To celebrate Halloween, I'm dedicating this week to Melissa MacVicar, author of ghostly YA paranormal tales about haunted homes and ancient rituals. MacVicar herself wraps up this series with a guest post.
Halloween
and Other Ghostly Stuff
by
As a writer
of books that have some serious supernatural drama, many people assume I go all
out for Halloween. When I was a child, Halloween
was one of my favorite holidays but not because of the ghosts and goblins. Mostly,
I loved it for the dressing up, the candy, and the camaraderie. I can still
remember that feeling of freedom when I went out for the first time with a
group of my peers, feet crunching on leaves as we walked the dark streets alone.
In the last
several years, I have to say that Halloween seems to be less about hauntings
and the paranormal and more about over-sexed costumes and pumpkin spice lattes.
I imagine this would be disappointing to someone who is a serious horror fan,
but truthfully that is not me. In fact, I confess that I am really a huge scaredy
cat when it comes to the haunted part of Halloween.
When I was
writing some of the ghost encounters in my novels EVER NEAR and EVER LOST, I
quite literally frightened myself. The exorcism scene (yes there is an exorcism
scene in EVER NEAR) was something I never thought I’d be able to write. When a
beta reader told me I needed to add it, I initially dismissed the idea because
it terrified me. That scene was truly a stretch both as a writer and as a person,
but it turned out to be a really great part of the book.
One thing I
do love about Halloween is an awesome scary prank. There is nothing better than
freaking out one of your friends as long as it’s good natured and not too
extreme. Here are two fun examples of
well done pranks I found on youtube. Enjoy and have a spooktastic holiday
however you decided to celebrate it!
Skeleton
Drive thru
Supernatural
Coffee Shop
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