On Halloween, Granny makes celery casserole while we play in the old Oviedo celery fields. We play with the ghost children as the cheese melts and the milk softens the stalks. Under the moon, Papa fiddles while Granny flatfoots on the table to make the ghost children happy.
Category Archives: Halloween
A Florida Halloween note
31 Saturday Oct 2020
I’m sorry for all my typos in my attempt at a longer story this morning: “Sleepy Hollow.” I think I have ironed them out though the story itself will likely get revisited more than a few times. I don’t know if the time line and point of view are too confusing. The time line doubles back on itself and the perspective changes from omniscient to a rotating third so hmmmm…… Plus a lot of this takes place in the character’s heads while they are in bed which I now find kinda funny. Who knows, maybe it’s just notes for another story or maybe it basically works as it is. I try to wait to make that determination, sometimes for quite a while. I’ve been writing for six hours since 6 am pretty much nonstop so it may be time to do a contemplative chillax. lol (In bed?)
I was trying to get something out before the Halloween holiday began in earnest. My washer and dryer are located close to my front door and my clean laundry is piled up on my dining room table willy nilly! Along with cardboard boxes from my move since right before the pandemic. lol. So, hmmm. Not organized! I am counting on the holidays to motivate me. I am counting on the trick or treaters staring into my home to at least motivate me to tidy up what they can see. Haha.
Be safe today. Be well.
This is one of my favorite photos on unsplash. It could easily be the east coast of Florida but it is Manhattan Beach. Don’t you love it? Kind of makes me think of a Florida Halloween.
Sincerely,
Meg
Inktober: Clock
09 Friday Oct 2020
I have a grandmother clock passed down from an ancestor who presided over the Salem witch trials. On Halloween, the clock runs backward, the glass cover refuses closure, the chimes clash and clang. After a harrowing night, I call the clock repair person first thing. He never finds anything wrong.
Inktober: Repurposed as #50WordFriday on Mastodon
26 Saturday Sep 2020
In the next few days, I will be reposting instructional material I developed for a writing exercise that took place in October, for Halloween. I am starting a new exercise on Mastodon using the hashtag #50WordFriday. If you’d like to join us there, I hope you will consider it. Just follow the hashtag and join in! All genres are welcome, not just horror. Even though it’s almost June in this reposting, I will be repurposing my October 2020 (and 2019) prompts as many of them apply anytime! I will also be adding more as well as providing more thoughts on the writing of 50-word pieces. Furthermore, the prompts on Mastodon will be given once a week on Friday—rather than one per day— in order to allow people to develop their pieces as well as spend some time responding to other participants. I hope you are enjoying your weekend and maybe I’ll see you on the hashtag. —Margaret
I am going back to the prompt based activity I participated in on Twitter last October. I made up prompts for an event called “Inktober.” Visual artists have their “Inktober” and so do writers. I also made up prompts for November. I intended to make up prompts for December but didn’t get to it. Maybe I will this year. Later in the year I made up prompts called “Dark Easter” for the advent of covid.
I thought I would post the list of October prompts here again in case anyone is interested. There is approximately one prompt for each day of October. These are 50 word exercises though of course you could make each piece any length. What I like about 50 words however is that I can spend some time each day thinking just about one impression I wanted to make with only fifty words. I feel less burnt out by the experience this way. I create something new each day, but don’t spend a whole lot of time writing. I spend more time imagining beforehand, which is fun. And for the whole month it is judgement free zone!
I may write using these again. Or I may create new prompts. I will probably be continuing on with a longer length Halloween piece while posting and writing to fifty word prompts.
Before the end of the month I will share some of my flash pieces from last year’s Inktober. Meanwhile, here are some prompts:
ripe
catch
injured
ride
coat
dark
tasty
dizzy
ancient
ghost
treasure
tread
sling
misfit
ornament
wild
legend
overgrown
ash
dragon
snow
pattern
swing
frail
enchanted
husky
build
freeze
ring
mindless
bait
ghost
21 Monday Oct 2019
Posted 50 word fiction, Halloween, Inktober2019WriterEdition, micro horror
inTags
My ghost is unhappy. She says we haven’t spent much time together.
She complains while I’m in the bath, sipping wine.
I feel myself nodding off, my chin dipping into the water while the tub fills.
Now this is what we needed, she says. Girl time n’ special k.
swing
09 Wednesday Oct 2019
On All Hallows’, witches swing on electric currents like ballooning spiders, shifting from place to place, their belongings on their backs – potions, books of spells, cats – riding their besom brooms. At gatherings, the thinning veil and a ritual incantation, a single candle in the night, allows their company with spirits.
frail
08 Tuesday Oct 2019
Posted 50 word fiction, Halloween, Inktober2019WriterEdition, micro horror
inIt started happening at her most frail moment in the chemo ward, the drip in her arm dosing her into semi-consciousness: The flickering lights, the unfurling of a dark presence in the hallway, bony finger beckoning. One day, she stood apart from herself and joined the darkness, floating, cold.