Something creepy came my way a few weeks ago. Call it lucky, call it just plain old spooky, but for sure it has enhanced my WIP.
I was working on the umpteenth draft of my ghost short story, this time writing on my ipad. I had written half a page but had to stop to go to an appointment. I then emailed this draft to myself.
The next day, when I opened the attachment on my laptop, there, just below where I had left off, was a line of what appeared at first to be a random string of letters. I thought that I must have pressed the keyboard without realising. But when I looked more closely, I saw that the letters were not random at all but spelt out someone’s name in a manic kind of way as well as some other words. I felt a cold chill run through me. A ghost!
At first I was scared, thinking that this thing was looking over my shoulder as I wrote, telling me what I should write. But since reworking the story to accomodate this ghostly line, the plot has grown in strength and is a whole lot creepier.
Whoever you are, ghost writer, I am grateful to you.
I’m afraid you will have to wait until ’13 Ghosts’ (an anthology of ghostly short stories published by Penguin) comes out next year to see what my resident ghost writer said.
Where did the illustration of the eyes come from?
These eyes are from a larger painting of a youth’s face that I took while visiting the Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The full painting is of the face of a Roman boy. I felt that it was particularly haunting because it was painted after his death.
Wow. A REAL ghost writer. You had better acknowledge them in you angel list.
I will credit this ghost writer for sure! I’m hoping that she will provide many more precious gems.
Wow, very creepy – I suppose if you are going to be harrassed by a ghost, you want one who can help with the writing and not just hang about idling the hours.
She must have been a frustrated writer when she was alive!