Category Archives: depression

Overload

This is a bit of a rant, you may disagree with it, and that’s fine… There is a friend of mine, a good friend, a friend I like very much, and with whom I share a great many foundational moral … Continue reading

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10 years down the Lane

Ten years ago this month I published my first novel. I wrote it in July the year before, then spent a year redrafting it several times, while trying to convince myself it wasn’t just a mid-life crises project. I had always wanted to write a novel, I been writing for the better part of three decades, but now I had actually written one. It was finished it was done , it was as good as I could make it. The only thing left to do was to send it out into the world. It was terrifying… Continue reading

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Oceans of the mind

The ocean is never calm, even when the surface seems calm the currents beneath are ever moving changing and washing up against strange shores. So the ocean is never calm, even when it might seem so to others and to be calm is an athame to the ocean. The waters must move, ever change, be they the depths or the shallows, crashing upon the shore, or out passed all horizon. Fed by rivers and seas, pulled by the moon in tides of gravity, while in the deepest places the heat of the earth pushes through mountains. Continue reading

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Caves

I am stood in the mouth of a cave. The cave is behind me. The cave is always behind me. I am not always stood in the mouth of the cave. It is my cave. Sometimes I take a step … Continue reading

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Masks

This is a post about masks derived from an old posts about masks from 2017. In 2017 I was still writing the first Hannibal Smyth novel, COVID was yet to be a thing and I was not the same person … Continue reading

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The Writers Life : An Honest Conversation

What is success, well for me it is readers, it has always been readers. You have to find your own way to judge your success. But as a community writers need to be more honest with each other. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is all very well except that builds false expectations against which we measure ourselves. And that is damaging. Continue reading

Posted in amwriting, depression, indie writers, indiewriter, opinion, writes, writing | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Book reviews beyond the paradigm

What it it was easy to change our lives? What if happiness wasn’t an impossible dream to chase after? What if we could have nice things?

or something like that Continue reading

Posted in amreading, big questions, depression, fiction, indie writers, pagan, reads | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The place I write from…

I like my anger, without it I am not sure who I am
I bottle it up in tight little jars. Seal it within myself.
Turn it, mould it, hammer it and temper it.
Then, when it can not be held down any more. When it has been refined to a glowing edge. I use it, and poor it into words.
My anger becomes creation, focused it becomes a positive force Continue reading

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When a chap is not a chap…

An internet friend reminded me the other day of an important lesson we all need to take on board and remember. When I say all I am talking about 49.9% of the population though the core message applies to us … Continue reading

Posted in amreading, amwriting, depression, Hannibal Smyth, mental-health, writes, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I’m not good, but who is.

When I was a kid at Pudsey park on the outskirts of Leeds, just across from the abandoned Traction Engine steam roller, in the main play ground there was a Helter-Skelter. It was a proper Helter-Skelter, a huge wooden construction. … Continue reading

Posted in big questions, depression, dystopia, insomnia, mental-health, opinion | Tagged , , | 1 Comment