Writing for friendly ghosts

For Linda and Richard

Content warning: This post deals with death and dying. The ghosts are friendly, but if you’re feeling a bit delicate right now, it might pay to give this one a miss.

Well folks, it’s been A Year. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a blog – and let’s not even talk about the newsletter! In fact, it wasn’t until relatively recently that I’ve really been able to write at all.

The good news is my two-year-long writer’s block has finally been lifted. I have two wonderful people to thank for that – two people who I really miss.

June 2023 was an absolute shitter of a month. Two good people died of cancer in less than a week. One was sadly anticipated (though you are never truly ready) and one was a complete shock.

Both of these people made the world a better place for being in it.

Linda

Along with being a genuinely kind person and fearless soul, Linda was one of my biggest cheerleaders when it came to writing.

My gushiest good reads and Amazon reviews are all from her and she was constantly ordering copies of my books to give to friends. I am convinced she was behind the need for at least one of my reprints.

After she died I immediately knew I was going to dedicate the second of my witchy fiction books The Whitestone Witches (currently two-thirds written) to her.

Richard

Richard started off as my next door neighbour when I was working at the paper down south in Oamaru and quickly became a best friend. We went through a lot together and kept in touch after I left. This Christmas will be the first year he won’t call my parents. It will be the first time I don’t send him a card. It’s going to be strange.

Richard personified Oamaru for me in so many ways, so it makes complete sense that Never Trust a Penguin – a Ghost Bus-style short story collection set down there – be dedicated to him.

Haunting

Black humour is my go-to coping mechanism (ask any ex-journo) and one night I joked to my Mum that I had better get on and finish the damned books or the pair of them would haunt me.

The next morning I work up with a ghost story, fully formed, based on a silly meme Mum had sent me. It was all there – concept, location, terrible punch line. I grabbed a notebook and began furiously scribbling. Then another idea appeared, and another. All of a sudden my dry spell was thoroughly over. The haunting had begun.

Out of order

This wasn’t the order I’d intended to do things. I had every intention of finishing book two of the Frost witches trilogy first, but ghost Richard has been pretty insistent.

Ghost Linda isn’t staying silent though. In fact, just the other night she helped me sort out a logistical problem in a witchy fight scene. I’m hoping she’ll forgive me for Never Trust a Penguin coming first!

NaNoWriMo

Because it helped give me a boost with Ghost Bus, I decided to take part in NaNoWriMo again this year. Short for National Novel Writing Month, it’s an international creative writing event where people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during November.

I was never going to make the 50,000 words, but it gave me a pretend deadline to work to (I’m a deadline-driven gal) – and it definitely looks like the evil penguins will be first cab off the rank. I currently have eight stories (Ghost Bus had 10) and 19,915 words (Ghost Bus had 25,000). The book has ghosts, zombies, AI, fae, and penguins you absolutely cannot trust. Without jinxing myself, I’m hoping it will be ready to go by Feb/March next year.

It’s a funny place to be in, but I guess this is my way of making the best of a deeply shitty situation. I miss my friends. I think about them all the time. I think about their loved ones who must be missing them even more. I am also deeply grateful to them for kicking my butt out of the slump I have been in. I couldn’t think of two better people to be haunted by.

Talking about death

I’ve been thinking a lot about death and dying lately. How we talk about it, and how we don’t, and how we need to more.

Linda talked about it a lot. She did her best to demystify what was happening, and took every opportunity to tell those people in her life that she cared about them. She also made no bones about telling people who would wish folk harm, in no uncertain terms, to get in the bin.

She used dying as a kind of superpower to say things some might be afraid to. No one was ever in doubt about where she stood. I admire her so much for that.

Saying goodbye

Richard sadly didn’t have as much time. He spent the short amount he had calling us all, letting us know about his diagnosis and reassuring us he had plans for what needed to be done. Less than a week from that phone call, when I was busy looking at flights to get down and see him, he was gone. I didn’t make it in time. That call was goodbye, and deep down I think we both knew it.

The last time I saw Linda was a surprise visit she made to a get together in a bar for a nerdy game called Ingress (which was how we met).

She arrived in a wheel chair but insisted on walking to get her own drinks and that it be shunted out of the way for a group photo. That was so utterly her, and for many of us that was goodbye too.

I am grateful for both of those moments, however brief they were. I will hold on to them forever.

Death and work

Death is part of my work too and, a couple of months after saying goodbye to my friends, I found myself interviewing an amazing woman, also in the process of dying of cancer.

A few people were dubious about my agreeing to do it because of my recent grief, and I really did put a lot of thought into whether I should, but somehow it felt right.

My therapist, who knows me too well by now, knows how stubborn I am and, once she worked out I’d made up my mind to do it, acted as a professional supervisor for me throughout the process.

And it turns out it was exactly the right thing for me to do. Working with someone who knew exactly what was going on and had made their own bold decisions based on a strong and uplifting philosophy, helped me process what I perhaps hadn’t quite with my friendly ghosts.

Carla was able to see and share her story before she died, which is something I am thankful and proud of.

I don’t often share my work writing on this platform, but this is a story that has helped me heal and I think it should be shared.

It’s not an easy read, so if you are feeling delicate about this sort of thing right now, be kind to yourself. If you’re up for it though, she’s got a lot of excellent things to say.

Illness is part of life’s journey, not a new identity (myacp.org.nz)

My friendly ghosts

Yes there’s a lot of loss in this blog, but I like to think there’s a bit of hope too.

My friends are gone, but they’re still with me – poking and prodding and making me get shit done. Kind but hungry souls that I am feeding with words (even if some of those words involve penguin teeth.)

My friendly ghosts who are teaching me to appreciate the time I have with the people I care about, but also not to beat myself up about not being able to be everywhere all at once.

My friendly ghosts who are making sure you will all have new ghost stories to read soon!