Halloween Candy Trickle-Down-Theory (and the Countdown=1)

It's Halloween. What kind of candy blogger would I be if I didn't speak up today?

First off, I'm still trying to avoid sugar ingestion. It's not going very well. I had to make sugar cookies over the weekend (and frosting) for kids' school. While I only ended up eating one (broken) cookie, which was a WIN, I think I probably ate a full cup of dough. Not a win.

And that cherry-vanilla flavored frosting was sooooo tempting.

Sigh.

As for today, I didn't resist the Halloween candy in the ENORMOUS bowl. We live in one of "those" neighborhoods; you know: the kind with street lights, and without mean dogs on the loose or large spiny cactus on the "lawn." Therefore, we get hit pretty hard. In fact, one year, I swear I saw a BUS parked at the end of the road and people piling off it, coming through the houses wearing masks and holding pillowcases. Seriously, folks.

The bowl has to be ready for such contingencies. Therefore, I bought
EIGHT bags of mini-candy bars,
two bags of Sixlets,
two bags of Smarties,
two bags of Dubble Bubble,
the biggest bag of Dum-Dums I'd ever seen,
a bag of Sugar Babies,
a bag of Tootsie Pops,
possibly some other stuff I forgot.

I had a friend mention on Facebook that Halloween is a day where you end up trading candy you DO like for candy you DON'T. But I think I've already established there's no such thing as candy I don't like.

This morning I've been experimenting with the "trickle down" theory of sugar ingestion. In other words, I've chewed about fifteen pieces of Dubble Bubble. Since I spit out the gum as soon as it started to get tough, I told myself I wasn't really "eating" sugar. Yes, I realize this is a form of lying to myself. But, dang, it was good. I love that pink stuff.

Meanwhile, the gum is helping me concentrate on my writing organization. Only ONE day left until NaNo begins, and even though I can see I was probably delusional thinking I could really do it this year, with all the other responsibilities that are flinging themselves at me, I'm still going to at least give it the old college try. Go, Aggies! Anybody know how the Aggies are doing this year, by the way? I never pay attention. Didn't in college, either. Ha. Good thing I married a guy who cares more about raspberries than sports. He might (if I can cajole him into it) dress up like Clark Kent for trick-or-treating tonight. It's perfect. I'll be my usual--the witch.

An apology, Dickens, and how hubby slammed the Cadburys

First off, I must apologize for the mixed metaphor as title for my last blog post. I hope it bothers all my readers less than it bothers me. The truth is, I could go in and change it, but I choose to leave it there as a twisted form of "writer's punishment" for myself. Possibly as a motivator never to do it again. (Fodder and data-mining. One is food. One is mining. Honestly. I could have made an effort.)

So, I was reading (again) the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities the other day. I say "again" because I've read the beginning a LOT of times. I don't mean just the "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" part. I mean the first three chapters. Much as I love Dickens, (and I seriously do love Dickens and many of his contemporaries), this words on the pages of this book begin to swirl before my very eyes. I love the movie, I love the characters, it's magnificent. I just get stuck somewhere about halfway through.

I WILL conquer it, however. Someday.

In the meantime, I will continue to reflect on this little gem of writerly insight from the beginning. Dickens muses at the beginning of chapter three to this effect:

"A wonderful fact of nature to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

He goes on, and waxes eloquent in expounding on this theme. I love it. You can read it here. I have reflected on this idea dozens of times, and probably mentioned it to YOU (if you and I speak on any kind of regular basis because I'm like that, repeating myself everywhere I go). Even someone I think I know very well, like my husband, or my sister, or my bestest friend, still houses secrets I will never know. The thoughts, dark and light, will only come to my knowledge if the person allows me in.

It's a gift God gives us.

And, a friend commented Saturday, "Plus, do we really know ourselves?"

This struck me. And suddenly I realized something about fiction, and why we love it, why we crave it, why we almost need it: fiction allows us a window into another person's soul.

The writer slits open the character and gives us a view of deep feelings, of motives, of fears, of doubts and misgivings, of anger, hate, jealousy, love, longing, despair. The list goes on. And the more expertly the author delivers the emotions, the greater the connection the reader will feel to it, and the more satisfying it will be. Perhaps this is because we long to understand others, or ourselves. The writer conveys a full banquet of emotions we ourselves have felt, and probably not expressed to anyone. It comes as a relief to us to recognize those same emotions lain bare in someone else, even someone fictional. It doesn't matter if it's fictional, because the more real the emotions, the more real the character is to the reader.

Readers read for character. Character revelation is plot. We feel a connection to a character, we're most likely going to read that book. The greater the connection, the faster we read the book. Period.

Connection. A glance at the secret inner workings of the soul. Sometimes the character expresses the feelings, and sometimes the author can convey emotion that the character himself cannot recognize honestly in himself. Both deliveries can be valid, if done well.

And now, I need a new delivery: another bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, if you please. The one I bought just over 24 hours ago is officially empty. I even shook the little candy shards left in the crevices into my hand and popped them in my mouth. Did I share with the children? Maybe one or two. When Gary tasted them, he disparaged them (is that the root of the term "dissed?") and was thereafter forbidden, even while we were watching Hulu retreads and mindlessly popping candy in our mouths. Instead, I tossed him mini Twix bars in pastel mylar wrappers.

I know, I know, I am leaving out important detail, as in how Gary slammed the Cadburys. (Shame on him!) It's not nice to repeat low gossip. But since it's about chocolate and not a *person*, fine. Fine! He said the chocolate wasn't quite right. It was of low quality. How DARE he!

He's a chocolate snob, though. And I'll love him through thick and thin(mint) of it all. So, I guess I need to go buy him a Dove Dark Chocolate Bunny that he can chip the ears off and leave melty shards (speaking of shards) of on my bedspread during Hulu marathons while I hog the Cadburys. But he better keep his mitts of them. They're mine.