It's Only Life

       The night of the 8th February 2015  was the 160th anniversary of a very strange event, that left the people of South Devon wondering whether the Devil himself had paid them a visit.      Mysterious hoof-shaped prints, were said to have appeared overnight in heavy snowfall and were discovered by early risers on the morning of the 9th. The prints which were one in front of the other approximately eight and a half inches apart appeared to have been made by a biped. They were said to have covered an area of between forty to one hundred miles, passing over rooftops and through walls. One set of prints were said to have bridged a two mile span of the river Exe, continuing on the other side as if the creature had walked over the water. This was all supposed to have happened over a six hour period, which would have meant that the perpetrator would have had to be moving at speeds up to seventeen miles per hour.      The people w...

 I always save my work every few sentences. Luckily I always back my work up daily and to more than one external source. Today something weird happened. I was dragging a word document to a memory stick when a message popped up saying that I was holding down the control button (I definitely wasn't). Then everything on my desktop got copied to the word document that I was dragging (nothing was highlighted). I managed to stop the action before too much damage was done, but in the process I lost all my website files from the laptop. Luckily I had back-ups. I have no idea what caused it, as the problem resolved itself after I restarted the computer and deleted the word doc. The only damage was, that it cost me about half an hour checking important files to make sure they were still there. So please everyone BACK-UP regularly to external devices.

  If it wasn’t for OCD, I would have more hours in a day. Everything needs to be checked and double checked. Often I can be in the middle of a train of thought, writing away merrily, then I see a drawer that is slightly open. I try to ignore it, but it is distracting me; I can’t stop looking at it. My mind is now willing me to do something about it; a little voice in my head (my thoughts), say ‘No, leave it’. Finally ‘mind’ wins, and I get up to close it. That’s it, damage done, I have lost the train of thought; so, I sit and procrastinate until the thought decides whether or not to pop back into my head again. Remember I’m old, and old people often forget what they were going to do, so that could be a very long time. Wait a minute… here it comes, and I am back on track; until a look at my two mobile phones (yes I have two), they are not lined up properly. I pause to sort them out, but one of the cases is misshapen; do I align it on the left, the right, the top or the bottom?...

  “When I awoke one morning, my whole body felt numb. My head, normally so full of ideas and challenges, seemed to be empty. I foraged deep within my mind for just a tiny flicker of anything that might resemble the normal me.”   Depression knows no boundaries. Abusers, like their victims come in all guises. Anyone, old or young, rich or poor, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion can become a victim. I know, because I became a victim at an early age, my only crime was being different. ‘Running from Hippos’ is a narrative of my life, the good, the bad and the very ugly. It begins with the story of naïve child who was, unwillingly, subjected to sexual, physical and mental abuse. It tells of my ongoing battle to stay alive and sane, in an unfathomable world. Some of my book is written in third person drawing on Bren, the stronger me, to relate the things that have been difficult to process; and, as a result, some of the descriptions can be quite graphic...

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/255466172799157 Hi everyone welcome to my new writers group where you can share your writing, ask questions, discuss problems with writing, publishing etc., share your upcoming books, your success stories (and your failures), or just chat to other writers. I will be posting hints guides and other writer related and fun stuff that you may find useful and enjoyable.

 Had some great feedback on my book hopefully copies will be available to pre-order soon. My colleagues and I have now very carefully looked at ‘Running From Hippos’. I received independent reports on the style, quality of writing and the suitability to genre and I am pleased to say that we find ‘Running From Hippos’ to be of considerable merit and believe it would appeal to the reading public. The work is well written and has literary merit.   Your manuscript was brought to our attention at the latest Editorial Board meeting when we discussed the potential of it’s pulication. Having read all the reports and taken note of the Editors’ opinions we can confidently state that your work was found to be the most entertaining and immersive memoir. Your chronicling of your experiences and their impact on your life and how you found your way through are incredibly emotive and evoke a strong sense of empathy in the reader. The board was keen to comment on the poignancy of the wor...