So the other day, Lauren Myracle writes to me and says, “I CHALLENGE YOU TO A HALLOWEEN SCARE-A-THON.”

And I was all, “Okay! I’ll do it! Also, what is that?”

Because I will often say I will do things long before I ever have the slightest idea what they are. I find that this keeps things interesting.

So she explained that she is challenging 13 authors (me, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, Libba Bray, Holly Black, M.T. Anderson, Melissa De La Cruz, Cassie Clare, Shannon Hale, Kirsten Miller, John Green, Sarah Mlynowski, and Stephenie Meyer) to do something that REALLY SCARES US by the Halloween. This thing must be recorded, either in blog or video format, for the world to see.

So I thought I had this one in the bag. Not that it is a competition . . . but I was still SO GOING TO WIN. I was going to win this in the same way that I used to say I was going to WIN several plays I was in by saying all my lines fastest and knocking over the other actors until I achieved VICTORY!

You can see why I thought this, I am sure. If you’ve read this blog ever, even once, you know that the one thing I have covered is fear. I have made a celebration of my many fears. I list them. I cultivate them. I treat them like they are my very own precious children. Asking me to name one fear is like asking me to pluck one beautiful flower from a garden the size of Rhode Island.

But as I started working my way down the list, I realized that this was going to be a lot harder than I first imagined.

JELLYFISH: Jellyfish are pretty much my number one fear, and the one I am sure people would suggest. But it is actually pretty hard to find a jellyfish in New York City. It was suggested that I could find one at the Natural History Museum, but a dead, stuffed jellyfish in a glass case does not alarm me. If anything, it convinces me that we are winning against them.

No, my fear is of the jellyfish in the wild, sneaking up on you, alone or in a gang, while you swim. I could go to the beach, but it is kind of freezing out, and I’ll bet you I don’t even SEE a jellyfish there. I would probably have to go to Australia or something to see a jellyfish, and I am not going to be able to do that by Friday.

AMUSEMENT PARK RIDES: Roller coasters, turny-turny things, spinny things, upside-downy things, ferris wheels . . . I hate ‘em! (With the exception of the tilt-a-whirl, which for some reason, I like. But it must be a genuine tilt-a-whirl.) I am the person who never wants to go to the annual “street fair of death” in my neighborhood, with it its questionable, rickety rides designed to thin out the population, one carnival ticket at a time.

(Oh, they don’t CALL it the “street fair of death.” They call it a fun fair. That’s exactly what they called that festival of bad ideas I went to in the Midwest, where the biggest attraction was a crane manned by two fourteen year old guys—the one that had a cardboard sign that said, “crane rides $5” and when you gave them the $5 they would hoist you up and swing you.)

But all the local amusement parks/street fairs of death are closed, as far as I know. Problem!

WATERSLIDES: My loathing of waterslides is profound. I can think of almost nothing worse then being flung down a dark, twisting tube filled with water until you are expectedly dumped into a larger pool of water. But again, it is cold, and they are closed.

You see what I mean. I kept working my way down the list. Wasps, butterflies that go right for your face, the coming explosion of the sun . . . there was no way I could directly confront these things. In several cases, I found that I had already confronted fears. Like my fear of swimming with/touching tiny, colorful tropical fish. I committed this act of madness in Aruba a few months ago.

Even more annoying . . . I don’t seem to be concerned by many things that scare other people to death. I love to fly. I even enjoy turbulence. I find a ride in a New York taxi cab going ninety miles an hour through heavy traffic and yellow lights healthy and enjoyable. I snoozed through horror movies like The Ring. Clowns are quite nice people. Spiders don’t particularly bother me. Snakes are okay. I downright ADORE zombies. (Why, nothing brings a smile to my face like that scene in Dawn of the Dead where all the zombies are trying to ice skate and use the mall escalators!)

I was starting to seem . . . kind of brave. Which was incredibly distressing. Because I KNOW I HAVE THE MOST FEAR.

I got more and more desperate. I even checked in with the New York Trapeze School, because that is definitely on my “no &#^$ing way” list. But they were all booked! And when I watched the little video, it didn’t even seem THAT scary. Al Roker did it. (I am not saying Al Roker is scared of everything. I’m just saying that things seem much less scary when you have seen Al Roker do them.)

What it essentially boiled down to were three kinds of things:

1. Things that I am afraid of for good reason: running into traffic, falling down elevator shafts, being shot at.

2. Things that I am definitely afraid of, but will not come up: being sent into space, being attacked by the Jonas Brothers, somebody making a sequel to the movie “Rat Race.”

3. Things I’m not so much scared of but just don’t feel like doing: getting a lip piercing, listening to two hours worth of recorded Robocalls, eating a large piece of government cheese, etc.

I was in a total panic, and then I remembered . . . I have you guys. And you guys are smart. You will know a scary thing. I need your help. It needs to be something scary and achievable by FRIDAY.

Your ideas will be featured, discussed, and celebrated . . . so make them good!

Leave your suggestions in the comments. If I use yours, you get a signed book OF YOUR CHOICE, Suite Scarlett or Let it Snow!

Posted: Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
Categories: Lauren Myracle, fear, scary things.
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