I’m continuing with These Haunted Hills. I skipped a little bit here where Brendan realizes Joshua has recognized him and Joshua was telling him his students were around (Mostly because I need to ask my friend who is the naturalist there if students are allowed to do research in this area. I might have to change that part). It’s slightly over 6 sentences but they’re short and I wanted it to make sense. It begins just after Joshua being nervous that he’s upset Brendan because he’s recognized him.

“I’m used to being recognized. You haven’t acted like an obnoxious fan boy who thinks he owns me so we’re good.” Brendan’s gaze swept over Josh, lines tightening around his eyes. “Are you though?”

“What? A fan boy? Yes actually.” Josh smiled. He wasn’t going to lie to his man. “I love your books but you hired me and I owe it to you be professional.

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

As I’m rushing about to leave on Spring Break (Really? ALREADY?) I won’t be putting up any pictures of the Haunted Hocking Hills this time and I probably won’t get to anyone’s post until much later (heck this might be late depending on when the thread goes up). I’m continuing this right from where it left off last time with Brendan and Joshua getting introduced to each other.

“Dr. Zimmerman?”

Joshua already knew Halloran had one of those deep James Earl Jones voices but hearing it here when it was just them and not a crowd of fans made Josh’s knees go wobbly. Joshua held out his hand. “Mr. Halloran. I’m glad you found your way out here.”

His lips twitched slightly, almost smiling as he shook hands. “The trail is paved the whole way so even a city dweller like me won’t get lost.” He turned to look at the water rushing over the lip of the fall. “It’s quite beautiful. It’s hard to believe this much wilderness exists to close to Columbus. It’s little more than an hour from where I live, and yet I was barely aware this was here.”

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

Since it was freakishly hot yesterday, I hiked out to Ash Cave myself where chapter two of These Haunted Hills is set. So did everyone else in SE Ohio apparently. Still a nice time to decompression and get in touch with nature. I’m picking right up from where I left off last week where Joshua’s inner monologue clued us in as to why Halloran is so depressed and is hoping that Halloran’s son’s death isn’t the reason the man is reaching out to ghost hunters. (also I’m going to have to change Christian’s name as it’s too close to Kristen, his mother. Granted people do that in life all the time but I wonder if it’ll be confusing in print).

So have a pic of me going into the cave area.

And if you want to see even more pictures from yesterday head here.

And oh, the snippet ran a couple sentences long just to finish out the thought…

Joshua knew psychic mediums. One ran across them in the ghost hunting business but he wasn’t one and definitely didn’t want to have to get into that with one of his idols. Still, Halloran had asked to see the haunts of the hills rather than invite Joshua to ghost hunt in his Dublin home. It had to be for a new series, right?

As Halloran closed the distance between him, he took off his sunglasses acknowledging the shade the evergreens provided the area. His eyes were blue, a blue Joshua had wondered if they were contact-enhanced when he first seen it on B.A. Halloran’s various online hangouts. Now, up close, they looked real. Sure they could still be contacts but somehow he didn’t think that a man in Halloran’s position would bother. Joshua’s mind flashed to the Abney Park song Rosie and Max. Max’s description worked for Halloran.

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

I’ll be in and out this weekend so I might be slow to comment. I’m trying to get some of the jewelry making I have waiting on me done. It’s insane the sheer amount of beads and crap I have so I’m going to a crafting party because I obviously need supervision in order for me to finish things.

I’m continuing with These Haunted Hills from Joshua’s point of view where we learn key things about Brendan I didn’t have in Brendan’s point of view (but explain why Brendan is so depressed). I’m ahead of myself with the picture. They’ll be heading here, the Ridges, the Athens Lunatic Asylum (the original name). It’s a beautiful, very haunted asylum that originally wanted to be a a nurturing place to help the mentally ill (but you can guess that’s not what ended up happening). It’s now the art gallery for Ohio University. There’s a crap ton on the hauntings online if you’re curious. I head over here often.

We’re picking up immediately after Joshua sees Brendan waiting on him to finish with the Girl Scouts at Ash Cave.

Now that Halloran was here, Joshua found he couldn’t close the distance between them. After several emails setting up times and places to go ghost hunting, Joshua had enough clues to suspect Brendan Halloran was B. A. Halloran, author of one of his favorite YA fantasy series. An unrepentant geek, he would be lying if he said that realization played no role in accepting this job. He had spent more hours drawing fan art of Kiyomi Fujita and John Archer than he wanted to think about, no regrets though.

However, knowing what Halloran had been through in the last few years made him nervous about meeting the man and even more nervous about why he wanted to go ghost hunting. Was it really for a new series or was he trying to contact little Christian. Joshua had no idea what losing a child would do to the soul, didn’t even want to imagine it.

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

I’m sitting here moving slow as the weather keeps bouncing from 60 to 20 degrees and the arthritis isn’t impressed. It’s supposed to be 60 today so I might haul myself out of here and go hiking in the area I’ve been posting about for the last few weeks. This week we’re still in These Haunted Hills but I’ve moved ahead to ch 2 so we can meet Dr. Joshua Zimmerman (whose doctorate is in ecology), ghost hunter, steampunker, geek. We meet him just after he finishes a talk to a bunch of girl scouts as a favor to the naturalist who works in the park. As it so happens the unnamed (in the story) naturalist is my friend and partial inspiration for Josh. I’ve borrowed his website for Josh. If you’d like to see the real website, head here. Haunted Hocking . Most of the action will be set in Jackson, Vinton, Meigs and Athens county. I live in Jackson. And if you’re poking around the site thinking hmmmm that’s a lot of dirt roads, you’re right. I live where pavement isn’t really a thing.

And oh this area Stroud’s Run State Park is what got me thinking about this story originally. There is a haunted cabin in the park (Athens county if you want to look up the story).

So let’s meet Josh.

As the girls were herded down the trail, Joshua spotted a couple other hikers inspecting Ash cave. One man watched the water splashing down over the lip of the shelter cave. A Star Trek ball cap in science blue shielded much of his face. Sunglasses and well-kempt beard in deep walnut completed the obfuscation of his features, and yet Joshua knew who he was but only because he was expecting Brendan Halloran. He’d asked the author to meet him here because he thought that if Halloran was going to write a book set in the area he should see some of its most beautiful parts. Halloran wanted ghosts, and Ash Cave could provide those.

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!