Ambition achieved

 by Ashley Lister

 I’ve always been a fan of Stephen King’s writing. Ever since I first read The Dead Zone, back in the very early eighties, I admired his writing style and I wanted to do what he did. It was my ambition to write a good story that genuinely scared someone.

I have never thought it was an unachievable ambition. A good romance can touch the reader’s heart. A good thriller can make the reader’s pulse go faster. A good erotic story can affect the reader’s cheeky bits. And a good horror story can make the reader genuinely scared of things that don’t exist in the real world.

Earlier this year the Dead Good Poets contributed to the Haunted Blackpool Project. I’ve already spoken about Haunted Blackpool, and the fun I had being involved in the project. Details of the book launch associated with the project can be found here.

I wrote a story for this project entitled ‘The Headless Boggart of Whitegate Drive.’ It’s a story based on local legend. Eerily, it’s story number thirteen in the book.

One of the other contributors to the book, Anne Ward, gave a copy of the book to a friend of hers in hospital. Anyone who’s ever spent any time in hospital will probably remember the value of all reading material to help stave away the boredom. Anne’s friend read all thirteen stories and poems and she said she enjoyed them immensely.

Then she went down for her operation. After being dosed up with premeds she said, “Don’t let him near me.”  She was pointing at the surgeon. “Don’t let him near me,” she insisted. “He doesn’t have a head!”

And, when Anne told me this story on Tuesday night, I sat back in my chair, I smiled smugly and I thought: “Ambition achieved.”