Thoughts

The Idea Is Just The Beginning…

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It’s one of the most exciting feelings ever. To have an idea that’s turns into a story and to feel like like it’s going to go somewhere. It’s at this stage I conveniently forget the agonizing process that will follow. The months and years of writing and editing ahead, the crisis of faith in ability, the ups and downs of the characters, mourning the ones who didn’t make it and the relief of when it all comes together. But actually, I realise that it’s all of it that makes it so exciting. The idea is just the beginning…

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(c) K Wicks

Living Up To Expectations…

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I’m not sure if I had known it would have made a difference, but after I had almost completed my first publishing project I was made aware of other family members who were successful in the field of writing. I had wanted to write since I was six years old, and did, short stories and projects that made me feel satisfied and content. I did not always have support with these stories, often told my reading and writing of horror were a waste of time, I should be reading educational material or at least the classics. They did not entertain me at the time, so I chose horror, or sometimes I think horror chose me.

But my passion for writing continued and after a number of years immersed only in work, the need to write took over. The book was pretty much writing itself in my head so I thought I best put pen to paper (or open a new word file on the computer as is the way these days). Only when it was in the finishing stages of editing did I dare tell my closest family, my grandparents. They are well read people and I was so nervous about what they would think, but I gave them my manuscript and waited.

I hadn’t really comprehended how much their approval meant to me until they gave it. It was the green light I had been waiting for without even realizing it, to have the most critical people I knew pass me as acceptable or at least as having potential. It made my day. But then followed the reveal, did I know, he said, that multiple family members were published including my great uncle, for doing a play script which is still used today of Treasure Island, and my great aunt and her husband, both authors and he having been a journalist and correspondent for a very well heard of paper for years. Even my uncle had published a book.

For a moment I wasn’t sure what this meant, am I now expected to be a successful author like other members of the family, or was it just encouragement to show me it can be done. Either way, I then had to work out exactly who’s expectation was I really trying to live up to, theirs, or mine?…

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(c) MKW Publishing

The Hay Bale Incident…

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I’m not sure if everyone was prone to accidents when they were a child, I was sort of a tomboy and liked getting into it and giving it a go, which given my lack of awareness and balance, often led to some comedic accidents.

One of which I will share as it still amuses me very much to this day. As the title suggests, it does indeed involve a hay bale. So, I am 12 at the time, I lived in Hampshire as part of an army camp but not a restricted one. Squaddie brat was the term for us kids of the military folk and I think I lived up to the name quite well. We used to have to find things to occupy ourselves outside of school as all children do.  During the school holidays the army were very good at providing activities and schemes for us while parents still had to work. These would include shooting, swimming, PT and other things. But the rest of the time, we were mostly out and about and sometimes up to no good.

We were lucky enough to be surrounded by lots of countryside, fields and woods and as much adventuring as we could fit it. But come the late summer we had lots of large round hay bales begin to appear in the field out the back of our estate. A game was devised, or trick if you will. Here it was, push the one ton hay bale down the slight hill, once it picked up a bit of momemtum, grab onto the netting covering said hay bale, hook your fingers into it and get pulled over with the now moving bale. The trick being a crafty leg swing as you are pulled over the top, and releasing your fingers at the same time. Which all going well, puts you in front of the hay bale, on your feet while it now picks up speed down to the bottom of the field.

The principle was simple, and I see two of my friends complete this seemingly new manoeuvre without any issue or hesitation. I know what must be done and take my turn. But what I didn’t factor into this, was my lack of skill and co-ordination. I did not lack bravery or willing when I was younger, but as I got older the evidence became clear that I lacked skill, and this is what kept leading me into injury.

So, I stepped up to my hay bale and gave it a push, both hands in front of me starting the motion, I chose my moment to grip onto the plastic netting and was instantly pulled upwards towards the top. I swung my legs round as best I could planning the same smooth stunt I had witnessed, but something went wrong. My fingers didn’t unwrap from the netting, my legs didn’t quite go all the way round, and instead of jumping in front of it, I went with it. Imagine a steam roller made of hay with a person on it. That’s what happened. I went straight over the front of it and then proceeded to be crushed by it. Luckily only having some bruises and cuts on my face and a sore rib cage. I had to go home to my mother and explain why I had odd scratches and bruises down one side of my face. She laughed, a lot, so did the rest of the family.

I would like to say that was a one off, an isolated incident, but I would be lying. My younger years really were filled with a number of mishaps…

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(c) K Wicks

The Holiday (Movie) and Hyperphantasia

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This isn’t a normal review a because it’s not about the film as a film but more a point of interest within it – but can say that although watched all the way through didn’t quite deliver. Face to face I can talk about them for hours but online I try to keep it brief. This is your average rom com with popular leading actors. Cameron Diaz playing one the leads in her bright smiley way (she is pleasant to watch). But the reason I bring up this film in a non review context is that there were three specific moments that perfectly showed what I think Hyperphantasia is or at least it gave a good visual representation of it. Which was actually quite handy as my husband has aphantasia so for him, he can’t ‘imagine’ what’s it’s like. This was a good way for him to actually ‘see’ what I had been trying to tell him about my sometimes seemingly neurotic brain.

The two examples that stick with me after the fact are –

She is trying to sleep, and the next day starts running through her head, almost causing a panic attack because it was so frantic and busy. I know this process well. And the second is when she is explaining to the potential love interest why it wouldn’t work out and runs through the entire scenario she has already worked out in her mind. These two things in particular were exactly what I do (although this movie wasn’t anything about hyperphantsia), and until I knew how my husband thought, I had believed everyone had this frantic level of thinking, planning and general on stop thoughts. I think I believed they just managed it better than me. It turns out on the whole not everyone does, but then there are those of us who do…

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(c) K Wicks

When darkness follows you…

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Its difficult to define what it is when someone may ask or say to you –

“Why do you look so sad” or “You have sad eyes”.

You can only use the answer, but that’s just my face for so long before you really start to wonder what everyone else sees. I do not try to hide my melancholy most of the time, I am both happy and sad so can be smiling and enjoying what I am saying, doing, or seeing. And then can remember everything else. My face is a mere snapshot of what is going on in mind.

As I get older though I begin to understand. What came before can follow you and make you feel as though the weight of the world has become too heavy a burden. And it can show. I had this feeling as a teenager and it has followed me all the way through. Maybe there are many of us burdened by life and ourselves but making the best of it, just muddling through and trying to find a bit of calm in all the madness…

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(c) K Wicks

 

 

 

 

 

Bobby M – The Wild Pet Mantis…

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A trip to the garden centre bought a very special treat while living in Spain a few years ago. I purchase a bright and colourful gaillardia and a heliotrope in the hope of attracting some extra bees to our garden. My love of macro photography needed subjects to come to us, it was too hot in Spain during the summer to go very far on foot, and standing still trying to take photographs meant instant sweating on the spot. I needed them to come to me. Flowers purchased, we returned home and put them in the terraced yard on a table to keep them away from the floors, very hot tiles don’t help plant roots.

Later that day, I had re-potted the plants and given them some water and what do I find? A praying mantis, a cute small adorable little praying mantis! I couldn’t believe it.

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But, not only did we find one mantis – but shortly after on the same day, we spotted a second one, excited beyond belief at that point. This one was different though, the first find being a European Mantis, the second one appeared to be an Orchid Mantis or Conehead Mantis nymph, still not sure.

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We only had less than a month to enjoy the smaller of the two before nature took its course. They were not contained in any way yet chose to remain on the table in the yard with an array of colourful bright plants to have as their home. But had I known about their temperament, I would have given them separate areas. They are very territorial it turns out and will eat anything that moves, even their own kind. So, within a month we were down to one mantis, but that one was with us for months. We got to see him grow bigger, see him shed and turn into a fully grown mantis. He could have left at any time but didn’t, he stayed and every morning was exciting, to see if he was still there. Being relieved when he was. We had a great number of geckos living there too and at night they would crawl over the walls looking for tasty morsels, so we pulled the table away from the wall to give him a chance.

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The time came for us to move, we were heading up into the mountains as a change to coastal living, we were looking for a place to settle and wanted to try all options first. I could not bring myself to leave our little mantis there, it was a stark terrace without our plants and although there were lots of flowers in watered areas, the rest of the area was pretty dry – also being just at the end of a hot summer. So I decided he was coming with us, his adventure would continue in the mountains with a wild garden surrounding us and lots more flora and fauna. He seemed to take to it well, and remarkably stayed in the little mandarin tree I placed him in, safe from the geckos (up there we had more than before), and with lots of bees and flies coming and going for a food. But lets be fair, he had the whole of the outside, he didn’t really need my help.

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But there did come the day, about a month after we moved and the temperature was starting to drop, that he didn’t come out of his little tree to say hello. And no matter how hard I looked (in the tree it had become a bit of a Where’s Wally/Waldo game), one day he just wasn’t there. I knew it was coming but it was still harsh and took a bit of fun out of the morning for a while. I like to think he left to go mating and have the life of a mantis rather than anything else. It turns out up there was very habitable for mantises and we saw an array of different ones the following summer. I saw him eat plenty of insects so it’s not unreasonable to think nature took him too (or even another mantis) – and eventually time would have anyway as apparently they only live for around a year. Nature is cruel, but beautiful at the same time. This was a unique experience and one I cherish.

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Bobby Mantis

 

(c) K Wicks

Social Anxiety…

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It’s like being at the back of a crowded busy room. No, just outside, but you can see in still. You were in the room a minute ago, talking and laughing with people, being the life and soul of the party. But then something changed, it could have been something you heard, maybe something you saw, you’re not sure. But now everything isn’t so chatty, isn’t so bright anymore. The people are strangers and nothing fits. The room gets hazier and feels small. You back away from the nothingness that is now surrounding you.

Outside, and safe now…

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(c) K Wicks

 

Where did courtesy go?

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I see a lot of talk and arguments about the state of society and where it is all going and I rarely put my opinions forward on these as I would rather get on and change them than just talk about them. But it all has to start somewhere. One of the current points of interest to me is libraries, the fight to keep them open mostly and what role they will continue to play.

I have to admit I don’t think I have even been into a public library for over 20 years since I left home and the internet happened, no need. But before this and during my teenage years, the library was my only escape and outside interaction from my home life. I suffered from severe agoraphobia and depression as a teenager and didn’t socialise at all outside of my family. I did not attend school and stayed in all the time, but I loved reading. So the need for books gave me an incentive to go out and the library gave me a book haven to go three to four times a week to collect as many as I could – I think the limit was five or six. I did also use my pocket money to occasionally visit Waterstones and buy the Point Horror books that the library didn’t stock. I also used to use their photo copier, I liked to copy my drawings before I put detail on them back then, so made use of a number of their facilities. It was a lifeline at a really dark and hard time in my life.

But now, we all mostly have internet and printers, between online, secondhand books shops and charity shops my need for library books has vanished as a reader. I am torn over this argument between people who say keep them and others who say they should go. There is still a need, but not what it was, we need to change them. I’m trying to give thought to a good option, but I know there isn’t a simple quick solution. We do have to admit though, the use of them in the last 20 years has dropped off or changed from what they once were – public access to reading materials. Most households or phones now have the internet but the need for community has never been greater and I wonder if the libraries could be adapted to help with that. Of course, if the overall consensus is to get rid of communities and slowly break apart what once was – then it won’t work.

When I was growing up, I honestly didn’t know you were given money for nothing by the government, or things for free just because you couldn’t afford them. I didn’t even know about Child Benefit until I was into double figures – and frankly I was stunned (I have never been popular as an adult with my opinions of benefits and the shocking way they are distributed). It hadn’t occurred to me at all that you get given money – just because you have children, I thought you had to work whatever – and if you didn’t, family and friends had to help you or you died. I realise I probably took this from my incessant reading of the Victorian era, and just never thought to clarify it with anyone in modern times, instead just trying to be of the mentality that I have to work to live. Once I understood what you can claim though, again I was shocked.

My logic saw a problem developing – if you just give lots of people money for nothing (just because they are alive), and promise them more, and a house, and schooling and healthcare – and you don’t have to go to work, in fact, you will be worse of if you do. Why would they? I have noticed some people dispute this claim, that it is hard on benefits and you don’t have that much. I say bullshit to that, when I was on benefits for a bit when i left home with no family, and it became a lifestyle. The people you mix with, the mentality you get. I have also lived alongside it and witnessed it first hand. Someone once close to me used to boast a bit about how she was almost getting £20k in benefits and housing at one point – thanks to their children! Then being signed off on the sick because of stress, followed by her telling me “I just need some time to work out what to do with my life”! Yes, at the taxpayers expense… at my expense. Not the type of thinking I want to be around.

I was on £14k at the time and working really hard to have a life and try and start a career and contribute to society – not just keep taking out. Because it really isn’t a never ending pot of money and you can only mismanage things for so long before you end up with nothing – which is what I saw my mother do (weirdly of all the people I would have expected to claim she didn’t, she chose to be a criminal instead – and that’s a different story). But at the point she had her medical accident, she had racked up £22k of debt for her husband, because she wanted more than she could afford. And wasn’t willing to wait or work hard for it. That is a thought process I noticed a lot and once credit cards really rolled out for everyone and quick fix loans – I could see where it was all going. I really do believe people should be helped who really need it and we are surrounded by terrible injustices – but so far I am seeing a lot of scamming and scheming in this country and we currently appear to run on greed. I thought we were in a different world, the old world probably, one of trust on a handshake, help each other and maybe just a bit of old school rules. Not so, and I’m not so sure we ever did.

We now have an elaborate system of scamming from top to bottom in this country. Example – A ‘homeless’ person gets dropped off by a range rover, then begs for eight hours, then gets picked up. Not to say all those people are doing it off their own back and possibly this is organised on a bigger level, but it is obviously now a lucrative job and we are allowing beggars to be a commodity. I can’t blame the people for using the system that is here – I just hate the system. Homeless isn’t just a simple word anymore where someone needs a bed and a job – there are many social issues involved and at work. In my view the whole system needs an overhaul, it is unsustainable and causing more problems we may not be able to ‘fix’ later. Like people, generations of people are being ruined for no good reason, just profit. How do you fix that?

We could also look at the infrastructure – it really does seem that no one wants this country to work – because we can’t get anywhere in any good time. Time is something you cannot buy more of and you cannot get back, I am astounded we do not fight for it. Start with the roads and trains. Streamline the traffic, get everyone to where they are going, things move quicker and we can get on. The levels of frustration being experienced by people just trying to live is excruciating to watch – maybe this is why anxiety levels are so high?

And here is my really unpopular idea which has been put forward already – bring in compulsory sight tests for over 70’s and really look at part of the issue. Older people are the ones who mostly have all the money in this country, therefore they can afford these nice cars that are now like spaceships but go no faster than a horse and cart. But they have no need to get anywhere (or they drive to that effect), the speed limit signs and pretty much ignored and people won’t drive over 40 mph. There are two many people from 17 to 90 driving around with such different purpose. I feel like we are in a twilight zone episode every time we go out – which is getting less and less. I get my shopping delivered now and can’t face the ridiculous debacle that is just popping into town now – because no-one seems aware – of anything. And that frustration I mentioned, gets to me and it ruins my day. I try to be thoughtful when in the company of others, be aware that other people have lives and needs and try to be polite with it. But I have not been afforded that courtesy back of late, from any quarter of society. So I withdraw as much as I can, and am slightly ashamed at how it has come to this, which I am part of.

I just keep thinking there must be a better way…

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(c) K Wicks photographer – Capels Viaduct, Stroud, Gloucestershire

The Blues Effect…

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Around a decade ago, I found my way to setting up and running a local blues record label. I did this as a hobby business after I had set up my accounts company, I had spent the time needed to make it successful and employ a number of people so I could do other things. These other things turned out to be wasting my time on other people. I was surrounded by musicians and thought maybe if someone could pull together the admin side and help guide their creativity, it might just work.

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I laugh now at my misplaced optimism. Organising people and their dreams isn’t the easiest thing to do, and given the choice knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it differently. I wouldn’t do it at all. It was many (way too many) hours of my own time for which I have nothing to show apart from this one CD left from the label launch. The lesson for me being, not all creative people actually want to do anything with their talent, if they have any. My motivation was better used for myself and my own dreams. Maybe I was just to afraid to push myself and it was easier to try and push others? There were moments where it was fun, but mostly just a lot of hassle.

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Although after I stopped helping other people, I wrote a few blues songs myself and recorded one of them A Capella (by this time I had had enough of musicians). I love music and what can be done but it isn’t my dream. One of my favourite films is still The Blues Brothers and it’s probably my favourite genre. I concentrate on my writing and publishing now and running my bookkeeping business.

So far I have published two books of poetry, three novels, a book of short stories, two colouring books and just recently my first non fiction book. Writing and publishing my own books has been my dream since I was 6, so now I am finally doing it, I think I will just keep going. There is so much more to be written.