I have interesting memories about going trick-or-treating as a young kid. Maine is not exactly conducive for such things, as it tends to be downright chilly once October 31 rolls around on the calendar; on more than one occasion I recall having my winter jacket on over whatever costume I’d carefully selected that year. And, yes, there was at least one year when there was snow on the ground, too; it was always hard not mixing your holidays in those cases, as having every surface covered in white always makes me think of Christmas. Growing up, I didn’t know any different — at least, until I saw E.T.. Then I knew the miraculous nature of Halloween in Southern California — a magical place where you didn’t need mittens when holding your goodie bag.
I’m sure I was thinking of that when I wrote Blindsided; one key moment of the book takes place at a town-sponsored Halloween Party, something very similar to the ones I attended myself as an elementary student. As an adult, I have rarely dressed up for Halloween; it’s partly due to having spent most of my career in super-professional environments where that wouldn’t have been appropriate, but there is also a tiny bit of me that has never been comfortable pretending (as it were) in such a public manner. Don’t get me wrong – I have a vibrant imagination and had no problems entertaining myself or my friends on adventures exploring strange new worlds while I was growing up.
In some ways, as an adult, I guess I’ve never allowed myself the same freedom I had as a kid; the strictures of being a grown-up seem to have made me unable to throw caution to the wind and step out of my normal persona for a bit. There have been the odd occasions when a group of us decided to dress up for Halloween, and while those were cherished events in my past, I still feel vaguely surprised that I went through with it.
Writing is a different creature altogether. I have zero problems thinking like my characters when I am crafting my novels; even though they are just as much in the realm of the pretend as that Starfleet officer I was playing back in the day, I just don’t have the same hang-ups about losing myself in the role. On the one hand, they are fictitious characters, personalities that I’ve spun out of the ether; on the other, though, I can’t deny that, to me, they seem as real as those planets I was exploring in the backyard of my childhood home. I suppose that helps to keep the story grounded, while at the same time allowing me to, well, don the equivalent of a Halloween costume and live in the moment for a bit.
What a wonderful art form this is!