I’m working on a spooky Halloween video to frighten you all out of your wits, but I’m troubled by the fact that I have no idea how to attract viewers to my videos on YouTube. I think I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but I don’t understand why I get thousands legions an infinity of what they call “unique page visits” on this blog each day (oh, let’s not get bogged down with numbers), but most of my videos only get a few hundred views. So, I know that a lot of the blog readers don’t like to watch the videos. Which is fine. Some have told me that it’s because they read the blog at work. My mother recently told me that she doesn’t like that it takes so long for the videos to load (which I don’t like either – all that stopping and starting). But I want to figure out how to get people from beyond the blog – people from the whole wide world – to view the videos.
Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
A View on Views
Just Keep Telling Yourself, It’s Only a Movie
My daughter has forbidden me to post it. My son has left my home in shame after having viewed it with a friend. Still, this is America, where we have freedom of expression and I have made a film so frightening yet empowering, so controversial yet provocative that, though it has been banned in my home, I am going to screen it here, for you, my blog readers.
Fashion Police
Yesterday I returned from the city just in time to feed the horses. As soon as I parked the car, I opened the door to the house and the dogs came tumbling out and we all started jogging up to the barn.
The horses get very excited at feeding time. If they are in the lower field and see the dogs and me approach they come galloping up the hill and meet us at the fence:
Wireless Ghost
Photo by Moses Pendleton
I’ve tried all morning to post a poem that is perfect with this photo. I cannot. It will not cut and paste the right way, but instead, jumbles all the words into lines that are not at all the the way the poet wrote/published them. I really think the internet is haunted when it comes into my house. I’m taking my computer to the coffee shop with the wireless service later this morning, and I bet I’ll have no problem.
A Haunting in Connecticut
I’ve blogged before about what a spooky time of year this is, here in New England. The days are getting shorter, but our windows are still open so we can hear all sorts of madness outside, which makes some of us a little mad inside. During the last full moon, I had a terrible time sleeping. The next morning, I was talking to a friend who lives in a neighboring town, and he said that he had been sitting out on his porch until three in the morning, unable to sleep as well.
“It was the coyotes screeching that kept me up,” I said.
Parental Discretion Advised
I love to be scared, but if you don’t, I advise you not to click on this video. I found this ages ago on youtube. I was looking for “ghost” videos.”
One thing I learned when I moved up here from New York, is that EVERYBODY believes in ghost, and many have seen them in their own homes. In New York, you can ask just about anybody if they believe in ghosts and they’ll likely laugh at you. Here in CT, you can ask anybody, no matter how learned or intelligent; you can ask a nuclearphysicist if he believes in ghosts and he’ll tell you about the one that strides through his hallway every night at exactly eleven.
Pongo Returns
As many of you know, our beloved Pongo died last month. Yesterday my friend Leah picked up his ashes from the vet where we had him put to sleep. The ashes came in a small tin canister. The canister was in a bag from the pet cemetery that cremated Pongo and our other pets who have grown old and died. They always include a plaster imprint of the dog’s paw, with the dog’s name stamped in it, along with a small heart.
Ghosts, Witches, Spite Houses
I spent the weekend in Marblehead signing books and catching up with old friends. I also met a “medium” who talks to dead people, which gave me some fodder for the book I’m working on.
There were numerous shipwrecks and pirates and witches in Marblehead’s early history, so of course there are lots of ghost stories, as pirates and witches aren’t much for keeping a low-profile in the afterlife, but instead enjoy shrieking at boats at night and, and casting lights on old cemeteries and chasing people up and down stairs.
