Here we are! 

I promised you fun things for my love of Halloween and here it is. Starting with my first post in October. 

Life lessons learned in a Corn Maze....

1.) If you hear a squeaking sound behind you, don't look! It probably IS a man dressed up like Saw on a tricycle. 

2.) If you hear a chainsaw behind you ... don't question. Just run. 

3.) Yes, it's true that they can't touch you, but sometimes rules are broken. Tell them to back off and don't be scared to do so. It hurts when those fake chainsaws hit your leg.
4.) If you are offered fresh, homemade donuts after you make it though said Haunted Corn Maze ... don't say no. It's worth every penny.

5.) If you're horribly lost and the only person around is a man dressed up like a rotting corpse ... it is okay to ask where you are. 

6.) Do NOT go across the bridge just for the 'heck of it'. Just get through the maze and save yourself the scaring. 

I love Haunted Corn Mazes. It's scary because there's no 'right' way out and you never know what you'll encounter behind every corner. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes scariness.

My favorite corn maze is actually in Dorr, Michigan. 

I did get myself into a spot of trouble when one guy chased me down to the point of exhaustion and I got hit several times in the leg with a fake chainsaw. 

Visit the Witches of New Salem Haunted Corn Maze. 

So there is my little tidbit about one aspect of Halloween that I love. In the next post, I'll give you another. 

Moving on ... to my Wednesday Writers Workshop

Last week's topic: Creative Energy. Where Does Yours Come From? 

As promised, I will share my paragraph with you. To summarize, my novel is about a girl named Alice. She is taken into the vampire slave trade and made a 'pet' to her master, Azreal Somerfeld. This is a scene I forced out for the MIDDLE of the book since I get my passion from writing the BEGINNING. 

                Alice darted across the pond in only her sneakers. She loved sliding along the ice and wished that she had ice skates. Her favorite pair had burned in the fire. She giggled as she slipped along the outer edge of the pond. It was frozen solid under her feet and she felt perfectly safe, knowing that it wasn’t going to break underneath her. The only thing that caused her even a bit of worry was knowing that no one was nearby should she require any assistance. She had long ago tossed her heavy jacket, scarf, and hat on a bench that was on the edge of the pond. Not too far away was a small family of deer that were grazing on the mosses of the trees. A pair of squirrels chased after each other around a handful of seeds on the ground. Several birds darted around her head too. It hadn’t helped that she had brought down some pine cones coated with peanut butter that she had perched up in the trees too. She watched as the birds picked the peanut buttered linnet seeds off the pine cones, chirping their songs to the air. She laughed again as she darted across the pond again. Then she heard a small sound from behind her. It was someone … male who was clearing their throat. She whirled around, losing her balance and falling down hard on the ice. Azreal Somerfeld was sitting on the bench and watching her. He didn’t look angry, but he certainly didn’t look happy either. Alice quickly composed herself and approached him, fear filling her up. She shivered as she came closer to him and gathered up her things from other side of the bench. He grabbed her arm then to stop her.

That's what I got! Not fantastic, but at least I did my own homework. Where did you wind up? What did you write? Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me. 

This Week's Topic: Settings!

For me, the location of your character is one of my favorite things to describe. If it's a real world location, then you can look it up and get a feel for the place you're describing. Or if you're making it up, you can add your own elements to the place. Does it have bouncy grass that makes you feel like you're wearing moon boots? Or water that's purple? Are there mountains? 
Describing the place your character is gives your reader a background to get sucked into ... not just your character. When I've read books that have no description for the places the character was walking, I can visualize the character ... but it's like there's just white space behind them. 
So go ahead and describe where your character is. Don't get worried that the reader is going to get bored. Details. Matter. 
Your character deserves the limelight, of course. But it's like going to a play and there are no props. The story isn't believable without background or locations. 

This is a picture of the new cover of C.S. Lewis' book, Perelandra. It's a take on the garden of Eden story. When Ransom (the main character) lands on the planet, Venus, the first thing Lewis did was start describing the new planet. From everything to the scales on the dragon that approached him, to the color of the green water, to the misty yellow clouds overhead to the orange fruits that grew on the trees that were so exquisitely delicious that my mouth watered. 

By the time I was done reading that segment, I knew more about the world that Ransom was walking around. I could visualize everything. This is why your setting matters. So your character can see for themselves what they're missing in front of them and so the READER can see for themselves what's going to happen ... perhaps even before the character does. 

Every little detail has merit. 

Don't be afraid to write it in. If you love it, make your reader love it. 

Until next time,

Taryn