Welcome, welcome!! It is day two of Fortnight of Fright! For those of you wondering what Fortnight of Fright consists of, head on over to the intro post and take a gander! I am so excited to have so much excellent blogger and author participation this year, we are going to be bursting at the seams with Halloween happenings! Today I have a lovely lady featured on the blog, Ms. Danielle Shipley! Danielle is a pretty fabulous person, and author so go check out her blog or twitter after reading her post on Halloween from the views of a “scaredy-cat!” Take it away, Danielle!

As a general rule, I dislike being spooked, and anyone who goes out of their way to startle a scream of fear out of me is likely to end up on my black list for quite some time. But every so often, over the course of my life, I’ll come across something that inspires my fear… and my happy fascination.

Sometimes, it’s a song. As a youngster, I got a pleasant tingle up and down my spine every time I heard the ghost story set to music, “No Such Thing”. (Anyone of my generation out there who remembers that little number from the Olsen twins? Talk about ‘90s nostalgia.) And there was something about Men At Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?” that reminded me of my one (and in the foreseeable future, only) viewing of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” – but in a good way! If I’d owned something as futuristic as a CD back then, I would have had these tracks on replay, shivers and all.

Then there are the movies. For someone who lacks the nerve for horror films, I was shocked at how much I loved the moonlight reveal of the zombie-like crew of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl”. And even though its vampires and werewolves made me physically sick with terror, “Van Helsing” made it onto my list of all-time favorite movies. (Leave to a quirky Dracula to suck me in. …pun only realized after the fact.) I’ve lost count of how many times I put these DVDs in just for the heck of it; just for a few scenes, even; just for the chills.

Have I ever enjoyed a reading scare? There was that time I found myself entranced against my will by the “Haunting of Derek Stone” books by Tony Abbot. It was “evil dead people”-palooza, up in there, and I still read it all the way through to the end. No other series can boast that. And I once managed to thoroughly creep myself out in the writing of a short story. Even knowing from the start how it would end, I hadn’t expected experiencing it to shake me up that badly. So you know what I did with the creepy antagonist? Wrote that bad boy his own novel, that’s what! (Complete with yet another scene that made me shudder.)

All of which just goes to show, even us scaredy-cats can have fun with a fright, from time to time.

And no, that is not an invitation for you to try to scare the cookies out of me. I am serious. I will end you.

We asked a few or our participants to answer some questions about Halloween…

Why do you love Halloween? Because it’s one holiday closer to Christmas!

Any fun Halloween memories? One year my birthday (October 30th) coincided with the Halloween Costume Day held by the elementary school at which I was then a librarian. I got offered sweets all day while dressed up as Ralphie from “The Magic School Bus”. It was pretty awesome.

What was the best costume you ever had? (Or if you don’t have one, someone else’s) I’d say the Ralphie outfit made me happiest. Green jeans, green T-shirt with a big red “R” pinned to the front, red baseball cap worn backwards. That’s how little it takes to make me feel like a boss.

Do you prefer mild scares or hair raising horror? Mild, please!

Favorites:

Halloween Candy? I’ve always been a Snickers fan.

Paranormal creature? (ghouls, gobilins, vampires, witches, etc) Gotta give this one to the vampires. The fangs have a certain charisma.

Halloween Movie: Going back to the Olsen twins, my childhood Halloween favorite was “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble”.

Halloween TV episodes or TV Shows: Can I say “Scooby-Doo” as an overall premise? The Mystery Inc. gang pretty much had to deal with a dash of Halloween every day!

As always, head over to Brittany’s blog to see what she has featured and check back Monday for a scary book review from a fellow blogger!