Help Countdown To Halloween

Skull-A-Day is always counting down to Halloween, but we're especially doing that in the month of October and our friends at Countdown To Halloween would love you to participate too. Here are the details from John Rozum...

On October 1, 2006, a handful of bloggers spontaneously created their own Halloween Countdowns, month long celebrations of Halloween and all of its affiliated trappings; books, movies, decorations, art, costumes, nostalgia, comics, traditions, lore, masks, yard haunting, games, etc. It didn’t take long for us to find each other, especially since some of us were already on each others radar. We began providing links to each other, and to sites that had the same spirit of the Halloween Countdown, even if they were not actually conducting one.

The following year these same bloggers loosely assembled, and were joined over the course of the month by around forty participants. In 2008 I decided to create an official list of links, which everyone participating was welcome to post on their own blogs. My feeling that there were still plenty of people blogging about Halloween all month long, and not finding the audience the deserved, or the sense of community that really began to make this annual event fun. My hope was that they’d stumble onto at least one of the participating blogs, and would find the list of links to everyone else. It turns out that this was the case, as we had a list of over 70 participating sites by the end of the month. This year I anticipate even more.

The beauty of the Halloween Countdown is that even with so many people taking part, each of whom is posting at least one thing each day (or at least striving to) throughout October, there has been very little overlap, even after three years. It's pretty astonishing if you think about it.

Anyone is welcome to join. There is no criteria, except that, obviously, these should be posts that have some connection to Halloween. While almost everyone strives to post something each day, as any one of the veterans will tell you, unless you start preparing your posts ahead of time, you’re in for a lot of grief. That is to say, don’t pressure yourself into daily posts if you can’t do it. The purpose is to have fun, and to participate in a community of like-minded individuals who are sharing some really great treats all month long.

This year Shawn Robare created a launch site for the Countdown, which will include a constantly revised list of links to participating blogs. Joining in is as simple as visiting

http://www.countdowntohalloween.com/

and notifying either Shawn or Myself, or leaving a comment in the links page which will be up on October 1 at Midnight.

-John Rozum

John even shared his lovely illustration "The Changing of the Guard" (shown above) to get you inspired! Hope you'll join in the fun.