Unnerving
There was a thunderstorm directly overhead at dusk last night. I was seated next to the bookcase and thought about reaching for something suitably sinister to pass the time, maybe a bit of M.R. James, which would have complimented the dark and ominous mood of the weather.
I decided against. I was on my own and didn't in the end fancy James's classic but deeply unsettling brand of paranormal prose.
Ridiculous, really. I'm a grown-up. But his stories are scary. Their Victorian/Edwardian settings don't make them old-fashioned and quaint, it adds to their authenticity and atmosphere.
What there's no excuse for, is frightening yourself with your own stories. That's just absurd. Yet I've managed to do it twice. On two occasions I've just become so unnerved, I had to stop writing and wait for daylight to resume.
I suppose it's just the power of the human imagination. And it seems reasonable to assume that the things that unnerve me might unnerve readers.
Some periods, the 1920's for example, strike me as intrinsically sinister. That was a shrill and hysterical time given to empty sensation-seeking. Not everywhere, but in London and New York.
Sometimes you don't consciously know why some locations unnerve you. I visit the Isle of Wight a lot in my fiction and love it there. Only recently, I remembered that I first went there as a teenager in the idyllic summer of 1976, when I met a women who claimed quite seriously to be a witch.
But that's a story for another blog entry.
I decided against. I was on my own and didn't in the end fancy James's classic but deeply unsettling brand of paranormal prose.
Ridiculous, really. I'm a grown-up. But his stories are scary. Their Victorian/Edwardian settings don't make them old-fashioned and quaint, it adds to their authenticity and atmosphere.
What there's no excuse for, is frightening yourself with your own stories. That's just absurd. Yet I've managed to do it twice. On two occasions I've just become so unnerved, I had to stop writing and wait for daylight to resume.
I suppose it's just the power of the human imagination. And it seems reasonable to assume that the things that unnerve me might unnerve readers.
Some periods, the 1920's for example, strike me as intrinsically sinister. That was a shrill and hysterical time given to empty sensation-seeking. Not everywhere, but in London and New York.
Sometimes you don't consciously know why some locations unnerve you. I visit the Isle of Wight a lot in my fiction and love it there. Only recently, I remembered that I first went there as a teenager in the idyllic summer of 1976, when I met a women who claimed quite seriously to be a witch.
But that's a story for another blog entry.
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Allan
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Jul 28, 2013 10:39AM
Francis, what a coincidence. I too was on the Isle of Wight in 1976. If you spotted a drunk 15 year old collecting (nicking might be a better word) golf flags from the pitch and putt course in Sandown sometime after midnight, that was me. Got a bit of a fright when I woke up next morning in a tent full of golf flags. Took them all back of course (just in case the local bobbies are reading this and are still keen to close the case).
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I went to the Isle of Wight in 1969 (was 8). The chines were quite sinister, don't why could have been in the steepness of them the quietness I don't know - never really thought about it until I read your post.
There was a Bavarian Bier Keller at Wootton Creek. My 15 year old brother had no trouble getting served giant steins. So I'm not surprised you were able to get drunk at that age on Wight, Allan. We were thrown out for rowdiness, which I'm still not sure how we managed. Nor do I know why there was a Bavarian themed drinking establishment on Wight in the '70s. It was the mid-90s before they had ATMs.
