All About That Spook. Bout That Spook. No Terror! — Guest Post at Magical Words
The Superversive Blog will return next week with a Guest Post.
This week, we have a writing article over at Magical Words.
Here is the opening:
My youngest son has a longstanding problem with nightmares. So he has learned to avoid things that might spark them. He will not walk through a modern bookstore, unless either he’s mapped out a safe route to the kids section that passes through language tutorials and books on auto repair, or I am there to cover his eyes. He knows I am also not a huge fan of horror and gore, and nowadays, many Halloween displays are quite horrific.
So it has been quite a challenge to make it clear to him why I love Halloween so much. I tried to explain:
Me: “I love the parts of Halloween that are creepy and spooky, but not scary or horrific. There are a lot of movies like that.”
Son: “Like what?”
Me, thinking: “Well, Arsenic and Old Lace.”
Son: “What’s that about?”
Inexplicably, I totally failed to convey the humor of old women poisoning lonely men. You should have seen his face.
Maybe I should have started with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
