Slightly spooky?

Please let Spring be on the way!

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox. My favourite of the four compass points of the year - equinoxes and solstices - as the days are going to continue to lengthen for a while and there is the prospect of warmer weather. Having said which, there is some talk of MORE snow for the Easter weekend!

The Equinox has made me think of our continuing fascination with thing that are associated with old traditions and celebrations, with a touch of the supernatural. Not paranormal, but old customs, myths and the slightly spooky elements that make it into so much romantic fiction - horoscopes, tarot cards, standing stones, time slip, fortune telling, ghosts - we may be an urban society, but old ideas still have power. I have to admit that I have a fascination and an ever growing library (Thanks, largely, to The Works!) of books on symbols, magic and other witchy goings on. This time it is all research, as I am far too much of a wimp to try any of it out.

Although I could have done with a few spells when my big computer, the one I do my writing on, died this week. I've had to get a new - well, re-conditioned - one and a new version of Dragon - the voice recognition software that I use to get the words onto the page. Both Simon the computer guru and the man on the other end of the phone who sold me the new Dragon were somewhere between astonishment and hysteria when they found that I'd had both for ten years. Well, if it's not broken ... So I have lost my dear old XP Professional and my disc based Dragon and now have to train a new one. I have a feeling it is not going to be easy. But I digress - probably because my mind is still very much on the disaster of losing kit that has become an old friend. We knew each others quirks. And I still have to transfer my backed up files to the new machine - shudder. Now that is really something horrible to contemplate.

But back to the equinox. I've been working on a romantic suspense that has supernatural elements in it - hence the research, although it will be a while before it gets finished as I'm now enmeshed in the day job and sorting out what I hope will be the next Riviera Rouges. Nothing supernatural in that.

I am wondering why we are drawn to darker things on the page, even if we don't really believe in them in real life. Why do we like being slightly scared? I don't read horror, or watch it, but I still have that fascination with an older system of belief and way of doing things.

Maybe lots of us are looking for a connection to something from the past - and that's why time slip in particular is a popular genre?