NaNoWriMo Countdown: 7 Days.

Well, it's only a week until the great noveling race begins and we're all bustling about in our attempts to get novel ideas out of our heads so that new ones may take root and flourish in our minds for next year. But, before that, we have the wonderfully awesome holiday of Halloween to consider. Tons of candy, little monsters showing up at your doorstep, and an excuse to watch the cheesiest of B-rated horror movies. What reason is there not to enjoy Halloween?

Why speak of the holiday though? Why not speak of the grand contest occurring afterward? Well, there are answers to these questions. These being, because I can, and I could be respectively.

For instance, there's much inspiration to be had in Halloween for any writers, young or old. I vividly remember in elementary school how our teachers would always challenge us to create scary stories to share in a darkened classroom, the bottom portion of our faces illuminated by those silly flashlights. Those were my favorite times. We weren't expected to write anything serious or school-related. We were only requested to have fun and write something we were proud of. Needless to say, it's likely that very few of these stories have stood the test of time, but all the same, there's the hope that the feeling remains. How does this tie in with NaNo? Easily. While the official reason why NaNo is held in November is to take advantage of rather poor weather, I'd like to think that it also wishes us to feed from the creative font of Halloween.

 Let's play the costume game. Or, at the very least, let's pretend to. In younger days, Halloween was all about the costumes, and to greater extent, the candy. For this example, we're going to have to forget the candy, though, and think dress-up. As children, we were always looking to find the next best thing to dress up as for Halloween, in our glorious conquest of candy domination. We stretched our imaginations to their limits in search of what we wanted to be for the one night of no-holds-barred fun. Now, take that soul-searching and apply it to what you want to write. Okay, so maybe your characters won't actually dress up as zombies or what have you, but the point remains. Use Halloween as an excuse to release your writing inhibitions and try to think up things that you normally wouldn't. It's quite fun and it's a good way to find out more about your novel and characters.

If you're writing a horror or suspense novel, Halloween is an especially great way to think of ideas to scare or thrill your audience. Those B-movies I mentioned? Some of them may be cheesy, but let's face it, some are quite good at delivering a few chills, when they start to take themselves seriously. Take some time out to watch some of your favorites and perhaps extrapolate some ideas for your novel. Of course, you may not want to mention that your great scare tactic was devised after watching something like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" (it's a real movie, too.).


So, what are some ways you use Halloween to your advantage? Or do you just like the candy? Mmm, delicious candy.