WEP-Challenge for 31st October 2014 - Ghost Story

Welcome to WEP's Challenge for 29th-31st October, Ghost Story.

For some reason, October's spooky challenge is usually the high point of our writing year. Halloween is the one night of the year when ghost stories are expected - within the English-speaking world.  Here in Sweden, Halloween is a newly introduced way of celebrating a holiday that used to only consist of lighting candles on graves.



 


















I tried writing a ghost story, but my heart was just not in it. What I am offering are some photos documenting my daughter, Elisabet, and her schoolmate, Maria, together with my son, Erik, dressing up and going around our neighbourhood 'trick-or-treating'.

Elisabet and Matilda, the cat, before Halloween make-up.

When Elisabet told me that they were going to do this alone, without an accompanying adult, I said no. They are only ten years old and these are apartment buildings, in the middle of city, not a suburban development or farms, where everyone knows everyone.





















For two days, I helped Elisabet draw pumpkins, print them out and hand-colour them to make 'Happy Halloween' - cards. (One of the reasons why my ghost-story never was finished. Oh well. Probably no great loss.)

Notice the black nail polish om Elisabet's fingers. I applied it.

 




























We went to the toy store to buy a new Halloween costume, black garb including a witch's hat with attached green-coloured wig.

Maria and Elisabet apply make-up for their scarey roles.

 

Erik as the Grim Reaper!

Maria in the middle has chosen to be a vampire.

Halloween make up inspired by the green-faced wicked witch of the west from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Many of you may remember this film. I do. This is Margaret Hamilton, who played the double role of Miss Almira Gulch / The Wicked Witch of the West. (I'm looking for a photo of Margaret Hamilton with green face makeup, but can't find any.)

Click on image to get to Wikipedia

Maria threatens to drink my blood. Elisabet casts a spell.

Click on image to get to Amazon UK

They are off, and the weather has been unusually mild.

My trio marching towards their first victims.

Surprisingly, they were given quite a lot of candy! I expected them to come home empty-handed, as this is too new of a practice. It is not a Swedish tradition, and I have mixed feelings about its introduction. But since I took a course in ethology in my youth, I understand that there is always a reason for why people start celebrating holidays.  My immediate guess is that this is a tradition that appeals to the 'tweens', or 'pre-teens', eight to twelve year-olds, just my children's age right now. 

There is a Swedish begger-tradition, with the children dressing up as Easter-witches with broomsticks and copper-kettles, and go around giving neighbours handmade cards with 'Glad Påsk!' (Happy Easter!) on them. But this is a tradition for small children, and mother usually tags along, at a distance if nothing else.

My guess is that Halloween appeals to pre-teen children because it is a first step toward independence. And there is so much from the outside world (read= English-speaking world) that supports the mythology of ghosts, witches and vampires, that are the stock characters for this holiday. And it feels a little dangerous for a ten-year-old to dress up like a banshee and actually knock on neighbours' doors.

I compromised. I let the girls do this if they let Erik go with them.  

Erik claims that celebrating Halloween comes from Germany. I'll have to check on that. The Christmas tree came from Germany with Martin Luther. Or so my mother told me once when I was a child. I'll have to check on that too.

When  dividing up the spoils of the afternoon (they came home before dark), they put everything that they did not like in a pile -  liquorice, tough so-called chewy sticks, sour drops and bad chocolate - and gave it to me. Thank you sweetums!

Dividing the spoils

Word count according to WordCalc: Not Applicable.

 

Best wishes,
Anna










First Commenter:

D.G.Hudson
Rainforest Writing

 

IWSG - The February edition of Insecure Writer's Support Group - February 2014

Anna Nordeman

 

Thanks to Alex J Cavanaugh for starting Insecure Writer's Support Group.

This is my twelfth post for IWSG.


For those who would like to see my list of how-to-write-books, please go here. 
[If you would like to read my other earlier posts for IWSG, go back to August here, for September here, for October here, for November here, for December here, and for January here.]

For my February edition of IWSG I would like to conclude my discussion of ideas and themes that can be found in children's and fantasy/sf literature, by looking at some inventions found in the Harry Potter books that are NOT likely to become a reality in the future.

Last month, I looked at magical inventions, such as magic wands and the map of Hogwarts, that have counterparts in our world: mobile phones and GPS-maps. Leanne Ross of readfaced, a writer of futuristic science fiction novels, lamented that she has to think hard to invent things that do not already exist or will soon exist in our 'magically' electronic world.

One of my favourite charms in the Harry Potter series is the 'Invisible-Extention-Charm', that allowed Hermoine Granger to pack books, medical supplies, clothing and an enormous tent in her tiny beaded bag that went with her party dress for the wedding of Bill and Fleur Weasley, one of Ron Weasley's older brothers (to be found in the film The Deathly Hallows Part I). 



The ability to pack large and heavy items in this small, delicate bag, made it possible for Ron, Hermoine and Harry to flee the wedding party when the death-eaters suddenly arrived. In our world, there have been attempts to store clothing in vacuum-pressed plastic bags in order to save space, but there is nothing in our world to compare with Hermoine Granger's beaded bag! 

The idea is simple: it looks small on the outside but is enormously roomy on the inside. The first item, that fits into this category, is the tent that the Weasley family had with them to a Quiddish match in the novel, The Goblet of Fire. Harry is a guest of the Weasleys when they attend a world cup Quiddish match in Ireland. Eight people, six members of the Weasley family, Hermine Granger, as well as Harry Potter, all sleep comfortably in a tent that looks tiny from the outside but is cavernous as soon as you walk inside. 





Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could invent a way of taking everything with you and still not have to carry more than just a small beaded bag? It defies physics and will simply never be! But it is a nice thought, especially when you find that you absolutly must travel or even worse - if you are required to move - and are forced to decide what things to bring with you and what must be left behind, sold, given or thrown away.

This comes close to home for me. Much of my life, I could just acquire more and more possessions, until one day my former husband decided that he did not want to live with me any more. And I was the one who had to move out. But moving from a fancy and very large town house to a smaller dwelling, meant that some things just had to go, and more things are on their way out, as I dig deeper into stacks and stacks of corrigated packing boxes, that still dominate my new home.


Even if it is a practical necessity, the idea of down-sizing my home makes me feel old. It is similar to reading the obituaries and finding more and more acquaintances there. (I remember when my paternal grandmother talked about this. I understand her better now.)


One of the other inventions in the Harry Potter-series that might be interesting to try, is 'The Time-Turner'; but The Resurrection Stone would be too emotionally taxing for me. I don't want to see my departed loved ones knowing that it is only a short visit. (Maybe just to ask a couple of short questions? Excuse me? Where or what or why...?)

But short visits from a ghost from another time is a device or theme that is used in science fiction and other literary genres. Stephen King uses it in the novels, The Shining and A Bag of Bones. 




 

Daphny du Maurier lets the mother of her protagonist appear long after her own death to comfort her son as an adult, in her novel, The Loving Spirit. 





Another example is to be found in Ian McEwan's novel, The Child In Time (1997).

I don't think any of these events, spells or tools will become a part of the real world in the future. But there are 'messages from the departed' in our world.

I'm thinking of video tapes recorded with messages to children from parents who, for one reason or other, know that they do not have a long time to live. Well, why don't they just write a letter?  A letter to the child as an adult person, whom you will not be able to meet? I'm sure it has been done. Isn't that what a last will and testament is? A legally binding letter of instruction to those you leave behind.


I apologise for ending this post so morbidly. Maybe  I'm just tired of winter.

It's Saint Valentine's Day soon. I wish... I wish...

No. Be careful what you wish for!

Yours faithfully,

Anna

P.S.

This is just an afterthought: An exampel of such a "videotape" recording (before video became available to the general public) was the little box included in the rocket that Superman's biological parents send with him to earth when the planet Krypton is about to blow up. When Clark Kent's adoptive parents tell him that he is adopted and show him the rocket ship that took him to earth, he views this recording and gets to "meet" his real parents who died after they sent him away. This animated film was made 2005 but it looks like the comic book version that I used to read as a child in the 1960s.

First Commenter:
Alex J. Cavanaugh