"Ghosts of Earth"

My third story published at 365 tomorrows! Read it now, then discuss amongst yourselves.

I wrote this just before Halloween, and it has nothing to do with that similarly titled John Carpenter movie. I am thinking about expanding it into a longer story, possibly even re-using the premise for next year's NaNoWriMo, but I really have no idea where I'd go with it-- how do you write dialogue when all your characters are incorporeal minds who can interact directly at the speed of thought? That's crazy!

Speaking of Halloween, D and I finally saw Monster House over the weekend, and it was very good-- much better than I had expected from the trailers, which made it seem like yet another empty-headed, FX-heavy animated romp. Next time I'll pay more attention to the "Produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg" credit. Those two aren't perfect storytellers (see What Lies Beneath and the E.T. 20th anniversary edition), but they've got good instincts and hit more than they miss. Also, the motion-capture animation actually looked decent here-- much better than the unrelentingly creepy Polar Express-- which gives me hope for next year's Beowulf.

~CKL