One morning in January 2025, an email pinged into my inbox from a second-hand furniture mailing list I had never heard of, let alone subscribed to. Normally, I’d delete it, but the title – Antique Writing Bureau – Must Go Today, called out to me.
Within an hour, the bureau had been bought, and I was sent a photo of it looking…smug. It knew it had found its next victim.
It was delivered at night. The delivery man said he had got lost, but I think the bureau wanted to be unloaded under the silver light of a full moon.
From the moment it arrived, it started creaking, sighing and judging.
Every time I sat down to write something sensible, grounded and perfectly normal, I would feel a shiver down my spine. My fingers would then betray me and type something magical.
Things go missing, and I know it is interfering. It loves to make important Post-it notes and journals (filled with ideas it doesn’t like) vanish.
It has opinions too:
“Your stroppy heroine is suspiciously familiar.”
“In my day, deadlines arrived by horseback, giving a lady time to panic properly”
Maybe every writer needs something a little haunted. Something that creaks, rattles and steals Post-it notes to keep the magic alive.
It reminds me that writing is supposed to be a little magical, a little chaotic and occasionally haunted by furniture with strong Victorian opinions.