Let the Adventure Begin

 Hello everyone and happy May Ray Day!

What is May Ray Day??? It's a day to celebrate all the rays of sunshine. When spring starts to whisper about summer, and the sunshine shatters the darkest shadows.

And that thought lead me and my crew on our latest adventure... It seems that we have a 'haunted' swamp close by. A woman in the early 20's killed her husband, his father, and possibly a few other people.....

So I packed up a few key things... camera, extra shoes, my you inspire the serial killer in me hoodie, you know the basics

No road trip is complete without at least one doughnut stop. And these were amazing! I could see myself driving the forty-five minutes to just get another one :-) 

Once we arrived at the 'haunted' swamp, we began our missions ...

Charlie's was to track animals and walk across ALL the fallen trees. He also hoped to find Big Foot...

I however, was there on a writing mission. Writing has been difficult for me since I broke all the things in my right leg/foot/ankle. But when I watched about this swamp on Haunted America on Prime and learned it was only about an hour and half away and story idea hit me!

The idea came when they were exploring the seasonal road that runs through the swamp and found a salt circle. 

Now we didn't find a salt circle...but here's a peak...

Now this may seem like a 'nice' place but don't let the pictures fool you! We did actually had some really weird things while we were roaming around. Charlie firmly believes it was Big Foot. 

Me???

It was a character in my book! And from the pictures I took I've written over 6k of a story about evil spirits contained in a circle of salt. A story of disperation. A story of learning about oneself. And a story of making peace with the demon's of your past. A story of shining light on the shadows. Of a May Ray Day.

Here's a little snippet.. 

Lorna struggled down the rutted dirt road. Her frail arms shook from the weight of the salt bucket. How many times had she made this trip? Well over five hundred she figured. She’d started as a child skipping along with her grandmother too young and native to understand what they were doing.

A lump formed in her throat as the thought of her failure. She was too old to make this trip but there was no one else to do it. Who keep the circle sealed when she gone? She glanced up at the sky. A thick blanket of clouds covered any stars that could have provided her light on this dark moon night. Not that she needed any. She knew the path.

She sat the bucket down and took a deep breath before stepping off the road into the woods. The air carried the chill of the early spring and the restless moans of the spirits. The ones circling through the still leafless branches were the neutral spirits who for whatever reason had chosen to remain unlike those trapped in the circle. If they were to break free, they would have the same effect as turning a plague loose.

One key thing to remember... no one sees anything the same way.

I walked through swamp seeing my characters, hearing my characters whisper to me, and writing notes. Charlie walked through the swamp and saw cougar tracks (NO cougars in our area), heard Big Foot, and caught three frogs!

Sometimes I think we as writers forget that we are inspired by different things. That there is no one thing to do to be inspired. 

So for this month's theme of 'in case you missed it', I just want to say - you didn't. You saw exactly what you were meant to!

See everyone next month!

Lyncee

Note: Milo didn't go on this adventure with us. Because honestly, I wasn't brave enought to roam a haunted swamp with Charlie and a 216 pound dog.