Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Not because of the candy (although I love candy of any sort) or the costumes or the decorations (although I love those too). It’s because of the spooky crispness of the air and the strange stir of possibility that makes me shiver every time I step out the door. I can almost imagine Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show from Something Wicked This Way Comes unloading in the distance. Evil and good shimmer around me as if I’ve ventured near some sort of portal to an alternate reality. It’s a very good time to be an author, if I can just slow down enough to listen.
Lately I’ve been thinking about these same moments in books – those moments when a reader sits up and thinks, “holy smokes, this is going to be good,” similar to what I feel every time I step out the door during the short season we call fall here. And since I’m writing my first Tween book with my step-son, I’ve been thinking about what makes a great kid’s book. This exercise has had me thinking of my personal favorites – The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Something Wicked, The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe … And I’ve been thinking about the shivery moments – you know the ones – like when Tumnus came trotting by the lamppost, or when Kit meets the witch Hannah Tupper that first time crying in the meadow. Or when the boys see Cooger riding the carousel backwards, turning into a young boy.
Those moments are priceless for an author. I myself have only written a couple of them, but when they happened, I sat in my chair, eyes wide, unable to move for a bit as I tried to process all the emotions flying through me. One was in IN HEAT, when the hero opens a door with red hands and a woman over his shoulder in the safe house. Another was when the heroine in SECRET OBSESSION
kicked off her shoes when she and the hero were alone for the first time. When I wrote those scenes, I felt so very alive.
And it’s that feeling of being alive that I think I’ve been missing lately in the grind of working and writing and working some more. I think in our every day lives, we can have amazing moments if we’re open and ready for them. I keep reminding myself that I need to participate in life and not sit on the sidelines watching it roll by. Watching is so much less stressful, but then I miss the shivery bits. It took the change of the seasons to shake me out of my lethargy. Fall is a time that reminds me of possibility and I’m recommitting to living life to the fullest. I hope you’ll join me!
Check out excerpts and more at www.leighwyndfield.com.
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