On
the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

2 Turtle Doves

Ah, the ubiquitous turtle dove. Okay, not so ubiquitous, but there are few among us who don’t immediately
begin to hum The Twelve Days of Christmas… when we hear mention of turtle doves. Who knew there was so much more to them?

Perhaps because of Biblical references (especially the well-known verse from the Song of Songs), its mournful voice, and the fact that it forms strong pair bonds, Turtle Doves have become emblems of devoted love. In the New Testament, two turtle doves are mentioned to have been sacrificed for the Birth of Jesus. In Renaissance Europe, the Turtle Dove was envisaged as the devoted partner of the Phoenix. Robert Chester’s poem Love’s Martyr is a sustained exploration of this symbolism. It was published along with other poems on the subject, including William Shakespeare’s poem “The Phoenix and the Turtle”
(where “turtle” refers to the turtle dove).

The turtle dove is smaller and slighter in build than many other doves with a wedged shaped tail with a
dark center and white border and tips.

I can’t say I have ever met a tutrle dove in the flesh as it were, but it’s a bird and I like birds. And I like doves. I live in a neighborhood with lots of trees and therefore, lots of birds, including doves. I love the fact that they are always in pairs, you hardly ever  see a solitary dove. And their lovely mournful coos make me want to sti on a blanket and have a picnic. Or something.

Now you can say you know more about the turtle dove than that it comes second place in the song.

Teachers of English, grammar and writing, talk to us about doves. Or picnics.

Twelve Days of Christmas, Day I

Although the specific origins of the chant are not known, it possibly began as a Twelfth Night “memories-and-forfeits” game, in which a leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet. This is how the game is offered up in its earliest known printed version, in the children’s book Mirth without Mischief (c. 1780) published in England. The song apparently is older than the printed version, though it is not known how much older.

The earliest well-known version of the music of the song was recorded by English scholar James O. Halliwell in 1842, and he published a version in 4th edition The Nursery Rhymes of England (1846), collected principally from ‘oral tradition’. In
the early 20th century, English composer Frederic Austin wrote an arrangement in which he added his melody from “Five gold rings” onwards which has since become standard.

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is a cumulative song, meaning that each verse is built on top of the previous verses. There are twelve verses, each describing a gift given by “my true love” on one of the twelve days of Christmas.

The first verse runs:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Partridge: a medium-sized, ground-nesting bird with variegated feathers, related to pheasants and grouse.

I won’t belabor this too much with a description of pears, instead I’ll linger on the bird. I love birds; I think we’ve already
established that. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a partridge in the flesh, as it were but its close kin is the smaller quail and I happen to love quails.
There’s nothing like a covey of quail trundling along like little old ladies on their way to market.

I had a small Yorkie who wasn’t aware that he was small, regularly facing off with much larger animals, till he met a family of quail. Unbeknownst to us a family of quail had made their home beneath a large honeysuckle bush in our yard. All I know is that he was endlessly fascinated with that bush, bee lining to it the second he was let outside. Until one day I watched
him disappear under the bush then appear just as quickly—followed in short order by the whole family of quail—right on his tail.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, challenge your students to catalog their own “partridge” tales—using the animal of their choice. Then write about it. And share!

Do You Speak Elvish?

Since ‘tis the season I must blog about elves. How is it that we segued diminutive creatures from Germanic mythology originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers and wont to hang about other such beings in order to battle evil—into a group of folk who hang out with Santa and make toys?

Okay, so I won’t belabor that point too much. Let’s just deal with the fact that Christmas elves are a deep and integral part of the whole Santa/Christmas thing and be okay with it. I myself like elves with their holiday gear, pointy ears, and teeny-tiny little tools.

Elves made their into the Santa Claus tale during the 19^th century, including references to the fact that Santa himself may be included in elfdom—I’m still on the fence with that one.

The image of the elves in the workshop was popularized by Godey’s Lady’s Book, with a front cover illustration for its 1873 Christmas Issue showing Santa surrounded by toys and Christmas elves. Now here’s where it gets disturbing. Apparently, elves who forget to wrap the gifts are customarily slain by a very unenthusiastic and disappointed Santa. Furthermore, their families are disgraced by the North Pole establishment, receiving no paid compensation, benefits, or even gifts. Yikes! Ho, ho, ho!

Seriously? Off with their heads because they neglected to make hospital corners with wrapping paper? I much prefer our modern edition, cute cherubic little guys who hang out with Rudolph and Santa and presumptively don’t get whacked for any reason.

Teachers of English, writing, and grammar, ask your students how they feel about elves. Then write about it. And share!

“A date which will live in infamy.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor was so much more than unprecedented and unexpected, it was galvanizing. After Poland invaded Germany on September 1, 1939 the majority of Americans felt that this was not our war and still recovering from the devastation of World War I, who can blame them? This was, after all, a war halfway across the world from us.

Then Pearl Harbor happened and nothing would be the same. The attack on Pearl Harbor led directly to the American entry into World War II into both the Pacific and European theaters. This small fact has always given me a positive case of the chills when you consider how very close we all came to a triumphant Nazi regime. And how long it was before we realized what was truly happening across the world, to so many innocent victims. I am proud this day when I look back on the sacrifice,
bravery, and dedication of our soldiers, of our country and try to take a few moments to remember them and their service.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, I encourage you to remember this day with your students. It is so long ago and so far away for them but it should never be allowed to pass from memory.

There Are 12 of Them?!

The Twelve Days of Christmas are the festive days beginning Christmas Day (25 December). This period is also known as Christmastide and Twelvetide. The Twelfth Night of Christmas is always on the evening of 5 January, but the Twelfth Day can either precede or follow the Twelfth Night according to which Christian tradition is followed Twelfth Night is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. In some traditions, the first day of Epiphany (6 January) and the twelfth day of Christmas overlap.

Apparently, in England in the Middle Ages, this period was one of continuous feasting and merrymaking which came to its peak on Twelfth Night. Shakespeare helped to solidify the concept in one of his most famous plays, Twelfth Night. Some of these traditions hark back to the pagans, including the Roman’s Saturnalia, and the Germans Yuletide.

We’ve been cheated, I say!

Twelve days of Christmas! Who gets twelve? We’re lucky to get one, maybe half a day off for Christmas Eve! Robbed! Of course it you’re lucky enough to be still in school you do get a nice long holiday…

I think we should hold a national revolt demanding our long-denied 11 Additional Days of Christmas! Do you suppose that means more gifts? I’d certainly hope so.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, explore this old (and much more fair) concept with your students. What do you think of add a few days of holidaying? Write about it! And share!

Down With Zombies

Now that the spooky season is on its way out and my favorite holiday is waning, I must complain: I have issues with zombies. I should say I have issues with the way the word—and the creature—has evolved. Or devolved as the case may be.

Zombie: Zombie (Haitian Creole: zonbi; North Mbundu: nzumbe) is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli. Since the late 19th century, zombies have acquired notable popularity, especially in North American and European folklore.

Zombies are not, I repeat not, shambling, badly dressed, drooling, moldering, mindless eating machines bent on snacking on your ulna. The true zombie is even scarier. Because it’s much more plausible.

The 1988 movie The Serpent and the Rainbow is truly one of the scariest “zombie” movies ever made, primarily because the story is based (albeit loosely) on a non-fictional event. Zombies are scary because they have lost all control over their own actions. Now that’s scary.

My second quibble with the whole rampant Zombie thing is that every generation thinks they invented the concept. The Night Of The Living Dead, another iconic zombie flick was made in 1968—and yes, they did have television back then—and it rocked. It was black and white, not terribly well written or acted but it rocked nonetheless. And it scared the crap right out of us kids who weren’t supposed to be watching it in the first place.

My third zombie complaint is how easy it is. Zombies require no finesse, no subtlety, no nuance, just…gross, and certainly no acting skills. Just hopeless, useless, depressingly dark…lack of imagination. We’re better than zombies. Get over it already.

And for those who already sent in their GP Creeper Short Stories—man! We’re impressed. And not a little disturbed. And happy we don’t know where you live—or that you don’t know where we live. And for those who haven’t sent them in—it’s still not too late. We’ll take stragglers for the rest of the week. So get them in!

Chiropteran: any of an order of night-flying mammals with forelimbs modified to form wings: bat.

Perfect word for Halloween, right? I myself like bats. At least the basically harmless insect-eating bats that are common in our neck of the woods—pun intended. One of our favorite activities in the summer time would be to huck a Frisbee up near the street lights and watch the bats dart after it, no doubt anticipating the one heck of a moth dinner. Bats are beneficial. Bats are cool. Bats are necessary.

Vampire bats, not so much. Their diet consists of blood. Period. No bugs, no pests, not even the occasional piece of fruit—just blood. From living creatures. Warm-blooded living creatures. They hunt only when it is fully dark, they use low-energy sound pulses, therefore basically seeing in the dark, and they like sleeping victims best. They make a neat little slice with their razor-sharp teeth and then lap—not suck—the free-flowing blood. And to top that off, they inject their saliva while making the slice that inhibits the natural clotting process so the blood keeps flowing! If that’s not the ingredient for a good horror story I don’t know what is.

It’s no wonder this small, fairly innocuous, if admittedly creepy creature became entwined with the common fear of premature burial—when to be declared dead one merely had to appear to stop breathing and voila! the vampire legends are off and flying.

Grammar Punk Sentence: C E 2 Chiropteran

Finally tiring of explaining his chiropteran costume, Dwayne tore off his wings, removed his fangs, and dumped his beaker of blood down the sink; he hated Halloween!

Give it a try. Write a Grammar Punk Sentence where 2 of the words contain the letters C and E and contains the word chiropteran.

Teachers of English, grammar, and writing, here’s a lovely word to add to your student’s vocabularies as well as a swell writing prompt. Fit this into a last scary writing prompt. Then share.

The Halloween Man

          The Halloween Man walked down the empty street, hard shoes clocking on the pavement. His season had come, his time, his opportunity.

          The Halloween man had been who he was for a long time, a very long time; as long as there had been men who paid tribute to the change of seasons and hoped to influence their fate. The Romans called his day Pomona Day, the Celt’s Samhain, later, it was the eve of All Saints Day. It didn’t matter, the celebration had the same purpose: bidding farewell to the season of the sun and bracing to endure the season of darkness and cold. October 31^st, All Hallow Even, All Hallow’s Eve, Hallowe’en, or Halloween—it didn’t matter.

Fashion frightful masks to scare away bad tides, offer fruits and nuts to appease Nature, leave fare at your door to stave off mischief, it didn’t matter. The purpose was the same, celebrate a bountiful harvest, frighten away a fierce winter.

          This day was about changes, choices, chances.

          It was why he was here, one month of the year.

          The Halloween Man walked and walked, the slow thrum of fall beating in his heart. The change was well on its way.

Trees had changed their clothes from summers bright greens to autumns oranges, reds, browns and gold’s like vain women dressing for afternoon tea. During the day, the sky was that shade of cobalt blue unique to fall, the color of summer’s twilight, blueberry Popsicles, deep water and the cold still to come. Smoky breezes rustled bared branches, the sound of old bones rattling together. Cinnamon buns, pumpkin pie, roasting marshmallows, burning leaves hung on the air; the elusive bouquet of a fleeting season.

Orange Jack-o-lanterns brightened windows, cut-yellow smiles glowed with candles light. Paper skeletons leered from door fronts, bats dangled, spiders spun, monsters mingled, black cats arched, witches watched. Inside those warm, clean houses, mothers put finishing touches on costumes for pint-sized goblins and ghouls, princesses and firemen, super heroes and cartoon characters.

Bowls of candy waited on front hall tables, steaming cider, rich, meaty chili, sugar cookies cut into monstrous shapes. There would be barrels filled with apples for bobbing, dishes brimming with ghoul guts; cold spaghetti, peeled grapes for eyeballs, congealed oatmeal for brains.

Old horror movies flickered on television sets, black and white mummies shambled, arms outreached, Frankenstein picked the same flower over and over, vampires terrorized maidens.

It was the season of make-believe and wishful thinking, costumes and characters. Autumn, Fall, Harvest. That time of changeable days and cool nights. A Crayola box of colors bursting from shades of green, surrendering to dark and cold but with its bright farewell a promise that the warmth would return.

The Halloween Man tucked his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, shrugging the collar of his denim jacket closer around his neck, trying on a shiver for affect. He didn’t feel cold, he didn’t feel warmth, the unpliable layer of crushed and melded stone beneath his feet yielded no sensation. The Halloween Man just was. In his wake, the crisp evenings lent the rime of frost, the sparkle of stars in black night skies, the cold white of a harvest moon.

He’d had many compatriots—old and new; Stoker, Shelley, Poe, Irving, Rice, Bradbury, King, all dedicated to the spirit of who he was, why he was. The Halloween Man kept it all, the old traditions of a simpler time when harvest-time meant life and winter death. He carried the magic in his pockets, the hope of spring in his step, the first green of spring in his eyes. 

And always the sense of What if?

He walked alone, endlessly, looking, looking.

The Halloween Man looked for the boy he’d been too long ago to remember, looking for the warmth of place, belonging, home. His breath whispered on wisps of smoke, shimmer of ice dusting the ground behind him, he walked, walked, walked towards the lights and sound and music of a city waiting for Halloween.

 Sam Brenner looked up at the cool sphere of moon in themidnightsky and clenched his hands into fists, wishing mightily. “I want what I want, I want what I want, I want . . .”

“Sam, Sam, Sam! Hurry, hurry, hurry! It’s time to go-go-go!” Carl skidded to a stop in the doorway, pushing his thick glasses up on the bridge of his thin, freckled nose, magnified blue eyes shimmering with excitement, his small thin body quivering.

Carl was Sam’s only friend and Sam was the only boy in The Abbott Home For Boys who didn’t clout Carl every chance he got when his habit of verbal repetition became too much to bear. Sam, while much more popular with the other boys than Carl, nevertheless knew what it was to be different, to want more than you had—or were ever likely to have. Sam knew what it was like to know that you weren’t like everyone else.

Sam had a list of things he wanted, things he wished for, things he thought he’d give up almost anything for. Almost. Maybe because he could only remember being a boy who had very little, Sam’s list was long and expansive. And because he was a boy with too much brain and too little tolerance for nonsense, most of Sam’s list was things that couldn’t be purchased at the local Wal-Mart.

Sam wanted a tree house on the moon, to go rollerblading on Jupiter, surfing the clouds on Mercury and riding a brand new bike around the rings of Saturn. Sam wished for a big, floppy dog he’d call Bingo, his very own rocket ship and a killer fastball. He wanted a house where he could have his own room, new sneakers that would never lose that clean rubber smell, and a Mom and Dad who thought he was the best son ever.

But most of all, Sam wanted it to be Halloween every day. Every single day.

It wasn’t the monsters or the candy or even the chance to be someone else, it was the sense of . . . magic.

At the very least, he wanted the Halloween Carnival to come every day.

The people who ran The Abbott knew it wasn’t the best place to be a boy. They knew that the food wasn’t so great, the tile floors were cold and the hot water was never all that hot. They knew that there were too many boys and too few people to talk to, they knew that kisses and hugs goodnight were pretty much out of the question and that most of the boys would never be boys anywhere else. But they tried, being basically nice people. And they knew that a boy needed a place where make-believe and magic—even if the paper it was wrapped in was torn and faded and tawdry—was the rule rather than the exception.

The Halloween Carnival showed up every year the week before Halloween and left the very next day. Giant trucks carried rides of metal and steel that were put together by big men in dirty T-shirts with tattooed muscles and toothpicks poking out of the corners of their mouths like snaggled teeth. The big men put the rides together like boys playing with the world’s largest erector sets, like magic. Lots of white lights lit up signs promising nothing less than trips to the moon, rollerblading on Jupiter, surfing the clouds on Mercury and riding a brand new bike around the rings of Saturn.

There were booths full of games where you could shoot a gun, throw a ball, toss a hoop and win prizes too amazing to contemplate. And there were tents that held smells too huge to be contained; roasting hot dogs, buttery popcorn, frying sugary donuts, apples clothed in caramel jackets, clouds of cotton candy on a stick.

Noise, noise, noise, lights and lights and lights, smells and sounds, flying high and falling fast and spinning and spinning and spinning. The stars sparkled brighter, the moon tried to compete with the neon, and a small town became something more, something real . . . magic.

Sam double-tied the laces on his not-new sneaks and sauntered casually down the cold-tiled halls after Carl. It didn’t pay to look too eager for dreams.

“What do you want to do first, first, first?” Carl asked, his feet already shuffling through carnival dust. “Which ride, which ride, which ride?”

“The Rocket.” Sam said, not bothering to add, “Of course.” “Then the Tilt A Whirl, The Shaker and then The House Of Horror.” He said firmly. The best for last.

The Halloween Man walked onto the carnival grounds, breathing in the smells of autumn and celebration, his eyes dazzled by cheap bulbs in rusting machinery, his ears dinned by shouts and laughter and cheaply won joy. He closed his eyes, relishing, a paean to The Halloween Man—whether they knew it or not. Tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his feet stirring old dust, the place in his chest where there should be a heart expanding with his quickened breath.

This time could be the one. Maybe he would find him here. The next Halloween Man. The boy who would take up the walk, the journey, the duty. The boy who would let the Halloween Man go back to being the boy he’d never been. The boy who wanted to feel the power of the magic. The boy who wanted to own the magic.

Sam and Carl rode every ride in the carnival—twice. They spent every cent of their hard extra-chores-for-a-week earned allowances on all the hotdogs, popcorn, caramel apples and cotton candy they could eat. The games were better from afar, the magic there thin enough to read through. They didn’t care. They floated along on the laughter and electricity that seemed to leap from the rides to the ground then up through the people. Sam looked at everything, memorizing every detail, saving it up for the days and nights between Halloweens.

Sam could feel it, the magic of Halloween, the mystery of the season of change, the darkness to come, the light at the other end, it was in him, it was part of him, it was who he was. Sam wandered away from the noise and light and chaos of the carnival, his feet taking him to paths undiscovered, his fate moving him away from the familiar.

And suddenly it was in front of him—Halloween. The HalloweenMan.

Man and boy faced each other in the gloom, haloed by the faraway carnival. Sam, a boy in blue jeans, T-shirt and a cloth jacket fraying at the sleeves and run-down sneaks looked up at the man who looked like any other man, except for the flame in his eyes, flickering like candlelight. “It’s you.” Sam said.

“It’s me.” The Halloween Man wished he could at least smile.

“You’re real.”

“Always.”

“What’s it like?” Sam asked. “What’s it like?” He said again, sounding like his friend Carl. “What’s it like?”

“It’s dark and smoky and mysterious and . . . amazing.”

“Amazing.”

“And solitary, endless, uncertain. And lonely.”

“But it’s got to be so . . . so more than anything else. You have it all, you know it all, you are Halloween. That has to be worth it. Doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Most of the time. Most of the time, most of the time.”

“Lonely.” Sam nodded. “Boys get . . . lonely too, you know. Being a boy isn’t everything wonderful and perfect and just right, you know. There’s fear and unsure and what if? There’s being different, not fitting in and—and not having a family of your own.”

The light in the Halloween Man’s eyes flared bright as the sun, the fires of Mars, the volcanoes on Pluto. “That is what is missing, isn’t it? Why I found you, the emptiness that drew me.”

Sam’s eyes were wide. “I—I don’t know. I never had one—a family I mean. I don’t know what that is, so how could I miss it? Why should I want it more than . . . more than . . . ”

“More than anything in the universe?” The Halloween Man finished for him. “More than a tree house on the moon, roller-blading on Jupiter, surfing the clouds on Mercury and riding a brand new bike around the rings of Saturn, a big, floppy dog named Bingo, your very own rocket ship, a killer fastball and new sneakers that never lose that clean rubber smell.”

Sam’s breath caught in his throat, too big for him. “Yeah. More than all that.”

“I wanted all those things too.” The Halloween Man said his voice a whisper of a growl. “I wanted them too.”

“And now you can have them?” Sam asked though somehow he already knew. “I become the Halloween Man and you get to be—me. Only better.” The words came out sideways, hurting as they left his mouth. He scowled, feeling weak and unworthy. It was an honor. It was what he’d always wanted without knowing the words for it. To be the Halloween Man, to be Halloween. Forever. “I want to. I want to, I want to, I want to.”

The Halloween Man looked into Sam’s wide blue eyes, eyes that knew the power of Halloween, the spirit of the Harvest, the secret of the dark, smoky, mysterious, amazement of it all. It would be so easy; it was the way it was meant to happen. The next Halloween Man.

It was the way it was supposed to be.

The house was just big enough. Brick walls that met neat and solid, wooden floors that held the warmth from the fire burning on the hearth, a big, floppy dog sprawled on a bright woven rug. His name was Bingo. There was a room big enough for a shelf to hold all the things a boy needs to collect from his world. All the planets hung from wires in the order of the universe in one corner, there were constellations made of paper on the ceiling. It was the kind of room for a boy who had everything a boy would want.

Sam lay on the bed covered with a quilt ten times older than he was, hands crossed behind his head, looking up at the universe on his ceiling. There would be things he would never see, places he would never go, sounds and tastes and sensations that would never belong to him. He could know Halloween, but he could never own it, not really.

Sam lay on his bed, looking up at the stars that were really only paper and glitter and neon paint and he hoped, he wished, he knew that The Halloween Man would someday get what he wanted too. Magic. He wished.

                                                                             The End

Mary Shelley, Revisited

Tis that time of year when the days are growing shorter and the warm is being replaced with chilly and gloomy–my kind of weather as it always does, dark, damp, rainy days put me in a creative mood. Which put me in mind of Mary and her group of gloomy gusses all sitting around telling ghost stories and daring one another to outdo the other with the most frightening tale.

Picture it, Mary, Percy Byshe Shelley, a few other serious and not so serious artists and writers, all sitting around chatting in a beach house as a storm raged outside. They talked about politics, current events, women’s lib (which didn’t exist yet) and at some point they talked about fear. it was in this fertile soup that an idea was born. I have to wonder if Frankenstein would have come to fruition if Mary’s imagination had been clogged with television, video games, texting…blogging. I like to think that last part might have opened up her mind, but…

Anyway, there she was, a woman, okay, a pretty gutsy woman, not prone to the vapors, not one to shy away from decidedly unladylike ideas, not one to limit her imagination to what she could see or hear or feel. At least I hope not.

I’ve also always been fascinated by the ending of Frankenstein; the literary one, not the big guy with the green skin and box-shaped head and bolts in his neck. The book ends with the doctor and the monster on a desolate piece of the Arctic. It’s all very metaphorical and moody and tremendously effective; it’s just that it’s always struck me as incongruous. What on earth does a relatively sheltered English girl know about the Arctic?

In a nutshell, that kind of outrageous inventiveness is what I’ve always loved about writing. Writers get to take liberties, we’re allowed (even encouraged) to stretch the boundaries, push reality, in short, create our own worlds. The thing that we writers of today have that Mary didn’t was a Mary to whom we can aspire to. And an Edgar, Arthur Conan, Bram, H.G., Isaac, Agatha…

I like to take a moment every Halloween season to pay my own kind of homage to those long ago writers who got us all where we are today. Thank you for giving us a seat around that long ago roaring fire, storm beating at the windows, imaginations untethered, sky’s the limit. Thanks, Mary. Thanks to all of you who put pen to paper with no more ambition, certainly not assurance of success—most of these long ago writers did not find success within their own lifetimes—they wrote because they loved to write. They created for the sake of creation,

Teachers of grammar, English, and especially those of you charged with creating future writers, don’t let this season pass you by without challenging your students to explore their own possibilities–and be sure and enter them in the 6th Annual GP Creeper Short Story Contest. Visit www.grammarpunk.com for more details.

Emotionally (Creepily) Speaking

Emotions aren’t easy. Just ask any guy—did I just write that out loud? Putting emotions down on paper can be even more daunting. And not. Never forget the lovely BACKSPACE button. Emotion in your stories is not just useful, interesting, illuminating, it’s MANDATORY. Best of all emotion drags us right into the story alongside your characters and whatever ghastly thing you’re doing to them.

In this particular instance I will be talking about the darker emotions—you know, the ones to be found in a GP Creeper Short Story—hint, hint. And NO it’s not too late to enter! Emotions in a scary story are an absolute. Yet, this is where things can get tricky.

The thing with emotions, even the dark ones—maybe especially the dark ones—is that it is easy to get carried away. It is not necessary to have your character screaming down the (haunted) house every time she hears a floorboard squeak. Nor do they need to gasp, shudder, shriek, shiver, quiver, quake, quail, stutter, run madly, jump violently, swing axes, shoot guns, fall off cliffs, venture into dark cellars, fall into open graves—well, certainly not all in the same story.

Scary is a lot like funny that way…less can definitely be more. Show us what they’re feeling, set the mood so we feel it too, create the scene so we feel like we’re their (whether we want to be or not) sculpt your characters so they seem (all too) real. And always remember and never forget to feel every emotion yourself so it flows out of your pen onto the paper—right onto your GP Creeper Short Story. Be sure and go to www.grammarpunk.com for more details. And remember, IT’S NOT TOO LATE!