Halloween Short Story
Halloween Short Story
While I was waiting for Ed to finish the illustrations for Elephitten, I was feeling inspired to write. I decided that it would be fun to write a short story for Halloween.
Finding inspiration from my own life is pretty easy with 2 boys running around. Halloween is a big deal in our house. We love to decorate, and we LOVE to scare the neighborhood kids on Halloween. I always hang back at the house and do most of the scaring. Now that Zack is in high school, he’s pretty much done with the Trick-Or-Treating. So, he’s going to help with the scaring this year. I love to sit in front of the house, in a scary ghoul outfit with a bowl of candy in front of me. I pretend to be a stuffed halloween prop so that the kids have to reach into the candy bowl in front of me on their own. I usually let the first kid reach in and grab candy without incident. As soon as the second kid reaches in, I grab their hand. They usually scream and take off! Always fun for the parents watching...maybe not so much for the kids. But, the next day, they’re all talking about that crazy house with the ghoul sitting out front.
Coby, on the other hand, is still into Trick-Or-Treating, so he’s searching for the right costume. His costume search was what inspire me to write this story. In true Petimals fashion, I imagined what Coby would do if he was forced to combine two costumes to make one scary outfit. I went back and forth with a few different names and costumes, but finally settled on the conbination between a Panda and a Tarantula.
I actually started writing the story based on a Tarantula and a Bat. I loved the idea of a flying spider, which would scare the heck out of me! But as I started writing, the story wasn’t quite coming together the way I wanted. Sometimes, you have to take 2 steps back to take 1 step forward. Tarantubat wasn’t working for me. I stumbled upon the Panda idea, and once I had a different direction for the story, it came flying out.
I hope everyone enjoys the latest Petimals addition....
PADARANTULA!
Monday, October 27, 2014
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