Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Halloween…Why I love being scared

I have always been a horror buff. My first scary movie was at the tender age of eight, when I snuck into the living room while my mother was watching a show called Creature Feature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_Features) . Unfortunately for me, they were playing Night of the Living Dead…eeek!

Needless to say, I had horrible nightmares. I even begged to sleep in my mother’s bed, to no avail. However, since then I was hooked on horror. I graduated to sneaking out of bed and watching Creature Feature to experience Frankenstein, Dracula and many more as possible before getting caught.

This thirst for the thrill of fear escalated to my reading various masters of horror to include Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Frank Peretti, John Saul to name a few. My obsession didn’t stop there. I became interested in true stories of mayhem and horror also and started to watch shows that told of ghostly tales, murder mysteries and serial killers.

How did this insatiable need to be thrilled by fear help in my writing?

Little did I realize that the digesting of all of these villainous materials rapt with evil men, women, real life killers and ghostly beings would assist me in the development and understanding of creating the villains for my novels.

More Halloween reflections

So for this Halloween, realize that the thrill of the fear for some is real. Don’t become so desensitized to horror or evil that you become unsympathetic when something horrific truly happens. However, when you are enjoying the excitement that a good scary movie brings, and something creepy and crawly slithers across your feet … enjoy Halloween, a time to be frightened.

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