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.