The Ghostly Traveller’s Tale
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My Birthday Blog!
Welcome to my Birthday Blog where I will take you on a voyage of discovery through the great world of writing.
My Life as a writer
A big warm welcome to all of those who are visiting my site for the first time. My name is Mark Campbell, but I also go under the title of the ghostly traveller. For truly I have travelled a path in my writing life which has been fraught with danger and evil intent. I have gone back in time to experience the pleasures and the pain of souls who either instigated the evil of which I speak or were on the receiving end of it.
It has not been easy to face some of the scenes I have dredged up in my imagination, but I had to do it. Otherwise I would not have been true to myself and if a writer cannot do this then he is merely an empty vessel existing in a vacuum. So I have surrounded myself with all manner of strange creatures each with an important story to tell.
I have many stories to tell and it will be my pleasure to share little samples of these tales with all of my fellow ghouls out there who like nothing more than a good scare. Because let’s face it a writer is only as good as his audience who want to be entertained. This is what I have in story for all of you fine people.
I wish to bring my fictional world into the public domain. It is my most fervent desire to gain a larger readership than I have enjoyed to date. To this end, I hope you will enjoy the cover design for my published horror novel The Lady in Red which can be found at the bottom of this home page together with the little description I provided of it. But this is merely the start. In my future blogs I plan to provide profiles on the main characters who go to make up the plot for this supernatural novel.
You will meet Jack Farley, the bodysnatcher from the 1830s, who whilst possessing an evil mind is nonetheless an engaging fellow and one rather perversely you wouldn’t mind spending an evening with. He is an entertaining type but not as trustworthy as he might be. He is just as likely to do harm to you as he is to make you laugh. And Jack does have a winning sense of humour, but it is very much of a dark order.
You will also come across young Paul Stanley, a nine year old boy from the modern day who first comes across Jack in his dreams. This sparks off a series of events which no child should ever have to go through. He and his family go to hell and back thanks to the sinister actions of Jack in his ghostly guise. But Paul is made of stern stuff. He might be shy and of a reflective disposition, but he nonetheless knows how to handle himself. It is just as well, too, as he has a lot on his plate once Jack really gets down to work.
This then is The Lady in Red, a ghostly tale set in the south east of England. But it is only one of a number of horror novels I have written. Others include Evil Deeds, The Cornwall Ghost Story and Retribution. I have been rewriting the last-named novel over the course of the last year or two. This is a book I originally wrote about 25 years ago. I decided to return to it with a fresh mind after all this time as I felt it had many great moments but a number of weaknesses which I wished to iron out. I loved returning to it and reacquainting myself with characters I had not spent any time with in such a long time. It was like meeting up with long-lost friends.
Another tale I have partly written is a witchcraft novella. This is untitled at present but again it is a story with a number of good moments. I have enjoyed writing it and look forward to returning to it in the future.
As with The Lady in Red I will be sharing excerpts from all of these works as well as exploring the characters which make up the different storylines. I can promise you a fun ride. So strap in tightly and be prepared for a rollercoaster of a journey through the crazy mind of a horror writer who truly likes nothing more than to give pleasure.
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The Lady in Red is a horror novel which I published on http://www.amazon.com as a kindle. You can purchase it via my amazon author page which can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B08XPRNCCK
A Brief Synopsis of The Lady in Red
In this novel I explore the world of bodysnatchers. I have always been fascinated by these somewhat shady characters who would steal out in the dead of night and dig up graves and make away with the corpses which lay underground. So I went back to the 1830s when this business was rife and brought in two such bodysnatchers or grave robbers.
At the beginning of the novel I have these men discussing their line of work in a tavern one night. Jack Farley suggests to his partner Will Dreghorn that it would be a good idea if they gave ‘a helping hand to death’ seeing as bodies were ‘thin on the ground.’ Will is horrified by this suggestion. He wants no part of Jack’s murderous intentions. But in the end he has to agree to the plan as Jack holds something over him. If he does not go along with Jack’s scheme he could find himself in prison. So that night they commit the first of many murders so they can accrue bodies which they can sell to a local surgeon. The doctor requires them for dissection purposes so he can uncover remedies for deadly diseases.
Later in the novel Jack returns in ghostly guise in the modern day and creates more mayhem. There is a battle between good and evil which runs through the rest of the novel which draws the reader through to the gripping conclusion.
ghostlytraveller.com 