The youngsters started arriving at around 6:45 last night and were all done by 8:00. We had maybe forty visitors or so in total, mostly in groups of four or five at a time. A fairly typical Halloween. Got rid of about 90% of the candy before I turned the lights off, which is always my goal. Not older teenagers or playful adults this year, though. But some cute as a button kids. One three year old fairy looked ‘way up at me and said “Thank you” as if she were absolutely thrilled.
We have a great horned owl somewhere on our street. My wife says she hears it when she’s up working late at night and I heard it for the first time the other night when I was getting ready for bed. The call is distinctive (Listen here!) and I really like listening to it, especially at night. The only other owl I’ve seen around here was one we encountered while walking along the bike path at night in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Our power was still out, I think, but one of the nearby restaurants was open so we walked over to it. The owl was sitting up in a tree over the path as plain as day. It was shocking how big it was. However, we saw it again a couple of days later, dead on the street. Must have been hit by a car. Made us sad to see it.
The cool weather has arrived, at long last. Down to the forties overnight, sixties and seventies in the daytime, mostly.
My third article is now up at FEARNet. It’s called A Doorway to 1963, being a review of Stephen King’s new book, 11/22/63 prefaced by a brief observation about the appearance of magical doors in King’s work.
Michael Matheson at Innsmouth Review posted a lengthy and detailed review of Evolve Two yesterday. I was pleased by his comments about my story, “Red Planet.” He obviously gave it a lot of thought.
Brian Freeman writes about the 2012 Stephen King Library calendar on his blog. The cover is stunning, and photos simply won’t do it justice.
I’ve been conducting and transcribing interviews lately. My work in progress is now up to something in the vicinity of 57000 words. I received an extension through April 1, 2012, which is a great relief. The book is going to be so much better given the extra time to whip it into shape.
We watched the second half of the first season of the original Prime Suspect the other night. To be honest, I was surprised by how it turned out. I kept thinking it was going to turn out to be someone else. There were so many potential red herrings but some of the evidence was the real deal.
