title: Ghost Stories and How to Write Them
author:  Kathleen McGurl 
description: Kathleen McGurl lives in Bournemouth with her husband and younger son, her elder son having flown the nest. She always wanted to write, and for many years was waiting until she had the time. Eventually she came to the bitter realisation no one would pay her for a year off work to write a book, so she sat down and started to write one anyway. Since then she has sold dozens of short stories to womens magazines. These days she is concentrating on longer fiction, and is currently trying to find an agent for her full-length time-slip novel, while also writing another in the same genre. She works full time in the IT industry and when shes not writing, shes often out running, slowly.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Once Upon a Time
  
  
  Someone has written to ask me to contribute to an anthology of stories for
  children. I reply that I don’t write children’s stories; and he writes back
  that at a recent congress/book fair/seminar a certain novelist said every
  writer ought to write at least one story for children. I think of sending a
  postcard saying I don’t accept that I ‘ought’ to write anything.
  
  And then last night I woke up — or rather was wakened without knowing what had
  roused me.
  
  A voice in the echo-chamber of the subconscious?
  
  A sound.
  
  A creaking of the kind made by the weight carried by one foot after another
  along a wooden floor. I listened. I felt the apertures of my ears distend with
  concentration. Again: the creaking. I was waiting for it; waiting to hear if
  it indicated that feet were moving from room to room, coming up the passage —
  to my door. I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the
  same fears as people who do take these precautions, and my window