It is wonderful how much you’ve enjoyed writing and sharing what you’ve written, but let’s think about how other people write and how their writing can help make us better writers.

Now, a good writer never steals another writer’s words, characters, or ideas, but it is a very good idea to study how other writers work. That way, we can see how they make their stories so entertaining. In learning how they do it, we can learn how to do those wonderful things ourselves.

And so we’re going to start a conversation about READING LIKE A WRITER this week, and I’ll show you how to enjoy a good book while also learning to become a super writer.

Let’s start with a classic, a book that you probably already have in the house (or you at least know somebody who can lend you a copy): HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE (SORCERER’S STONE in the U.S.) Please read the first chapter, and next week I’ll show you how JK Rowling made Harry come alive using the REAL magic of ink and paper.

In the meantime, here’s a fun haunted visit I found on YouTube. It isn’t me this time, but I thought you would enjoy it nevertheless (and it has a little Harry Potter theme, too!)

Read the first chapter of HARRY POTTER for next week, and we’ll talk then.

Meantime, do please keep emailing me–and I will keep emailing you back. See you next week!

Jabberwocky
‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the Borogroves
and the Mome Raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
The jaws that bit, the claws that catch,
Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
The fruminous Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal blade in hand
Long time the manksom foe he sought
Then rested he by a Tumtum Tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood
The Jaberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the Tulgey Wood
And burbled as it came.

One, Two! One, Two! and through-and-through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou killed the Jaberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the Borogroves
and the Mome Raths outgrabe.

The 1859 Jail is like that. No matter where I sit, it is impossible not to feel as if someone is here with me. They say there is a poltergeist in here, and I think I believe it. You’ll see why next hour. Meantime, here’s more about our jail.

Keep writing to me!

I’m at the oldest jail in the midwest–the 1859 Jackson County Jail in Independence, Missouri. It is over 150 years old. What’s more, it once held the famous outlaw Frank James, brother of Jesse James.

Sadly, Frank doesn’t haunt this place . . . but somebody does! In fact, Frank himself complained of the ghost. This has been a strange evening already, and there is a reason that I’m turning circles in tonight’s introduction. I had a bit of a hair-raiser in here already, and I’m hoping to see if I can see anything more. You’ll see what’s already happened to me when we get to Revelations hour. It is all on video, and you will understand why I don’t want to turn my back on ANYTHING in this creepy place!

Before we start on tonight’s tour, let me ask you a question. What do you most like about ghost stories? Email me at rip@rhysivorprice.com (the address in the right column), and we’ll talk about that tonight. Now on to our Wild West (or I should say Wild Midwestern) haunt!

See you in an hour for tonight’s Ghost Story Hour!

Oh, by the way, Gwendolyn from the Hauntineum saw our last visit and wrote to apologize and assure me that the next time we come for a visit we will have ‘open house all night’ for our Haunted Visit. That should be a great deal of fun.

Christopher Quinn is coming right along. When I have a chapter in order, I’ll post a bit for you to read. In the meantime, do please keep writing me. You’ll find my email address listed in the right column of this blog. I look forward to continuing our adventures. See you on the fifteenth for a truly special sort of haunten place. I know you’ll like visiting it (hint: think wild west ghosts!)

Until then, be safe and enjoy the beginning of school.

Rhys Ivor Price

To make matters more fun (or worse, depending upon your point of view), the museum people have installed little tricks all around the place to make floors creak and gusts of cold air ruffle your hair in the passageways. And, yes, there are even honest-to-goodness secret passageways running through this place like a honeycomb. But that’s not to say there aren’t really ghosts here, too, because there certainly are. Members experience the real thing all the time, and I’ve had some wonderfully hair-raising encounters within the past few hours myself.

The museum is famous for its stairways. There are six that you can find easily, and no one knows how many are hidden in the walls and sliding alcoves. Did I mention the house itself was haunted before it became a museum? That’s why they chose it. It was owned by a rather famous magician who performed in the Haymarket area of London over a hundred years ago and built this house with his earnings. He promised never to leave it even in death, and no one doubts that he haunts it still today. His face is often seen peering out of the mirror that hangs in the foyer, his footsteps can be heard on the main stairway, and more than one person has heard his voice in different parts of the house.

I came here last summer (when I was allowed to film, ahem!) and captured a few of the images you see on the Haunted Visits opening every show. (The strange case filled with cards and that creepy, open-mouth head as well as the doll you see in that opening are all here.) That gives you some idea of the place and its collection.

That peculiar open-mouth head is one of my favorite items. Go back and look at the video again if you don’t remember it. It’s pretty obvious. It is called ‘Blue Peter’ and was owned by a sailor over a hundred years ago. It is an ivory carving they call scrimshaw surrounded by a sailor’s knot called a monkey’s fist knot that makes the head look like it is wearing a turban. The weird thing about ‘Blue Peter’ is the sailor who carved it made it look exactly like himself, only dead. He thought that if he carried it with him at all times Death would never visit him. One night the sailor’s landlord found the head lying at the bottom of the stairs looking all dead and creepy. When he went up to the sailor’s room to return it, he found the old man dead in his bed. His head was thrown back on his pillow, and his mouth was wrenched opened in the very ‘death scream’ that he had carved into the ivory so many years before. He had correctly predicted what he would look like in death. But what was it that terrified him and made him throw open in mouth so horribly? No one knows, but the ivory piece (one of the most reliably haunted items in the collection) will still emit a horrible sound like a man screaming in terror nearly every night at 11:43 (the hour of the old man’s death). I know this is true because I heard the little thing myself only three hours ago, and it made every hair stand up on the back of my neck, I can assure you!

There is also a purplish mist that I’ve seen several times drifting from room to room. Unhappily, I always catch it out of the corner of my eye (so typical with ghosts, don’t ask me why), and I turn just as it drifts out of sight through a doorway or down a corridor. I did get a full-on view of it about an hour ago drifing up the central staircase. I wonder if it isn’t the magician’s ghost having a late-night wander. I certainly hope so.

Oh, there is so much more to tell. There’s a window that keeps rattling in the walnut room—just one pane rattles like someone trying to push it out (or in?) though there isn’t a breath of wind outside tonight (I know because I can see the tree branches just outside the window, and they are still as can be. Someone downstairs occasionally makes a noise that sounds like a grumpy old man saying “Hrumph, hrumph.” It is really rather loud and clear, but try as I may I cannot locate the source. Oh, and there’s a haunted Yahrzeit Plaque upstairs that is very active indeed. When you stand close to it you can acually feel the sensation of people brushing past you in the dark—no imagination required, I have felt very flesh-and-blood-feeling hands touch me as if saying “Excuse me” as they go by, and I have been bumped nearly off my feet by a few who weren’t so polite. This is the beginning of a jewish holiday, though (happy Hanukkah, by the way) and that might explain it!

Oh, I could go on and on for this Ghost Story Hour, but you get the idea. This is a wonderful place for ghost fans. It is part museum, part amusement park, and completely fun in a goose-fleshy way. I hope one day to come back when I can film some of these remarkable occurrences to share with you.

But, you know, I’ve just realized that I won’t have any film for next hour. Usually at this time I make my final rounds collecting up film and audio to assemble for the Revelations hour, but I won’t have any. Oh my! And I don’t have the equipment I use to record my Candlelight Time story. What a nuisance!

It is nearly three o’clock here, sorry, it is just past three actually, and I suppose I must be finished for the evening. How disappointing! This was to be the most fun visit yet, and I feel I’m letting down the side. What’s more, we’ll not have another chance for a visit until after the holidays. Oh, I am sorry for that.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed this much of our shortened visit. Sad to say, I’ve had a splendid time tonight all locked in at my favorite haunted site on earth.

Here’s a Christmastime promise to you, though. I will find the opportunity to come back here again when my friend, the curator, will be on hand to let me do this visit properly. That will be a visit you won’t want to miss, but sadly it must wait to another night and another visit.

For tonight, please let me wish you, one and all, a very happy, safe, and blessed holiday season.

This is Rhys Ivor Price for Haunted Visits. Good night.

But that isn’t all that has happened on this memorable journey. I arrived today at the Hauntineum, the Museum of Haunted artifacts, only to discover they will not allow me to film inside the house! Oh dear, oh dear. I explained that I received permission from the curator, a very dear friend of mine, but she is on holiday this week and not to be reached. The people left in charge told me very politely (but just as firmly) that the camera must stay outside.

Never fear, though, we’ll do our Haunted Visit the old-fashioned way. I will describe what is going on around me tonght in this, the most remarkable museum in the world. It has already been a very active evening and night here (where I have been locked in for the night), and I have some very fun adventures to share with you next hour when we will have our Ghost Story Hour.

I did manage to get some photographs this afternoon of the outside of the Museum, which I share with you here.

The Hauntineum is a little bit north of London. It is what is called a ‘private museum,’ which means it is run completely with the aid of private donations. Donors are ‘members’ and are allowed access to the museum and its collections during most of the year. On several special occasions, the museum opens its doors to the general public but only for limited viewings of certain select portions of the collection.

I am proud to be one of this museum’s sponsors, and, as a member, I have complete run of the place. Furthermore, I am here by myself tonight . . . that is, if you don’t count all of the haunted activity that swirls about these rooms when the sun goes down and the lights go off.

Join me in an hour for some exceptionally fun descriptions of what I am experiencing tonight at the Hauntineum, the Museum of Haunted Artifacts.