Facing my biggest fear



Strangely enough before writing Dying to Know, I was more afraid of seeing a ghost than of dying. Go figure! So that was one of my personal demons that I need to confront in the book however it wasn’t as straight forward as it seemed and I wasn’t going to get away with just a gentle experience. But why so afraid of ghosts? I grew up in a house that was mildly haunted where most of family saw the ghost but I didn’t and I think the potential of seeing one as a kid, was more frightening than actually coming face to face with one. I was one of those ‘creative’ children and my imagination was highly overactive and I reckon I scared myself shitless with my own stories!

However when I grew up and got to be so interested in the afterlife, I desperately wanted to see a ghost so I could prove that life did continue on, yet I was still carrying that fear from childhood which I think created some kind of block and I never ended up seeing one (either that or ghosts found me plainly boring!).
To get a sense of how my fear was so palatable, I’d lie awake at night with a lump in throat and shaking all over and that was just thinking about doing the ghost hunt experience for the book!

But you know what? I did it, I faced my biggest fear and I survived and I’m so glad I did.
I got to stand in the middle of an extremely haunted building in the dark and ask the question “If there’s anyone here, can you please make a sound or make yourself known” and not shit my pants.

And of course you can read all about it when the book comes out early next year.


 

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