This reader comment is a counterpoint to my post last week, reprinted here with permission from the author.

Do not stop. The day this post went up my 13 year old son spent the entire day reading. It was the first time this had ever happened. Learning to read was difficult for him. I’ve worried that he would never learn to enjoy it, never experience getting lost in a book. Our house is full of books. I’ve offered them to him, tried to entice him into trying them, left the ones I thought he’d like lying on his bed or out on the coffee table. He never took the bait.
But wandering through the library he picked a book, the first in a series. He slogged his way through an hour of reading at a time. The day this post went up, he finished. Then he asked if he could start the second book in the series. He asked my permission to read! Once I generously granted him permission to read for longer than an hour, he got started. He read all day. The way I did as a kid, the way I still do if given the chance. He got lost in a book! I couldn’t stop smiling.

In the days since, I find him on the front step – reading. In the tree in the backyard – reading. Bothering his brother by having the light on at night so he can read.
He walked through the library and there were thousands of books he passed by, but he found the one he needed. I’m so grateful it was there.

If you don’t have to write – don’t.

I’ve written fiction for between 1 and 2 hours a day for 98% of my days over the last 3 years. The other 2%, I felt guilty. Last week I finished a draft of a new novel, and decided to take a few guilt-free days off.

Let me tell you something. Not writing is amazing.

I was awash in time. I remembered I had friends and a wife and a child. In the afternoon, I revisited the sun. Over the course of a year, two hours a day can produce an unpublishable novel. Over the course of a day, two hours can reconnect you with an old friend, pay your bills, make love to your wife, eat a killer Reuben sandwich, and put you outside in the sun with a beer. Multiply that by 365. That’s good times.

You may think there are higher callings in this world than making love, eating Reubens, and drinking beer in the sun. First off, you’re wrong. Second, writing is not that higher calling.

Fallacy 1: The world needs my story.

Really? Go stand in a bookstore and feel the silent pressure of thousands of untold stories. This is more effective when the bookstore is being gutted and turned into a Yogurt Extreme. Or stand in a library, in that stale part of the library, where a great author is being thoroughly unread by the people in your city. If you really care about connecting people to great stories, you should be a teacher. Or a librarian. Is your story any better than the unread millions? Is it more important because you happen to be alive? Perhaps you believe –

Fallacy 2: Writing will make me prominent, respected, and famous.

Are you still in the library? Take a stroll down the aisles and marvel at the number of sad-sack authors you’ve never heard of. Do you think your family and friends will respect you more once you’ve been published? Either they respect and understand you now, or they’ll never respect you or your stories because they still won’t understand them. Your stories come from the same bizarre, confounding backwaters you do.

Yes — people do respect money and publicity. But as Ursula K. Le Guin pointed out, “Trying to get rich writing is a damn-fool idea.” Let’s say the average book advance is $30,000. Here’s how much you can make at McDonald’s.

Fallacy 3: I will leave a mark on society.

Let me remind you of the hush in the library. Yogurt Extreme. And the publishing business. You probably won’t make it. Odds are the manuscript you’re toiling over will be read by about 4 people. You could volunteer for two hours at a food pantry and touch more lives. Or you could make your wife a Reuben. You could make me a Reuben . I’d rather eat a sandwich than read a novel 10 times out of 10. This includes my own drafts. Claiming society needs your specific book is like claiming society needs you to have a baby — because you will produce a superior product. The One.

New baby or new novel, you aren’t doing the world any favors. But more people will want to see the baby.

Conclusion:

If you don’t have an editor, you don’t need to write for anyone. So don’t. The world has not asked this of you. The world has probably, on occasion, asked you to stop.

But maybe you’re a peculiar kind of person. Maybe writing makes you a better thinker. It helps you feel more deeply, puts you in the mind of flow, ecstasy, the thrill of completion, the unlocking of emotional puzzles, the strange power of words to activate memories, to tell you stories you didn’t know you had. Maybe it feels, sometimes, like the best part of being alive.

Which is why that afternoon in the sun, after my beer and Reuben, I reached for a pen and a notebook and I wrote this post. Because it makes me happy. Because I love it. Because I can’t goddamn help myself.

It only took three beers for me to tell my wife I was in love with another man. It’s okay. This had happened before.

“Tobias Wolff. His prose, baby,” I said, head in my hands at the Bier Stein. “It’s so clean.”

“I know, Jeff.”

“So fucking clean.”

“Right.”

We were having this conversation (again) because I have a blood alcohol trigger of .04% which sets off: 1) irrelevant stories about ex-girlfriends, 2) the endless rehashing of arguments I didn’t — but very nearly — had that day, and 3) teary approbation of Truman Capote and Tobias Wolff.

My reptile brain has been conditioned toward item 3, which can be discussed at some length without forfeiting either additional beers or bed privileges. So on it went. At the Bier Stein. The Jackalope. The entire way home. Directed eventually to our nanny, frozen in the doorway, trying to leave.

“Bullet to the Brain,’ sure! Who hasn’t! But how about ‘Hunters in the Snow?’ How about ‘Nightingale?’ Read that little beauty, and when you’re done bawling your eyes out, give me a call.”

Our nanny did not convincingly commit to reading “Nightingale” before she left. I was lamenting this aloud, sitting in my easy chair with a half-finished pint when it struck me.

“Hey,” I said, popping into the bathroom. My wife was brushing her teeth. “Tobias Wolff is alive. He’s breathing. Not even far from here. I could drive down to Stanford in less than a day.”

“You have your crazy eyes on, baby,” she said, spitting in the sink.

I went into my bedroom and Googled the drive time from Eugene to Stanford. Just nine hours. Then I checked out Stanford’s faculty bio pages. Tobias Wolff had a page. His very own, publicly-viewable page. With office hours.

“Holy shit,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Oh, holy shit.”

“What?”

“Tobias Wolff has office hours!”

“So?”

“So, look. There’s a phone number. And a certain time he’ll be there. By the phone.”

“That’s his job.”

“But – holy shit, you know?”

She fixed me with a look I’ve come to associate with the end of the conversation.

“I should call him now,” I said.

“Yeah?” she said. “Go ahead.”

“Really?”

“You should do it.” With the threat of a prank call, I had awoken in my wife a slumber-partying 7^th grader. She advanced. “Call him. Do it. Call Tobias Wolff.”

“What if he answers?”

“It’s eleven thirty at night.”

“But what if?”

“Then you’ll have to talk to him.”

I nodded solemnly, playing the part of a man who would accept the consequences of his actions. This, all the while knowing I would let Tobias Wolff talk a few precious moments then hang up, power down my phone, and throw it in the creek. I would also, in the long run, consider this worth it.

I dialed nine numbers then hung up.

“Seriously?” she said.

I dialed his full number. Tobias Wolff’s number. She huddled by the receiver for five unnerving rings. Then, the click of an answering machine.

The canned voice began: Hello, you have reached – and then,  – “TOBIAS WOLFF” – please record blah blah blah.

I hung up. I’d heard the man. “Tobias Wolff.” He had spoken his name with authority. Military background, evident.  That voice. This was not a man to trifle with. For a moment, I considered all the guns in his stories. Probably one gun per 5 pages, now that I thought about it.

“So that’s it?” my wife asked.

I set down my phone. My hand was actually shaking. I wasn’t ready for this. Imagine if he had answered. Hell, imagine if he had recorded the entire message. I closed the faculty page. I cleared my cache, then closed my browser. As I was leaving my office, I heard my wife down the hall.

“Tobias, it’s okay. I love you, Tobias. I love you so much.”

I froze – a prickling on the back of my neck.

Then she started into a lullaby. I sighed. She was in the next room with Tobias, our two-year-old son.

Thank God. For a second there, things had almost gotten weird.

There is an art to passing notes. The paper used. The size of the lettering. The optional heart to dot the “i”. And the fold! More instrumental to dramatic impact than Syd Field’s three-act structure, more carefully considered than the page-turns of a Mo Willems picture book.

A note is intimate.

It’s slipped into secret places. Pressed firmly into your hand. Their fingers fold it shut, yours pick it apart. And there are secrets in handwriting. Strength behind the pen. The slant of letters, upright and strolling, or leaned forward rushing into the wind. Scribbled out redactions — storm clouds and black boxes — begging to be held up to the light. Reading a note, you see the hand of its creator.

Because texting is a download. Passing notes is a mix tape.

Writing a note is easy compared to passing it. The first note I ever passed went to a girl named Lexi who had two blonde pigtails, really nice teeth, and a name that rhymed with an incredibly tantalizing word which qualified as 7-year-old profanity.

Lexi sat in my row. Having a beautiful girl in your row when you’re seven is like having a gorgeous upstairs neighbor in your twenties. It’s beyond advantage. It’s a challenge — almost a cruel one. Because when a note is your primary means of courtship, your selection of potential classmates is limited to the x and y axes.

Passing a secret note through the hands of your peers is like shipping gold bars in a gold-painted boat wearing a monocle and a top hat just off the Somali coast. Even so, your most promising routes run north and south, east and west. Checkers, not chess. Grade schoolers don’t know how to play chess, and if you start trying to castle or hop around like a giddy little knight – checkmate.

Lexi was four seats ahead. That meant shipping though the straights of Steve, Susie, and Simon. I had done all due diplomacy: lunch trades, Valentines — but these were second graders. They could turn on me any time. So I kept it simple. Just a few words and a 6-step rectangle fold:

Lexi had a choice. She had to take her pen and with her own hand draw a Lexi-circle around my Jeff-yes or my Jeff-no. Then, she had to publish her decision to three classmates before the cable returned to my desk – hallowed artifact or badge of shame.

Time crawled. Twenty minutes later, Susie handed my crudely refolded note back to me with a look I can only describe as psshh.  And I know this story is supposed to be heartbreaking, but Lexi circled “Yes.” An amazing moment – perhaps my most victorious achievement as a suitor in my entire academic life.

It made my week. Maybe my 2nd grade year.

Lexi moved away a short time later and I never saw her again. But that didn’t matter. Like it didn’t matter that absolutely nothing changed between us after I passed her that note. We stood with our own friends at the playground. We ate separately. I could barely look her in the eye. But we were bound by a plus. She wrote it with her own hand, and I had the note to prove it.

The first rule of a YA conference is: Don’t talk about your novel. The second rule of a YA conference? DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR NOVEL.

You can talk about your dog. Your adorable cat. Writers love cats. You can talk about what you had for lunch, or your favorite 80s band. That’s how I met this co-blogger. You can talk about the best pint of beer in New York City. That’s how I met this guy.

But don’t talk about your novel. When you talk about your novel, you are self-publishing with your mouth. You are a vanity press, and the cover is a giant picture of your face.

Sending a query letter with your mouth is worse than sending it over the internet.  It’s worse than a blinking pop up ad for male enhancement drugs. You can close a pop up ad. The person you are talking to cannot close your mouth. They will click and click a phantom mouse, index finger unconsciously tapping the stem of their wine glass. If it’s an agent or an editor, they will be thinking CTRL-Z, CTRL-Z, trying to undo their decision to stand next to you. They cannot. And you cannot CTRL-Z later as you lie in your hotel bed, thinking “Was that weird?”

Yes, it was weird.

And that person will never again make the mistake of standing by your side. They will stand next to other people and talk about more amusing topics, like the story about being trapped in a conversation with you.

Assume no one in the room accepts unsolicited submissions, even conversational ones. You are a vampire. You must be invited in. If a person happens to ask you about your novel, tell them. Just be brief. If you aren’t on an elevator, pretend you are. If they seem genuinely interested and keep asking questions, just make sure they aren’t charging by the hour.

Here’s the thing: We know you have a novel. If you didn’t have a novel, you wouldn’t have paid hundreds of dollars to be here. You’re also a fellow writer. And that means you’re INTERESTING. With any luck, more interesting than your book. You probably share the same endearing snobbishness about coffee or beer or 8-bit video games or musical theatre. You likely have similar lack-of-sunlight tendencies and also eagerly anticipate the release of the DSM-V to finally learn what the hell is wrong with you.

So, yeah. Talk about yourself. Be yourself. If you didn’t have something worth saying, you wouldn’t be a writer. Same goes with everyone else. Look people in the eye, not the name tag. Don’t pretend to be interested. Be interested. People are interesting, that’s why we write about them. So ask people about their passions, their dreams, their favorite restaurant, their kids, why they made the ass-backward decision to become a writer.

And if you freeze – if you absolutely can’t think of anything else – go ahead and ask them about their novel. Then pray to God they read this post.

1. I will stop reading books I don’t care about.

I’ve gone to enough SCBWI Conferences to have heard:

1) “You need to be aware of what’s happening in the market. You should read 100 books like the one you want to publish and understand the trends.”

2) “You should only read what you love.”

I’ve heard both, and I prefer the latter. So that’s what I’m sticking with.

If there were 100 books like the one I wanted to write, I wouldn’t write it. I’m writing the kind of book I want to read because I haven’t found it yet. So to hell with reading the hot YA titles that make me feel like I’m falling asleep at church. Or the mall. The only thing those books give me is a false sense of superiority. If they can sell a million copies, hell, I can sell a BILLION COPIES! Which is delusional. I don’t need to feel superior. I need to be inspired.

2. I will not get better at Twitter.

I suck at Twitter, and my plan for 2013 is to embrace that. I envy certain people in my life who have a family and a day job and write and still manage to jack-in-the-box their avatar into every meaningful conversation on YA literature and leave with 17 new followers, 8 klout points and a book deal. Good for them. But it ain’t me.

Twitter activates my most schizophrenic, obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I become a slave to the blinking notification light on my phone. I edit and retype and re-edit my 140 characters while the clock for relevance ticks away, along with my writing time, my family time, and my Anything Please God Anything But Twitter Time.

I write novels. I need to immerse myself in my stories. In life around me. I need to tap deeply into my environment and relationships and my subconscious rather than flitting across the surface of the internet like a goddamn water bug, trying to be incisive enough to be interesting and innocuous enough to avoid pissing people off.

“You’re trying too hard!” my Twitter friends say. “Just be yourself! That’s all you have to do!”

Deal. I will be myself. I will suck at Twitter, and I’ll stop feeling bad about it.

3. I will be unafraid.

After one develops competence as a writer, the next step is to overcome The Fear. The fear of writing the wrong kind of book. A book that will offend people. A book your friends or family won’t like. A book about a topic too close to home.

I hit the competence mark a few years ago, but the fear hurdle has taken longer. This year, I want everything I write to be as unabashedly heartfelt, violent, minimalist, over the top, romantic, creepy, sexy, and/or vulgar as is authentic to the story. Not an ounce of “What will —– think?” This year, I can’t care about that. I’m just writing it.

This one is hard for me. So if you’re standing on the sidelines, cheer me on. If you’re one of my critique partners – brace yourself.

4. I will not make bullshit resolutions.

In years past, I’ve resolved to read a book a week and do social media for half an hour a day. I’ve resolved to finish writing two books, to sell one, and to sign with an agent. These were bullshit resolutions. They addressed the symptoms of my issues rather than root causes.

I can’t control what I sell or who signs me. I wasn’t reading enough because I didn’t like the books I was forcing myself to read. I haven’t written the best novel I’m capable of because I’ve been afraid to. And I haven’t tweeted enough because I fucking hate Twitter.

So, dear reader. If you catch me reading a hot new paranormal YA series, tweeting with competence, or writing scared, you will have the opportunity to vote upon an appropriate punishment for me on the BDR blog come December, 2013.

But good luck – I think I’ve got this one in the bag.

The first magazine to publish one of my stories had a cover with a blonde pinup holding a bloody butcher knife and pink handbag spilling over with severed body parts. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

More so, since a first publication is the one your mother orders twenty copies of and sends to grandma, your high school teachers, and her friends from church. This was a grand achievement for me: publication, and a giant middle finger to everyone who told me I should be writing literary fiction.

Literary fiction writers are, after all, assholes to genre fiction writers. The same way adult fiction writers are assholes to young adult writers. Yes. All of them.

I have a history with this. I grew up reading Stephen King, Christopher Pike, and Ray Bradbury. I met Ray Bradbury when I was 14 and handed him a terrible science fiction story I’d written.

“Keep writing,” he said, looking me in the eye. “Keep writing, okay?”

From that point on, Ray and I were in the trenches together. I was a grunt in the army of General Bradbury and Admiral King. I made an oath to protect them from the vagaries of high school English teachers and an endless army of immaculately scarfed MFA students. The more they told me genre fiction wasn’t important writing, the more fiercely I defended it. Still do.

There is nothing intrinsically more difficult or praiseworthy about writing an excellent piece of literary fiction than an excellent piece of genre fiction. Same goes for YA and adult. Damned be the dismissive. Cursed be the pompous small presses, and anyone who says only YA. Or only science fiction. I hate you still.

But with my personal tastes, something strange happened. My reading habits migrated. Horror and science fiction receded, eclipsed by Capote, Steinbeck, Wolff, and Kafka. I couldn’t stop talking about them. While in my science fiction writing group I never knew who the hell anyone was reading. Jemisin? Lightman? Who? At a recent young adult conference, I had a similar experience:

“When’s the last time you read a young adult fantasy?” the woman across the table from me asked, having exhausted a list of recent titles.

“I really can’t remember.”

“Then why are you writing young adult fantasy?”

It’s taken me five months to answer. This is the best I can figure: I made the mistake of exclusively writing genre fiction for the same reason people may exclusively write literary fiction. Because I wanted to be a certain kind of writer. But there was something more insidious at play in my case – which brings me to my confession.

I was scared.

Growing up, I was weaned on a steady stream of Hollywood films, comic books, and high-concept stories. I began my writing career with teleplays and scripts. Syd Field’s SCREENPLAY was in my backpack until the binding broke. I memorized The Hero’s Journey.

I know when a plot works. I know when a concept is interesting. That makes big concepts safe for me.

It’s easy for me to dish out a hook and hear – “That’s a great concept.” It makes for excellent query letters and tight elevator pitches. It’s enough to give one the confidence to, say, sit down and type 100,000 words.

But it’s a mantra that has limited me: I’ve got a solid concept. This book will sell.  

This truth revealed itself slowly, over the course of attempting my latest novel. It began: I’m going to write a story about a middle school master of the occult, complete with demons and interdimensional travelers. (20,000 words later.) No. What I really want to write is a story about a kid with a rare memory condition who casts spells to relieve the pressures of remembering too much. (15,000 words later.) Shit. I actually want to write about a kid with a rare memory condition and how it affects his ability to relate to his peers. (25,0000 words later.)  Fucking kill me. I want to write a goddamn book about a kid’s ability to relate to his peers.

In hindsight, I was clinging to the edge of the genre cliff, gravity plucking my fingers off one by one. When I finally let go, I fell into another story. When I did, the plot came to me in a single chunk, as if delivered by a muse. More accurately, as if it had been painstakingly constructed, piece by piece, behind the velvet curtain of my subconscious, where it waited patiently for me to grow the balls to write it.

I’ve written 60,000 words in the last six weeks, and it feels like a risk. Like I’m tearing this one out of my heart, word by word. Writing should feel that way.

There’s no surefire plot. No world building or magic systems. That’s why this book scares the hell out of me. But I’m learning to cope with the horror of it all. I’ve had plenty of practice.

How do you fall in love with your next novel when the first one hasn’t sold? Or the second, or third?

With love and novels, there’s nothing like the first time. You get swept up. Your story is a wave you’ll ride as far as it carries you. Blindly, you follow the words. Your endless, spewing streams of words. Perhaps you even stop re-reading your words the next morning. That’s how stupid in love you are.

Then comes the day you find yourself in still water, deserted by the tide and clutching an overwritten first draft. You are lost at sea. You are suddenly freezing your ass off and your manuscript doesn’t even float. Nor does it fly – unlike the flesh-eating vultures circling above. Doubt and self-loathing swoop down, pecking at your sunburned little ears.

“What were you thinking?” they chatter. “That shit is 200,000 words long. And you have a male protagonist? This is a YA novel for the love of God.”

And because your ego-driven riptide is no longer carrying you like a ski-doo in a Go Caribbean ad, you realize your draft is, in fact, completely unsalable. This thing you loved is now roped to your neck like a pulpy goddamn albatross. And make no mistake:

This book is going to kill you.

This thing you slaved over. This novel you wouldn’t talk about with your writer friends or speak about over a whisper for fear someone would steal it is actually a noose you’ve cheerfully woven for yourself and worn like a necktie to a cocktail party. And at this poignant moment of discovery, you have two choices: full-blown 1) revision or 2) alcoholism. But you are too poor to buy that much booze and not famous enough to be tolerated as a Hunter S. Thompson knock-off.

So you will revise.

Unfortunately, revision doesn’t happen at sea. It happens back on the shore where your family and friends are patiently being neglected, waiting for you to bring them back a book deal. You swim back unpublished, and the fickle, subconscious current has now deserted you for a bunch of hang-ten chuckleheads writing their shitty NaNoWriMo books.

It’s hard to recover, once you’ve been burned. I truly believed my first novel was brilliant. Doubtlessly better than anything my peers had written, and superior to 95% of what sat on my shelves. This belief was important. It fueled my sitting down three hours a day to finish. But it turns out my story wasn’t very good. It took me a year to realize that. How could I have been so proud of my work? How could I ever trust my instincts again?

It was tempting to stop writing. To leave the big waters of imagination, and move somewhere internally Midwestern. The great South Bend Indiana of the Soul, perhaps. Keep my horizon dry and agricultural. Write fan fiction. Take shallow baths.

But after three months with a zero word count, I didn’t care how bad or unpublished my book was. What I missed was the writing.

Because writing is the best part. Yes, logically, I know my next first draft will be full of problems. That’s the price I’ve paid for writing a book, then having gone back to read it. But what’s also logical is this: Falling in love is the only part you can count on. And you will do it again. Not because it make sense. Because you’re an idiot. A romantic. A writer. And you can’t help but be swept up. As Anne Lamont writes in BIRD BY BIRD:

“Sometime later you’ll find yourself at work on, maybe really into, another book, and once again, you figure out that the real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.”

So you’re going to make it. Out to sea, and back again. You’re going to fall in love because you don’t have a choice. So follow the advice of Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Boys Don’t Read.

Concerning first drafts, Hemingway said: “The only important thing is that you finish it.”

Concerning love, Mark Twain said: “Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”

And Boys Don’t Read would like to add: “Write your first draft like you’ve never had to read one.”

Do plastic pumpkins, candy corn, and endless zombies have you dreading what may be just another tired go-around this October 31^st? Worry not! We at Boys Don’t Read have five easy tips to make this Halloween one to remember.

Tip #1. Relocate your living quarters to an unmarked burial ground.

You may think being unmarked would make these burial grounds hard to find, but you’d be dead wrong. Just dial up your local real estate office and ask away. The number of Hollywood movie plots that revolve around unmarked graveyards has made these properties HOT HOT HOT! And burial grounds can save B-horror movie directors so much cash in special effects and excavatable props they’ve actually appreciated in value during the recession. Act now while horror-movie remakes are still in demand and interest rates are low!

Tip #2.  Spend Halloween in a broken-down cabin with morally bankrupt friends and a good book. Preferably the Necronomicon.

Nothing says “haunt me and kill me” like making the ass-backwards decision to pack up your car and drive to a broken-down cabin in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Despite countless examples, this remains a popular way to get yourself killed. As a bonus, bring along someone who can’t hold a camera steady and the book-on-tape version of the typically flesh-bound Necronomican. Then kick back, relax, and let the Halloween spirit do its thing!

Tip #3. Harass an unpopular and potentially telekinetic classmate.

Whether you use pig’s blood, a prayer closet, or good ol’ fashioned hazing, nothing sets up an unforgettable holy-shit-my-entire-town-is-burning-to-the-ground Halloween like upsetting a socially-awkward telekinetic person. If you’re unsure of who may be telekinetic – here are a few simple tricks of the trade: 1) Look for someone who is suppressing their ordinarily attractive appearance. Attractive telekinetics are notorious for baiting bullies into revengable acts. 2) Walk around with a pocketful of ball bearings and toss them at people’s foreheads. If one suddenly stops and hovers in the air – BINGO! 3) If other methods fail, go ahead and bully everyone you meet. Supernatural revenge will be at your doorstep before you know it!

Tip #4. Buy a creepy old doll. Chances are it’s possessed.

You can hardly swing a grimoire in a graveyard without hitting a doll-cursing warlock these days. So head on down to an antique store or dead person’s house and pick up a doll. Whether your foolishly acquired new pal contains the displaced soul of a serial killer, a demon from the seventh circle of hell, or lacks anything resembling a coherent backstory, you have about a 50/50 chance of waking up to a freshly-murdered family on Halloween morning. To increase your chances, leave a few scalpels lying around or stuff entire rooms of your colonial home with these glassy-eyed, porcelain-skinned little killers. If you’re strapped for cash, puppets work too!

Tip #5. Open a gate to another world for personal gain.

Very little guarantees a whiz-bang Halloween like opening a trans-dimensional portal just to feed your own megalomaniacal ego. So spin the wheel of lusty motivations, grab the handle, and give a yank! What’s great about trans-dimensional portals is their lack of predictability. It’s anyone’s guess whether you’ll be physically mutilated by Cenobites, imprisoned in a gloomy parallel universe, attacked by Cthulu, or just straight-up murdered. But I can promise you one thing: You won’t get exactly what you hoped for. Unless, of course, all you ever wanted to was to have the best Halloween ever – in which case you can’t go wrong. And that’s what we at Boys Don’t Read call a win, win, win.

Good luck, and Happy Halloween!

As of October 28, 2012. Boys Don’t Read has exactly 666 comments. This close to Halloween? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? You, dear readers, are scaring the hell out of us.