2014 Halloween prompt

I hope your week was fantastic. Mine was eventful. My husband arrived home after approximately five weeks of travel. He had visited various places in Europe, came back to the states briefly for a trade show in Vegas, then went to Australia and New Zealand. Being alone in our new place was quite nice the first few weeks, then it started getting old and, as you can see from my previous entry, with boredom comes ill-conceived landscaping. (Helpful tip: If you just keep adding mulch, eventually things work out.)

My new fiction writing class began this week. I have 28 students this term, and I am excited to see what they can do. I am also excited to return to my Rattle novel. I have a lot of opportunities in the works concerning completed work, so I am also awaiting many answers... This place of unknowing is both fun and torturous. I know this is all vague, but hopefully good news to come.

You know, I don't usually know what I'm going to suggest as a writing prompt until I get to this point in my blog, but this makes the challenge fun. I usually just draw from whatever I'm thinking about or recently did. Yesterday, I went to a Halloween party and had to improvise my outfit (see right) because my original (a Mona Lisa get-up) hadn't arrived in time. Thanks to a few YouTube videos, Tim Burton, and a lot of experimenting, I put together a costume. My husband bought a mask, and we were set. There were quite a few people at this party, and the costumes were so good that we didn't recognize the folks we knew. Not recognizing who you're speaking with could lead to conflict in the right situation. Bingo! We have a prompt.

Write a story about two characters who know each other. One begins confiding in the other, not realizing who the other is. Go!

Since next weekend is Halloween proper, if you write to this and you'd like me to post your story  (or part of it as a teaser), let me know. 

Computercation

Many things frighten me. I'm frightened by almost everything, at least for a short time. Then, predictably, I grow used to the thing that scared me, and instead, I become bored by it. For instance, I was once scared of computers. I felt inept on many computer programs and so I avoided them at all costs.

And after five (maybe seven) years of regular computer use, it's no surprise that I'm growing--if not bored, restless--sitting at my computer, trying to market this book all the damn time. So, I've decided that I'm embarking on my computer-cation (computer vacation). Wish me luck, I'll need it. I already feel the withdrawal, the looming email collecting in folders, important things that I have to respond to right away... Scarier than Halloween.

So, I'll post Monday or Tuesday, to report on my attempts to follow in the footsteps of King Ludd, and all those who have rebelled against technological change.

In closing, here's a list of helpful Halloween Hints, lessons I've learned over the last week that might make Halloween itself a little less scary.

1. If your ice cream man comes around at 6AM, he's selling drugs. Don't take his free ice cream, even on Trick or Treat night.

2. Don't eat any candy with warning labels. (i.e. - "this might remove a filling")

3. If you're going to dress up, zombiefy your costume, it only helps.

4. Too much candy corn is truly sickening. Even if it's the chocolate kind.

5. Don't dress up like Michael Jackson, unless your going to do a damn-good job on the costume--that rule goes for kids, too.

6. Apples do not count as cady, unless they're candied apples.

7. You're never too old to dress up, only too cranky.

8. If you're going to do like me and be Rosie the Riveter, make sure you don't go into neighborhood with high gang activity, unless you happen to know they're all Bloods.

OK. Signing off here... I'm already shaking. I might have to take up drinking and smoking again without the comfort of these one-sided conversations (I mean "blog entries")

jen

(buy Musical Chairs, if you haven't yet...) Or go here, they're giving them away.

[picture courtesy of last year's "Zombie Walk" in San Antonio]