Galena is tucked into the far northwestern corner of Illinois, almost within touching distance of Wisconsin to the north, and Iowa to the west. It is a city steeped in rich history, yet it has a small population of just under 3,500. Among its many attractions is the ghost of Annie Wiggins.

Everyone loves a ghost, even those who don’t believe in them. They are classed by most of us in a similar way to zombies, vampires and other scary entities; great fun to watch in a movie, but hey – let’s be serious. Could the ghost of Annie Wiggins be different? Could there really be a lost soul haunting Galena, still living through the mid 19th century?

The answer is a rather disappointing, no. The conclusion is not based on any scientific lack of evidence for ghosts, but rather on the fact that the origins of Annie Wiggins is known, and freely admitted, by her creator, Wendy Heiken.

However, that’s not to say that the ghost can be dismissed. On the contrary, this ghost can open up a whole world of exciting history through a fascinating walking tour of haunted Galena that has allowed thousands of people to discover how life was in this small city, back in the 1840s.

Wendy, aka Annie Higgins, tells the stories of Galena through the eyes of real people who lived in the city in the 19th century. This is what brings the history alive, lifting it from 150 years ago to place it directly into a present day reality. All the stories told are quite true. It’s only the ghost of Annie Wiggins that has been created, and yet…

The Sac and Fox Indians lived in this area before the French established several trading posts in the 17th century. Galena was organized as a town in 1826, and was chartered as a city in 1841. The area is rich in lead deposits, and in fact, the city’s name comes from the technical term given to sulphide of lead: galena.

Probably the best known of Galena’s past citizens is Ulysses S. Grant. He came to the city in 1860 to work in his father’s store that sold leather goods. Before long he became one of the best known generals on the Union side in the Civil War. Does his ghost now haunt the streets of Galena? Who knows.

One other famous name is associated with this city: Abraham Lincoln. He once gave a rousing speech from the DeSoto House Hotel balcony, a building that still stands today. But perhaps the most famous of all Galena’s residents, past or present, is Annie Wiggins, a delightful ghost who never actually existed as a live person.

One of the benefits of a lifetime of afterlife communication is that I know a lot about ghosts … what they are and what they're not. For instance, they're not "caught between worlds." And they don't need us to help them "move on." They're exactly where they're supposed to be. You don't honestly think that God, the Creator of the Universe, would leave their eternal fate in your and my hands, do you?

You CAN say that they are "earthbound," but that's because their consciousness never left the earth. And when you die, yours won't either. We're all right here together forever. That's just the nature of the afterlife. Yes, knowing the laws of the afterlife can make these things a lot clearer.

Lately, I've been researching what folks believe about ghosts and hauntings. I've investigated the investigations. Repeatedly I've read, "We don't use ouija boards, séances, mediums or occult methods." Yet it's common for ghost researchers to accept, as an underlying condition of their investigations, the erroneous claims of psychics, mediums, and channels.

I'm referring to such concepts as "caught between worlds," "unfinished business," "earthbound souls," and ghost children in distress. At the same time ominous warnings urge vigilant caution in case non-human demons and malevolent entities are encountered. Oh, and don't forget the Hollywood expression, "Go to the light." Scientific research can't be conducted properly on a foundation of superstition.

Let me tell you some things that are true about ghosts. Actually there are only two kinds of ghosts: real and not-real.

The real ghosts are everywhere. They're in your home, in your car, in your school, and in your dreams. Ghost researchers call these interactive ghosts. I call them soul-ghosts, or disincarnate souls. I don't care for the term, disembodied because they do have a body. We just can't see it for the same reason that we can't see sound waves and ultraviolet light. They're outside the range of our sentient boundary.

Soul-ghosts are interactive. They reach out to you, and you feel no fear … absolutely none. They envelop you in a blanket of warm fuzzies. Real ghosts can be mistaken for angels. This isn't a paranormal experience. It's a supernatural and spiritual experience.

The not-real ghosts seem to be everywhere too, but only for people that believe they exist, or at least believe that they might exist. They rarely bother unbelievers. Ghost researchers call the not-real ghosts … residual ghosts. These ghosts seem to defy the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy because they pop in and out of existence like virtual particles. The appearance of this type of ghost can be explained by quantum physics. From the Copenhagen Interpretation, which states that nothing is real until you look at it, to the holographic theory of the universe, all ghosts abide by the laws of quantum physics.

People that experience residual ghosts say that they seem to be caught in a time-loop replaying the same scene over and over. The above mentioned physics also apply to residual ghosts but with the addition of Schrodinger's equations. For every "now" that we experience, a positive wave flows into the future and a negative wave flows into the past like concentric ripples created by a rock thrown into a pond.

The fact that some people experience residual ghosts is due to normal functions of human consciousness. Although some might rather think of it as a "glitch." Residual ghosts are unusual and fascinating experiences with natural causes.

Briefly, a few more types of not-real ghosts are poltergeists, demons, and shadow people. Abnormal psychology applies to poltergeists and demons. The physiology of the eye accounts for shadow people.

So, what's the truth about ghosts? Do they exist? Yes, of course they do. Can the scientific method be used to investigate them? Yes, they use measurable amounts of energy. Can you record their voices and photograph ghosts? Yes, but one needs to be alert to pattern recognition tendencies.

The science of ghost investigation has the potential to make a huge difference in a society still tormented by superstition and fear. You have the equipment. You have the rationale. And you have the compassionate desire to help others.

Copyright 2005 Robbin Renee Bridges

"It really happened, Taylor," Kellogg said. He sat behind his desk in the Facility Three Yard program office of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. He wore the bravo class uniform of a correctional sergeant, khaki shirt with three stripes on each arm, depicting his rank, and a black uniform ballcap to cover his brown, thinning hair. I sat across from him, leaning back in a chair, one booted foot on the desk. "I don't expect you to believe me, but I was there. I saw him with my own eyes."

It was first watch, the graveyard shift. The inmates were locked up for the night, and the prison was staffed by a skeleton crew. What better time was there to tell ghost stories?

Prisons are replete with tales of supernatural apparitions, purported to be the spirits of murdered inmates, or officers who spend their lives after death eternally haunting the halls of their former places of employment. During my academy training as a correctional officer cadet, I worked a short time at Old Folsom, the second oldest prison in the state. The stories there revolved around the spirits of inmates hanged for murder. A warehouse stands now where the gallows used to be. Officers on first watch were required to conduct security checks of the facility. New officers often reported they heard men weeping and wailing in the old warehouse. Experienced officers either stopped reporting the sounds or stopped entering the warehouse altogether. Another tale at Old Folsom prison had to do with a certain housing unit. Officers routinely counted inmates and grew accustomed to the idea that, in that housing unit, they were never alone during count. They felt the presence of an unseen officer walking the tiers with them, and even heard the jingling of his keys.

"I don't know, Kellogg," I said. "I'm not calling you a liar, but this place can do funny things to a man's senses. And you did say you were sleeping."

"Yeah, I was sleeping," Kellogg said, "but I was awake when I saw him. He was there, as real as you are, standing on the second tier, looking down at the dayroom floor."

"What did he look like?"

"He looked like an inmate. He was a white guy, covered in tattoos. Even on his face. He was wearing his blues. I thought he had gotten out of his cell somehow. I'm just glad I didn't think to notify central control. They would've thought I was crazy. "

As the story went, it happened when Kellogg was still an officer, working overtime in the control booth of housing unit thirteen on Facility Four. The control booth was a large room in the second story of the housing unit, with thick, unbreakable windows. The control booth officer provided gun coverage for the yard from his back window, and coverage for the officers inside the housing unit through slots in his front windows. He also controlled the opening and closing of the housing unit and cell doors from a panel on his desk. During the day, it was a busy job, but at night, when the inmates were locked in their cells, it was one of the easiest jobs in the prison. And an officer, especially an officer on overtime, could find himself struggling to stay awake. Kellogg had succumbed to the struggle that night, and was fast asleep.

"Something woke me up," Kellogg said, "I felt like someone was up in the control booth with me. I didn't see anyone, but I felt it. I got up and looked around, but no one was there. looked out at the dayroom, and there he was, clear as day, leaning against the second tier railing, just staring down at the dayroom floor. I shouted at him, but he ignored me. I called down to the officers, but they were sleeping in their office. They wouldn't wake up. The inmate started walking toward cell 216, and I started shouting at him again. He never even looked at me. He got to the cell door, but didn't stop walking. , man, I'm telling you, he walked right through the cell door like it wasn't even there. I don't know what to think of it, but I know it happened. "

"And you don't think it was a dream?" I said.

"No dream," Kellogg said. "When my shift was over in the morning, I left the control booth and went to cell 216. There were two inmates locked up in there. I talked to them."

"What did they say?"

"That's the thing," Kellogg said. "At first they didn't want to talk to me. They thought I would think they were crazy. When they did talk, they told me they woke up and saw an inmate, the same inmate, standing in their cell, staring out their back window. And, just like that, he was gone. He was there one second, and gone the next. "

I took Sergeant Kellogg's story with the proverbial grain of salt. I did not dismiss it outright. Who am I, after all, to judge another man's ghost story. But to say I believed it would not be entirely true. I had witnessed many unexplainable events in my life, and tried to keep my mind open to possibilities, but I also nurtured a healthy cynicism.

Another strange event happened in the prison infirmary. I wasn't a witness to it, but I talked to the doctor and nurses involved, who swore to me that it happened. Inmates with severe medical issues were kept in cells that were basically hospital rooms, equipped with medical beds and televisions. A man convicted of serial rape was dying. He was a belligerent old inmate, rude and caustic, especially to the female staff members. He was in the last few minutes of life, and was still conscious. He looked up at the television from where he was lying in bed, and cried out in fear. Scrolling on the bottom of the screen were the words, YOU ARE GOING TO HELL. The Doctor was in the room with two nurses. They changed the channel, but the words remained on the bottom of the screen. YOU ARE GOING TO HELL. The inmate took his final breath, staring up at the television screen. Perhaps the story was true. Perhaps not. I kept an open mind.

It wasn't until I had an experience of my own that I decided Sergeant Kellogg may have really seen a ghost. It happened to me. It happened when the clerk came to work.

There were many jobs in prison for inmates. Inmates were cooks, they worked in the laundry, as porters in the housing units and a variety of other positions. Being an inmate clerk required intelligence. To be the lieutenant's clerk required even greater intelligence. The lieutenant's clerk had to be knowledgeable of yard procedures, and had to be able to read and write well. When a yard discovered an inmate with these capabilities they held on to them. Most lieutenant's clerks had long sentences, and many held the same job for ten years or more. The Facility One lieutenant's clerk, Inmate Jensen, had been the clerk for at least fifteen years. He was an older man with gray hair, a pale complexion and bifocals. He was quiet and unobtrusive, never out of line with the officers, but was always professional and courteous. He became part of the furniture, so to speak, his presence so common in the program office that he often went unnoticed. He had been convicted at the age of thirty for murdering his wife's lover after catching them together in his bed. He was in his sixties, and had spent more time in prison than he had lived outside prison. His life inside the wall was routine. He got up every morning, put on a clean, pressed inmate uniform, waited for the control booth officer to open his cell, then headed to the program office. Five days a week, every week for more than fifteen years. He never talked about paroling. Like many lifers, I am sure he hoped to one day be free. But Inmate Jenkins would spend the rest of his life in prison.

The rest of his life. And one more day.

It was early on a Monday morning. I entered the Facility One Program office. I was scheduled to work as one of the yard officers, and grabbed my equipment, baton, pepper spray, radio, keys, from the equipment locker. I barely noticed when Inmate Jenkins entered. He looked around, and seemed a bit confused. I was too busy donning my equipment to pay much attention. He headed back to his work station, an alcove just down the hallway with an electric typewriter on a large wooden desk. I finished cinching up my duty belt and keying the microphone on my radio to make sure the battery was charged. Inmate Jenkins left his work area, the same look of vague confusion on his pale face. He walked to the front door of the program, which was propped open for the officers to come and go, and stepped out onto the yard. I checked the schedule of duties, which was posted to the wall, to see what extra duties I had to perform.

I heard shouting from one of the first watch officers at the back of the program.

"No freaking way!" he yelled.

I stepped out into the hallway to see what was going on. The officer, a middle-aged Hispanic man, was staring from where he stood at the end of the hallway, out through the open door. His eyes were wide with surprise, and not a little fear. I followed his gaze to the empty yard.

"What's happening?" I said.

"Jenkins, man. I just saw Jenkins!"

"Doing what?" I said. I looked out at the yard, but did not see inmate Jenkins.

"You don't get it! He's not supposed to be doing anything."

I scanned the yard again. No inmate Jenkins. Where could he have gone?

"I don't see him at all," I said.

"Taylor," the officer said, exasperated, "Jenkins is dead. He died at the infirmary last night!"

I looked at the officer, sure he was messing with me. I grinned.

"Okay," I said, "Jenkins is dead. Go on. I just saw him a minute ago."

The officer stepped out onto the yard, looking around. He shook his head.

"I don't get it, man," he said. "They told me he was dead."

"Well," I said, "they told you wrong. Maybe it was another Jenkins."

He thought about it, looking at the empty yard. He nodded to himself.

"Yeah. I guess so. That has to be it …"

"Here," I said, "come with me."

I entered the program office and he followed. Sitting down at the computer, I put in my password and logged onto SOMS, the information system for officers. I searched for Inmate Jenkins on Facility One. His information flashed on my screen, his housing unit and photo identification. I checked his status. It showed he had discharged from prison the day before. I looked up at the officer, who stared over my shoulder at the computer screen. His mouth was open. His eyes were wide. There, directly under Inmate Jenkin's photo were the following words: Status- Discharged. Cause- Death. Location- Office of the Coroner, San Diego County. Inmate Jenkins was not only dead, he was discharged to the San Diego County Coroner's Office.

His body was in the morgue.

Occasionally, I read articles in the newspaper or watch news stories about people convicted of heinous crimes. Some are sentenced to life, some to life plus fifty years. I worked with inmates who were sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. We all assumed they would leave the prison when their first life sentence was over. After all, a man has only one life to give. But now I wonder whether that is entirely true. How many inmates served their sentences of life, only to find they had a lot more time to do?

The story of the ghost of Flitwick Manor is one that has been around Flitwick for many years. Questions such as: Is it true? How did it happen? Are they stories just lies? have been asked for many years

John Thomas Brooks was the owner of the manor back in the 1800’s who had a daughter named Mary Ann Brooks who at the age of just 26 sadly passed away according to her fathers diary. This was in 1846. Now, the wife of John Thomas Brooks outlived her husband by 20 years, she died at the age of 86 with dementia and is the lady who is believed to haunt the manor. The death of their daughter was seen to haunt the lady and she was never able to rest.

Now fast forward to the mid 1990’s and there was a major discovery. Flitwick Manor was having some major renovation work and while working on the roof one of the builders discovered a hidden room behind the roof tiles. As the builders entered they discovered a large room with a bricked up doorway which was originally accessible from the hall within Flitwick Manor. This room is believed to be the quarters of the housekeeper who both John Thomas Brooks and his wife blamed for the death of their daughter by poisoning her. Why the room was bricked up is open to opinion, no one is 100% sure, what we do know though is that this isn’t the lady who we believe haunts The Manor.

Back in 1995 the TV program called Strange But True ran a feature on it. This show interviewed reception staff and the builders who have had first hand experience of experiencing this ghost. The Flitwick Manor receptionists account is the most interesting. She was asleep at The Manor as she was working the following day. During the night she awoke to find the old lady dressed in a Victorian dress at the end of her bed, she was crying. The receptionist ran out and into the hall, by the time that she returned the ghost had gone but the lights were on (which she is adamant were not on at the time she left the room). This story has been very similar to a number of accounts over the years.

What we do know from these stories is that the ghost of Flitwick Manor is an old Victorian Lady dressed in Victorian Clothes who is clearly upset. We can take great solace in that she is harmless and if anything she is just unable to rest following her tragedy all those years ago.

If you want to be a ghost writer, be prepared to work for a high cost, expensive services clientele. It takes something in the ballpark neighborhood nowadays of figures in the five to ten to fifty thousand dollar range to hire a great book ghost writer. You can hire a book editor, a book doctor or a book coach for much less than that. Prices for editing and assistance with you yourself actually writing your book run for far less.

I have worked directly, myself, on some upwards of 50 book manuscripts for a wide variety of client authors. I don’t do screenplays; I have edited them, and I do an adequate job, but you really need to know the film industry to create the very best in scripts and screenplays. So I leave that sort of project to experts, optioned screenwriters and produced script writers for TV, who are on our team. What I specialize in is books.

I can whip out a great, revised and edited book for an author client without having to worry about whether or not it’s misspelled, has grammar or syntax issues, or is colorful enough to grab a literary agent’s attention. Well, that is one way to put it. To be honest, I work over the top to produce the best manuscript I can possibly give each of my author clients, and that can mean working like a dog sometimes. It depends. Some clients hand me easy background notes, book outlines, chapter by chapter outlines – I’m the one who requests them from each client – and some clients don’t. They need to either write out a full manuscript and have me edit it for them, or book coach them into writing it out, or book doctor an existing manuscript by performing content and/or developmental editing on it for them.

So when you’re a book ghost writer service, you can handle both ends. When it comes to screenplays and scripts, I have other people work on them. The right thing to do is to specialize for a while, I believe, and then when you’re bored it’s time to move on to a different specialty. I know a ghost writer who grew tired of writing screenplays, so he moved on to the prose writing and editing of book manuscripts. It doesn’t hurt to step out of one field and into another. I started out editing people’s book manuscripts for free, also for low cost, and I then stepped into the field of book ghost writer services in the early 2000’s. It’s been lots of fun for me, and a real roller coaster ride.

My daydream is to continue with getting author clients over to the correct literary agents and commercial book publishers. It’s more than just a dream, I’m able to do that. I have people on our team who handle that, and they have the right connections. But I’d like to shift eventually over to doing that myself someday. It’s more lucrative. A book ghost writer on our team landed a $75,000 advance for a book where she only wrote the proposal and query letter. The book was published, selling quite well. She used the advance to make a down payment on her new house.

She’s very gracious and is always willing to bend to the needs and desires of her clients. But she won’t take on the “wrong kinds” of non-marketable book projects. Only the ones she sees as potential winners, which have a great chance at being marketed appropriately. So I need to enter that field myself someday down the road. Right now, I’m taking it easier, mostly farming work out to writers, editors, marketers and others on our team, and trying to get my own three books, the ones I wrote myself, published. I smuggled one of my author client’s books into The Library of Congress, early on in my career, and we have placed several more of them over there through the years.

I’ve gotten my books into Google Books, Smashwords, Amazon, bookstores, and plenty of my author clients have been published on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other media outlets, brick and mortar stores, online venues and the Public Library System, as well as around the world. Our books and some of mine have landed in France, Great Britain, Rwanda, China, Canada, Germany, Spain, South America… it is rather the glamorous side, the life of one book ghost writer running her ghost writing services. But there are also many pitfalls and drawbacks. The main one is getting out enough advertising to bring in the clients. The second most important aspect is finding ways to get our author clients to sign a firm Contract, and then stick with the project. I’ll write another article about those two topics soon, I promise!

GHOST-TO-GHOST HOOKUP

Bill Gates wrote a book, ‘Business at the Speed of Thought’ (2000) which received mixed reviews, although most of his ‘predictions’ came through; except for the ‘paperless’ economy. In this digital age, a plethora of business transactions (B2B, B2C, B2G) are completed with a point and click of a mouse. The Internet has shifted our personal paradigms and constitutions of how we think, feel and behave. For example, this blog is based on ‘push-button’ publishing. I can edit my postings, as and when I like, so my mistakes are minimized, and accuracy of content is enhanced.

How would you initiate that pace of business? Since we can travel at the supersonic speed, blink our eyes in a fraction of a second, and utilise fibre-optic cables to transfer information at light-speed, therefore we have the capacity and capability to do business with velocity and almost instantaneously. Yes?

You must have heard of English author, Enid Blyton? No? Wiki it up. Among Blyton’s many splendid books for children, I enjoyed in particular, her series of books Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. In this highly engaging series, lead-detective Jupiter Jones, conceptualizes the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup for gathering information rapidly.

What is the Ghost-to-Ghost (G2G) Hookup? Essentially, it is applying mathematics, specifically, Geometric Progression. It is the power of multiplication. Jones suggests that if each person identifies five persons to locate a piece of information, and these five people, in turn, identify another five persons each to seek this piece of information, the coverage would be wider. In today’s language, we call this ‘multi-level marketing’, ‘viral marketing’, ‘networking’, etc. Online technology and tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, allow these to happen. It becomes a case of ‘seek, and you will find’ in an accelerated fashion. Of course, with search engines like Google, we can also trace and track lost friends, relatives and colleagues with the right combination of words.

This is a suggestion for active networking: Combine the G2G Hookup with 6 Degrees of Separation (6DOS), and you will get an exquisite way of linking up with people whom you have lost touch with, family, school-mates, alumni, and many more. 6 Degrees of Separation proposes that we are not more than six persons away from whom we want to meet. Plus, your friends could be my friends. You will enjoy breadth and depth of your relationships. From a marketing perspective, you will attain wider coverage, reach, and connectivity. Cast your network net far and wide.

Meanwhile, stay high-tech, and high-touch!

The story of the “Walkerville Ghost” or more commonly known as the “De Deur” ghost has been around in our area for a few decades. As it happens due to being told by so many different people quite a few variations are known to exist and the details have become a little blurry. The story of the De Deur ghost below is the most common version.

It is said that if you drive down Boundary Road, De Deur, on a very dark night and flash your headlights (or a torch light) three times a headless motorbike rider will appear and drive past you at a great speed. According to some you must be parked on the actual site of the old farmhouse before any glimpse of the De Deur ghost can be seen. The story goes that there once stayed a local farmer who had a beautiful daughter. He was very protective of her and so discouraged all possible male suitors. There was lad in town whom she had an eye on and he frequently zoomed up and down that road with his noisy motorbike. Later on he became suspicious of her nightly activities and was worried that she might be sneaking off to her lover as soon as he had retired to bed.

He was never able to catch them together and confront their relationship no matter how closely he watched her. So he decided to set a trap for the young man in order to scare him off for good. He strung a piece of wire across the road between two trees on a moonless night. The wire was set at around chest height and the aim of the trap was to knock him off his motorcycle.

The signal to her lover was that she would flick her bedroom light 3 times and then he would know that the coast was clear and that he could come and collect her. That evening she slipped from her bed after her father had fallen sound asleep and signaled her lover. Unaware of the danger, the young man sped across the road on his way to his love. As he approached the house the wire caught him across the neck and he was instantly decapitated.

Some other versions state that the lover did indeed collect his girlfriend and that the wire decapitated them both. For the fans of the ghoulish the now famous “De Deur Ghost House” has become a regular spot for trying to lure the headless motorbike rider into making an appearance. They flash their car headlights or flashlights three times in hopes of a ghostly appearance. Sometimes though, the real Ghost of De Deur’s lights will be replaced by flashlights carried by local neighborhood watch members or even the Police. They like to play along and scare drunk or nervous town folk witless by their light display. Those who claim that they have indeed seen the De Deur ghost, report only a bright light flashing by at great speed.

The abandoned home was recently demolished by a religious youth group who decided to “set the spirit free”. Very little remains now of the De Deur ghost house after the groups demolishing act. Upon investigation, a fairly old ruin can be seen from the road but this is not the ghost house. The old home’s ruins are hardly visible anymore. We did find some remnants about 100 meters back from the road, but it is hard to tell whether or not this was the house in question, or ruins from an older farmhouse or its outbuildings.

Let's face it. Do letters crawl on paper like ants when you put a pen to it? Is your mind buzzing with thoughts which you want to desperately depict? Does even the tiniest of things spark off a volley of words? You must be a writer then, like me!

Well, that's what I call myself for I feel terribly burdened like a pregnant woman with ideas and once I put them down-ah! – I have delivered the baby!

So much hype over just words? – you may think. But writers are crazily over-protective about their work. Yet, there are times when the urge to express supersedes the urge to earn! This is when writers compromise and agree to do "Ghostwriting".

Writing an article and allowing it to be published under another's name is called "Ghost-writing". The reason writers resort to Ghost-writing might be for want of money, want of work or want of inspiration.

Having said all this, why do you want to wail? Yes, wail I must and shriek like a banshee for the cause of all such Ghost-writers like me! We Ghost-writers are a clan you see, who feel "Writing is like a form of breathing". Yes, in a way, writing is liberation for us. We feel free and happy when we write and happier to see our works leap out of the printed screen. So when we do not find such an outlet, we become grumpy. So we settle for something (Ghost-writing) better than nothing (no writing).

Yes, cursed is our fate when we see all those hours of hard work being credited to others. It's like giving away your child for adoption. So what must one do? You can't jolly well have the cake and eat it too!

Yeah! So these are my suggestions to my fellow Ghost-Writers to continue being ghosts yet earn some credibility.

1. Let your writing speak for itself.

We Ghost-Writers have a style of our own- something unique and distinctive. If you don't credit yourself with one, start developing one then and do it now!

Even when you ghost-write, try to weave your spell of magic with that style of yours!

Make your article reflect your personality!

2. The indelible stamp

Mark your articles with that indelible stamp of yours. If the strength of your content is your eloquence of language, let your article show it. If you are an exhaustive researcher, then let the facts of the article speak for you. If you have a systematic approach, let your structured article exhibit it.

In short, make your article shout your name LOUD!

3. Try to carve a niche for yourself.

Choose a few subjects or topics and make yourself proficient in it. Become the master of those subjects. Then populate those segments with your articles. Create a fan base for your articles. Make sure that you choose segments which are in vogue and have a regular stream of visitors who want more.

Once you do this, your reader base will start expecting updates and articles from you on these topics. Let your regular readers know that if we need this genre, then only so-and-so can deliver it.

Now you have carved your own niche where you will be instantly identified even by any other name!

So fellow ghosts, I mean Ghost-writers, quit moaning and start haunting, I mean, writing!

Let us do our best in being "ghosts with unseen names"! Good luck!

If you want to create an image of your hard disk it can be done in several ways. A way to do this is to boot the computer from a Symantec Ghost floppy disk and to create the image by multicasting, unicasting, disk to disk or peer to peer.

So if you want to create an image the first thing you have to do is to create a Symantec Ghost boot disk. This boot disk doesn’t boot to Windows but boots the Symantec Ghost utility in DOS.

How to create an image using GhostCast server?

GhostCast server is a utility of the Symantec Ghost software. Using GhostCast server you can create images of computers in the network or you can restore an image to several connected clients at the same time. The only thing you have to do is to boot all the clients with a Symantec Ghost boot disk, then you accept all the connected clients in the GhostCast server utility and then you simply send the image to all connected clients.

First you have to make sure that the computer of which you want to create an image of, is connected to the network. Of course the GhostCast server computer has to be connected as well.

Boot the client from the Symantec Ghost boot disk.

Now return to your GhostCast server computer and start the GhostCast server utility by clicking Start -> Programs -> Symantec Ghost -> GhostCast server.

Here you have to enter a session name in the Session Name box.

Then you enable the ‘Create Image’ option to create an image from the clients.

Then you click the ‘Browse’ button to browse for a place where the image must be stored.

If you want to create an image of the entire hard disk of the client you select the ‘Disk’ option. Do you want to create an image of a particular partition you select the ‘Partition’ option. (In this example I describe how to create an image of a disk).

Then you click the ‘Accept Clients’ button.

Now GhostCast server waits for the clients to connect.

You can see that there are no clients connected until now.

Now you go to the client which is booted in Symantec Ghost and you click (or by keyboard) ‘GhostCast’ -> ‘Unicast’.

You enter the session name exactly the same as given in GhostCast Server.

Leave the option ‘Discovery Method’ to ‘Automatic’ and click ‘Ok’.

The next thing you do is, you select the drive of which an image must be made of.

and click ‘Ok’.

Here you can choose if the image must be compressed to safe disk space. The options are ‘No’, ‘Fast’ or ‘High’ compression.

I recommend you choose ‘Fast’ compression.

The next thing you need to do is to confirm the image creation by clicking ‘Yes’.

Now Symantec Ghost is waiting for you to click the ‘Send’ button in GhostCast Server.

So, return to the GhostCast Server computer and click the ‘Send’ button.

After you clicked ‘Send’ the image will be created and stored at the location you chose in GhostCast Server.

You can see the details in GhostCast Server.

After the GhostCast progress is 100 % your image is created and you can close GhostCast Server.

You have successful created your Ghost image using GhostCast Server!!

Here’s a favorite tradition of our family in outdoor Halloween decor:

RING OF GHOSTS

Materials: 3 Twin-sized Sheets 3 Four foot lengths of flexible 1/2 inch PVC Piping, Wooden Stakes or Dowels 3 Small White Plastic Garbage Bags Masking Tape Newspaper String or Twist Ties Black Marker (optional)

Instructions: 1. First, determine a good location for your ghost gathering. Find a wide open area, or you may decide to group them around a tree or light pole.

2. To make the ghosts’ heads, crumple up newspaper and stuff the three small plastic trash bags to the desired size.

3. Stick one of the PVC pipes into one of the bags and wrap the neck with masking tape to secure. Repeat for the other ghosts.

5. Cover each ghost head with a sheet, gathering with string or a twist tie under each head. The head should be in the middle of the sheet, so the outer edges can be attached to the neighboring ghosts.

You can make taller or shorter ghosts, but you must adjust the size of sheet you use to accommodate. Our ghosts will be just under 4 feet tall.

4. Push the PVC piping into the ground in a circular formation about 1-2 feet apart. The sheets should touch the ground and cover up the support. You can also use wooden stakes or dowels, but your ghosts won’t have as much movement as they will with the PVC piping.

6. Finally, knot the ends of the sheets together to give the impression the ghosts are holding hands. Because the PVC is flexible, your ghosts will now bob and sway in the wind!

7. If desired, make Casper-like faces on the sheets with black marker.

We have 3 children, so we always make 3 ghosts, but you can connect as many ghosts as you wish!

They’ll look like they’re playing a spooky game of “ring-around-the-rosy”!

Click here to view our Ring of Ghosts

FLAGPOLE SPOOKS

These spooky decorations are easy if you have an angled flagpole attached to the front of your house.

Scary Flagpole Ghost: Hang a “Scream” style mask off the end of the flagpole. Tie a white sheet or a generous length of white tulle around and behind the mask. This scary creature will appear to be flying as his white garment flutters in the wind.

Flagpole Frankenstein: Hang a Frankenstein mask off the end of the flagpole. Tie a dark colored trash bag tied behind it. Shredding the trash bag around the edges will add to the spooky effect.

Flagpole Witch: Hang a witch mask off the end of the flagpole. Attach a witch hat to the mask, then tie a dark colored trash bag tied behind it. Shred the trash bag to make the witch’s robe flap in the wind.