HAPPY HALLOWEEN (+ FOREVER FINLEY FINALE)!

First, I have to thank you all for taking the FOREVER FINLEY journey with me! When I wrote "Come December" last November, I had no idea it would spiral into what has since become my favorite writing project. I've loved returning to the town of Finley once a month throughout 2016--and I've learned so much being able to rapid-fire publish throughout the year. I've appreciated both your enthusiasm and feedback.

That having been said, I'm delighted to announce that the FOREVER FINLEY FINALE is now live. I found the last two stories--"Pale November" and "December Bells" flowed one right into the next, and felt it was best to put them together in the same download:
 

THE FOREVER FINLEY FINALE

The conclusion to the Forever Finley Short Story Series…or is it?

Named for the young woman who died tragically before her wedding day, Finley is a small town unlike any other. Founded shortly after the Civil War by Amos Hargrove, Finley Powell’s grieving fiancé, Finley-ites of today still believe that Amos’s undying affection—and a million little miracles—will reunite two hearts meant to be together. Will the legend that has perpetuated the idea of their forever love finally be fulfilled? Can a happy ending actually be the beginning of a new chapter for a town called Finley?

The FOREVER FINLEY FINALE is available now at:

Amazon
B&N
iBooks
Kobo


I'm also in the midst of compiling the entire FOREVER FINLEY short story series. The collection will be available this month. News of the release--announcements regarding 2017 projects--and a chance to win a copy of FOREVER FINLEY--in the next newsletter!

Happy reading--and have an even happier Halloween!

--Holly (Cleopatra) and Jake the Hot Dog:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, WITCHES!

Happy Halloween from Sharknado:


John (my brother) the ballerina:

And me, Myopic Batgirl:

Have a great one!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH #HBT14

This year, in anticipation of Halloween and in celebration of FERAL, my first psychological thriller, being on the shelves, I'm participating in the Halloween Blog Trail.  I'm on the "Off the Beaten Path" Team. 

At the end of the post, you'll  find the link to the next stop on the blog crawl; at the end of the crawl, you'll be able to participate in a quiz to win books (including a signed copy of FERAL):

About FERAL:

The Lovely Bones meets Black Swan in this haunting psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you question everything you think you know.

It’s too late for you. You’re dead. Those words continue to haunt Claire Cain months after she barely survived a brutal beating in Chicago. So when her father is offered a job in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out will offer her a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire feels an overwhelming sense of danger, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers the body of a popular high school student in the icy woods behind the school, surrounded by the town’s feral cats. While everyone is quick to say it was an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it, and vows to learn the truth about what happened.

But the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to realizing a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley….

Holly Schindler’s gripping story is filled with heart-stopping twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.

~

If your MC went trick or treating, what would they dress up as and why?

Her old self.  What I mean: Claire’s been the victim of a horrible gang beating.  She endured that beating because she stood up for her friend, who was being wrongfully accused of something she didn’t do.  (Claire ratted out a gang member; the gang retaliated.)  Claire isn’t the same physically, and though she’s tried to convince herself she’s moved on, she hasn’t.  Not by a long shot.  She’s struggling with the resentment she feels for her friend.  She struggles with the way she looks…

Some Halloween costumes are gruesome and ugly; others are kind of wish-fulfillment (I’m thinking of the doctor or princess costumes).  If Claire could be anything for a day, I think it’d be her old, pre-beating self.  The Claire who wasn’t scarred, physically or emotionally.  

If your villain went trick or treating, what would they dress up as?

My villain is wearing quite the mask, actually.  (The villain I’m referring to is Serena’s killer.)  He’s got more than just one secret—those secrets keep the reader guessing as the book progresses…In many ways, I think he’s already dressed up, wearing a costume…

What scares the pants out of you?

Heights.  I’ve got really awful vision—20/700.  I’ve worn glasses or contacts since I was about nine, but I’ve often said I don’t think I ever had 20/20 vision—I just think I finally got to the point that the blackboard was officially too fuzzy to make out my daily handwriting assignment.  

I’ve always thought my hatred of heights stems from my rotten eyesight…I can be standing on the ground near a tall building and still get dizzy!

If you were stranded on a deserted island or haunted house, what number are you to die and how?

Okay, now, let’s be clear: I can’t be in a number to die if I’m on a truly “deserted” island.  Somebody else is there.  So this is either one of those idyllic situations where I just happen to be stranded with some Hollywood heartthrob or even one of my favorite “book boyfriends” come to life.  OR: I’m stranded with some island monster…But with 20/700 vision, I could take my glasses off, and the island monster could be Clooney’s double, for all I’d know.

…But really, I’m a sixth-generation Missourian who likes to believe she inherited the “tough stuff” gene.  Of course I’d like to believe I’d be the last man standing.  (But I’ve completely given away my weak spot…snatching my glasses would leave me open to attack!)

Would you rather be covered in slime or covered in blood?

I’m a child of the ‘80s, and I’m pretty sure we all dreamed about being slimed on YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TELEVISION.

What magical / supernatural creature do you secretly want to be?

Wouldn’t invisibility be the best power ever?  I’ve always said that I’m grateful I’m an author during an era when I get to be a fly on the wall, listening in on the discussions regarding my work.  It’s not the easiest thing in the world to read your own blog reviews, but it’s so incredibly enlightening.  I honestly can’t imagine not doing it.  I feel like listening to my readers is part of the gig—and it’s best to listen in when I am invisible, because that way, everyone’s being completely, brutally honest.  Can you imagine what a powerful tool that would be, to be able to listen in on everyone in your personal life as well?

What is your favorite sentence / paragraph from your novel?

“What damage could a dream do anyone who wasn’t a character in a Nightmare on Elm Street  installment?”

The next stop on the crawl is Brit McGinnis (I'm heading over there myself...)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween from the

...and Jake I-am-so-above-this Schindler:

...As always, a pic session turned into a kiss-fest:

SIGNS OF FALL

New sweater!

First Halloween decoration!

'WEEN SCENES

Scenes from this year's Halloween:

Jake went as a "cowdog," and I piled on the green...

...But the real creepiness settled in after dark...

 

WHO-KNOWS-WHAT

I’ve long insisted that Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday.  “The wax lips!” I always say.  “The candy corn!  The plastic hatchets!”

           

But my Halloween love is actually about far more than that.  Just as my love of ghost / scary stories is about far more than the fake blood.  (While we’re at it, when I say I love horror stories, I’m actually more of a fan of a psychological thriller than a complete slash-and-dash bloodbath…)

It’s recently occurred to me, though, that the real reason I love Halloween is a pretty writerly one: it gives me chance to make stuff up.

Catherine Ryan Hyde smartly commented on a post at my MG blog, Smack Dab in the Middle, that one of the biggest misconceptions about novelists is that they consistently write thinly-veiled autobiographies.  Like our own Catherine, I also write completely fictitious, invented works—none of the situations or characters featured in my books are ripped from my own life.  I get a serious kick out of making stuff up.  Creating a whole world completely of my own invention.

Yep—grape-flavored bloodshot eyeballs will always have an incredible amount of charm.  But even when I was little, the costumes were always what I loved most about Halloween.  I loved figuring out—usually by mid-summer—how I was going to dress up.  And I don’t really mean that I looked forward to being someone other than me.  I mean I loved figuring out how to create a mummy or hobo or bobby-soxer.  (Only one year in all of the—ahem—fourteen that I trick-or-treated did I have a store-bought costume.  Looking back, it was by far my least favorite.)  I loved the getting-to-make-it-up.

But that’s what we get to do every day as writers.  On the page, we get to dress up and become a fictional “I.”  We get to look at the world through someone else’s eyes.  We get to invent. 

Ditto for the horror flicks.  I’m a complete sucker for the tension-filled scenes you know so well: the protagonist is standing on one side of the door; a strange noise has just erupted on the other.  The protagonist begins to breathe hard, slowly reaching for the doorknob.  At this point, my mind always goes into overdrive as I imagine what is on the opposite side of that door. 

Again, as is the case with Halloween, I get to make it all up.  Until the opposite-side-of-the-door is revealed, of course.  But I love those who-know-what’ll-happen-next moments.

…I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to be yet this year, what I’m going to wear to greet the trick-or-treaters who will ring my bell.  Right now, I’m having too much fun imagining the possibilities, making up a hundred different scenarios, imagining this year’s who-knows-what.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Yes, oh, yes: I'm donning my Raggedy Ann garb to get in the spirit of the best holiday going.

Never to be outdone, though, Jake decided he wanted to wear the wig, too...and of course, he looks far cuter in it...


Happy Halloween—from both of us! May you all have the goriest, ooziest, gooiest Halloween yet!

HALLOWEEN FUN

Okay, all you ghouls and goblins, I’ve got a Halloween story to turn your stomachs…I received a super-cool setup from Kate Higgins—she sent the prompt for September’s entry in the Flash Fiction Challenge, remember? I’ve included the original text she sent below; the only change I made was switching from second person to first:

The crescent moon had long since set.

The nearby river’s nighttime gurgle and rush begins to sound like voices, voices talking about you, blaming you. You shut out the sultry, oppressive September night and pull down the shades and turned on your desk lamp.

You adjust the central air to 'cooler' and sit back down to your computer.

The low hissing tone refrigerated air begins to pour out of an ancient floor registers beneath your desk, blowing out new cobwebs and old dust around your legs.

Then a shallow, beseeching, breathless voice, somewhere deep within the register whispers, “Hollleeee………I’m…….here…….here. Holleeee?……..why…...…. why…..….did….......you……... do…….it……….”

…But in order to find out what I did with Kate’s Halloween setup, you’ve got to watch the video. In the meantime, I’ve got to run…Katy Perry called, and she wants her wig back.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I'M NOT QUAKING YET, BUT I AM A VERB (AND A CRAZY-GOOD REVIEW)

Okay, people, when I said scare me, I meant scare me. I’m noooooot quite quakin’ yet…so be sure to send in some more creepy prompts for the October chapter of the Flash Fiction Challenge!

…One thing that’s not scary at all, and that made me smile this weekend? A post on Writerly Thoughts about the possibility of not being able to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo:

“…my parents want me to pass all my courses, and I doubt they’d let me pull a Holly Schindler and just write all the time.”

Love that! I think I’m becoming a verb!

…I also got this super-cool review at Café Saturday. Such a great review, in fact, that it was tough to pick a snippet. But I love this paragraph:

“While the majority of the story does focus on Aura and her family, including her remarried father and estranged grandmother, there is a subplot with a boy Aura has a huge crush on. First of all, I will say that Schindler tells so much story with so little time devoted to it that I marveled at her skill. Secondly, there is a scene with Aura and Jeremy and a skateboard and a drainage ditch that blew my mind. Not because it was oh-so-romantic, but because of how Aura was affected by it in that moment. It was a perfect merging of the two plot threads, and quite possibly one of the best scenes I’ve read all year.”

Yowzahs…

OCTOBER FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE

Okay, here’s the deal: Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I love the plastic guts, the fake blood. The pop-in vampire teeth.

For the October chapter of my Flash Fiction Challenge, I’ll need you to send me your goriest prompt. Could be a title. A character name. A sentence / horrifying description I have to incorporate. Really—the prompts are completely up to you. All I ask is that you get twisted, get creepy, get dripping in cobwebs and slime!

Email the prompt to writehollyschindler (at) yahoo (dot) com. (Prompts need to be in by October 2!)

…I’ll be waaaaaaiting. Muah-ah-ah (that was my demonic laughter…)

HALLOWEEN CHECKLIST

Let’s see…black lipstick? Check. Blue undead serial-killing supermodel wig? Check. Outdoor “cemetery” decorations from every party, card, and hobby shop in town? Check. Window jack-o’-lanterns, plastic fangs, wads of spider webs? Check, check, check.

An oddly pumpkin-colored and—come on, admit it—demonic-looking sky, just in time for Halloween? Yeah, that’s a bonus.


Have a pus-filled, gory, ghastly Halloween, everyone! (Here, your ears fill with a wicked witch’s cackle…)

SEYMORE BONES

What? That’s his name. And the love of his life, Ima Dead, currently resides just one grave over. Their love affair was the stuff that long, sprawling songs are made of: “Frankie and Johnny,” or even Cash’s “Delia’s Gone”…the kind of thing that ends in cheating and gunshots…

At least, that’s what I tell people when they see the cemetery I’ve got out front, which gets a new headstone just about every single day…and don’t even get me started on the backstory I invented for Frank N. Stein, who’s the newest addition to the graveyard, chains, bashed-in skull and all…

…I mean, you can’t expect a writer to just turn off her story-telling when she gets up from her desk, now, can you?