In honor of ringing in a new year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the awesomeness that was 2013! I thought a top 10 list would be fun, and for a girl like me, commemorating all the weirdness of this past year seemed the most logical approach.
10. In January 2013, I pitched the idea of forming a group of ghost hunting children’s authors and illustrators to a few of my friends. To my surprise, they all said “yes!” And GHOST STORIES, INC. was born – if you don’t know what that is, shame on you! Click the link and check it out!
9. My son lost his favorite pajama top. I found it while scooping our dog’s (Indiana Jones) poop in the backyard. Sorry…I know that’s gross, but I’ve never seen a dinosaur pajama shirt digested and transformed into dog poo…it was WEIRD!
8. I signed my first ghost-writing contract and was paid a heap of money to write a book for someone! That someone became a dear friend and soul-sister. Wanna know more about her? Click on her name…right here **RUTH LORDAN**…and check her out! She’s amazing!
7. A film director from NYC (Joshua Bragg from HAUNTING SEASON) joined our GHOST STORIES, INC. team, and we began plotting out the direction of our first full-length documentary! We also added a NY-based executive producer and secured some funding for my crazy-idea-turned-actual-project. Do you see a trend here? New York loves this little band of Minnesota-based ghost hunting children’s book makers!
6. I watched Indian Jones (our dog) run around the backyard with the fur-trimmed hood of my favorite jacket hanging out of his hinny. That was weirdly infuriating and oddly funny all at the same time!
5. I completed my first full-length screenplay. My screenwriting partner flew from sunny CA to frigid MN so we could do a table read of our work before sending it off to an agent. Listening to people read our writing aloud was beyond awesome!!
4. That same screenwriting partner hooked my family up with backstage passes and tickets to his friend’s (Selena Gomez) concert. This was weird because it was the first time my work as a writer had created a crazy-cool opportunity for my children, and for a night, having a super-weird-ghost-hunting-author-mom paid off for them. 🙂
3. I had a super-fun three month run as a special guest each Monday night on Darkness Radio, and I was able to use my time there to feature a few of my amazingly cool author-friends! A huge thanks to Dave Schrader and Tim Dennis for letting a shy, nerdy, introvert-who-forces-herself-to-be-an-extrovert, play in the radio station for a little while! You guys both have my undying love (whether you want it or not). 🙂
2. When my dog ate my favorite dress and new shirt, I didn’t even get mad at him. I just hung it in the closet with the rather large collection of half-dog-eaten apparel we will be using as costuming for the spring filming of my son’s first-ever zombie movie. You may see the following in the credits of the movie: Written by: Logan Freeburg…Costume Design by: Indiana Jones.
1. I had a thirty-minute argument/discussion with my 11 year-old son about why it’s creepy for him to start shaving even though he has been sporting a noticeable kid-stache since second grade. We’ve agreed that he may start his man-grooming when he enters middle school next fall. Yup…he’s hairy…and it’s WEIRD!
2013 was filled with many other weirdly-awesome happenings – way too many to name them all! I never imagined the path I would travel when my agent told me to read GET KNOWN BEFORE THE BOOK DEAL (by Christina Katz) and it sparked the weird and unshakable idea that I should start ghost hunting.
Thank you all for your encouragement and support! Thank you for your friendship! And thank you for embracing all this weirdness with me! May 2014 be even weirder in every awesome way imaginable!