the jack-o-lantern.


That’s when she fell into a long dark corridor of nothingness.

****

Judy regained consciousness and found herself lying on something red. In fact, everything looked red from top to bottom and side to side. The whole room seemed circular and empty of furniture. She stood, her legs still shaky.


To her horror, she saw a giant, feminine face with pumpkin orange eyes staring at her through a large, gaping hole in the red wall in front of her.


“Oh God, where am I?” screamed Judy.


“Why, in the jack-o-lantern, of course!” said the face in a booming voice.


The face vanished when Judy heard the thunderous footsteps of some giant.


“Peter! It worked!” The female voice.


“It did?” Peter’s voice roared like a sonic boom.


The next moment his dove-gray eyes peering through the hole at her.


“Comfy?” he said. “Good.”


She ran to the hole and poked her head out to look up at him towering over her like a skyscraper. “What’s that suppose to mean?”


He didn’t answer, but he leaned over to pick up the mouse she had seen earlier, only now it was way bigger. “I have to save you into the program.”


He right-clicked the mouse and all went blank for Judy..

****

Peter took the CD and shoved it into a drawer full of other CDs, each with a woman’s name on it. He turned to his new wife.


“The program better work right this time, or I’ll not be buying any more programmable wife software off eBay. Understand?”


His new wife smiled, touched her hair with a shaking hand before she leaned over to give him a kiss.



Weird Wednesday

If my turkey for Thanksgiving grinned back at me like this one is doing, I be freaking out. What do you think?

Supernatural Friday: It's Coming

Copyrighted by Pamela K. Kinney, just enjoy it and share the link with friends. A week after Halloween is over, but what the heck, working on a novel for NaNo, so found this for Supernatural Friday.

It’s coming,

Like a terrible thing

It’s scary,

Dark, and with a toothy grin.

So you better beware,

Have everything ready

Decorate appropriately,

For the end is near.

Just remember one thing,

It only comes but once a year

Halloween, costumed in orange and black,

A mask upon its gruesome face

Ringing your doorbell with persistence,

Innocent child or demonic being

Just feed it candy, just to be safe.

Trick or Treat.

Weird Wednesday

This is a turkey of a hat!