Creepy

As a writer I'm very frequently asked - are your books based on your own life? I actually rather object to that question - and I've learnt that one should never really answer it honestly. I never, never ask my students where their writing comes from because I feel the question is too sensitive. But I understand, of course, why people are interested. And if I was to answer it truthfully what would I say? That's where it gets worrying. I don't think that I do often write about my own life - but I do know that if I write about something then it might start happening to me. Of course, partly that's just me being neurotic and morbid. But I can cite one occasion on which this has definitely happened. I wrote a first novel which was never published (although actually it's rather good and all the publishers it was sent to were lavish in their praise). The novel takes place in a house and that house is almost a character in the book. Then, more than five years after the book was finished, my husband and I were house hunting in England and we went to the house that I had written about. It was the same in all its details. Some how I created that house in my mind and then it turned out that it really existed. And now we've bought that house and we're going to live there. Isn't that strange? I like to write about that because it's a happy example of how writers create the future. Sadly there are less happy and more worrying examples of things which I've written about and which have subsequently come to pass. But perhaps I won't go into that because if I write it down I might start to really worry ....... And you might start thinking I'm really odd.