Happy All Hallow’s Read!

Sweet dreams, and happy reading.

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All Hallow’s Read: Free eBook at Jaded Monkey

Affehaus of Jaded Monkey was inspired by my All Hallow’s Read eBook, Bedtime Story, to write one of his own, but suggested (correctly) that turning it into an eBook sounded like a lot of work.  I thought it was a cool story, and offered to do the design and formatting in exchange for bananas promotional considerations (and hey, look, I’m not just using that Graphic Design degree for cultivating mold in the shapes of letters of the alphabet)!

The story is called Jackanapes, and you can pick up your very own digital copy over at Jaded Monkey.

Edit: It seems Jaded Monkey is having some technical difficulties.  Meanwhile, you can download you copy of Jackanapes here. (He’s baaaack.)

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All Hallow’s Read: Free eBook

When I was small, I was drawn to ghost stories.  Like a moth to a flame, you might say, since I inevitably scared myself up-all-night silly—to my parents’ chagrin.  Every oddly shaped lump of laundry, every bit of bric-a-brac would metamorphose into something terrifying, as soon as the lights went out.  Nowadays, I’ve gotten a little better at not letting my imagination completely carry me off, but also, and more importantly, I’m the one in charge of the light switch.

I’m still a moth to that flame sometimes, though.

Like the time (when I was not-so-small), that I sat down in the cozy late afternoon sunlight to play a bit of Resident Evil, and became so engrossed in the dark and scary digital world that I didn’t notice the light slipping stealthily out of the room.  The very real room.  Where I was sitting.  Until I suddenly realized that I was sitting in the dark, with zombies, and the nearest light switch was yards away, across what was sure to be zombie-infested darkness.

Just imagine if there was no light switch.

I know, no light switch, no Resident Evil, you say.  We’re somewhat distanced today from the coming of night, but imagination is still with us. We can still imagine what it would be like to have every day slide inexorably, inevitably into darkness. Once, we lived our lives in that balance, in the struggle between Light and Dark, Life and Death, Summer and Winter, and we planted Halloween at the crossroads.

Halloween is a celebration of imagination, and we often share that imagination by telling each other stories.  We’ve always been telling stories for Halloween—stories about the future, and the past.  About who we are and who we want to be.

But especially stories about what we’re afraid of.

Recently, author Neil Gaiman (someone who knows about imagination) proposed that we make it a formal, informal tradition— that we give each other scary books, the week of or on Halloween.

This is a tradition that I will be happy to leave a light on for.

So here, to celebrate, is a short, spooky eBook (a story previously posted, in two parts, in this post and this one)—my All Hallow’s Read present to you:

Bedtime Story

pdf eBook: click to download

Happy All Hallow’s Read!

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All Hallow’s Read

All Hallow’s Read is fast approaching.  Below is the second half of Bedtime Story (the first half is here, in case you missed it).  Next Monday, I’ll post a .pdf of the complete story.

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All Hallow’s Read

Halloween is a fantastic tapestry of traditions from many different cultures and times.  Recently, author Neil Gaiman proposed a new tradition be added to the arras: All Hallow’s Read.  I love books.  I love Halloween.  What’s not to love?

According to the oldest traditions, this book-giving is supposed to take place the week of or on Halloween.  But like so many others before me, I’m adding my own little spin to the celebration.  To mark All Hallow’s Read this year, I’ll be posting a spooky story.  It’s a short story (a very short story, actually), in two parts.  Part One is below the fold.  Part Two will be posted next Monday.  The following Monday, one week before Halloween, I’ll post a .pdf of the entire story, neatly formatted in (tiny, tiny) book form.  On the day itself, I hope to have photos of how my own “book” version turned out.

•••••

Sometime, thousands of years ago when Night still ruled over half the Day, and fire was our only weapon against the darkness, we evolved language.  With language, we began to tell each other stories.  With stories, we unleashed imagination, a power both wondrous and terrible…

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