Ghostly Insights
By Jonathan Wright

You’ve heard of A Christmas Carol and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future …

Well, today, in honor of Halloween, AWAI writer Jonathan Wright brings us a different kind of haunting — from a “ghost” many writers know all too well …

Dim the lights and grab your courage … but don’t say you weren’t warned! 👻

It was almost midnight, and I was finally sitting down to tackle a writing project I’d been putting off for weeks.

I was beginning to wonder if I would make the deadline my new client had given me, which was now less than 48 hours away and staring me in the face. I still had no idea what I was even going to write about.

Suddenly, a loud noise jolted me from my exasperation.

Was someone in the house?

I jumped up and walked around to see if I could figure out where the noise had come from.

The floor creaked beneath my feet, as I cautiously checked each room, one by one. Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

I convinced myself that the sound must have been the old pipes.

Or maybe it was just my nerves. After all, stress does strange things to the mind … when the clock is ticking, and a deadline looms like a storm cloud ready to burst.

So, I returned to my desk.

But something was different …

My laptop screen flickered, and words I hadn’t typed appeared across the blank document:

“DON’T WAIT.”

I froze, staring at the screen, my heart hammering against my chest.

I whispered to myself, “It must be a glitch. That’s all.”

But deep inside, I knew it wasn’t.

The air suddenly grew icy cold, and I could see my breath forming tiny clouds.

To my right, I heard the faint scratch of a pen across paper. Turning my head, I saw the notebook I had left open earlier. Words were forming on the page in my own handwriting, though my hands were nowhere near it:

“PROCRASTINATION KILLS.”

I slammed the notebook shut and tried to laugh it off, but the unease clung to me. I thought maybe I should take a break, maybe go to bed and try again in the morning.

Then suddenly, a harsh whisper from behind me sent a shiver up my spine:

“WORK NOW. REST LATER.”

I spun around, but no one was there!

The curtains rustled, though the windows were shut tight. The shadows in the corners seemed to move, inching closer.

I sat back down at my desk, but the keys began to tap on their own, as if an invisible hand was typing for me:

“DEADLINES WAIT FOR NO ONE. NOT EVEN THE DEAD.”

I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t obey. It felt as though the house itself demanded I stay and write.

The whispers grew louder and louder, until a chorus of ghostly voices echoed around the room:

“WRITE NOW … WRITE NOW … WRITE NOW …”

My hands began to type frantically … but I was unsure if it was at my own will or theirs.

Words poured onto the screen … warnings, lessons, phrases about time slipping through fingers …

Every sentence felt like it had come from another world, but also from a part of me that had long known the truth.

Suddenly, I remembered something my mentor once told me:

“Procrastination is the graveyard of writers. Leave your work until the last minute, and you’ll be buried by it.”

So there I was, staring into the grave I had dug with delay after delay, excuse after excuse.

The ghosts were the echoes of every opportunity I had wasted in the past, every idea left unfinished, every client I had disappointed.

But they weren’t there to harm me. They were there to remind me. To spur me to take action. Because it wasn’t too late to change my ways.

Tears filled my eyes as I realized the truth …

The horror wasn’t the ghosts. The horror was my habit of wasting precious time, as if I had an endless supply.

The haunting was a gift—a terrifying, but necessary, reminder.

With trembling hands, I forced myself to write. Not because I wanted the spirits to leave me alone, but because I finally understood their important message.

With each keystroke, I felt lighter, and the weight lifted from my chest. The voices quieted, and the room warmed.

And, for the first time in my writing career, I felt peace.

As the sun began to rise, and the last word finally appeared on the page, my laptop screen went dark for a moment, then lit back up with a final message:

“Lesson learned. Don’t delay. For time is a ghost you cannot chase.”

The silence that followed felt comforting.

I leaned back in my chair, exhausted but relieved, knowing I would never again wait until the last minute to do the work I was called to do.

I had seen what happens when you procrastinate. You invite “ghosts” into your life.

And, trust me, they are far scarier than any deadline.

From that night on, I’ve been writing every day … not because of fear, but because I’ve been given a gift: a ghostly insight into what procrastination really costs.

Not just money or clients … but pieces of your soul you’ll never get back.