I'm scaring myself! Word count 42,626 (wp) 55500 (pr)

Just a short post this evening. I'd promised myself I'd take a break from writing tonight. I'm dog tired, I think I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome, and I've got a stabbing pain between my shoulder blades from hunching over the keyboard. My eyes must be like piss-holes in the snow.

I was going to have an early night, I swear, but once again I sat down to read over last night's efforts and, what do you know, it's ninety minutes later and we're about 1400 words further along. You see, my antagonist was up to some mischief and I wanted to see what he'd do - I just left him hiding in the shadows of a great chestnut tree in the grounds of a delapidated Victorian hospital on the outskirts of Manchester.

Here's a strange thing. I'm starting to scare myself with this story. Now, I don't scare easily. The Exorcist barely raises a shiver from me, I just love it as a superb piece of cinema. But this story is spooking me. As I write in my home office I'm finding myself jumping at the sounds of my old house settling down for the night.

My novel is a genre piece - you could call it horror, possibly, but paranormal thriller is nearer the mark. There is some violence involved, but very mild by most contemporary standards. I don't like suffering presented as entertainment, so the empahisis is on psychological chills rather than gore. Maybe it's scaring me because the story explores the boundaries between the mind and spirit, and is thus venturing into areas an agnostic like me would prefer left alone.

Curiouser and curiouser.