Marla Cooper

🎃 Welcome to Spooky Season

[Note: Please read this with the song “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas running through your head, as I did when I wrote it.]

Maybe it’s because I was born in October, but I’ve always had a penchant for all things spooky, paranormal, and slightly macabre. When the weather starts dropping and the pumpkin spice lattes appear on menus, when people start decorating their houses with cobwebs and gravestones, it makes me want to dance dramatically in my front yard singing, “It’s the most wonderful time … of the year.”

When I was a kid, I remember my grandmother taking the paperback of The Amityville Horror away from me because she thought 12 was a little too young to be reading about demonic possession. Fortunately, she didn’t hide it very well (it was in the top drawer of my grandfather’s enormous, metal steamer desk) so I would sneak in after everyone went to bed and read it in the hours leading up to midnight, which was honestly way scarier, so … yay?

Here on the blog, I’ve written about my realistic, life-sized skeleton, the haunted mansion I wanted to buy, and a visit to my favorite cemetery. And my camera roll is full of pictures celebrating Spooky Season — a name I love because it normalizes those of us for whom limiting Halloween to one day seems like an oversight. (Spooky season is also birthday season — I have a high concentration of Libras and Scorpios among my friends and family!)

It’s a no-brainer that I became a mystery writer, but, clearly, I should be writing paranormal cozies. In fact, I’m dabbling with some paranormal elements in the short story I’m currently writing for my newsletter subscribers. 

Do I believe ghosts are real? I want to! But, despite the number of ghost tours I’ve taken, haunted hotels I’ve stayed in, and ghost stories I’ve relished hearing, I’ve never had a paranormal experience myself. (Although I did experience firsthand the haunted toilet Michelle wrote about last week.)

Readers, where do you stand? Are you Team Spooky Season? And if you have a ghost story to share, you’d better believe I want to hear it!

40 thoughts on “🎃 Welcome to Spooky Season”

  1. Marla,

    I don’t think I could ever be a big fan of the spooky season. I hated trick or treating as a kid. Costumes I loved, but asking people for candy? Nope.

    I do like reading the paranormal stuff. As long as it’s not gory. NOT a big Jason and Freddie fan.

    do I believe? yes. I went to Dallas for a meeting for work, I checked in, left my bags in the room and then ran to the meeting. When I came back, it looked like someone had been sleeping in my bed. Nothing was missing though. It looked like someone had been put into my room, they laid down, then they saw my bags and left. I contacted security, they checked and said nobody had been in my room.

    another instance at that hotel at that time, Baltic coworker of mine. She was stuck in the elevator for a half an hour, with it just going from the bottom to the top floor. The door never opened. It just kept going up and down.

    we both found out later, that we were staying in the haunted tower at that hotel. Do we believe? Heck yeah.

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    1. Oh my gosh, you’ll have to tell me which hotel! Dallas isn’t that far away. I don’t think I want to get stuck in a haunted elevator, though! That would be way more annoying than spooky. 😂

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  2. Did I tell you about the ghost girl who sat next to me while we were touring in Savannah? Yes, I was sitting on a bench and this girl sat next to me and started a conversation. My friend came to sit and I told her the girl and I was chatting and she almost sat on her, so yes I see ghosts. Did I tell you when I took a tour of the Queen Mary and we went to the swimming pool, I saw a woman standing and waving back at me.

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    1. Dru!!!! Wow, that legitimately gave me goosebumps! I took the Queen Mary tour but didn’t see a thing. They do talk about the pool a lot (wet footprints when no one is there, etc.) And that ghost girl in Savannah?! What a great story!

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  3. Marla, I absolutely believe. I’d also like to write a cozy mystery with paranormal elements. And I have an idea for a paranormal series. I used to watch those ghost shows on the Travel channel constantly. Good times. Ha!

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  4. While I thoroughly believe anything is possible and have had what I’ll call near misses with spirits, and yes, like Dru Ann in Savannah. I was sitting in one of the pocket parks and could feel their presence, almost as if I knew who they were. Enjoy a paranormal cozy, so look forward to what you come up with! Do not like horror or scary movies and books, There is enough about the real world to be terrified over. Enjoy your season, I’ll wait a bit longer and soak up all the happy feels of the next couple of holidays!

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    1. Savannah is so atmospheric! We went on a ghost tour but it was more geared for kids and not spooky at all. Next time I’ll have to try just sitting quietly on benches.

      P.S. Real-world horrors are a whole other story! 0/10 Do not recommend.

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  5. Nope, not a spooky bone in my entire skeleton. I’m the person who turns all the lights off on Halloween and hides in my back bedroom to watch a romantic comedy and devour bag of fun-size Snickers (I do love that aspect of the season, I have to admit). Nor do I generally want to believe in ghosts–though I sure would love for my grandmother to come back and tell me some tales of her younger days…

    I do love the fall season though, as it brings some of the warmest days to Santa Cruz, and heralds Robin’s and my return to Hilo, Hawai’i for the winter.

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    1. I think my love of October is all-encompassing: cooler weather, birthday season, and, yes, fun-sized Snickers. The jack-o-lanterns and ghosts are but mere harbingers of my favorite time of year!

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  8. Funny enough, I wasn’t Team Spooky Season growing up. I hated Halloween. It gave bullies license to do their thing and the dark streets scared me. But once we had a kid, I became Team all the way! I don’t decorate anymore – our front yard used to make a wonderful graveyard – but I totally have the spirit. Even though we never get trick or treaters in our neighborhood. It’s hilly, which discourages people.

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    1. I hear you! We don’t get trick or treaters because there’s a street near here that does it up so big the kids all gravitate to it. That’s why it’s not just Halloween night for me… I love the whole month!

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  9. I’m all in on Spooky Season, Marla. Turning the month of October, or “Spooktober,” I binge all kinds of scary movies, Tav shows and books. My wife and I were both born in October, so there’s that bonus. As for ghosts? I’ve never met one, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real. Cheers!🥸

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    1. Yes! Thank you, JC! We have a similar thing going on at my house. Not only is October my birthday, but also my husband’s and several of my closest friends. I love everything about it! 

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  10. Wow, a lot of October birthdays here! Cheers to you all. As a native New Englander, I have a healthy respect for ghosts. I believe they’re just about everywhere, so I don’t seek them out. In places where I feel them most, though (in a negative way) I usually find out later that there was a murder there. My last strong “feeling” was in Denver at Left Coast Crime. Specifically, the historic Oxford Hotel. A stunning Jack White video (for “Would You Fight for My Love?”) was filmed in its Cruise Room bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOnbp_DspY Note that the actual bar was lit entirely in red, rather than the blue here. Blood red. Stunning. But brr. (Oh, and yes, there is a ghost. Florence Montague. Caught her husband in flagrante. Killed him and then herself. Haunts male guests staying in Room 320 on their own.

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  11. I have told this in another post, but we had ghost dog experiences. Our first Golden Retriever, Punkin, died in our house with us by her side. She had a tumor on her lip. We had it taken off but the vet apparently did not rake off enough margins, and it mediatized. We did all we could, but she left us right after Christmas. Our neighbor drove by our house about two weeks later and saw Punkin in the window. Then after Needa died, we got Texie. She was one of 12 and when we brought her home and we would feed her, she jumped at the food and devoured it. Then about three weeks in, she stopped doing that and sat until we released her. We had taught Needa to do this. She also never got on furniture or went upstairs and several other things that we did not teach her, but we did teach Needa. So, ghost dog/dogs live in our house.

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  13. Kind of strange, I guess, that I who have never had a paranormal experience (that I know of) wound up writing a haunted house murder mystery! But yeah, I’m Team Spooky all the way–for me it was Stephen King books that I snuck off my parents’ shelves way too young and read under the covers with the lights out. (In hindsight, I don’t recommend this. 🙂 )

    I love good horror, and good scary…where it’s not just about the blood and gore but about ordinary people facing down something unearthly and terrifying and not giving in.

    (I also love the good chocolate and the onset of cider season…;-) )

    –JKB

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    1. Yes! You’re my kind of people! Love Stephen King, and totally agree about the gore. I love slow build horror and suspense. Happy October!

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  14. Like you said, “Attaboy Clarence,” my favorite movie for Christmas is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “Teacher says whenever a bell rings an angel gets its wings.” This is the humanity that is missing from the world today. God Bless Americ and keep us the land of the free and the home of the brave. This movie had such a great message. It should be required watching in schools today. And I am a former teacher of 38 1/2 years.

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  15. I like October as it is my birth month as well. I like listening to stories and documentaries about the paranormal. I am not into the super spooky stuff for Halloween. I could get with dressing up. That was always fun for me.

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