words

Doing it yourself…

~ MKW Publishing ~ Leave a comment

This may end up being just a list of tasks along the self publishing route but I have new respect for the procedure and the people that make that happen. Having undertaken all the aspects myself it’s not an easy or quick task.

I find writing the novel or stories is only a small part of it. It’s the finalising your story, editing, formatting, cover design and marketing. Making it ready for public consumption. Everyone who makes this happen, I salute you.

It’s a different kind of tiring when completed, quite draining but ultimately rewarding. However well the book does in the long run, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

(c) K Wicks photographer

I wanted to buy a puppy

~ MKW Publishing ~ Leave a comment

It sounds like a normal thing, you decide you would like to have a dog. You just have to know where find one. I did not. We had an Alsatian border collie cross growing up over the years and I decided that would be a good breed to go for as I was familiar with them.

I started looking through papers and on the internet. I think I eventually found one on TradeIt. It was in Kettering which was quite a distance from where I was in Gloucestershire, but it was a male puppy, exactly the colouring I wanted. I called and made the arrangement.

Now, my inexperience and desire for a dog completely clouded my judgement. I didn’t really know much about the dog market and hadn’t even heard of puppy farms at this stage. When I arrived, I was given a story about the parent dogs being in kennels as they were going away, so no I didn’t get to see the parents. Just a few bundles of fur, and my quiet looking little puppy in the corner. As she handed me my puppy, she said “Oh by the way, he’s been a little unwell from his worming tablets, but he’ll be fine”. He was quiet and not very puppy like, but adorable and I wanted to look after him. So we left.

It was not a good 24 hours, upon getting home, he wasn’t well at all, being sick and unsteady on his little feet, I had already named him Victor after my childhood dog. But I could tell he wasn’t doing well, I was trying to give him water and keep him warm, but I didn’t understand how fragile puppies are. I took him to the vets within 12 hours, they booked him straight in. And within another 12 hours he was gone. It was an incredibly heartbreaking situation and I was devastated. I called the woman I had brought him off and told her what had happened. She text me back to say they were away – but that she knew someone with some more puppies that would be ready in a couple of weeks when she was back. Still, my brain didn’t flag up anything to say, hang on a minute.

I was very down for a couple of weeks, but trying to focus on feeling positive and trying to look forward to actually being able to have a dog. The next time came. Funnily enough she still didn’t have the previous puppies parent dogs anywhere, but I didn’t think. Instead she had 3 more puppies, who all looked tiny and cuddled up together. And then I did think they all looked a little small, and identical. I hadn’t really ever seen mongrel puppies all looking the same. But she assured me they were crosses and I picked mine. He was covered in fleas and had the tiniest little face, but was adorable. After a few days, he actually got sick too, but with tonsillitis and needed to be put on antibiotics. This was a brief but stressful time as I was convinced he was going to die too. It was a strange beginning for us and one that probably paved the way for what ended up being a very strange dog – but that’s a completely different story.

Also turns out he was a Saluki, a breed I had no experience of, and nothing like the dogs I had ever had before. If you know of them, you will know what I mean. But I believe now on reflection, that he came from a puppy farming environment. When I decided to get a companion for him, that was also through advertising, but such a different environment, family home, all the puppies playing together, parent dog on hand and owners who looked liked they cared for their dogs. It makes all the difference.

One day I will write the story of Kody.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

(c) K Wicks

Living in Fear

~ MKW Publishing ~ 3 Comments

My childhood growing up in the 80’s in the UK seemed to be filled with war, terrorism and espionage. Over three decades later I am still trying to make sense of a world fuelled by turmoil and greed. I didn’t have massively political parents, they moaned liked everyone else and picked a side. But didn’t really do anything, just talked a lot about what should be done.

My first few years of really being aware were in England and the back-end years of the cold war, the build up to the poll tax riots and very real threats and acts of Irish Terrorism from the IRA. I distinctly remember a certain bearded man (Gerry Adams if you don’t remember), who’s opinions were deemed so poisonous his voice wasn’t even allowed on television. Although the footage of him and someone else reading his words were okay.

The Lockerbie air disaster was a terrible event noted by all too and reminded us we were at threat from at home and abroad. Apparently. Details and the full story were as sketchy and hazy then as they are today. And as I do now, relied on the media to give me information and keep me updated of the terrifying world around me. And that made me think something may fall out of the sky at any moment and land on you. I wasn’t very comfortable flying after that.

The 90’s brought a very different and worrying way of life for me. We moved into the military with my mother’s third marriage and were instantly posted to Germany, around the time of the Berlin wall coming down. My step-father had served in Northern Ireland before he was with us and it made it all a bit more real. It was no longer just reports on the TV. We were in Germany, where it was very real. On reflection, I may have had a realism sensory overload from that point on and never fully recovered. As we left for Germany, the first Gulf war kicked off, followed quite closely by Bosnia. My early teenage years were to be a continuation it seemed of being surrounded by societal turmoil. My home life wasn’t entirely standard either, dysfunctional and erratic I would call it. But that can easily go unnoticed when you realise what goes on outside. The world was falling to pieces, what does it matter if your family does too?

Thrown in between were other things to be afraid of, murderers, viruses and catastrophic natural events and man-made ones threatened every year. The O-zone, solar flares, earthquakes, asteroids, tsunamis. It was endless. 

After that followed more wars and conflict, 9/11 and new laws and propaganda for what we were meant to be afraid of.  I have a feeling that being constantly bombarded (through choice sometimes) with the negative reality of human nature hasn’t helped me to be a happier person, but perhaps a better informed one. Mid-teens I kind of fell off the map for a bit, but when I realise what I was contending with, I’m just glad I made it through.

(c) K L Wicks

Enlight33

(c) K Wicks