Happy Halloween foolish mortals!

My favorite time of year with my favorite holiday of all time is here!

Spookiness abounds as store shelves are full of cute and scary decorations, people are buying costumes, and practicing their makeup skills.

It's the perfect time to start writing a horror story! I already have one horror/sci fi novel in the works but I love no author's body of work more than Stephen King. I grew up reading his stories and I've always admired his conversationalist style of writing. When reading one of his stories, it really feels like he's just talking to you, telling you the story instead of you reading the words off a page. His characters have a believability and realness to them that can't be matched. And his locations and descriptions of places feel so real, it's like Castle Rock or Derry is right down the street. If I could have a day mentored by any writer in the world, it would be him!

So how do I get in the mood to write horror? My normal candle habit fits right in with this need of seeing a flickering flame out of the corner of my eye. Turning the lights down low or at least dimming them is optimal. Having some scary props out on my desk to fidget with is helpful. I have a ton of Halloween decorations so grabbing a skull or some thick bulky chains to lay close by my laptop adds a touch of the spooky. And of course listening to some soundtrack from a scary tension-filled movie, or sound effects of a thunderstorm will help me get in the right frame of mind.

Once all of that is going and set up, it's kind of hard not to think of things that go bump in the night. And the good thing about writing horror is that it's never going too dark story wise. You can kill off a ton of people, have the end of the world happen, or have a very unhappy ending without disappointing your readers. So all those terrible thoughts you had about killing co-workers or exes can be funneled into this story. Horror offers a certain freedom to release your inner deepest darkest secrets without being judged as evil or highly disturbed. I think it's a great way to get free therapy, don't you?

Please tell me if you're working on a horror story or what you're doing for Halloween in the comments. No matter what you do this weekend, please be safe and stay alert. Who knows what evil lurks around dark corners.