Fear, Mojo & Haunted Houses

On Oct 5th, the GREAT WRITING SEASON OF BETHAN CHRISTOPHER begins.

In the build up, I’ve been getting the fear and so, to take a deep breath and give myself a motivational slap around the head, I have taken a little retreat to my mum’s house.

My mum is away and her house is in the deep country-side. This naturally provides:

1. Calm space to sit and plan.

2. Fields and hills to ramble in.

3. Uninterrupted time to mull da’ plot, hang out with my characters and try to destress (not distress) about the idea of having to write a bloody book.

4. Long stretches of time to lie on the floor and drink tea (cautiously) in rooms where beverages are usually forbidden.

5. Sleep. As a rural sanctuary, there's no traffic, little noise and the nights are dark, starry and unfathomably still.

All looking good.

(Cough).

What I forgot - what I always forget - is that this house acts like it's haunted. Without fail, whenever I stay here, it tries to kick me out. Past examples of such ejection attempts are:

1.     Power cuts

2.     WiFi blackouts

3.     Clouds of invisible mosquitos that emerge from nowhere

4.     Heatwaves and MORE mosquitos

5.     Doors locking when they should be open

6.     Doors opening when they should be closed

7.     Doors slamming angrily when no one is there

8.     My children having night terrors about men hiding in wardrobes with top hats on

9.     Loft hatches falling open, unannounced

It isn't just me that this stuff happens to either, but anyone who stays or distrupts the "normal" energy. Some people - in fact more than a few - have suggested it's haunted.

The last person was my mother's friend who came to dog-sit. She called me at 2am one morning, shrieking and petrified, demanding to know if there was a poltergeist. Apparently the bathroom door had locked itself from the inside and now she could hear the light inside making a “screaming sound”.

I decided (as she was alone and clearly quite upset) to refrain from telling her the awful story of when a group of builders had come to extend the house and they'd each been picked off, one by one, hospitalised by freak accidents or dreadful life events. It was a miracle that the dorma window extension in my mother's bedroom ever got finished, and less of a wonder that we ended up referring to that chapter of the house as "The Dorma Trauma".

I also didn't to tell her about when we first moved here (I was four), the water pipes burst spontaneously and the entire place flooded, destroying every room from top to bottom. Or the fact that my dad had a local priest come and exorcise the property just beforehand.

I didn't mention that my brother and I had bizarre childhood dreams about a shrunken African witchdoctor who used to climb the side of the house and look into the windows.

And I didn't say a word to my son, when years later, he also dreamed of a bald headed witch, dressed in furs, clambering up the drainpipes whenever he came to stay with his nanny.

I didn't mention how, after my dad died (before I ever got around to asking him why he had the place exorcised), a skylight in the room where he died, randomly fell out, knocking his urn of ashes all over the bedroom carpet.

Or that doors would be found open to the lofts, with no reason to be.

Or that the bathroom door on the upstairs landing had a weird habit of locking by itself.

Instead, I put all that to one side and reassuringly told my mother's friend, "I don't think it's haunted, exactly. It's just quite … active. If you sit it out, it usually calms down."

Which, by all accounts, is true.

She still left the next day and took the dog with her.

What's strange is that despite all of the things that have happened and continue to happen here, I still come and stay in the house.

I always arrive breezily hopeful that this time we'll have a smooth stay. That the place, that I am deeply fond of, will begrudgingly welcome us and lay off the tantrums. And yet every time the house rebels and inevitably plays up like a stroppy 3 year old, I don’t get scared. Which is weird. I just shrug it off and wait for it to get used to us and “settle down”.

We've now been here since Sunday.

So far, there’s been:

1.     A slamming door in the upstairs bedroom despite no wind or through-draft.

2.     Sounds of JH walking along the hall and going downstairs, yet it then turned out he was still in bed, fast asleep.

3.     Multiple mosquito attacks despite no windows open and no mosquitos when my mother left.

4.     JH getting locked in the bathroom, even though he was in the bath with the door open.

5.     Very little sleep and general crankiness, due to all of the above.  

Result? I have done nada prep on the book, have a boyfriend who has a lip like Bart Simpson from facial mozzie bites … am sleep deprived and feel grumpy.

I have also reflected a lot on fear and what makes some people run away in terror, whilst others are prepared to “sit it out” when faced with fear-triggering situations.

It’s made me reflect on why I’m okay with public-speaking to 200 people, but the idea of driving on a motorway horrifies me.

It’s made me wonder why I’d happily travel to New Delhi and get a train to Kashmir, yet I categorically refuse to get on the London Underground.

It’s made me ponder why I’m comfortable with sleeping in a house that appears haunted, but feel MORE spooked at the idea of writing the first few scenes of a book this Monday??!!

Fear is such a strong driver and like other forms of motivation, it can be harnessed and used. Like, if I am honest with myself, I fear the regret of NOT writing my book WAY MORE than I fear actually doing it.

So, therefore tomorrow morning I’m going to get up at whatever time the ghosts wake me up - and am going to start the final bit of prep for this novel. I’m going to push through my jitters and internal fear-mongering around being rubbish at writing. I’m going to ignore the 3 year old, stropping out in my head, that doesn’t like change or new routines coming in. I'm going to let it all settle and push through anyway.

And during all this, if the house decides to lock me in the bathroom, I’ll take my laptop with me, because thinking about it, that’s probably one genius way of getting me to face my book-fears with no way to run away!