Authors Electric

New Year is not just about partying ... Because, as you will of course all know, they not only understand every word I say, but are perfectly capable of communicating a few choice ones themselves, I thought it timely to have a chat with my two office assistants, Archie and Angel, about making some New Year Resolutions: ANGEL: But our ears are always naked. ME: [baffled] What? ARCHIE: [patiently] Our ears are always naked. Unclothed. Exposed. Without coverings. ME: Oh … right. I think you may have misheard. I was asking about your New Year Resolutions, not nude ears. ARCHIE: Well you should have said. Honestly, your diction is getting worse. No-one would believe you had elocution lessons in your youth. ANGEL: And even they weren’t successful. In England everyone commented on your Irish accent and in Ireland they commented on your English accent. ARCHIE: But we blame the pupil, rather than the teacher. ANGEL: Yeah! Tin ear! ARCHIE: Tin ears ! ...

We start off with triumphant roars and finish with glorious and grateful gasps. It's middle time that lays us low and sometimes begging for mercy. Wouldn't be it cool, though, if we could triangulate, maintaining a strong, joyous spirit throughout? Joyous when we're panting and wondering how to go on? Joyous when the middle's taking months longer than we'd thought? Exactly. Marathons of any kind--a novel, a movie, a painting--are filled with strong beginnings that peter out into sputtering and desperate rushing finales. But there's no need to rush for the finish when other marathons await us.We need to be strong through whatever exhaustion or pratfalls await.                                                                         *****                ...

Just before Christmas I realised I had some store vouchers that needed to be spent. So I went online looking for something sensible to spend said vouchers on. To my surprise I discovered I could purchase a Kindle Fire for the grand total of £9.00 (once the vouchers had been redeemed). So I pushed the boat out, put sensible aside and treated myself. My excuse for being so frivolous was not to have a new toy to play Candy Crush on or to be able to read in the dark. My excuse was I wanted something that might help me find more time to write (it’s amazing how much wasted time you can claw back if you plan). You see 2015 wasn’t very productive (for a number of reasons) so I wanted to take a positive step towards making 2016 very productive. I’ll admit a lot of game play has taken place but my new ‘toy’ has also inspired new ideas. These include a craft title (hence new low tech crocheted covers for my new  Kindle), a series of magazine features and a few short stories (which I ...

           I’m a Psychologist by trade. Someone once said that Psychologists are all peculiar (that old taunt) because they just can’t fathom other people and they think studying Psychology will help them. Hmph. I’m inclined to think I chose it as a career from simple nosiness – or a fascination with why people do as they do, to put it more kindly.           We’re all at that, of course – we have to be, and some of us are demonstrably better at working it out than others. I wouldn’t claim that my training or work experience gave me some sort of extra insight or powers of prediction into other peoples’ lives, although it did provide some useful frameworks for clinical interventions. In everyday life, though, the same old questions continue to haunt: ‘Why would somebody do that?’ ‘How could somebody think that?’ ‘I can’t understand why anyone would…’ etc. etc.     ...