What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? I wrote it over about two weeks for Timber Ghost’s submission call and it was done just in time for the 2021 Halloween online readings with the Rhode Island Chapter of the Horror Writers Association.
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https://www.timberghostpress.com/out-of-time-shop.html
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Where did you do most of your writing for this memoir? And please describe in detail. On laptop hooked up to a wide monitor and wireless keyboard in my study. If I’m not home alone, I’m fashionable in noise-canceling headphones. I’ve got kids, a husband who decompresses through power-tools, two loudmouth cats, and a border collie—and I’m not one of those café writers who can pull this off in a frenetic environment. I need to create a cave to concentrate.
What were your writing habits while writing this memoir—did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? It’s coffee before noon, Earl Grey after lunch, and I work whenever I can.
Once I get locked onto a draft, I work day and night around my family and editing job to chase it over the finish line. As a mom of two, I work before the pre-teens are up in the morning, during school hours, or after they go to bed.
I don’t listen to music unless it’s to capture a specific mood I’m trying to hit, like a piece from a particular time and I turn it off before I really dig into the story.
Once I’m in that space of tapping memory, I feel like something larger cooperates with the process. I’m half here, half there. It’s magical. Whispers, connections, and details land before me to fill in the gaps like a kind of beautiful stone pointing. That heady, liminal writing space is my favorite.
Click on the below link to view THE LEGEND OF THE BLUE LADY MOSS BEACH DISTILLERY
Out of all the specific memories you write about in this memoir, which ONE MEMORY was the most emotional for you to write about? And can you share that specific excerpt with us here. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer, and please provide page numbers or Chapter number as references. Such a good question! “Spooned by the Dead” was the first hybrid of humor and horror I’ve done in years after generally writing more evocative, ex-pat pieces like “Maternal Lines” in Antic online magazine. Timber Ghost’s submission call was for a true paranormal experience and well, ghosts and self-effacing comedy do complement one another.
The initial memory that drove the piece began with tedious business trip and ended with a ghost in a Newark Airport hotel room. The ghost was oblivious to my presence, dipped the mattress as he got into bed with me, then disappeared. It was terrifying and awkwardly funny all at the same time.
“Spooned by the Dead” is story #21 in Out of Time: True Paranormal Encounters on p.126. Here’s the opener, starting with the dramatic experience I had at the Moss Beach Distillery restaurant, south of San Francisco. The New Jersey ghost shook me so much, I went hunting for a few years as I grappled with it. I never really got any real answers, but I had a few more intense moments like this one…
I’m way too chicken shit for this.
I stumbled from the stall and ran cold water over my hands. The bar soap slipped and spun across the porcelain. In the mirror, my eyes were wet, and I was pale as a ghost myself. My hair hung over my shoulder, hopefully making it harder to tug.
I rinsed away suds, my heart thundering, fingers trembling.
Don’t let it show.
I twisted the faucet tap.
He wants you to scream.
Reaching for a paper towel, my hands fluttered.
He wants you to run.
Paper crunched in my fists.
Don’t run.
In May 1996, I stood alone in the basement bathroom of the Moss Beach Distillery, about twenty-five miles south of San Francisco. It was well before Nuke’s Top Five, when electromagnetic field reader apps, and the litany of ghost hunter shows were still years away.
And really, I was no ghost hunter. My pocket camera had half a roll of film in it, and I had scant paranormal investigations etiquette. Despite tracking ghost story archives for America’s haunted hotspots on Netscape, I was pretty unprepared. J.C., my friend from high school and then-resident of the Castro, was back upstairs at our table by the window. I imagined him where I should have been—gazing out at the glittering Pacific, glass of Napa white in hand.
But no.
Since the episode of Unsolved Mysteries aired in 1992, visitors like me had routinely stalked the Distillery. With a backstory of a lovers’ trysting place and Prohibition speakeasy, the restaurant had the perfect perch to spot police cars on the winding approach. Over the years, scores of visitors reported seeing the Blue Lady strolling the beach at night, shimmering with saltwater and clots of seaweed as she trailed sandy, wet footprints before disappearing. But she may have been just one of a few personalities who clung to the place. Lethal car wrecks, love triangles, and boarding house despair had cast long shadows.
After lunch, when I asked J.C. to descend the damp cellar stairs with me, he declined.
“I got you this far. You’re on your own.”
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Can you describe the emotional process of writing about this ONE MEMORY? For over twenty-five years, I was reluctant to share this story as it makes me sound nuts…but maybe I’ve hit an age where I’m not worrying about that anymore. And maybe it has to do with the explosion of interest over the past decade—the paranormal TV shows, the ghost hunting scanners and apps for sale. My daughter even told me there are spirit filters on TikTok now, as the freaky goes viral.
Once I decided to go public, I set to work and read my draft aloud repeatedly as I was aiming for that Halloween reading as well as publication.
Click on the link below to view UNSOLVED MYSTERES report on the Moss Beach Distillery and the Blue Lady
I can admit, I wanted to bail a few times as I felt quite exposed writing about my fascination with hauntings. Plus, it still gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I was chuckling too. This emotional process certainly had a bit of everything.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? The hardest cut was the material about what San Francisco was like in the mid-1990s because it spiraled off-point. It wasn’t the place for this memory, but this deletion now haunts me in a different way.
My friend in the story, J.C., lived in what still felt like Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. San Francisco, which had shaped and reshaped itself so many times since its founding, was rapidly transforming again in the nineties.
Click on the below link to visit Armistead Maupin’s website
https://www.armisteadmaupin.com/
Click on the below link to purchase TALES OF THE CITY from Amazon.
The city I knew then was suffering the horror of AIDS while Grace Cathedral exhibited the AIDS Memorial Quilt and Keith Haring’s bronze Altarpiece, his final work before he died from the disease, stood in the interfaith chapel. At the same time, there were echoes of the sixties there, and layers of hard-won freedom. Arts collectives still rippled through the air as the tech boom began to push so much of it out of reach. I love that city so much and met so many beautiful people, even though it broke my heart. But stories that break our hearts are always worth telling, so maybe I’ll write that one next.
Click on the below link to read about the AIDS Memorial Quilt
https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt
Click on the link below to read about Keith Haring.
Click on the link below to read about Keith Haring’s Alterpiece
https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/blog/keith-haring-altarpiece
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