fireside ghosts

a writing update

I am haunted by the one thing I’m not writing; my story collection, Fireside Ghosts.

My freelance work means I’m writing more than ever, but the ink doesn’t flow in the direction of my book. I scratch out story scraps in leftover hours. Pages turn cold. My brain blanks. I feel the stories retreat within me like mist dissolving on dawn’s hill.

This isn’t a lament. I often wonder if my books are meant to be written this way. In the margins of life’s fullness. With frisson and cramped fingers. Before beginnings and after ends. At the juncture of art and need. In the gloaming, when ghosts are like to appear.

When these moments arrive, I seize them between my teeth! Precious words need to be written, and there’s precious little time to write them in.

Yet, there’s always time for fear. The story sticks, the clock ticks. A whole morning ebbs away in a stricken wasteland. I’ve waited all week for this moment. To give space to the shades haunting sea and spire. To hold a candle to the shadows circling my heart. To clutch desperately at a land that’s disappearing. To be the banshee’s wail, or the gory sark staining the burn red.

Scotland is full of ghosts. Its people and places haunted by the centuries that have trailed before. Ancient voices cry against the wind. Fires flicker, both ritual and razing. The shout of the people echoes off the hillsides and goes unheeded, less troublesome than the stags who wet the corries with their blood.

Quieter are the tongues cut from language. The ripped-up roots. The drained bogs. Family ghosts driven from their castles. The green ladies ghosting the fields, women driven from the wild.

I tap pen against blank page. It’s so much, and all I know is how I feel. My eyes probably have a glazed, crazed look to passers-by (I find myself writing in cafes again). Really, I’m gazing within. But I see only fog, an imperfect vision, the dark side of the glass.

I’ve snatched a moment, but for what? To raise spirits that might never rest? Perhaps it’s time to stop trying. Perhaps, like my oldest ancestor, or an ailing neighbour, it’s time to give in.

The trouble in these parts is that the land of the dead neighbours the land of the living. I am but a mile down the road when something new reminds me of something old. An accent stirs up voices past. The very sky, emptied of eagles, pesters me.

So I must make room for these words. I will wrap them in the skin of fairies, in the cloak of witches, in the grave of ghosts. I will arrange them bone by bone if I have to, for they are the most important words of all.

Fridays are Fireside Ghost days. I protect them fiercely, a wildcat savouring solitude. Anything that gets words on the page is a good method. Lie! Leave the house! Disappear!

My tracks are scribbled notes, cake crumbs, and unanswered voicemails. My tricks are the right level of background noise, two lattes, and a timer. My treat is traveling paths unseen and visiting a kirkyard that holds more ghosts than there are graves.

I am writing this letter for me, but also for you. To inspire you to work on the creative thing that means the most. Even if it’s hard, even if you’re afraid or don’t have time. Because stories can’t be buried like bones. Stories are ghosts, and if left unwritten they’ll haunt you forever.

Today is Friday. Fireside Ghosts day. Time to seek a pleasant spot to write, hot coffee, perhaps a slice of cake, and a bronzed sarcophagus that rests in the cold, silent corner of a brooding cathedral.

Kate xx