I write horror and paranormal fiction, so is it really surprising that Halloween is my favorite holiday?  And one of the ways I celebrate All Hallow's Eve during the entire month of October is to set up an extensive miniature Halloween village every year.  Since I'm only half a century old, at some point the village is going to take over an entire room in my house.  It'll be like the village that ate Manhattan!
[Insert shrieks here]

[pictured above: HOWL Radio with "Wolfman Jack" from  the Department 56 Snow Village collection]

I'm offering tours today at World Weaver Press, Admission: Free.  Enjoy.

http://worldweaverpress.com/2013/10/31/susan-abel-sullivans-tiny-town-of-terror/#comment-2347

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

[These don't look like chickens to me]


My mom decided to get some chickens this year.  She lives in a small town in Florida where people can have farm animals.  She used to have geese, but a fox or coyote climbed through the fence and killed them all one by one.  Before the geese became fox food, anytime I'd visit, my big party trick would be to pick up a goose and carry it around.  I mean, the family would line up at the goose pen as if this were a Roman gladiator sport or a monster truck rally. 

I'm kidding about the monster truck rally. 

Now just to give you some perspective, my parents raised these geese from little goslings and saw them EVERY SINGLE DAY to feed and water them.  But they were afraid of their own geese.  Crazy, I know.  My dad made these special goose tools out of PVC pipe that looked like the letter T so that he or my mom could enter the goose pen and keep the geese at bay.  Because geese are just so vicious, right?  Uh huh.

But here's the thing.  I'm not afraid of geese.  Not in the least.
I go to the local parks and HAND FEED the wild geese.

So the family's lined up at the fence to watch: my parents, my sister, my nieces, my brother and sister-in-law, my nephews.

My mom: I can't believe Susan is going to do this.
My dad: a grown goose can break a man's leg.
My sister: I've gotta see this.
My oldest nephew who was about eight the last time: Can I go in there with Aunt Susan?
Everyone but me: NO!

I just shake my head.

"Look, y'all", I say. "I know where their heads are."  Meaning the geese.  

I enter the pen and the three large geese, and by large, the tops of their heads come up to my shoulders, immediately run away from me.  Oh, yeah, these geese are SO scary.  Yeah, I'm just quaking in my boots.  Not.

Dad: Use the T pole, Susan.
Me: I don't need that, Dad.

I single out a goose, follow it around the pen, keeping it ahead of me, then pick my moment to scoop it up with its wings folded so that it can't flap.  I hold it under my left arm like a giant football and grasp its neck with my free hand.  The goose eyes me mildly alarmed.  Did you know that geese have beautiful blue eyes like Siamese cats?

From the peanut gallery, I hear comments like:
It's going to bite you!
I can't believe she did that?
And the kicker: How did you do that? 
What? Were you watching with your eyes closed?  Maybe they were.  After all, they were sure I was going to get a broken leg for my troubles.

Now that I've been holding the goose for a little bit, and let me tell you, geese are heavy and have sharp claws on their duck-like feet, the goose relaxes.  It does try to peck me a few times, testing the boundaries, you know, but I have a firm grasp on its neck and I never take my eyes off its head.  That's the key: knowing where that goose head is at all times.

The other two geese are making a racket.  I've got their comrade.  In their minds, I'm going to eat their buddy.  Not a chance.  I love these geese.  So now I have to glance away from my goose pal to check where the other geese are.  One has snuck up behind me for a stealth peck.  I sidestep him or her and say, "I'm picking you up next."  The goose goes away.  Geese are smart that way.  Actually, geese are just smart.

The goose I'm holding has really relaxed now and I'm able to stroke it's neck.  The down is so soft.  But it's getting heavy, so I carefully set it down.  The other geese are like yay! No one's getting eaten today.  By the way, if you ever want to hire me to do this at your party, I also pick up turkeys, too.

So back to the Secret Chickens. 

My mom got the chickens after the geese were gone.  She's had them since last spring, but I've yet to receive a single picture of them.  I told my sister: Does she really have any chickens?  My sister said, "Maybe they're SECRET chickens."

SECRET chickens.  Sounds like the name of a rock band.  Or maybe my next novel.  Ha!

So I email my mom: Send some pix of the chickens. 

Have I gotten any pictures of chickens, secret or otherwise?

Nooooo.  Not even a picture of some Tyson chicken or chicken McNuggets.  And my sister forgot to make any pictures when she visited.  And she's got the smartphone! Which makes me wonder if these secret chickens even exist. 

Nope, the only picture I've gotten is one of puppies and that was from my sister via my mom. 

Puppies are not chickens.  Not even close.

So where are the secret chickens, eh????  It's a puzzler.

[The dogs sniffing Richard's rear as if he were a living lion]


When I say my life is a zoo, I really mean it. Literally.

First there are all the pets.  Running through their names is like a Walton Family roll call. We're currently down to two dogs, six cats, two snakes, and one exotic.  Yes, I said down to.  We had two more cats, but after months, and even years, of these two cats pissing all over my historic Victorian home and getting tested for illness and coming up with nada, and trying behavioral techniques, the veterinarian and I agreed that Mr. and Miss Peebody had to live outside.  And as outdoor cats are free to do, they've decided to take up with someone else.  Which brings our total cat count down from eight to six.

So back to the zoo metaphor...

My life often feels LIKE a zoo, you know frenzied and varied and sometimes full of sh*t and often stinky, but many times beautiful and amazing. 

And then there is the STEIFF zoo.  It all started when I discovered a vintage Steiff poodle (a large 17" one made of mohair) at the local thrift store for a buck.  This was back in February.  Of this year.  I suffer from OCD and Anxiety Disorder, and am probably Bi-polar with some mild Asperger's thrown in, so you might (or might not) understand how this one seemingly simple event would wind up triggering a massive obsession that has culminated with the arrival of a life-sized Steiff Studio Lion from the 1950s/60s to my home.

My husband has known it was coming--it only took four months and three weeks for "Richard the Lion Hearted" (that's my name for him--the lion, not the hubs) to arrive.  I, of course, had to document the occasion with pix and called to joyfully let my hubs know about Richard's arrival last night.  His response to my email containing Richard's pix: "Oh great heavenly days."

Because you see, the hubs has already had to endure the arrival of a life-sized Steiff baby giraffe, tortoise, tiger cub, German shepherd, and the smaller, yet still rather large kangaroo family, elephants, llamas, and really, I should stop now because it's just too embarrassing to list them all. 

When I told my physician about the goings on concerning my Steiff zoo at Casa Sullivan, she said, "I think we need to change the dosage on your meds." 

And it's helping.  The crazy is a bit more controllable. 

Now, let's take a moment to review my stand on mental disorders.  If you can't have a sense of humor about your problems, you're doomed.  This is not to downplay the seriousness of mental illness, but to actually bring attention to it in a way so that people who don't have it might empathize.  This is why I refer to my medication as crazy meds and call my behavior crazy.  Because it is and besides, laughter is supposed to be the best medicine.

So, my life is a zoo in every sense of the word, but there are much worse things my life could be.  And who knows, I may be able to turn this whole silly chapter into a book at some point. 

Besides, every house should have a giant antique lion in the living room, don't you think?

I love,  love, love this series! Robert MacCammon's best work, although Swan Song and Boy's Life are pretty durn awesome, too.

This book started out a bit slow for me. 

Spoiler alert: But once the story reached Pendulum Island, I
gobbled this book up like nobody's business.  Can't wait for the next installment in this wonderful historical mystery series that reminds me of a young Sherlock Holmes set in colonial America. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8096816-susan-sullivan">View 

Check out the exciting cover art for my second novel, The Weredog Whisperer. 

http://worldweaverpress.com/2013/10/18/the-weredog-whisperer-cover-unveiling/

Hats off to my publisher World Weaver Press for doing such an outstanding job on the cover.  I love how they've captured the different elements of the story in a single photograph.

Publication date: December 31, 2013
Available in trade paperback and eBook

Meanwhile, cozy up with a copy of my first novel in the series, The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama.  Now on sale for a limited time.

http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Housewives-Allister-Paranormal-Mysteries/dp/0615700896/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382109291&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Haunted+House
wives+of+Allister

Also available at Barnes & Noble.com, Kobo, and many other book retailers.

Blue Phoenix Books in Alpena, Michigan recently displayed my novel The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama on the same table with a book by my favorite author, Stephen King (Dr. Sleep). 

My inner fan girl was stoked to see this photograph, of course.  I started reading Stephen King when I was 13-years old and I've wanted to be a professionally published author since I was 18.  I've visited King's hometown of Bangor, Maine and have stood outside the wrought-iron gates of his Bangor home.  I even have two postcard responses from King from college when I wrote to tell him how much I enjoyed his work.  And because of King's little known volunteer work with a YMCA camp in Maine, my husband, who at the time was a consultant for YMCA of the USA, was able to get King to sign a copy of Wizard and Glass for me. 

So yes, color me thrilled.  I hope this is only the start of my books getting to hob knob with my favorite authors' books.