The Antrim Ghost Road?

Short Story Writer’s Journal: (May contain spoilers)

This short story, A Place called Glow, was sparked by the writing prompt, Ghost Town. In fact, the title’s first iteration was A Town called Glow.

But as the story developed it became clear that the central location was a centuries-old castle in a small village (about 700 people) called Ballygally.

(The history of the castle is fascinating and summarized well on the Ballygally Castle Hotel website

One of the interesting aspects to this short story challenge is that my writing is criss-crossing genres. Although I am tagging myself as a science fiction writer, the opportunity to veer across lanes and end up with an Irish ghost story is all part of the fun and too good to resist.

Anyway, who is to say that any alien technology millennia ahead of our own might not appear to be so mysterious and other-worldly to us that we would see ghosts in the machine.

The biggest challenge I had with this story was in finding the ending.

Writing it into the dark is a whole special kind of creative terror but one that I am doing my best to come to terms with. Just light a candle and let each word, each sentence, each paragraph illuminate the path ahead.

Onward!

(PS: Just one more week left on this challenge and some readers may have twigged that I am going to have a problem making the goal since this is only story number thirty. Not to worry. More on that in a future post.)

Cover image credit: Kenneth Allen
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballygally_Castle_staircase.jpg

(A summary listing of all short stories in this challenge can be found by clicking 52-in-52.)