Wonderfully Creepy

So it is that time of year again when our minds turn to the darker aspects of life, if only for fun and whimsy. I'll be starting up a regular series here that I've done elsewhere that I call "Wonderfully Creepy." A bit of an explanation:

There's a phrase that I use occasionally. It's not something that I ever thought much about until my wife pointed it out some time ago with a puzzled expression. The phrase is "wonderfully creepy", and I use it to describe all those things which send delicious chills down your spine. I strongly believe that horror is connected in some ways with a sense of awe, with the sublime, and the wonder we feel at the unknown. I've always been interested in this sensation, ever since I was very young. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, autumn my favorite season. I've mentioned Ray Bradbury often when trying to explain my seasonal fixation. I've quoted the very same passage I'm about to quote, many times before. Hell, it's even been in my userinfo, nonetheless I feel that it's about time to pull that wonderful short bit of prose out:

...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.

That is the epigram for Bradbury's short story collection October Country and it remains something which resonates with me. It is in some ways the world I try to describe in my writing, a world that I'm entranced with.

So once again I've decided for the month of October I'm going to dedicate most of my efforts to sharing some of these bits of the wonderfully creepy. When I'm not working my arse off at school, writing my new novel, or spending the leftover time with my neglected wife, I'll be working to bring you strange fascinating things that haunt the sunshine state. Stay tuned over the next month for a number of things, some more seasonal speculations no doubt, and of course forays into the Wonderfully Creepy.

In many ways that is what this entire blog has been about, but I suppose my October coverage of the Wonderfully Creepy is just an attempt to make that a little more apparent.