It's Halloween!!!!!!

Hey everyone, It's Halloween! :) and this is my choice of pumpkin design this year. 'The Headless Horseman Rides Again!' :) pretty awesome, hey? I love Halloween its my fav day. I know there are many reasons behind this and it links to the traditions and history of the actually event and day. To go and look them up in books or the internet though gives mix results. So to link with my love for Halloween, I thought I'd write this post about what it means to me and include some of the stuff I know.
On Halloween night at Midnight it's believed that the veils between this world and the spirit world reach there thinnest. This means that lots of spirits can pass between the two different plains some good and bad. So ghost activity is said to be at its highest during this time. So the traditions of pumpkins? In Britain it use to be other squash vegetables and then pumpkins came over from the USA and they were easier to carve. The idea behind carving and making a scare face is actually to ward off the bad spirits from entering your house. You place the pumpkin outside or in a front window in order to do this. The pumpkin is then light up by a candle and it is this light that attracts family and friends who have passed on back to visit you. Of course now a days, people don't just carve scary faces, the idea of carving different things has taken off in a big way specially in the States, where they do go all out for Halloween, much more then we do in Britain! Though you still find that many pumpkins get carved with subjects that link to Halloween.

This is the second pumpkin I carved - Grim Fright Night It's a grim reaper in a graveyard. Oh, it's midnight! Let's see if anything creepy happens! So why is a carved pumpkin called a Jack O' Lantern? This cames from an Irish legend about a man called Jack, who couldn't get into Heaven or Hell, so instead he had to walk around with just a lantern till judgment day arrives.
Okay, next is the dressing up part, people started to believe that by wearing masks and dressing up they could pertained to be spirit whilst going about their business at night, thus no harm would come to them. The idea of Trick or Treating came about because of another event which was celebrate close to Halloween and that was Souling. Where people went around asking for soul cakes and in return they would pray for the departed relatives. This is also connected with Mischief Night, which has kinda merged with Halloween now. Boys would go out and cause Mischief, but they would also knock on door and ask for treats in order to behave, so that's where the whole Trick Or Treat thing has come from possibly.

Me and my 3 best friends dressed up.

One of the games that is traditional played is Apple Bobbing. Apples are placed into a large bowl filled with water and just using your teeth you have to grab an apple. It is said that this came about because of the Roman tradition of celebrating one of their Gods who was connected to apples about this time. In fact it seems lots of religions and countries celebrated simlaire events about the same time, most of these had to do with remembering the dead like the Roman Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls day, (Which got the name of All Hallow's Eve which then become Hallow'een) Mexico and their Day Of The Dead. There has also been links to Celt and Pagan festivals. So yeah, Halloween has no clear beginnings.

So that's something of a history then. :) I always stay up past midnight on Halloween, just because its something I have always been drawn to do. It's like I'm waiting to see if any ghost come for a visit. Nothing has happened so far, though I got sticky stuff on my keyboard thanks to a midnight snack attack! Anyways that's all for tonight and I'll be back tomorrow.

Your Favourite Book Needs You! -World Book Night 2012

Hi readers,

My title and the theme shall be in both my blogs today, but afterwards I'm going to write some different things. so go to http://hayleyhardman.wordpress.com/ to check that out once your done here!

So yeah, what's going on then? Well, this year saw the launch of World Book Night 2011. I did write a blog post about it on my uni blog so here's what it said;

2011/03/05

At 9.30am, I was on a train heading for London and it took two hours to get there. Strangely, we part followed the canal which, last year I had a holiday on a narrow boat sailing up. When we arrived in London, we went on the Underground and to Piccadilly Circus. The Underground was scary and the train was fast moving and the doors shut quick, but I made it!

We went to Trafalgar square and wondered there and the streets near by. We then meet with other Book Givers and talked to them. Then we had to queue up to get back into Trafalgar square and we sit on the edge of the fountain and waited for things to kick off. It was really cold, but at least we weren't standing up for two hours.

The event started with the guy who came up with it and then Graham Norton was hoisting it! On the stage they had some people who were giving out books to charities and were founding members. They also had authors and other famous people reading form their books or different books. I saw Philip Pullman, Sarah Waters and the front man from MAD. It was really good to hear these people reading and I doubt I'll get another chance to do that again!

Afterwards people started giving out their books, but we had not brought ours and I still need to put in the special numbers. That's my next task for today now. We were really cold so we went for food and then to Waterstones- brought lots of books! Then after going to StarBucks for hot chocolate, we caught the Underground back to the train stations and from there had 2 hours and half on a train back home. It was about 1am, when we arrived back and I was so tried I went to bed straight away.

I had a good day though and London is pretty cool! Now I just have to give out my books.

*

That sound good? Well guess what? You can now apply to be a World Book Giver for 2012! Go to the website and choice your fav book from the list and maybe you could be in London next year supporting your book!

http://www.worldbooknight.org/index.php

I've already done mine, but I'm not going to say what I choice. I've so much more to write about, but I know people like reading short posts, so I'll save my musings for my other blog. :)

The Changing Word - hey, let's keep the bats though!

(Halloween pumpkin, 2008, made by my dad.)

For people who might be reading this for the first time;

 I am a horror writer. Mostly, I write vampire novels. I've yet to have any of my novels published, though I've had poetry published online and in magzines. Being a poet isn't me though! So I'm trying to make my dream of being a novelist come true.

I graduated from Edge Hill Uni, with a 2.1 BA Hons in Creative Writing joint English Lit course. I'm now back to my uni, taking a Masters in Creative Writing. I've been called foolish for deciding to do this so soon after spending 3 years getting  my degree. I don't think I am though! If you want something, then you should always go for it. Doing my Masters, just seemed the right move to me. I'm loving it right now! I get to read and write all the time and since that is something I love doing, its a perfect fit!

I know that I've not written a post for this blog in ages. I think this is because the one I wrote for my uni sort of took over and then I found that I was repeating myself acrosss the two of them. The idea of pasting and coping stuff on both blogs also didn't last long. So I think that's why this blog has fallen. I'm back now, because I can no longer write my uni blog and have had to find another source for my blog writing.

Instead of creating a whole new blog, I just thought of updating this one. Now my only problem is I can't seem to change my background. I know one of the key things about someone's blog is what they decided to display behind the words they write. I think though, if I did get rid of the bats, then I'd have gone for books or more halloween/dark things. So maybe, it's wise to just stick with them! I know some people might not like them or thing my page is too dark. I can prove that they do fit in though!

To contuine, my current jobs are a writer and a student guide for my uni. At the minute I'm looking for another job, having need of the money and I'm thinking of doing some online freelance work. I also work in my local RSPCA chairty shop. I voleenter there two mornings a week. It gets me out of bed, in a different envioment and meeting new people. I also get to buy a lot of books!

I found this book today- just with a different cover- stuffed in the back room. I couldn't believe it! I've fallen in love with Marakami's writing. I've read Norweigen Wood and Sputinik Sweetheart now. This book and Hard-Boiled Eggs, were on my list to buy. So I got lucky finding it when I did. It's actually a large book, so I'm thinking of making it a summer read, no doubt that won't happen though! I read the first two pages before and was hooked!

I've lost count of the number of people, I've told to go and read Marakami now. The style of his writing is like poetry, because it flows so well, but it is also very simple langauge and highly effective. You get drawn into this world of Japan that he creates and his characters are very real to life. Though his writing style is so simple, tht themes he deals with are not. They come across on many different levels and I'm always pondering over them. So, yeah, if you've not read Marakami go and do so now!

I've to be off now to walk my dogs.