Book Learned

Embossed on the old Standard American Encyclopedia: 

DOCTUS CUM LIBRO = "Book Learned"

I have a plan for writing in November: a ghost story, featuring a grown-up, real-life Penny Cooper.
The idea came while having coffee with an old pal, JS, who was telling me he'd woken up in the middle of the night sensing a presence. It was so strong, he got out of bed and checked his apartment door. It was locked. 

I pictured Penny Cooper having the reaction I had--assigning this event to neurology.
But... Penny Cooper is not always right, even though she thinks she is.

I don't like outright horror, especially cruel & gory, but I do like shivery ghost stories.
Maybe it started when I was ten with watching the romantic Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)? Rex Harrison is the ghost who falls in love with Gene Tierney (the widowed Mrs. Muir). Huh--I see her little girl was played by Natalie Wood.

It's not very shivery, but it is atmospheric.

Ghost stories are half atmosphere--shadows and creaks and blowing curtains. Writing one will be a good way to practice catching physical details. And they're genre--you don't have to create them from whole cloth--the reader knows the pattern. Character and plot are secondary.

Other ghost movies I've liked: 
The Shining (I maybe like its trailer recut as a comedy (on youtube) even better); 
The Sixth Sense ("I see dead people"); 
Whistle and I'll Come to You (the 1968 version, on youtube);
Ghost (with Patrick Swazey--not even scary though)...

And stories: The Monkey's Paw, The Woman in Black (Susan Hill), Turn of the Screw, Edgar Allen Poe

Penny Cooper is all excited about starring in a story. She says it's OK if she gets scared, since it's just made up, and not real like she is...