My New Coal Mine Canary

Since I'm currently working on a couple of horror/ghost short stories, I was a little concerned whether I was achieving the proper level of suspense and tension. I like to have a certain level of scare factor in my stories, and refuse to simply settle for substituting gore...not that gore doesn't have it's place from time to time, but it's used way too often as an easy substitute for "scary."

So how can I be sure something is scary?

That's when a stroke of genius hit me. My wife, Karla, usually refuses to read, watch, or listen to anything that's scary. The only time I ever got her to a horror movie, the results were pure hilarity. So now her job is to act as my "canary."

Her job is to read a story, as far as she can, and if she reads it all the way through then I know the story is lame and needs to reworked. On the other hand, if the canary "passes out", and puts the work aside, then I know it's got potential.

I want to take this opportunity to publically thank my wife for being such a good sport. Thanks, honey! You're the greatest!

On another front, the new central air unit is installed and the house is a wonderful temperature in the low seventies. Ahhhh....even the cats love it.

On another note, I caught another raccoon in our attic trap. It was humanely released, of course. Film later.