I’ve been slightly neglectful of my blog of late so I thought I’d pop in with a Halloween hello.
Halloween is not big in this country, but it has gathered momentum in the last decade or so as the world shrinks. As I was walking home last night there were more than a few witches, fairies and ghouls clutching plastic orange pumpkin buckets roaming the streets accompanied by their parents. By the end of the night they would be full of treats and their parents would have to resort to all sorts of tricks to get them into bed. We had our lolly bowl at the ready and stocked up on all manner of sugary treats.
As part of the Halloween festivities Mashable ran a Twitter contest inviting Twits to write a spooky story in 140 characters or less. Here are a couple of my attempts:
Leaves rustle. Cobwebs shake and a chill descends. Haunting sounds from a harpsichord float in the sphere. Ghostly voices come ever closer.
The hand broke through the dark earth covered in filth and worms. It’s talons clawing, gouging and inching towards its prey. Throat, closure, darkness.
photo from flikr – barsen’s photostream
Also this attempt from a friend:
Plums, preserved, floating in their dark liquid, barely discernible, reminiscent of infant skulls. Or perhaps, it’s the other way around.
If you want to give this a try, post your 140 character spooky micro story here so we can all see it. This is actually quite a lot of fun and gets you thinking about shedding excess.
And to wrap up this post, I want to wish all of those suffering a Sandy hangover a speedy recovery. My thoughts are with you. Also anyone starting NaNoWriMo, good luck. No doubt the blogging world will be a little quieter during November.
Finally I have to apologise for pulling out of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I really wanted to give it the best go and felt after a few posts I was blogging for blogging sake and not producing my best work. The time to blog is when you feel the words and concepts bubble through and burst forth. I sort of felt I was riding through writing contractions. I have lived and learned.
Raising the Curtain 
Happy Halloween!
Thank you!
Hmm, a scary story in 140 characters or less… How about: American reality TV. There’s not much more frightening than that…
How about Australian reality TV? Truely scary 🙂
Hello, and Happy Day After Halloween in the land of Aus! 🙂 I’m very impressed with both of your 140 character or less Halloween themed entries, which I think are very good. But I’m sure that you know by now that I am the Master of Excess when it comes to writing. I often can’t even write a short comment for another blogger’s post, or a short reply to a comment on one of my posts – never mind actually writing a short post on my blog, which almost never happens.
As you know, it’s Halloween night right now here in the US, and the prospect of trying your 140 character challenge is the scariest fright I’ve had so far! Lol 🙂 But… hey, maybe I’ll give it a try a little later…
Ha ha Chris, I love your comments and your posts, all multiple pages of them ;). But clearly I didn’t scare you too much given your dealings with that nasty power company you had to contend with!
I won’t attempt the 140 character challenge as I don’t think I can’t count that far tonight! Have missed your posts, but I have also been absent. Good to hear from you! Hope you are having a wonderful day. DAF
Thanks so much DAF. Absence makes the heart grow fonder… or something like that :).
Welcome back. I know how you feel and Happy Hallow’en. Thanks for sharing the Twitter spooky stories. They’re fantastic.
Thanks Tess. Hope NaNoWriMo goes well for you. 140 characters I can do, 50,000 words – no way!
Hi CR. We found you by way of mutual blogging friend, Carrie Rubin. I’ve been knocking around your blog and have to say enjoyed it completely. I also liked your Halloween themed entry and your friends as well. Look forward to popping by and reading your future posts. Thx.
Thanks IM, any friend of Carrie’s is a friend of mine :). Welcome to the madhouse and I’m looking forward to poking around your blog as well.