Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Writing, research, and more writing!

This past week has been a busy but productive one as I finished the edit on the galleys for my first book (Haunted Theaters) and continue to update research for my second one (Ghosts of Greater Charlotte). Today was spent in Concord, NC, as I added to my research on the two homes--both haunted--of The Old Courthouse Theatre. This performance company's first home had been in what was originally the county courthouse, and is now a museum and home of Historic Cabarrus Inc. The second building had at one time been the First Baptist Church of Concord, and currently houses the theatre company's performance and office space. I'd included both of these buildings in my first book, but wanted to add to my information and research (including new photos!) to include them in my second book, and was able to get some good updates on both.

Later I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the Reed Gold Mine in Midland (just south of Concord) learning not only about the "ghost story" there, but also about gold mining in general and the history of the mine in particular. This mine was where the first gold ever to be found in the United States was discovered in 1799 (a full 50 years before the '49 California "gold rush!"), and also had the largest gold nugget ever discovered to date in the land east of the Mississippi (it apparently weighed close to 28 pounds. Good grief, that's a LOT of gold...). My tour guide really knew his stuff, and since I was the only one in his tour group, he was able to give me a lot of good background info and stories about the mine. It should make for good reading!

Tomorrow I hope to get to Ri-Ra's, an Irish pub here in town that has in its make-up quite a few building materials brought directly from Ireland, and that is rumored to have several ghosts in residence. (It would probably have been a lot more fun to go today--it's St. Patrick's Day, after all!--but not very productive research-wise!).

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