Ghostly Pizza
So, sometimes I cheat because on Halloween things get hectic here.
- 1 lb Frozen Pizza Doug (do not judge)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- .75 cup pizza sauce
- .5 lb mozarella slices
- some little capers (for the eyes)
- Realize that you have no time to make food that isn’t candy.
- Preheat oven to 475ºF.
Spray bottom of a 16-by-11-inch rimmed baking sheet with the stuff that makes things not stick. Or use olive oil, but olive oil is expensive, so maybe don’t. I mean olive oil is awesome, but we’re already using pre-made pizza dough here so pretension is gone, right?
Spray the darn sheet.
Celebrate by eating candy.
- Stretch that dough evenly to cover bottom of sheet.
This is a lot like stretching your 20,000-word story into a 50,000-word novel. You might have to take a couple of rounds, and rest in between to get this stretched.
Do not give up.
Celebrate by eating candy.
- Open the jar of sauce.
Cry because you have no wrist strength.
Celebrate when you finally open the jar. Celebrate by eating candy.
Spread that sauce over the dough. Try to make it even. Leave a border on all sides of the rectangle. Try to make that border a 1-inch border.
Celebrate with candy.
Set a timer. Put it in the oven.
- Bake about 15 minutes.
Celebrate that. Celebrate that with candy.
Now, you get to have fun! Yay, fun! Remember fun?
Scrounge up a ghost-shaped cookie cutter and cut ghosts out of cheese.
That is so cool.
Put the ghosts on the pizza. It is hot. Be careful. Obviously these ghosts have been hanging out in hell. The sauce is like red flames. And the whole scene is hot.
Celebrate liberating the ghosts from hell with candy.
Hide the candy wrappers in the garbage during the final five minutes of baking.
- Take the pizza out. Look how cool that is!
Put caper eyes on each ghost.
Let is stand for five minutes. Eat it. Eat it with a celebratory side dish of candy.

Writing News
Last Time Stoppers Book
I love this book baby and you can order my middle grade fantasy novel Time Stoppers Escape From the Badlands here or anywhere.
People call it a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson but it’s set in Maine. It’s full of adventure, quirkiness and heart.
OUR PODCAST – DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness as we talk about random thoughts, writing advice and life tips. We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!
Writing Coach
I offer solo writing coach services. For more about my individual coaching, click here.
COOL CONTEST OF SPOOKY AWESOMENESS!
Um. MacMillan is having a super cool sweepstakes where you can win the book I wrote with Steve (IN THE WOODS) and four other scary books.
Go enter! Go win! I’m rooting for you!

IN THE PAPER, BABY
I was just in the newspaper and I think the photo of my head is actually larger than my real-life head. Go figure. It was super kind of them to notice me and to write about me. Here is the link.

LEARN WITH ME AT THE WRITING BARN!
The Write. Submit. Support. format is designed to embrace all aspects of the literary life. This six-month course will offer structure and support not only to our writing lives but also to the roller coaster ride of submissions: whether that be submitting to agents or, if agented, weathering the submissions to editors. We will discuss passes that come in, submissions requests, feedback we aren’t sure about, where we are feeling directed to go in our writing lives, and more. Learn more here!
“Carrie’s feedback is specific, insightful and extremely helpful. She is truly invested in helping each of us move forward to make our manuscripts the best they can be.”
“Carrie just happens to be one of those rare cases of extreme talent and excellent coaching.”
IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!
My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!
Gasp!
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
