The Lure and Inspiration of Abandoned Homes

There is something fascinating about a home that has been deserted, sometimes with everything in it, left to the mercy of the elements to decay.

I’ve recently fallen down the rabbit hole of abandoned houses on YouTube. I’m calling it research! Abandonment raises so many questions. For some there are valid explanations like old age, family illness or bankruptcy, while for others, no one knows what happened there. Readers and viewers are left to speculate and make up their own stories. What makes someone simply walk away and leave their life behind? If only walls could talk… These houses, frozen in time – some quite literally – all have a story to tell, and I wish I could meet the residents to hear them. Instead, I’ll have to make up their stories.

I grew up visiting spooky, abandoned towns and cemeteries on family holidays, and have had a fascination for murky pasts since then. This fascination was fed by the pure luck that my sister lived in an old country town with a history that dated back to 1814. It stood to reason that we would hear some great stories, a little (possibly embellished) folklore and even have a few paranormal encounters with restless souls, including a destructive poltergeist who didn’t mind throwing a few things around at night. I’m not a fan of horror, but I do wonder why some of these souls are so unhappy and haven’t passed over. Personally, I prefer the mischevous kind who maybe weren’t quite ready to leave yet. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there are plenty of stories about them to keep a reader entertained and loads of inspiration to be found between the walls.

The journey through these abandoned homes did get me thinking though… Is abandoning a book not the same as abandoning a life or a home? That manuscript gathering dust in the drawer, the book that was a DNF, the characters abandoned in the middle of building their world. Is it too late to save them like some of these houses that have been abandoned for too long? How late is too late? That’s the million-dollar question.

I started writing a book pre-covid but abandoned it for many reasons that had nothing to do with writing, and everything to do with the flow-on effects of real life. I left my characters mid-crisis, impatiently waiting for me to come back with a solution. Except, when I got back to their story a couple of months ago, I found the plot had changed so I made them start all over again. New life has been breathed into their journey, new obstacles created for them to overcome, and I’m excited to get first draft down so I can share their happy-ever-after with you.

It won’t be a fairytale, and it deals with confronting realities that some may not want to read (and that’s okay) but this is a story my characters want me to tell. It’s a story of hope, awakening, and finding strength when life throws all it has at you. When finding peace and happiness seemed impossible, but a change in circumstances turns things around in a way you never expected. I’m thinking of this book as an abandoned home I’m breathing new life into, dusting off the furniture and creating new, happy memories for the family inside its walls. There is a road out of the darkness if the hand you’re holding is the right one.

“Even lost in the darkness, my heart will find you.”

Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures

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