Second Wind Publishing discussion

Thank you, Pat, for inviting me to host the topic today. It's always fun for me to do these things.


If there is one holiday that inspires me as a writer, it is Halloween.

While many of the things we do for Halloween, running around in costumes and decorating our homes to scare the bogeymen away, yet inviting the spooks and ghosts with open arms and their favorite treats, have roots in Pagan rituals and beliefs – Halloween has become as Pagan as Christmas with Santa, flying reindeer and decorated trees is Christian.

While some of us will choose to celebrate either of these holidays in a more spiritual way, the bulk of us will continue to pray to the gods of commercialism and celebrate them as fun events celebrating family (Christmas) and your community (Halloween) with your family or community, holidays meant to bring us closer together, whether or not we celebrate the religious aspects of either one.

But that isn’t why Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love it because the more wacky your decorations are, the better they are. Skeletons having a tea party wearing Aunt B’s hat, witches protruding from garage doors, and giant hairy spiders that look like they’re doing the cha-cha-cha – it’s all good. Forget finding the perfect outfit and fussing over your hair for the holiday parties – just smear on some fake blood, back-comb that mop into an unruly rat’s nest, toss on a goofy costume and go have fun! And the gift giving couldn’t be easier or more fun. You buy a bunch of bags of candy and toss handfuls into the bags of eager kids while making the odd one perform tricks for your amusement.

But even more than that, I love the whole theme of the holiday. I love the festive spookiness.

As Halloween approaches, I find little ditties and poems about witches, ghosts, and all manner of ghouls rattling around in my head. I write little Halloween poems for my kids to share with their friends at school. I feel a terrible itch to haunt the spookier realms of the stores in search of wonderful new frightening decorations. I feel suddenly inspired to write like I’ve never written before, with both new and old story ideas popping into my head faster than I can possibly note them down, or even sometimes make sense of them.

What holiday inspires your need to write? What youthful memories inspire your love for a particular holiday and type of book - as a writer or reader? And how have these inspirations affected your choices in favorite holidays?


L.V. Gaudet

There's more on my thoughts of this on my blog post:
http://lvgwriting.wordpress.com/2010/...

To sum it up, my early love of Vincent Price B-movies, every monster there is, and devouring every single horror book I could get my hands on has certainly inspired my love of Halloween.

And my love of Halloween only adds to what inspires my writing.

In fact, Halloween has left me feeling so inspired this year that I might just be seeing some of you over at NaNoWriMo this year - my first attempt at that crazy frantic wildy abandoned writing frenzy.

Then again, I pretty much write that way already when I'm doing one of those short little bits we like to call short stories.

LV Gaudet

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Thank you for hosting our featured discussion, L.V. The only book I've written that touches on any holiday is A Spark of Heavenly Fire. I liked the idea that as my hero got closer to Christmas, she became more giving.

Hi Pat,
My latest book, "Buying Murder" begins in early November and runs into the new year. It definitely has references to the holidays, with attendance at an office party supplying an alibi for one suspect.

I live in Santa Cruz, however, and set the mysteries I write here as well. Santa Cruz is noted for Halloween celebrations that are bigger than New Year's Eve celebrations.

I've just begun working on the fourth book in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series. It opens with Death handing out notes with future dates on them to people out celebrating downtown. One of the notes has a time on it rather than a date.... It's a book I've been wanting to do just so I can use Halloween, which is my favorite holiday, in it.

Santa Cruz is close to San Francisco so this year we are a sea of orange and black because we've all got Giants fever (Go Giants!) which makes Halloween even more fun.

Nancy Lynn Jarvis

When i worked at the local library, the staff wwore costumes on Halloween. Then mothers who brought the "Under 4"crowd would dress the little ones, even if they didn't know what was going on. I used to like a gypsy outfit, full swinging skirt & lots of cheap jewelery. We had a director who would dress as Dracula & it was a perfect fit. Some of the little kids would cling to their mothers & cry when they saw his red-lined cape approaching. They don't do that any more & I think it's too bad, though the kids still dress up when they visit.

This is the most Halloween-y book I've written. It's got a ghost and a portal and other scary stuff, but the setting is a snowy wintertime New Jersey.

Things can go bump in the night during the wintertime, too. :^)

Penelope,
Where I come from, a snowy wintertime setting goes hand in hand with Halloween, making it even more suiting.

It's not unusual here to have snowdrifts and snowhills by Halloween.

And yes, things can go bump in the night anytime. Thrillers are a year round Halloween wonderland.

Marion,

I agree, it's always nicer when the adults to that little extra bit. It adds so much more to any event or holiday for the kids.

The Fall season in general with all it's wonderful colors, smells, and sights is always a good reason to wirte. Halloween just brings it up a notch.

When I think of fall I am reminded of the first day of school with clean new notebooks just ready for writing down my thoughts.

From the first day of school until New Year's Eve is my favorite time to write.

I have a interview with Greg Mitchell who writes Christian Horror. Since its Halloween time I thought you guys might want to check it out and see what he has to say about writing Horror for Christians.

http://writesthoughts.blogspot.com/20...

I don't use holidays like Hallowe'en for inspirations to my writing. I am not a Horror writer it really doesn't matter.

I work for a service that sends us to disabled senior's homes to care for them, but sometimes we go to facilities/institutions to care for certain individuals. I was at one of these facilities the other night and they were having a halloween event.
After dinner, I went for my lunch break and left my charge with the activities director. When I came back, the activities director had a cd player going with scary music and he was reading tales of horror to a group of five or six, most of whom were coming in and out of drug induced sleep in their wheelchairs.
I said to the fellow I was caring for (he was the only alert one of the bunch), "I don't get this halloween stuff--I don't understand it. Seems like those old ladies might get scared."
He immediately tells me, "Lighten up. Have a litte fun. Don't take it so serious."
"Alright," I concede, unwillingly--not convinced.
But then he adds, "Do as I say, not as I do."

I'm not big on holidays of any kind, although I wonder if I'd miss them if they were outlawed or otherwise discontinued. I do appreciate religious holidays, for remembering the saints and sages, but you know, they're mostly used for selling us useless stuff. Oh well... Happy Halloween! I guess I'll go as Eeyore.

Holidays can be very inspiring, but I haven't included one (except Labor Day) in my books, yet. I did use Valentine's Day in my story for "Love is on the Wind," for Second Wind Publishing.

I like watching holiday movies--people are emotional and more intense, it seems. I'm writing my fourth book in the Winnebago County mystery series--one of the cases is bound to fall on a holiday sometime.

My novel, Vendetta: A Deadly Win begins on Halloween. I chose that holiday because I liked the idea of everyone being in costume and of course, being disguised. I love Halloween and always think of seances and spooky traditions. In my newest novel, Lethal Echoes, there is a psychic and a tarot card reading. For many years I studied the occult and metaphysics and still find it fascinating. I'm in the midst of creating a psychic detective and have started another novel featuring her and her boyfriend, a homicide detective. I may set the novel around Easter as that always brings to mind, for me, the resurrection. The antagonists are witchy characters who are capable of resurrections. Anyway, this will be a fun project for me. Love this topic.

I hadn't thought about holidays inspiring writing. When I wrote a story about a year in some kids' lives, I was already editing when I realized I'd completed the whole year in real-time not holiday-time. Very odd. So I inserted Christmas. More edits came later.