Friday Challenge!

Helloooooo out there in weird land!
This is the LAST friday challenge for awhile. At least for all of November as I will be truly, madly, deeply revising True. If anyone wants to do guest Friday Challenges you are more than welcome. Just let me know and I'll give you the spot. In fact what a terrific challenge - coming up with challenges is most challenging!
But for today - one last challenge for the road.

It is nearly Halloween so I think the challenge should be centered on that. Any ideas of why we need to have a holiday like Halloween? It is my favourite of the year so I think I should look into it. I suppose it is because we generally try to avoid the dark side of life - death! We pretend it doesn't happen, which gets easier and easier in today's world when we don't even know that apples don't come in bags and meat in styrofoam trays. Death is very packaged but kids are facinated. The more we pretend that sex and death aren't part of the picture the more kids gravitate to zombies and the porno-light we find on television.

I believe in recent years that there has even been a desire to squash the reading of the old fairy-tales. I grew up thinking that a step-mother might convince a dad to lose his kids in the woods or that witchy queens might try and poison pretty young women - didn't you? If you've read the unvarnished, un-pinked versions of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Swan Princes, the Water-Babies, and so on - you'll know that children were always in peril and life could be very dark indeed. BUT we liked it - we were drawn to it - we wanted to be scared as long as someone would be there for the midnight terrors, we would beg to be horrified.

As adults we like mysteries. And believe it when I tell you it isn't the same if there is no murder involved. I don't care who tried to overtake a company or the reason why someone was mean to someone in the grocery store. Fugedaboudid! I want there to be bodies and unruled passions and desires enacted under moonlit skies.

But I digress. The Halloween challenge is to write something that scares you to bits. If you have a manuscript you are working on put a scary bit in it even if it isn't a mystery. Try a gothic tale. Rework a fairy-tale for adult eyes. If you aren't writing right now - make up a story to tell your kids, your dear heart or your pals. A true scary tale.

Boo!