Samhain blessings, folks! It’s finally here…my favourite seasonal holiday of the year. Today the veil between this world and that of spirit (if you believe such things) is at its thinnest. This means that ghosties, ghoulies, and all things nasty can travel freely to pay us a visit. I’ll bet the horror lover in you enjoys that notion as much as I do.
I say that, but have to admit, I have never spent the night in a haunted house. No, I am a haunted house neophyte. Is that going to change any time soon? Erm…nope. My imagination is bad enough, thank you very much.
Yes, I can happily summon a demon out of the darkest depths of the corner in my bedroom without having to resort to a seance, or staying in a poltergeist-ridden hotel, or devising any other such supernatural scenarios to stimulate the thrill-seeking part of my brain. My overactive mind, saturated as it is by caffeine, provides enough terrifying fodder for my many horror books.
Why do I love horror? I’ll get into that in another post. Why do I love Halloween? Because it is an unsentimental time of year that allows us to look at the darker aspects of the world instead of having to deny that they exist and pretending like everything is roses. Halloween lets us celebrate death, which is a natural part of the life cycle.
Speaking of death, allow me a morbid thought today of all days, when the veil is thin. I’m an author. Like any author, I’m hoping that my books will outlive me. Is that depressing? I don’t think so. Writers create work in the hope that a piece of that work will live on. Even when I am worm fodder in the soil, pushing up daisies, who knows? Maybe some of my books might linger. I’ll be haunting the legal deposit libraries (The British Library, etc) watching over them for sure, ha ha!
And on that macabre note…
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Leilanie Stewart 