Lengths of A3 paper selotaped together, to form an eight foot long writing aid, were blu-tacked to my living room wall for months (Ok, two years!) and because of the persistent rain this summer (Trade Description! Summer? Seriously?) I have spent more time in said living room, eye-balling it. Because of this, it meant that the creative side of my mind (often the inebriated side) turned its attention to those very four walls; well, one wall in particular took its fancy – Yup, the one that had the lengths of A3 paper selotaped together, to form an eight foot long writing aid!
Immediately I'm ‘Googling’- Chalkboard paint' and weighing up whether it's best to use spray or roller, masking tape, blocks or pattern. Then my mind convinces itself that ‘if I'm going to decorate the wall/s, I might as well put carpet down….though, before I do that, I could sort the skirting boards and the other walls out too!’ Naturally, a swift trip to the DIY store with a head bursting with ideas became as urgent as putting out a chip-pan fire.
"big job broke out"
A ‘big job broke out’ and as three weeks go by the carpet is ordered and a delivery date set, the 2012 Olympics have started on BBC TV and I have more motivation and energy than I can tame. I'm filling, sanding and stripping (walls) to the beat of Team GB Gold Medals and night after night I sneeze filler dust and rivers of DIY gunk run from my hair as I shower. I've even kissed goodbye to those lovely long painted nails I had, they are now short, broken and merely patch work painted with gloss paint that curiously matches the colour of the living room- skirting!
Another two weeks fly by and I have my carpet fitted, there is newly fitted skirting in place and my chalkboard 'writing wall’ is finished and ready to get not only a timeline for my screenplay written up, but also research notes and scene outlines - all in one easy and motivating location.
As a writing aid, trust me, if you have to walk past the ‘writing wall’ throughout the day, you pay its purpose some attention!
So, there I am, my ‘writing wall’ completed (and now I’m sounding daily like Shirley Valentine, talking to the ‘Wall’) and some designated time set aside for getting this task to fruition, when another time bandit project kicks off.
I noticed a competition in one of the writing magazines to ‘write a Ghost Story in 1500-1700 words’. With Halloween approaching, I figured that the magazine must be looking to fill a themed slot and because a time trial challenge sometimes does wonders for getting motivated by working towards a static goal, I wrote some ghost story notes down. They were notes on a variation of a theme that I’ve had burrowing around inside my brain since a 16th century hotel near our home closed down. It was known to be haunted and I began to wonder what became of sprits when they were left behind.
"probably one of the biggest car boot sales we’d ever rock up to at 7am on a Sunday morning"
During this time, the ‘Real Radio North West Car Boot Sale’ had started to snowball into a big event meaning that my attentions were removed from the ‘writing wall’ and now I had to focus on helping my sister gather, clean and sort what we needed to run a profitable pitch at probably one of the biggest car boot sales we’d ever rock up to at 7am on a Sunday morning.
On the day of the car boot sale (our first ever), a Spiritual Medium was offering personal readings - all money being donated to the supported charity. I’m unashamed to say that I’m open minded about these things so I fancied a chat with her; mostly because the only people who really know the true outcomes of the true events that my screenplay is based upon, are in fact all dead! I was curious to hear if any spirits would came forward via the Spiritual Medium, or if fate was going to offer some cliché that might just motivate me in another direction. All day I ‘ummed’ and ‘arrred’ and ‘ummed some more’ about getting in the queue to sit with the Medium.
Towards lunchtime when I had finally decided to queue and see what she might have to say, it would appear that, ironically, I was too late!
The gentleman at the back of the queue asked if I was waiting to sit with the Medium, I replied “yes” which was when he informed me that the lady in front of him "is the last to be seen” and handed me the Medium's business card in case I wanted to book a private sitting. I tried to get him to change his mind and let me see her, but he was solid and said that she was finishing for the day.
I felt a little frustrated with myself after all the umming and arrrhing and delays I’d made, but I walked away thinking that maybe , just maybe, someone was trying to tell me something and that not only was she maybe not a good Medium, but that they thought I really shouldn’t waste my money on clichés. Cognitive dissonance aside, these seemed reasonable reasons, so I just put it down to some unseen helping hands.
The thing is, one night; I strangely became a little side tracked.
Another two weeks went by and after a business trip I finally got some time at home to jot down more ideas for the ghost story competition. I wanted to work on a theme close to home, maybe something where a writer gets a bit stuck and needs some help from the deceased witnesses to the case to come forward and help.
The thing is, one night; I strangely became a little side tracked.
I initially started work on notes for my ghost themed story and should have had all screenplay thoughts put aside until the magazine competition entry was finished. But, one thing my brain doesn’t do, it’s to work in such a disciplined manner! I had mentally put any screenplay work aside whilst working on the competition entry, but out of the blue, without reason or prompt , iPad in hands, I found I was performing a procrastinating ‘Google’ search about the subject of my screenplay (I do this sometimes to check if its ‘angle’ has been picked up by anyone else)!
It was hardly coincidental that I came across an article that I’ve spotted and read several times in the past, only this time, a recent posting (two months previous) showed a new comment from a lady with some interesting points. She stated that she remembers the theme of a similar story (to the article) ‘flitting around her family’ and that one of her family members had been closely linked to the event.
Something about this ladies’ brief comment struck a chord of resemblance and intrigue with me, so I went on to ‘Google’ her name too. I was hoping to find some contact information so that I could maybe email and find out what story she had personally been exposed to and see if came from a similar source to my own.
It wasn’t contact information for the lady that came back as the top search result.
It was an Obituary Notice. Dated only two days previous.
The notice of death was not for the lady, but was in fact for her Father. I read the full notice and part of the name of the gentleman was familiar to me. Ghost story note writing truly abandoned now, I dug out the notes that my Granddad had made (on the family story) and I found the very same name - within the name of the deceased. I began to get a very strong feeling that somehow, somewhere, along the family heritage that I might be related to this lady and to the deceased, but I couldn’t quite work out how.
I telephoned my Mum to mention my research, the finding of the ladies’ note, the subsequent ‘Googling’ and then the curious match to the name of the deceased. My Mum listened, mentioned a few other family names and known relations and finally surmised that the Obituary Notice might actually be about her”Dad’s Brother”, in other words - her Uncle/ my Granddad’s brother/ my Great-Uncle!
After a long conversation and some tandem research, it turns out the lady (who made the comment on the article) is my Mum’s cousin; a cousin that she hasn’t seen for many years (after they moved to Canada) and a cousin that my sister even stayed with during the 1980s!
It did feel a bit strange telling my Mum that I found out, purely by accident, that her uncle had died, but she went on to tell me that my Granddad had also found out about one of his other brothers (they were an eleven strong family) had died by reading a local Manchester newspaper; seems we have a knack for tuning into the right communication methods, at the right time!
Despite finding out that my Great-Uncle had died, the information we found opened up so many other thought paths too:
The story that the lady had mentioned in relation to the article is far from the factual truth. However, it may well have provided me with a twist to my own fictional telling of the events; almost as though fate had decided that a Medium couldn’t help me find what I was looking for - that I had to wait and find it out myself with the help of a (recently deceased) distant family member!
My Mum and I talked for ages about the family connections and who was who and how the characters in my screenplay were related to these other family members and that they had the official story all wrong and also how I could now put them straight( I plan to contact my Mum’s cousin and update her and the rest of the family on all the information that I have found out over the years whilst researching the family story).
"....accidentally, you must sometimes get a little unseen help too."
So, after chalkboard ‘writing walls’, being turned away from Car Boot Sale – Spiritual Mediums and finding recently deceased family members, I find it difficult to accept that someone (or something) , somewhere wasn't actually giving me a helping hand somehow!
I think you can believe in coincidences as much as you like, but someone somewhere decided to give me not only a guiding hand on a twist, but also the motivation to feel that I shouldn’t quit, that they want me to do this because you surely don’t just find these things out accidentally, you must sometimes get a little unseen help too.
As a consequence, I have finally finished the timeline on the ‘writing wall’ so the scenes are coming together now, and the information I found from those timely messages on a two year old article and a less than forty eight hour old Obituary Notice may have plugged some holes that I needed answers to.
Personally, I feel pleased that help has been sent my way, no matter its methods; however, it is probably because my Granddad (deceased of ten years) is probably itching for me to finish my screenplay already! ....... and this is his way of making me 'get on with it'!!!
xx
Anna.
#CantTameNRG
ImageCredits:
www.realradionorthwest.co.ukhttp://www.apartmenttherapy.com/hot-or-not-chal-72521
http://www.davidmcelroy.org/?p=12868
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