Halloween and NaNoWriMo

Hey everyone! How are you all doing? We have some awesome stuff coming up next week and I'm super excited!

First, Halloween!

Who is ready for that? I plan on writing a Halloween short story for all of you so I can post it up so look forward for that! Also, on Halloween I'm going trick-or-treating. I know, I know. I'm a teenager and I'm still dressing up and going trick-or-treating, but it's going to be so much fun. I mean, who doesn't love getting free candy from strangers while dressing up as something that you like? I mean, I'm dressing up as a hippie which is completely me cause I think I'm a total hippie/tree hugger. Haha. What are you all dressing up as? I definitely want to know!

Second, NaNoWriMo!

This is my third year entering NaNoWriMo and I'm ubber excited! I mean, who doesn't love trying to write 50,000 words in only 30 days? I admit, this year I might not be putting maximum effort into trying to write so many words because of my AP Language and Composition class at school, but I will try my hardest to try to keep myself on par with the daily word counts we're supposed to have. *shrug*

I'm also very excited to announce that I got friends to join as newbies this year! Right now they're still panicking about not having a plot, and I'm telling them to roughly think a beginning and and end, write it down, and just ride on the seat of your pants; at least, for NaNoWriMo. I mean, after in editing or rewriting you can go back and actually plot and outline your story, because now you'll know where you want to go, what you want to write, what you wanna say. Still, I'm enjoying seeing them and trying to help them as best as I can, because I was a newbie once (two years ago *cough*) and it's kind of lame to have to figure out everything about NaNoWriMo on your own. I'm happy to help.

Another thing, I'll have weekly wordcount updates for how many words I have, and how many words your supposed to have for that week and so on and so forth. I'll also have a few encouraging sentences for you to read and keep you motivated so look out for that! :D

See you all soon!

~M.A.Chase♥

Tomorrow is Halloween!

Are you ready for the candy? The scaring? The dressing up? I am! Yes, I sound like I'm five with the dressing up thing, but come on it's fun.

Anyway, so trick-or-treating is probably my favorite part of Halloween. You get candy, you get to be someone who you want to be, and you get to walk around a neighborhood and talk to random people whom you don't know! (Yes, I've done that before, it's fun).

Then the scaring. I'm not usually the scarer, I'm the scaree and I hate it. I'm not good with "horror" so to speak. I'm more of a "let's turn down the volume and put captions" type of person. I write fantasy, no horror in there (unless you right a fantastical horror book that's scifi, then yes). When there is a house I know that someone will jump out at you and scare you I send my brother or my mother to get my candy for me. :DD

Enough about me hating horror, let's go to you guys. What's your favorite part of Halloween? Do you have a fond Halloween memory that's funny enough to share?

Put them in the comments. I would like to know. :D
~M.A.Chase♥

Top Ten Halloween Costumes 2010

I'm going to tell you the top ten TEEN halloween costumes from http://www.halloweenexpress.com/ !

1. Twilight Bite

2. Adorable Alice

3. Dr. Killer Driller

4. Cryptic Rocker

5. Lil Miss Red Riding Hood

6. Skeleton Sweetie

7. Crystal Ball Gypsy

8. Gonzo

9. Micheal Meyers

10. Zombie Ghost Face

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Post in the comments below!

~M.A.Chase♥

How the Jack-o-Lantern came to be

This is the history of one of the most known Halloween symbols...the Jack-o-lantern! Now, how did this come to be? Here is the post where you can learn all about it!

This Jack-o-lantern bit probably came from Irish foklore (you know from my History of Halloween post that the Irish came around the 1800s).

(This story has to do with like the Devil and very religious so if you really don't want to read it then skip this post. I wish you could though!)

So the story starts with a guy named Jack (get it Jack, Jack-o-lantern), who is a drunkard and a trickster. He tricked Satan up a tree and carved a cross on the trunk, forcing the Devil to stay up there. Jack then made a deal, if the he promised to never tempt him again he would let him down.

According to the story, after Jack died he was denied entrance into Heaven (because of his evil ways) and Hell(because he tricked the devil). Instead, the devil gave him a glowing ember with which he would light his way through the dark fridgid darkness, and to keep the flame burning longer, he would put it in a hollowed turnip.

The Irish used hollowed turnips as "Jack's Lanterns", but when they came to America, they found that pumpkins were plentiful and used them instead, and so the American "Jack-o-lantern) was born!

How is that for a little history?

~M.A.Chase♥

Monster Profile: Werewolves

Deviantart.com
(Drawn by the-lone-voice)

We all know about the werewolves, but lately we've seen all types of different werewolves. With Maggie Steifvater's "change with temperature" and Stephenie Meyer's "change at will" we may have lost some of the old, ancient touched to werewolves.

COUNTRIES WITH LEGENDS OF WEREWOLVES

• France (loup-garou)
• Greece (lycanthropos)
• Spain (hombre lobo)
• Bulgaria (valkolak)
• Turkey (kurtadam)
• Czech Republic/Slovakia (vlkodlak)
• Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia (vukodlak / вукодлак)
• Russia (vourdalak , оборотень)
• Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, перевертень)
• Croatia (vukodlak)
• Poland (wilkołak)
• Romania (vârcolac)
• Macedonia (vrkolak)
• Scotland (werewolf, wulver)
•  England (werewolf)
• Ireland (faoladh or conriocht)
• Germany (Werwolf)
• the Netherlands (weerwolf)
• Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv)
• Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf,varúlfur)
• Galicia(lobisón)
• Portugal/Brazil (lobisomem)
• Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis)
• Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis)
• Andorra (home llop)
• Hungary (Vérfarkas and Farkasember)
• Estonia (libahunt)
• Finland (ihmissusi and vironsusi)
• Italy (lupo mannaro)

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SOME GREEK HISTORY

Greek mythology provides the earliest of the werewolf legends. According to a story in history Lycaon had served human flesh during a meal with the Gods and was turned into a wolf-a long with another member-because of it.

In another Greek story, says a man of Anthus' family was chosen and taken to a lake. He hang his clothes on a tree and swam across. With this, he was transformed into a werewolf. He roamed around in this form for nine years, if he promised he wouldn't eat a human he would be allowed to transform back into a human and swim back across the river.

The Greek scholar Herodotus says that the Neuri tribe would be transformed for a few days.
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SHE-WOLF

Even though it's also a song by Shakira it's in mythology too.

She is an aspect of a triple Goddess. In legend, she had given three souls to the Legendary King Herulus. She is also the mythical mother of the two founders of Roma, Romus and Remulus.

South Slavs had a ritual where they used to pass a newborn child through a wolf skin saying it was thus born from the She-Wolf.
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One of the most common beliefs of werewolves is that they change only during a full moon and they can only be killed by a silver bullet. 

~M.A.Chase♥

Cited:
History of the Werewolf
She-Wolf