Autumn is my favorite season, and Halloween is (in my opinion, anyway) the most fun holiday! Both are great inspirations for my writing.

And now that Halloween is here, National Novel Writing Month is one day away. I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year… for the first time… and my story will involve vampires… That’s right. Vampires. I love just about anything to do with vampires… maybe they’re my guilty pleasure… However, I just don’t find them all that scary… I think we need some more super scary vamps out there right now… though I’m not sure that is possible and doubt mine will be. Then again, I’m not so sure I care about that… vampires are so much fun.

Which leads to my pondering… If I could write about any “monster,” it would be vampires… However, when I really want a scare, I go with zombies all the way. Yep, zombies are the thing that get my heart pumping… When I’m outside, late at night, walking my dog… waiting for her to do her “thing”… zombies are what I imagine lurking in every dark corner of my backyard… pulling themselves up over my fence… pushing their way through the closed gate… crawling out from beneath the decking around my pool. Every time my dog stands alert, I freeze and peer intently into those shadowy spaces. I try to keep my back to the house… silly, I know… Then, I imagine… what if… What if a zombie did make it’s way over the fence? My dog would protect me… right? Would she go at ’em, hackles raised and snarling? Or would she whimper and run away? Leaving me to take care of myself… I figure, if it’s the first, I’d have a very good chance of getting to the back door, locking it… maybe I’d make it. If she cowers, my chances of survival dwindle.

Of course, I know zombies aren’t real… but, of all the fictional characters out there, the idea of them scares me the most. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I LOVE zombies, whether in literature or film. We all love to be scared (well, the popularity of horror films is proof of that).

So, my question for you is… what is YOUR choice of monster this lovely Halloween?