31 Days of Halloween

Yes, I realize it's only one night a year, but from Oct. 1 -31 has always been a spookfest for me. I remember being in elementary school and sitting at my desk and drawing pictures of witches and ghosts and goblins while the teacher played a 12-inch vinyal recording of Pit and the Pendulum, Tell-Tale Heart, or the Raven. I was in my glory.

I remember setting up a haunted house in my friend's old house (her parents owned two of them and one was undergoing renovations while they lived in the one next door)- We'd give tours to the neighbhorhood kids and jump out of closets and grab ankles from under beds. It was Hitchcockian in it's suspense and simplicity. No blood or gore, just plain straight up fright.

Something happens to me when that first leaf turns yellow and the scent of fires drift on the air. I just love it. I can't think of any other time of year when I come as alive as I do in the fall. It breaks my heart that it lasts only a few weeks here in NJ. Not long at all. It really is the shortest season. (Though honestly nothing could be as short as our one week of summer we had this year.)

Is it any wonder that I'd end up writing paranormal romances? As Halloween draws closer, my books become increasingly more about those elements from my childhood that were poised to scare. But it wasn't just the ghost and goblins, but the love of those old black and white Universal Monster Movies - Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy. OMG. Loved them. Ate them up. I mean....who doesn't love the creature from the black lagoon? Or how about the modern Mummy remakes. I'll take two, please.

So, going over my own list of work for this article, I made an interesting discovery,
I've written a total of 3 ghost stories in my career. Not many considering my love of the paranormal. I have 1.5 "Vampire" books. .25 of a shifter story, but alas not to wolf form. I have no mummies, no creatures from the deep. I'm thinking my supply is sadly lacking. Why, o' why is this? And when am I going to find the time to correct it? Let's be honest, some of these characters would make some pretty sexy heroes.

Who here has read The Mummy: Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice? OMG! Can I just say as far as mummys are concerned the guy was very sexy. Hot. Yummlicious. (I'm going to have to find that book again, and read it before Halloween.) With this new push for zombie books, why not a mummy....oh damn, I just stepped on a plot bunny. (Lifts up foot and looks at shoe.)

What are your plans to get ready for the bestest holiday of the year for a paranormal author? Are you going to read scary books, watch scary movies, or write about your own form of terror-inducing, sexy, bad boy hero?

-Kat