Five Things I Remember from Halloweens Past (Jody Feldman’s Take on the Spooktacular)

I remember wanting to eat the forbidden homemade popcorn ball much more than my favorite candy.

I remember the meanness of one girl at her own Halloween party and how I, smartly, stayed away from her the rest of my life.

I remember missing trick or treating when I was six because my friend had her birthday party hayride earlier that day. Who knew the hay would cause such wheezing?

I remember the first time I trick or treated without parents; how my friends and I flirted with boys and climbed fences and ran through backyards and laughed a lot, partly from feeling a little naughty.

And while it’s hard to remember what my neighbors’ houses looked like on Halloween, I recall with uncanny clarity that house around the block, on the corner – the dark house we would race past as if a spirit surrounding it (or the old crone living in it) would reach out and grab us and hold us captive forever.

So what does that have to do with writing? Everything. It’s memories like these we draw on to make our characters real.