nightmares and ghosts

Current work: Proofs of Norfolk Miscellany; nonfic; Medical
Listening to: Brad Paisley, Fifth Gear (again thanks to lovely Biddy for the recommendation)
Reading: various nonfic and church guides (is research)

For some reason, I’m having a week of nightmares. As DH isn’t well, it wouldn’t be fair of me to wake him and whimper and demand a cuddle, so I’ve been going down to my desk and playing Solitaire to calm me back into a state where I can go back to sleep. Sunday night’s was a chiller, but I know where that came from – talking to a fellow Med author about her plans for her next book, except my head warped it into a horror novel. (Ha. Caroline Anderson, that's no chocolate for you on Friday, then.) Monday wasn’t a dream, but a scratchy throat that woke me up because I couldn’t swallow. And last night was a full-on ghost story, complete with cold spots. I was freezing when I woke.

I live in a modern house. We were the first occupants. The land on which it’s built (I’m ashamed to say) was nothing but fields, according to the maps I have of the area from the late eighteenth century and the more up-to-date aerial surveys. So it’s not like the 200-year-old cottage in which I grew up, where there was a ghost story attached to the house and various unexplainable things happened. So there was no reason why I should feel absolutely freezing cold. (Actually, in the dream, the ghosts – two little boys – were scared by the person I was with. And it was our old house – only a room I’d never seen before. It involved carbon monoxide poisoning – now, I do know where that one comes from, as it’s a case in my current medical.)

Eventually I managed to get back to sleep – thankfully, not back to the dream, but it’s stayed with me. At the moment, I’m writing nonfic ghost stories; but if my dreams were based on what I was doing yesterday, I should have dreamed of Black Shuck or the angels in the roof of Blythburgh church rather than the story that spooked me so much.

I used to write fictional ghost stories. Must swank here: one was published by Virago, back in 1991. It was going to be read live on BBC Radio Edinburgh at Halloween, that year, but unfortunately the connection to BBC Norfolk didn’t work – but that in itself gave me an idea for another story... This morning, I was looking up some research material and discovered that the three Virago compilations were reissued in one volume last year. It isn’t clear whether all the stories are included; but if they are, it means mine has shelf-life again and I’ll be very chuffed. (Yeah, yeah. Excuse to buy books. Bad Kate. Take as read that I ordered it this morning...)