Boo! (And An Epitaph, Too)

Happy Halloween! Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls starts with the line, “I love Halloween” –which I do! We live down a long driveway, and don’t get much action at the door, so we’ve been known to go seek it. We’ve sat at the end of the driveway (dressed scary, of course) and given out candy to kids (after scaring them, of course). We don’t always aim to scare. One year my older son dressed up as Slash and played out at the end of the driveway by the snake pit of candy. That was very cool. But this year—in the name of authenticating research—I took a van full of “kids” to the graveyard and snuck around and checked out the pyramid tomb and had a spookin’ good time. My son’s girlfriend wanted to stick close to Mark and me because she hadn’t been to a graveyard before and was kind of creeped out and scared, but first chance I got I hid, then popped out and screamed and scared the stuffing out of her. She trusted me and I gave her a heart attack. I am so bad. On the way home I was thinking about epitaphs and decided that if I were to have one it would say (my name and all that stuff) and then “Rode Shopping Carts ‘Til The End.” That’s how I want to be remembered. How about you? Anyway, despite the spooky adventure in the boneyard, I’m pretty elated (can you tell?) ‘cause I FINALLY made it to the end of Night of Skulls. I sort of hold my breath through the whole process because I really don’t know until I write the last chapter whether the story will actually work. With Sammy it’s such a complicated juggle and the theme has to hold everything together. Plus Sammy’s got to have that moment of clarity about what this has all been about. It’s that moment that gets to me, and really, that’s what I drive for throughout the book. So last week Mark tattled in the comments that I’d been crying, and well, yeah I’d reached that moment and it was such a relief that it had all worked out. Well, I was dealing with a complex barrage of emotions about life and death and friends and family, but I’m blaming it on that moment of clarity. So even though the story has several rewrites yet to come, this is the part I’ve come to love. Plus I’m happy to be crawling out from under this rock. I have been such a recluse, trying to get this book finished! Who knew this “Halloween book” would wrap up on Halloween? Pretty cool. So here’s hoping your night was as fun as Sammy and Friends, and that… Actually, I take that back.

What I should say is here’s hoping you had a safe and sane Halloween and didn’t take any shortcuts through graveyards! Now let’s hear your epitaphs. (And don’t get too serious on me—I might cry!)