Have You Seen the Ghost of John?

During the last week of October, I'll be interviewing Kristen Lawrence, creator of the Halloween Carols™, over at Suburban Vampire.  One of the things I love about Kristen is that she revived the classic Halloween song "Ghost of John."  I have fond memories of sitting in my elementary school singing about that poor, eerie ghost with the "long, white bones and the rest all gone," which is probably one of the many explanations behind my ghost and Halloween obsession.  What's creepier than a classroom full of children singing, "Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on"?

Here's Kristen Lawrence's customized rendition of the traditional American song. If you're looking for music other than "The Monster Mash" this Halloween, make sure you check out her website: www.HalloweenCarols.com

The Hanging of the Pumpkin Clock

I typically wait until October 1 to hang up my first Halloween decoration—the pumpkin clock shown here—but I figured it's already officially fall, and September only has two remaining days before it merges into my beloved Halloween month. Why not go ahead and enjoy autumn? So what if my thermometer is expected to jump above 80 today?

Fall tends to be one of my most productive writing seasons.  If you haven't noticed, I tend to gravitate toward dark, eerie, and out-of-the ordinary stories, and I find myself producing some of my best work when I'm surrounded with atmospheric inspiration, from the Halloween music playing on my computer to the blackening, moody skies outside my window.

Here are my goals for this particular October:

My backyard, October 2009.

1. Hope for the best for my novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds.  It's out with editors right now, and it could use all the crossed fingers and good luck charms anyone can spare.  I love this book.

2. Dive into research for a new writing project.  After a few false starts these past few weeks, I think I've settled upon a deliciously bizarre subject matter I'd like to tackle for a new novel.  I spent yesterday ordering research material from Amazon and libraries and plan to lose myself inside their pages as the weather cools down. 

3. Host a parade of entertaining Halloween-ish guests over at my Suburban Vampire blog.  Currently, K.A. Corlett, author of Ever Your Servant, is my featured writer, and in the coming weeks I'll be chatting with novelists such as Christine Cody and musician Kristen Lawrence, creator of the Halloween Carols™.

4. Prepare my son's Halloween-themed seventh birthday party.  Yes, I love Halloween so much, I even gave birth to one of my kids during the season (his birth wasn't specifically planned that way, but it was pretty cool to tell everyone I had a Halloween due date).  Every year we throw a kiddie costume party, and this time around we're having a mad scientist emphasis.  I'll be digging my lab coat costume out of the closet and preparing easy science experiments in our garage.

5. Convince my husband to watch terrifying movies and ghost-hunter shows with me. My viewing tastes tend to freak out my family (my daughter claims she's still having nightmares from when I showed her The Watcher in the Woods two years ago), so I sometimes have to sneak in my favorite eerie films late at night after everyone else goes to bed.

Farewell, September! I love the fact that both my sister and I celebrate our birthdays in the ninth month of the year, but I'm ready to plunge headfirst into October.

The R.I.P. Reading Challenge

Stainless Steel Droppings is hosting its sixth annual R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge.

Here's a brief overview of what the event entails, as described by the site's owner, Carl V.:

Regardless of what my thermometer tells me, my heart tells me that autumn is here and that it is once again time to revel in things ghostly and ghastly, in stories of things that go bump in the night. It is time to trail our favorite detectives as they relentlessly chase down their prey, to go down that dark path into the woods, to follow flights of fantasy and fairy tale that have a darker heart than their spring time brethren. To confront gothic, creepy, horror stories in all their chilling delight.

There are two simple goals for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VI Challenge:

1. Have fun reading.
2. Share that fun with others.

Are you up for some dark reading as we head into the Halloween season? I always have my nose planted in books that fall under the dark and ghostly category, so I'll be partaking in the challenge myself. I just finished reading Victoria Schwab's wonderful dark YA fairy tale, The Near Witch, and I'm now deep in the middle of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a tale of late-19th-century magicians/lovers who are no mere illusionists.

If you'd like to join R.I.P. VI, head to www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/r-eaders-i-mbibing-p-eril-vi.  There's also a section for individuals who prefer dark tales on a screen.

Happy reading!