I have always liked Autumn and Halloween especially holds some fond memories for me. When I was 12 years old I purchased two books that made a big impression on me. One book was The Collected Short Stories of Washington Irving (which included The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and the other was a collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe.
That October, under the influence of these two books, I decided to become a writer.
First of all, however, I felt that I needed to have the appropriate accoutrements. So I had my mother sew a black cape for me (she refused to include a red satin lining) and I then fashioned a quill writing utensil by sticking the innards of a ball point pen in a hollowed out feather. For some reason I felt these were things were essential to the creative process.
I now could descend into our basement each night and write macabre poetry by candlelight with the proper ambiance. I filled a notebook with what must have been some truly bad pseudo-gothic poetry that October but I had a great time doing it.
After what seemed like a long stretch of time but in reality was probably only two weeks I grew tired of this endeavor. I discovered that it was very hard work trying to find a word to rhyme with “tomb.”