Halloween!

I love Halloween.  I always have.  I think it's the combination of creepy and candy - and, of course, getting to be someone else for a night. 

I think the disguise aspect of Halloween appeals to my writer sensibilities.  I feel like each of our characters are costumes we put on, extensions of ourselves.  Obviously the degree to which this is true varies for each character (I don't believe all fiction writers are creating Mary-Sue MCs* and implanting them willy nilly into stories) but I think it's a little bit true for all of them.

You may be wonder why I am posting my Halloween post now, rather than, say, a week from now. Two reasons:

One, Neil Gaiman has come up with the concept of All Hallow's Read (If you haven't heard of it, the idea is that you give someone the gift of a scary book on Halloween), and I wanted to mention it early enough to give everyone a chance to choose and buy a scary book, if they are so inclined.

Two, it's been a while since we had a writing prompt, and I thought that since November is likely going to be a slow month in terms of DevCo posts, now would be a great time for one.

It's going to be a relatively easy one, because we all have NaNoWriMo and other things (if I remember correctly, midterms) on the brain, but here it goes:

Write something about fall.  Anything.  Up to 1000 words, fiction or non-fiction, poetry, whatever.  The only real rule is that it has to be about this wonderful season we find ourselves in (unless you live somewhere where it's spring right now.  If that is the case, please write about that).  To be posted anytime between now and October 31st.  Fallish/Halloween pictures would be great, too.

*If there isn't already, there needs to be a male equivalent to Mary-Sue.  My vote would be for Billy-Dean.

Help Me Obi 1 Enoby ur mi only hop!!!!1

I'm not usually pro-flaming, but I just had to post this, if nothing else, as an example of how not to write. From what I understand, this is one of the best-known fanfics in the world. It is a Harry Potter Mary-Sue which takes place mostly at Hogwarts. From what I can tell, all of the main characters are Satanists and goths, except Snape (aka Snap), who is a pedophilic prep, who, despite the fact that he's gay frequently fantasizes about and spies on the female protaganist.

My favourite quotes include:

I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie.

I was wearing red Satanist sings on my nails in red nail polish (AN: c doez dat sound lik a Maru Sue 2 u?).

And, my all-time personal favourite:

And then…………… suddenly just as I Draco kissed me passionately. Draco climbed on top of me and we started to make out keenly against a tree. He took of my top and I took of his clothes. I even took of my bra. Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.

I really, really, almost hope that this was written by someone who was eleven or younger, because somehow that would make it better... I think. Maybe not.