Within the Invisible Pentacle

Each story Within the Invisible Pentacle explores the depths of human character, the quintessential disposition of living, and of life itself. They ask questions we often shy from, the ones we are afraid to ask ourselves, unearthed, revealed, and brought screaming into the daylight of recognition.

The prevailing factor is, each tale is written with consideration for our fragile human disposition, the fears, the dreams and wishes, the uncertainties and self-doubts we all carry inside ourselves, the human element of love, of life, of hope and survival.

Within the Invisible Pentacle is a collection of poignant, emotive stories, ones that will remain with you forever.

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A free short story, just for you.

For those who don’t know…

I am Paul White, a multi-genre author of fiction, non-fiction, and semi-fiction.

Many of my short stories are available under the ‘Electric Eclectic’ brand, some are eBooks, others paperback collections, while a growing number are those wonderful Pocketbook Paperbacks that are increasingly popular because of their size, as they really do fit into your pocket. Perfect for reading while commuting or away on vacation.

You can find my books on Amazon and many other bookstores. All are shown on my website

Now, on with the story.

This one is titled ‘Free Spirit’, enjoy.

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FREE SPIRIT

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When I walked into the apartment, I knew this project was going to be fraught with difficulties.

Firstly, the place has been unoccupied for some time; a musty dampness prevailed its entirety. I sensed this staleness was not simply neglect but an ethereal odour of others’ lives, of previous tenants.

Secondly, there were many pieces of furniture still in situ; old, dusty brocade curtains hanging at the windows, personal effects, a small trinket box sitting on the dark wooden sideboard, a silver-backed hand mirror laid on the dresser, and a time-worn leather-bound book on a side table, near the musty, torn chintz-covered armchair, all emitting a staleness of abandonment.

Before I could start the repairs and redecoration, I would have to clear all this old junk from the building. That would involve putting in some extra hours, late nights I had not planned. I was sure the extra effort would be worth it in the end because it is not often one can find such a large home for such a low rent in a neighbourhood of this stature.

On Friday, after work, I hurried to the apartment, eager to begin the clear-out and clean-up.

Once achieved, I could start on the repairs. Tearing off the old wallpaper, ripping up the musty carpets, filling the holes where pictures once hung, all that sort of stuff.

Then I would be in the position to begin to decorate what was to be my new home, my first home.

Fresh paint, light colours on the walls, modern, sleek, designer-style furniture, new light fittings, and mirrors. I like mirrors, they lighten even the dullest corners. I wanted the place to be what I can only describe as understated urban chich.

I was excited.

Tonight, I would be alone. My friends, the ones who offered to help, were all out on the town, or so they said. I don’t blame them for not being here today, after all, it was a Friday night.

Tomorrow, I had promises, commitments from them. I would have a small troop of workers grafting away all day in return for cold beer and snacks, oh, and pizza at the end of the day.

But tonight, it was just me.

My first task was to wrestle the largest items of furniture into a group by the lounge door, so my team of workers could easily carry them out to the skip, which was due by eight o’clock in the morning.

I was surprised by the weight of the old furniture. I’m uncertain if it was Mahogany or Oak, but it took all my effort to ‘waltz’ it across the room. No wonder the previous occupiers had left it where it stood.

By the time I had shifted all the pieces, I was sweating from the effort.

Opening the window did not cool me down. The air was too heavy and humid, and too weak to do more than slightly move those heavy curtains.

It was now midnight, but before I finished for the day, I wanted all the drapes removed, the litter from the floors swept and binned. I wanted this room ready for paper stripping, and carpet removal.

By the end of the weekend, I would be happy if this room and the hallway were ready for my creative attention. If I could get at least one of the two bedrooms stripped too, well, that would be a bonus.

Right now, my stomach was grumbling. I needed to eat. Anyway, it was time to take a break. A stroll to the all-night cafe on the corner, where I could grab a coke, a sandwich, a pork pie, or toasted sandwich. It would do me the world of good to eat something.

Once in the café, I decided I would be wasting time if I stayed to eat, so I carried my refreshments back to the apartment.

Wearily lowering myself into the tatty chintz armchair, I froze. Looking around the room in disbelief. The coke slipped from my grasp, spilling over the threadbare carpet.

The furniture, and I mean all the furniture I spent the last few hours moving into a group close to the doorway, was now back in its original position.

It was as if I had not moved a single item.

The window was closed, the curtains still, the lingering scent of neglect somehow stronger than before.

There was something more.

I could hear a faint melody floating into the room. Trumpets, brass. Smooth music. Perhaps a nineteen-forties swing band?

I shook my head, trying to gather my thoughts. This was not possible.

I moved the furniture. Placed it by the door.

I was trying to convince myself I had not, purely for my sanity.

The music was playing softly.

Surely it was coming from another apartment. Yet it sounded far closer, emanating from somewhere in this apartment.

Maybe I was overtired. Whatever; I needed to get a grip on myself.

I followed the sound, walking slowly along the hallway until I was outside the room where the music was coming from.

Someone was playing a joke on me. My friends have seen me leave, deciding it would be funny to mess with my head.

Angrily I snatched open the door, ready to yell at whoever was doing this, whoever found it funny to try and scare me.

The volume from the gramophone blasted out a crackling version of Chattanooga Choo Choo as I stepped into the room.

I halted, standing stock still.

I could not comprehend what I was seeing. This room was perfect. A nineteen-forties parlour. No damp, no faded wallpaper, no rotting furniture.

It was bright, new, perfect.

“Come in, David,” she said, “sit yourself down. I have been waiting for you.”

To my right, I saw a handsome-looking woman. She was wearing a flowing evening gown, long white gloves, and a pearl necklace.

In front of me, a well-ordered room, brightly lit and warm. Behind me, a cold dank hallway, the discoloured wallpaper peeling from the walls.

This was surreal.

“Don’t be shy,” she said, “come, sit, enjoy some champagne.”

She was holding out a wide-rimmed coupe glass at arm’s length. Hesitantly, feeling I had little option, I took the glass from her hand.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Oh, you young people, you are always in such a hurry,” she replied, smiling, and lifting her glass towards mine.

We touched glasses. Automatically I said, “Cheers.”

She smiled at me again, replying with a “Chin, chin.” She sipped her champagne without wetting her dark red lips.

I sat, bolt upright, in a small chair, and as nervous as hell. She lay back, relaxing on a chaise lounge opposite my chair.

If I were dreaming, this was far too real.

The woman spoke. “So, you want to move into my home, to come and live with me. Do you, David?” Her eyes were firmly focused on mine.

“There must be some confusion,” I said, “I have just bought this apartment, it’s mine.”

“Oh no, David,” she answered, shaking her head, “It will never be yours, it belongs to me, and forever will.”

 “I don’t understand,” I replied.

 She nodded understandingly, reaching out, placing a gloved hand on my knee, patting me like a reassuring aunt.

“My husband built this building back in the early 1930s. I have lived here ever since the day it was completed. I shall never leave. Now, I like you, David. You are a fine young man, so I am willing to let you stay if you wish to share my home with me?”  She left the sentence hanging.

I sat motionlessly, my mouth ajar. I did not know what to say.

“Well, David” she prompted, “what have you to say?”

“This place, it’s a mess, all old and rotting. I need to clean it up, do repairs, redecorate, get new furniture… except this room, your room, its lovely, I mean it’s really nice.” I knew I was gabbling, the words tumbling from my mouth faster than I could think.

“Oh, David.” She said, “don’t worry about that for now, just tell me if you will be happy sharing my home.”

“But when people come, my friends, family. How do I explain this room, or you?” I asked.

She smiled like an understanding aunt looking at a child. Patting my knee again she said, “No one will know, David. No one except you.”

“But this room, when people look around, they’ll…”

She interrupted me. “More Champagne. You look pale, you’re shaking. A good drink will settle your nerves.” She continued, “Think, David. This apartment, how many rooms are there? Don’t answer, but this room is not one of them, is it?”

I was mentally counting, walking through the apartment. She was right, this room was not one of them. This room did not exist.

My mind was in a whirl. “I, I, I don’t know. The furniture, I moved it. I put it by the door, now it is all back where it was. Then I heard the music and… and, I followed the sound. It led me to this room.”

Her laughter filled the room, “Oh my dear boy,” she said, “I have thrown you into a right tizzy, haven’t I?”

I gulped the last of my champagne.

“I have something stronger if you prefer?” she said, “a whisky, perhaps. I know what you men are like.”

I was nodding. It was an almost unconscious action as my mind was whirring. Random pieces of thoughts flew through my mind.

“Do not fear. You may decorate the apartment as you wish. I will not stop you, David. That is, if you want to live here? Now, before you worry too much, I don’t leave this room, well, only when the need arises, and I am sure I‘ll have no reason to venture out while you’re here.”

“I would like to live here but, who are you?”

“Oh, my. I have been remiss, haven’t I? How rude of me for not introducing myself. My name is Evelyn, Evelyn Keyes-Johnson.” She held her hand towards me. “So, David, are we friends. Shall you be sharing my home?”

I took her hand and shook it, although slight, Evelyn had a firm grip.

“I would like to stay, and I would be happy sharing with you,” I said, although I had not totally convinced myself. “I do have a question though.”

“Ask away, young man.”

“Are you a ghost?”

Her laughter filled the room with lightness. She smiled a wide, bright grin.

“As I died many years ago some people may call me that,” she said, “but I prefer to consider myself a free spirit.”

END.

Free Spirit©PaulWhite2022

On the Highway of Irreverent Rumination & Delusion

For far too long I have been working, albeit intermittently, on a title called, ‘On the Highway of Irreverent Rumination & Delusion’

This book-to-be, (I shall complete and publish it… one day), is full of recollections, personal views, my ‘sideways look’ on life, friendships, and society.

The contents of this book are loosely stitched together, taking place during a fictitious road trip. The following chapter is one which starts as I enter Scotland.

Enjoy.

Outdoors

I have just crossed the border.

The sign said, “Welcome to Scotland.”

In all truth, the change is unnoticeable at first; but as the miles disappear and the number of people dwindle, the changes begin to reveal themselves.

Scotland is significantly different to England, not only on a political level and in a geographical sense, but of spiritual connotation.

Scotland retains many of its ancient origins, its Celtic traditions. It is far more natural, raw, and autochthonous.

Like many wild places, the character of the environment harks to our latent memory. It stirs within us feelings and dreams which lay dormant, subdued, smothered, covered, and repressed by our modern world of steel, glass, concrete, and unnatural plastics.

Fleeting half-thoughts, mists of the long-forgotten, stir within the recesses of our brains, our subconscious, and subliminal minds. Sights, smells, senses peak as we feel, and see much the same as our ancestors did a millennium before.

This is genetic memory stimulated. This is where tales of déjà vu are born, this is where life is re-lived, echoes replaying like an old record crackling to life.

It is this very ancientness of wilderness, of wide-open space, of freedom and memory, I was now passing through, which took my wandering mind to my childhood, my outside childhood.

You see, when I was a child, I spent most of my time ‘outside’.

Maybe, I am just of ‘that’ generation? possibly the last generation whose young lives were honed and shaped by the playing fields and parks, the waste grounds and streams, the woodlands, the scrapheaps, the dumps, and all the inaccessible, and off-limit areas, in which we played and adventured.

Areas now considered far too dangerous by the health and safety ‘police’; they who insist on secure fencing, notices, warning signs, and patrols to protect, not the children, but the pockets of the wealthy landowners, or the coffers of the local councils, and multi-conglomerates from litigation.

The second ‘concern’ is of abduction, and paedophiles.

No longer are parents comfortable in allowing their young to venture unrestricted into the great playgrounds of ‘outdoors’ unsupervised.

Which is not only a great shame, but an indicative reflection of our so-called civilised society.

I believe this loss of freedom, the forced imposition of restriction is detrimental to the well-being and development of our current, and future crop of children.

The actual risk of attack, according to recent statistics, is no higher than when I was a young boy. The years of the two-thousands are no more dangerous than those of the sixties.

The difference is the media, who are no longer satisfied by reporting events, they now have a penchant for sensationalising everything, to speculate and hypothesise.

They find extraordinary pundits to postulate and theorise.

It is this current trend of media frenzy, the over-dramatisation, the addition above facts, of overstatement and embellishment, which lends itself to the social hysteria, and collective knee-jerk reaction of fear.

It is they who created the ‘me too’ society.

A society where everyone is no one, unless they are a ‘me too’. Unless they stand and claim their fifteen minutes of fame… well, of media hype, or internet trending moments.

Now, to be ‘normal’, to be well balanced, happy, fit, healthy, and not claim you are a ‘me too’, is considered ‘weird’ or ‘strange’, or both.

If that is you, perhaps you need help?

Serious help?

Now, I have no wish to see any harm come to anybody, child, or adult, but consideration for facts and freedoms should take precedence over fear and speculation.

Children playing will, at times, harm themselves. It is an inevitable fact. It is risk; a part of growing, of learning, of development, and should not be eliminated from a child’s life experience.

As I have said, I was an ‘outside’ child and youth. I climbed trees, waded in icy cold streams looking for sticklebacks and newts.

I was one who found the high heaps of scrap metal, waiting to be turned into pig-iron, a fascinating source of props for make-believe play.

Derelict buildings were castles or forts, woodlands, great forests, where battles were fought with sticks and shields, (often found on those scrapheaps).

The hedgerows, or parcels of wasteland housed our secret dens.

We lived in a world unseen and unknown by ‘the others’, those strange creatures who are known as adults.

Our world was only accessible to the few, the chosen young of few years life.

I have many images and memories of my childhood pass through my mind this morning, and never, not in a single instance was it raining.

Snow yes, ice yes, wind, puddles, sun… yes.

But never rained.

It never rained when I was a young boy.

Never, not once, at least not when I was playing.

I can recall looking out from my bedroom window on a rainy evening, watching cars passing by, windscreen wipers flicking and rain spraying from the wheels in their wake, hanging in the air, a faint mist swirling in the light wind.

I recall my father, who was balding, saying the rain made his head itch, as we walked to the local shop from my grandmother’s house.

I have a memory of sitting in the warmth of a bus with my mother. I was drawing doodles with my fingers in the condensation on the windowpane as the rain lashed down, and the thunder crashed above.

But it never rained when I played outside.

I know this is simply my memory being selective, choosing to falsify my recall, to enhance my fond recollections, but I kind of like that.

I prefer remembering my childhood being this way, however inaccurate; after all, these are my memories, mine alone.

I might tell you about them, explain what I experienced, but I cannot share them with you, not unless you can enter my mind and see what I saw, feel what I felt, smell what I smelt.

Going ‘out to play’ with my friends was not always a straightforward affair.

First, I would call at their homes. Either they were in, but often they, like me, were ‘out’.

There were days when I would walk miles searching for my friends.

Back then, we had to travel to find one another.

We had no phones, no means of instant communication, so we made vague arrangements to meet at a location, or a choice of two… maybe three.

These are the places where we looked first.

Sometimes we would find one another immediately, on other occasions we would have to hunt around.

If my friends were not where they said they may be, I then searched our usual haunts, the places we would gather, where we generally hung out.

This too, was all part of being from the ‘outside’ generation.

I have I plethora of wonderful, and fond memories of ‘playing out’ during those halcyon days of my childhood.

Which brings me to this though:

What memories will the young children of today hold?

Will this new generation have anything substantial to recall of their childhoods as they age?

I know many who seem to live their lives absorbed in a netherworld, a semi-cyborg existence of Playboxgaming, and i-texting, of cyber friends, and avatar existence; rarely seeing the natural light of the sun.

How many shall never smell the primaeval scent of ancient heather carried on the breeze, or hear the screech of a wild eagle echo from the mountains?

How many will never truly venture ‘outdoors’?

I wonder, and I fear.

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Paul White is a multi-genre author of fiction, semi-fiction, and non-fictional works.

His books range from Children’s stories to tales of Crime and Violence, from true accounts of those who live in the worlds War Zones, to recording the humorous social history of Royal Naval Life.

Stories of Heartache and Lost Love stand alongside episodes of Psychological Terror, and the plain absurd.

The common denominator which runs through many of Paul’s works, is the most important matter of all, the Human Condition; that of Life, of Love, Happiness, Laughter, Anger, Anguish, Fear, Hope, Uncertainty, Pain, and Loss.

​​​Paul is an ardent independent traveller and globetrotter, a nature lover, and supporter of ecological and wildlife preservation.

He says he has a “warped sense of humour, is a lover good food, good wine, and great company.”

You can visit his website here, http://bit.ly/paulswebsite

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Dear Diary… 2020

Before I start, this post was not wholly my idea.

This post is vaguely in the form of a diary which looks back on 2020. It is an amalgamation of pieces taken from other blogs, social posts and such, with a snippet or two of my own observations mixed in for good measure.

This is my disclaimer… as such, the following is far from my usual form of ‘Posting’. The following is purely for entertainment purposes, the expressed views herewith in are not necessarily those of the author.

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January.

Australia caught on fire.

I am unsure if the fire was extinguished, it may still be smouldering away.

The reason I don’t know, is because the media circus had not finished talking about those fires when their attention was distracted as we came to the brink of war with Iran. The [British] Foreign Office warns British nationals against all but essential travel to Iran and Iraq, following a US airstrike in Baghdad the previous day, in which Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed.

We may still be ‘almost at war’ with them but the reporting stopped in favour of telling us about Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt, who, it seems, spoke to one another at an awards show and everyone flipped the crap out.

Men can walk safely on the streets once again as Reynhard Sinaga, described as “the most prolific rapist in British legal history”, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of raping or sexually assaulting 48 men in Manchester. Police believe he may have been responsible for assaulting a total of nearly 200 victims.

This almost coincided with the ‘Big Brother‘ Police announcement that live facial recognition technology will be rolled out across London.

Then there was this thing happening in China. Something to do with wet meat or bats or such.

But again, the press became distracted after Prince Harry and a girl called Megan decided to “step back as senior members” the Royal family. At the same time, something was going on in the USA about impeachment. It seems that is a thing, who knew… who knows?

Then this Chinese thing (they decided to term it as a Coronavirus), it showed up in the USA “officially,” and the media got all excited… but then Kobe Bryant died, seems people in America knew who he was and it upset them so the media spent their time dredging up every bit of nonsensicle information about him, non-stop, 24/7.

In the UK, now with Boris at the helm, we finally managed to kick all the shit shifters, the self-opinionated, egotistical, communistic national-party fascists out of parliament, so the government could honour the people’s wishes from the referendum and get Great Britain out of the diabolical farce they call the European Union.

February. 

Iowa crapped itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted (from that impeachment I mentioned last month) and the Speaker of the House took ten-whole-years to rip up a speech.

Then ‘The WHO’, That’s not the band or the doctor, but the ‘World Health (dis)Organisation’, gave the Chinese virus a name, they called it, in a most scientifically creative way, COVID19, which confused some really important people in charge of our lives as they thought that meant there were 18 other versions before this one. But all it means is CoronaVirusDisease of 2019, which, when contracted comes out as ‘Covid19’.

Then some bloke called Harvey Weinstein was found guilty. Many Americans started asking if Corona beer was safe to drink, and everyone on Facebook became doctors and viral experts overnight. They then informed us that regular flu generally killed more people each year than all the COVIDs which had come before. You know, all those non-existent COVID numbers, 1 to 18.

So, clearly there was little to be concerened about… unless you are a conspiracist. Then you better watch your back because… if they are really after you, you are not paranoid.

The first British death from Covid19 is confirmed by the Japanese Health Ministry; it is a man in quarantin on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, anchored off Japan.

The first death from coronavirus in the UK was confirmed this month, as the number of cases exceeded 100, with a total of 115 having tested positive. England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, tells MPs the UK has moved to the second stage of dealing with COVID-19 – from “containment” to the “delay” phase.

 

March.

This is when the shit hit the fan big time.

A chap named Warren dropped out of the American presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust.

Then, just as things were getting fruity, Italy shut its whole country down and this COVID19 thing was no longer considered confined but officially recognised as a Pandemic. (A Pandemic is when lots of people start dropping dead all over the place and no one can stop it happening in a hurry.)

So, a nationwide state of emergency was declared in many countries like the USA and Great Britain and the other bit, that um, whatsit… oh, yes the European Union thingy and people were told to go home and stay there, not to come out until you were at least eighty years old.

In some countries they added to their death toll by shooting anyone not at home.

But it didn’t change anything. Everyone was confused about what it was or what to do about it. Many people thought it was just a bad dose off the flu. So, everyone went shopping to buy toilet rolls, flour, yeast, Spanish olive oil and gummy bears, all the essentials for surviving the apocalypse.

Without getting all the attention it needed, COVID19 got ‘a bit’ upset, thinking we were not taking it seriously and started to infect the celebrities everyone likes, as it did with Tom Hanks.

That got it some attention from the news stations, who ran the story on each news broadcast, and all the people, who were now sitting at home watching thier screens, began to believe what they saw and hear on television, so they got frightened.

NHS Nightingale Hospital London, the first temporary critical care hospital to treat COVID-19 patients, opened in the ExCel Centre in East London, employing NHS staff and military personnel, with a bed capacity of up to 4,000. It was the first of several temporary critical care hospitals across the UK

Reacting to this, the Governments closed all the schools, hairdressers, bars and restaurants, so no one can learn anything or get their hair cut or have a beer with their frends… or their nails buffed and polished.

Then everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings naked, wearing skimpy underwear or stained onesies.

The Stock markets bottoms fell out. (Out of where I’m not certain.)

Although, to be honest, most of us don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing anyway.

I mean whose money is it anyway, where does it go, who do we owe it too, and where did they get it in the first place, oh, and how come there’s more money being made every year and when there’s not we’ve lost it? Is there a giant sofa with a ton of loose change behind the seats? Has anyone tried looking there?

There are just so many questions…

Anyway, while sitting around at home naked or squirming around in ragged onesies with your arse hanging out, we all got to meet a chap called Tiger King, thankfully only on our televisions. I’m guessing he’s the type of chap you would never take him home to meet your parents… Hmmph. Less said about that the better.

The ONE thing most can all agree on this year, Carol totally killed her husband… whacked him, and then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realised there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion.

 

April.

Bernie finally busted himself out of the American presidential race just as New York City became the perfect setting for The Walking Dead.

We also learned no one who needed them had any face masks, ventilators, or toilet paper.

Around this time, most people’s natural hair colour, including a great deal of grey, was showing above their root line and sales of home hair dye and other unessesary chemicals took off.

Oh, and Kim Jong – Un died, but then he came back to life… or did he? Is anyone really sure?

Who knows, because then, the Pentagon released videos of UFOs and really nobody gave a shiny shite about a fat man with a strange haircut after that.

 

May.

Like at the predicted end of the world in the bible with the historical locust swarms, we learned of marauding murder hornets… and it dawned on us 2020 was probably the start the real-life Hunger Games, however, people must have forgoten to let us know it was starting.

In some places, people started to protest lockdown measures with AR-15s.

Sports events were cancelled everywhere. Theatres closed, both stage and movie. Aircraft stopped flying, ships and boats reduced their passage.

Basically the whole world shut down, which was a godsend for the wildlife, the sea and the atmosphere. Never in living memory has the air been cleaner, the skies bluer, the animals and birds more prevalent.

Then, people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were protests in every city, which was confusing to some because people were gathering in crowds standing a lot closer than 2 meters apart. Those people must have forgotten about the pandemic called COVID19 I guess?

The media struggled with how to focus on more than two things at once, while people, in general struggle to focus on more than anything more than that which was being dangled in front of their nose at the time.

A dead whale was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. Monkeys stole COVID samples from a lab and ran off with them.

All the while our astrologers were shitting their collective knickers, as a giant asteroid narrowly missed the Earth.

I think it swerved to avoid the Covid19 monster personally.

 

June.

Common was cast from the window, somehow wearing facemasks became a political thing.

Then everyone remembered the pandemic, just as scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the centre of the earth, and everyone cried out “DON’T YOU TOUCH IT”.

However, after a deep breath, everyone realised people believed ‘Gone with the Wind’. They thought the film was like non-fiction too.

Then they announced of a strange radio signal from somewhere out in the universe which repeats itself every so many days… then everyone cried “DON’T YOU ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT”.

In the UK, Jonty Bravery, an 18 year old, is jailed for 15 years after throwing a six-year-old boy off a 200 ft balcony at London’s Tate Modern gallery, leaving him with a bleed to the brain and life-changing injuries.

America decided to reopen from the shutdown that wasn’t ever a shutdown… and, so far, things have gone spectacularly well… well, no, they haven’t to be honest, they are not doing very well at all. 

The UK experiences its hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching as high as 33.3 °C (92 °F) and hords of brain dead twats swarmed the beaches and spread the virus amongst themselves… the effects are yet to materialise, it takes a few weeks… 

Then, like a mass birth of rabid raptors, all the Karen’s came out and started tearing down statues of long-dead people, people who no one knew or remembered… until that point.

Whatever happens, history cannot be changed. Something so few seem to comprehend.

Everyone is then on Facebook, arguing about masks. are they effective… well no… not if you dump your discarded masks and gloves in supermarket carts, baskets and scatter them across countless car parks, they just hold and harbour the virus carrying further afield.

Mind you, I have said for years many people should have their heads entirely covered in public places anyway,  generally to reduce mass nausea. (I guess that’s another story though?)

Then we learned of a massive dust cloud coming at us directly from the Sahara Desert, which is fairly normal, but this is 2020, so the Ghost of the Mummy and the Scorpian King is most likely lurking in that dust.

One bright note is the Congo’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak is over… what do you mean, what Ebola outbreak… where have you been this year? Have you been distracted?

We have also discovered FLYING SNAKES, yes, seriously. FLYING SNAKES. And what about the 200,000-duck army China is sending to Pakistan to help with the locusts… yep, that’s the truth.

 

So, we get to this month, July….

Some people, at this point, think we are over it. Of course, they are wrong, very, very, wrong.

This is just the beginning.

Not allowing for what additions are next. like Aliens, Zeus, more Asteroids, Artificial Intelligence becoming self-aware… (Skynet?).

Oh, joy… Live long and prosper.

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Within the Invisible Pentacle is available from Amazon UK

https://amzn.to/2SrwzIx

And from Amazon

USA

https://www.amazon.com/Within-Invisible-Pentacle-Paul-White/dp/1720987653/ 

These stories vary widely; some will make you laugh aloud, or nod in agreement. Others will make you shiver with apprehension, while a few might bring tears to your eyes.

The prevailing factor is, they are written with consideration for our fragile human disposition, the fears, the dreams and wishes, the uncertainties and self-doubts we all carry inside ourselves, the human element of love, of life and of survival.

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A bit more Rambling…

As always, my intention of posting regularly is not happening; as they say, (whoever ‘they’ are), the highway to hell is paved with good intentions!

Even now, in lockdown or self-isolation or whatever you may be calling it, my life is far too hectic to guarantee I post in any other way than at random intervals.

Generally, my posts tend to be informative, either about publishing or to give insights into writing or ‘being indie’ while trying not to get too technical and academic… hence boring.

This post is not focused on any of the above, it is simply me ‘Rambling away’ about what has taken my time over the past… however long it has been.

So, without further ado this is it.

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If you are a follower or regular reader of my ramblings, you will know I run Electric Eclectic, in its most simple form it is an alliance of indie writers from around the world who, besides promoting their books, are ready to help and aid other writers with their personal and technical dilemmas regarding all things indie publishing.

Several things are happening with Electric Eclectic, the first we are encouraging more authors to join our ranks.

Secondly, we are accepting entries to the Electric Eclectic Novella Fiction Prize 2020. The ‘Prize’ is the winning stories having their books published as paperback and eBooks along with marketing packages.

We are also at the formatting stage of Electric Eclectics latest anthology, one especially written to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of VE-Day. It is simply called VE75.

The Government brought forward the May bank holiday to May the 8^th is to coincide with the VE-day anniversary. Sadly, due to the outbreak of coronavirus, the planned public events are most likely to be cancelled.

However, Bruno Peek, VE Day 75 pageant-master, told me,

“Even if I must ring around every organisation and individual involved and tell them we’re cancelling, there is something everyone can still take part in regardless. At 3 pm on Bank Holiday Friday, the nation will be asked to raise a glass to toast the heroes of World War II – men, women, children wherever they are. We’re not asking people to raise a glass of alcohol so everyone, all people, faiths and creeds, can join in. It can be done anywhere: in the supermarket, at home. The Prime Minister can even raise a glass from Number 10 if he’s not able to leave Downing Street by then.”

Electric Eclectic is producing VE75 as an eBook, so people can simply download it to whichever device they wish. The book is part of the VE-Day celebrations, so I hope you will buy a copy and help support our military veterans and military families in need.

Apart from my Electric Eclectic commitments, I am working on several ‘Works in Progress’, two books in particular are;

FLOYD, a bloody psychological revenge thriller, while On the Highway of Irreverent Rumination & Delusion contains my personal views on life, living, the state of society and the world in general. I shall let you know when they are due for publication.

Meanwhile, you can read about my Works in Progress and find my published books, including some special editions which are not available from Amazon, here.

Apart from writing, I am a digital artist and photographer, feel free to browse my art website.

Of course, I still have all the ‘normal’ regular home and household chores to attend to. Add to the above, my position as editor of Electric Press Literary Insights magazine and you will see, even shut in my home, I am far too busy to be able to commit to a set programme of posting to this blog.

I started this post with the intention of thanking all my followers and subscribers and regular readers… you know who you are, and to say keep safe, keep well and keep happy.

Please, if you are an author, consider joining us at Electric Eclectic. Email us for more information, EEbookbranding@mail.com

If you are a novice writer or even an established author, think about entering the Novella Fiction Prize.

If you are a booklover, a bookworm, a bibliophile then subscribe to the Electric Press magazine, it’s FREE and it is simple, just go to the Electric Press blog, where you can also read the current edition. 

Well, that’s enough of me for today.

See you on the other side.

Paul.

Unconnected connections of habit.

I recall reading Roald Dahl’s ‘Georges Marvellous Medicine’ to my son when he was a child. One phrase I found particularly hilarious was when George’s grandmother said, “Growing was a nasty childish habit.”

I’ll give you a short extract for context.

“You know what’s the matter with you?” the old woman said, staring at George over the rim of the teacup with those bright wicked little eyes. “You’re growing too fast. Boys who grow too fast become stupid and lazy.”

“But I can’t help it if I am growing fast, Grandma,” George said.

“Of course, you can,” she snapped. “Growing’s a nasty childish habit.”

As it happens, in the ensuing years I found my son adopted other ‘nasty childish habits’ growing boys seem to enjoy. I mentioned most of them to him in much the same way as George’s grandmother, not that it had any effect!

However, it is not childhood, growth, or adolescence peccadillos I speak of today, but one of habits.

You see, like many other authors, my mind is constantly working overtime. Even when I am ignoring it, doing regular stuff like cleaning, gardening, or shopping, it is whirring away noticing things, listening to other people’s conversations, reading notes, lists, and phone screens (over people’s shoulders), and so forth.

It really is a bit of a rouge in many ways.

The thing is, those subconscious bits of my mind remember it all, record it, and mull it over, twisting totally unrelated events, jiggling individual occurrences, shaking them together until a kaleidoscope pattern of instances that hold the possibility of illusory whimsy forms.

This is when it digs a sharp elbow of attention into the soft kidneys of my platitude, painfully jerking my ‘normal’ daily thoughts away from the mundane and into the imaginative world of fantastical conception.

Last night, as I was going to bed, I felt the aforesaid sharp elbow ram painfully into the soft parts of my consciousness.

A voice in my head spoke excitedly to me.

“You know,” it started, “you write a fair bit about remembering the past, about nostalgia and stuff?”

“Um, yes,” I said, not sure where this was leading.

“Well, what about if people get all nostalgic because they survived it?”

“Survived it?” I questioned.

“Yeah.” The voice was shouting in my brain. “Think about it.”

“I’m going to bed,” I said. Trying to placate my thoughts.

“Yeah, but you’ll not sleep, not until you understand this.” The voice said, sounding a little annoyed and more than a little bit smug.

Of course, it was right. I needed to do this now, as tired I was. So, I grabbed a notebook and pen. (I have several dotted around the house exactly for moments like this.)

“Okay,” I said, “fire away.”

“How about if… people love the past, the recent past, like the times in and around their childhood because they lived through it, or most of it. They survived relatively unharmed. Well, they must have done, or they wouldn’t be here now, would they?”

“Um, no,” I replied, “I suppose not.”

“So, just like in a good book, or a movie, where the hero rides off into the sunset at the end, that’s what you have done, along with everybody else who reminisces. You rode off into your sunset to arrive in the here and now.”

“Well, maybe, sort of.”

“I’m right. The past is where your parents were. They helped keep you safe, mended your cuts and bruises, kissed your grazed knees. It was home, comforting, warm. Your bedroom, your inner sanctuary, guarded by your parents.”

“I guess so.” I was chewing my inner lip. Something I rarely do. “But not all memories are good ones, bad things happened too.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” my mind said, “I’m not talking about those bits. No one gets all sentimental over the bad stuff. We remember it when we must, but not in a nostalgic way. Nostalgia is reserved for nice memories.”

“I’ll go with that,” I said, nodding to myself.

“Well, that’s the key,” my mind continued.

“The key to what?” I asked.

“The key to writing something captivating in your books, especially when you’re basing them in the past, or have characters talking about ‘back when’ & ‘do you remember’ and stuff. It’s great for flashbacks, prequels, and stuff like that. Think about it.”

I was thinking about it.

“Even a futuristic story must have its past.”

I scribbled a few rough notes, odd aide memoir single word notes I could refer to later. (That later being now).

The thing is, after a good night’s sleep, a day carrying out family chores, and a visit to the dentist for a clean & polish, I have mulled over my conversation with the excitable voice from last night, and my conclusion is… I agree.

It makes a ton of sense for us to hold fond memories of good times. They could well be recollections of childhood events, maybe a loving mother tucking you into bed, possibly escaping an annoyed farmer while scrumping for apples, or like some of the memories I have written about previously, such as days out for a family a picnic, or a train journey to the seaside; all exciting experiences for a child.

My teenage years hold more life events that have helped forge who I am today. Don’t get me wrong, I have instances of near-death, but… I survived to tell the tale. I did ride off into my sunset… although some moments may be more akin to crawling along a drainage ditch in inch thick cloying mud… but those tales are for another time.

It’s called living life.

As an author, I feed on such memories, use them to build my fictional worlds, create my characters, lay plots, and write scenes. It is a habit I’ve adopted.

Until now, until the conversation with myself, I did not consider why nostalgia, which is according to the dictionary, ‘A sentimental longing, or wistful affection, for a period in the past; even one never experienced,’ is such a powerful apparatus to use to elicit emotion.

Now, I have spent time complementing the reasons, it makes perfect sense, and one I shall be far more aware of when employing it in my writings in the future.

So, while scrumping for apples, and reading George’s Marvellous Medicine may be unconnected events, both in time and geographical distance, the voice in my head found a way to join them together into a cohesive entity.

You could say they were unconnected connections of habit.

Keep Happy, Paul

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I would love you to check out my books, you can see them all on my website, even those not available on Amazon, including exclusive hardcovers.

Don’t forget to look at my Electric Eclectic books, eBooks and Pocketbook paperbacks. You can find them on my website 

I am open to comments and communication, so feel free to contact me at pwauthor@mail.com or via Facebook.

Moment of the Muse

How often do you struggle for something to ‘write about’? or face the so-called writer’s block because you cannot find a topic for your next piece?

I know many writers frequently struggle with finding subject matter. It is something I hear often via author groups and writing associations.

I am a prolific writer, yet have never suffered from either of the above.

Most often, I can be found tapping away on my keyboard as I continue my ‘works in progress’.

I usually have a few of these on the go at once; non-fiction, a novel, some short stories, a compilation, it is pretty much par for the course.

I have files called ‘stuff & stories to read’; ‘story Ideas & notes’; ‘more writing notes’; ‘other stuff’, and so forth. Each file has sub-files, documents, snipped pages, images, sticky notes and a plethora of summaries, transcripts, annotations, memoranda, footnotes and odd bits I am unsure what to call.

The overriding connection is, they are all my Aide-mémoires to moments.

Some of these notes were transferred from my notebooks. I tend to carry at least one notebook with me at any time, generally, a small flip-type book. If I am leaving the house for any length of time. On long journeys and holidays, I take several, so I always have one to hand.

The jottings in these books can be about a place, a view, something said to me, part of an overheard conversation, or an observation. I even have notes about signposts I find amusing or incoherent.

Other items have been stored from browsing the net, finding ‘stuff’ while researching something entirely different. Some are from messages, spam, sales emails and so forth.

Occasionally reading another’s story sets my mind racing along parallel paths, so I need to scribble down my thoughts of the moment. The result of the stories which develop from these are a far cry to the original stimulus, but sometimes one needs the initial jolt to send the imaginings down a certain pathway.

These files also include part stories of various lengths. They are from a single sentence or paragraph through to several thousands of words… unfinished works if you wish.

Some are my deletions and edits of other work. The bits I cut out. The parts which did not make the final manuscript or published book. Waste not, want not. They can all be used again in one form or another.

But, the point of this post, each and every one of the notes in those files have come from a ‘moment’, a single moment I have experienced during my life.

After all, life is simply a matter of moments, one after another, after another, like the single frames of a cinematic film they whirr past us in a seemingly continues unbroken stream.

I believe great writing is having the ability to capture any one, or more, of those given moments and revealing its secrets, sharing them with all who will read your words.

Even the longest of novels is created by producing a string of ‘scenes’. Each scene depicting a moment.

Personally, I have a fondness for creating shorter stories, anywhere from about 250 words to, say, twenty or thirty thousand. My favourite though is around 2,500 to 6,000.

This proposes the challenge of making a captivating tale, one with a ‘proper’ beginning, middle and end, with so few words.

I feel the main test of writing such a short story is to examine the writer’s skill, in not only having a complete story but one which burns its presence, its being, into the mind of those reading it. A great story should ask questions, probe the beliefs, principles and convictions of the reader.

Which leads me back to the start of this post where I asked,

“How often do you struggle for something to ‘write about’? or face the so-called writer’s block because you cannot settle on a topic for your next story?”

My belief is you may be overthinking the issue.

Do not try and think of an entire story, of a whole scenario, before you put pen to paper. Just take one moment, one seemingly insignificant moment of your life and write about that.

Think about today. What has happened to you, with you, so far today?

It does not have to be anything exciting.

Not all stories need to have a romantic outcome or bloodshed, murder and mayhem splattered across their pages. The characters do not have to be heroes or superhuman, to have suffered or survived.

Ordinary people, people like you and I have stories to tell too. Try telling one or two of those. Stories and tales regular, normal people can relate to and understand.

What did you think of the moment you awoke today… write about that?

Expand on that.

Why were you thinking it, what does it relate to, who was involved, what will be the outcome, can you change it? Do you want to change it? Can you stop it changing? and so forth.

Become your character. Believe you are they. Wholly, totally convince your muse you are.

Open your heart, let your soul pour forth. Be honest with yourself. Don’t force it.

Your story will come and it just may be the best thing you have ever written.

Grab the moment, grab the moment of the muse.

 

I’ll leave you with an instant.

A while ago, I read a social status in which a young lady was distressed regarding her writing.

It seems her family, particularly her father, not taking her wish to write seriously, held little interest in what she was writing about, suggesting it would be better if she wrote about him.

Of course, this is not what this young lady wanted to write about. She did not want to write about her father. She wanted to write about something she knew, something she understood.

But everything she had written so far was slighted by her own father. Not very supportive, encouraging or helpful.

This made it extremely problematic for her to choose a topic or subject which would not amplify the situation further.

I shall not repeat the derogatory remarks made or the well-meaning, but pathetic and ultimately unhelpful, words of comfort offered on social. But all the responses took this young ladies post on its surface merits.

The deeper conflict was her relationship with her family, particularly her father and the anxiety it created within her.

This stress was heightened by her desire to write something meaningful while not adding to the household turmoil. Yes, she could have written in secret, but it was obvious she wanted, even desperately needed the encouragement and backing of her family.

All this young girl was looking for was some reassurance. She needed positive reinforcement from her family.

I suggested she write exactly what she posted about. The conflict with her father, why she wished to write and why she wanted to write the things she did. How hurtful her fathers’ remarks were and how the lack of support was so dispiriting.

I proposed she then gave her family the manuscript to read and await a response.

She now has a new laptop her father bought for her writing and a small desk in the corner of the room where she can work uninterrupted.

This is a true story.

As I said above, my advice is;

Open your heart, let your soul pour forth. Be honest with yourself. Don’t force it.

Your story will come and it just may be the best thing you have ever written.

Grab the moment, grab the moment of the muse.

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If you want to see my books, find out what I am working on or contact me, then visit my website, HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hluhluwe Umfolozi, feeding lions and a rather intangible abstract notion.

©PaulWhite

I was asked recently, by Francis de Aguilar, a writer friend, what first caused me to “Become interested in African wildlife.“

 

A simple question.

I told him it was after visiting South Africa, particularly the time I spent in the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve. 

However, Francis’s question stayed in my mind; although I answered him, it left a nagging doubt in my mind I was wrong.

I was wrong.

After pondering for a few days, the truth unravelled itself. I now knew the correct answer.

My interest in Africa and its diverse multitude of wildlife was first stoked by reading the novels of Wilbur Smith.

©PaulWhite

Back in the early seventies, I picked up a rather dog-eared and worn copy of ‘When the Lion Feeds’, which I devoured within two days. I followed that book by purchasing ‘The Dark of the Sun’, again read within a few days.

I was about sixteen years old and, for the first time, ‘hooked’ on a particular author.

I read all of Wilbur Smith’s books up to the 1991 publication of ‘Elephant Song’. My favourite book, (excluding any of the ‘Courtney or Ballantyne Novels’) must be ‘Eagle in the Sky’…or ‘Cry Wolf’…or ‘A Sparrow Falls’….or…

But I digress.

 

The real answer to the question posed to me by Francis is; it was reading these books when I was a young man that stimulated my imagination, made me think about the heat, the vastness, the veld, the bush and, of course, the animals of Africa.

For years, I carried my imaginings of the world Wilbur Smith planted in my head with his words, until one day I had the opportunity to visit Africa myself.

I was not disappointed.

The continent is mind-bogglingly vast. The scenery, the smell, the sun, the animals, the people, everything exceeded my expectations, bettered those imaginings I held onto for so long.

This I find is something rare; very few places ever exceed our own imaginative conceptions.

©PaulWhite

I have returned to Africa many times, to different areas, different countries within this vast dark continent.

You may have heard it said, “Africa captures, not only your heart but soul and once you have been, you can never really leave.”

These are some of the most honest words ever spoken.

I am here now, but part of me will forever remain in Africa.

Now, being a writer, I cannot leave an article like this with just one conclusion when I know there are always several stories to be told about everything.

Therefore, I would like you to also consider this, from Wilbur Smith’s point of view, or maybe, it is just my own interpretation of what I think his view may, or could, be.

Who knows? But I’ll write my thoughts out anyway.

I wonder if dear old Wilbur thought of me when he wrote his first novel?

I don’t mean me as an individual, as a single person but as a conceptual being. I wonder if Wilbur thought he may influence some young man, somewhere in the world, to fall in love with Africa as he typed out his very first paragraph of ‘When the Lion Feeds’ way back in the early 1960’s. (The book was first published in 1964).

©PaulWhite

Then, my thoughts ask the very same question of myself.

Do I have an image, a conceptual ‘personage’ in my mind who may, one day, be influenced by my own work, by my writings, by the tiny little black shapes, these strange runes of ink I scattered across countless pages?

The answer is yes, I do have such a notion, albeit a rather intangible abstract.

Which leaves you to ask yourself the same, do you?

Think about it carefully, do you?

If you would like to take part in making my rather intangible abstract notion a reality, then please start by reading ‘Within the Invisible Pentacle’ a collection of thought-provoking stories which are not quite as you may think they may be…

Just click the cover image.  

Thank you, Paul.  

When I am not writing…

“What do authors do when they are not writing?”

This is a question I asked myself while pottering about in the garden.

It may seem like a simple question, one which has a very simple answer; the likes and the things we do listed, almost ‘bullet-pointed’ as a reply.

Sure.

That’s fine, for most people.

But I am an author, a writer. To me, even those simple answers have hidden depths, more meaning and a thousand stories each to be told.

Here is where my writer’s mind went after I asked myself that question…

I know what I do, but I wondered if that was ‘just me’?

You see, I love travelling. I love to explore other countries, sampling their food, their culture, being amazed at wonderful vistas, cascading waterfalls, crazy cities, wild traffic and such.

I also like to travel around Britain, the place I live. So far, my favourite areas are the Highlands & Western Isles of Scotland.

The road to Oban ©paulwhite2017

The Llyn peninsular in Wales gets better and better the further west you travel. The very best being Aberdaron and Bardsey Island.

Looking out, towards Bardsey

I reside in Yorkshire, the county known as ‘Gods Country’ for its stunning landscapes.

Gods Country

I originate from the south and was lucky enough to have lived in Kent, called the ‘Garden of England’, which kind of speaks for itself.

The Garden of England

All in all, I love nature; landscapes, coastal areas, animals, plants, and grand views. I like red wine, cold beer, fine whiskey, food and some good company.

To my mind this is what home is all about, making a comfortable place with hints, reminders and touches of all the things you love. Pictures and photographs of loved ones, trinkets and ‘tat’ from all those places you have visited; be it a foreign country or the local park, it’s those little inconsequential, yet sentimental items, like a shell collected from a beach, a pebble from a mountain path or a serviette from ‘that’ café.

In a way that is what our homes are for, storing and sharing all those little things which bring back the memories from a life well lived.

We can also make our homes reflect the things which make us… us. Especially, at least for me, in the garden, the garden in which I was pottering when I first asked myself the question I am writing about now.

In this instance, I have ninety per cent completed a project I started about three weeks ago.

In one corner of my garden was a derelict, rotted and neglected raised ‘deck’. I built the deck about ten years or so ago from reclaimed scaffolders boards and, I must admit, was proud of the outcome.

The said deck, (holding tables, chairs, potted plants and lighting), hosted many ‘al fresco’ lunches and dinners, served as a ‘buffet’ table during garden parties and barbecues it even became an improvised office for my writing on the days the sun shone and the rains held off.

But, as many structures constantly exposed to all weathers, it slowly degenerated, until it was little more than a rickety load of planks balancing precariously on a few rotten cross-members.

After laying unused and unloved for so long I decided to rip it up, replacing it with raised-bed vegetable plots and a small seating area.

Partly this decision was to do with the ‘stuff’ I wrote about earlier, the travelling to places, the sampling of food and wine and such like.

You will see in the following photographs I have placed my potted vines along the wall. These have never produced any edible grapes or enough to make even a single glass of wine, not here in England, not with our weather. But they do grow some large and tender leaves which are perfect for making dolmades, one of those foods I first ‘found’ on my travels many years ago.

I have made one deep growing bed and two shallow beds. The idea is to grow ‘root’ vegetables, such as carrots, parsnip, onion and sweeds in the deep one, leaving the shallow beds for the vegetables that grow ‘upwards’; beans, peas, sprouts, lettuce and so forth… once the soil has been delivered, which is about all I need now to complete my task, hence it is only ninety per cent complete.

The path to the new vegetable garden passes the fish pond (left)

Raised beds awaiting soil, the seating area (far left) will get chairs soon

Note the vines and fig tree against the wall.

I already have an area for soft fruits and yesterday harvested a bumper crop of particularly sweet and sticky Gooseberries, the ‘Brambles’ (Blackberries) are beginning to set fruits and so still have many flowers.

This then, is my answer to my own question, “what do writers do when they are not writing?”

For me it is often gardening, but not simply for gardening’s sake.

Its for relaxation, creativity, frugality, satisfaction and for good food, healthy unadulterated food which I and or my wife will turn into some amazing dishes or preserves; some that will bring memories of a time, a trip or a place, flooding back, or maybe excite us, as we look forward to the next travel experience we have planned.

These are the sort of things I do when not sitting alone, isolated, eyes glued to the screen and scribbling away like a manic… I’ll let you finish that line!

However, I am curious to know what you do when you are not writing, please, let me know so I can be sure it is not ‘Just me’.

Keep Happy, Paul.

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Don’t forget to visit my website, http://bit.ly/paulswebsite where you can find my latest books, including my Electric Eclectic Novelettes.

 

 

 

Why do I write in the way I do? (An answer.)

I am often asked, as I am sure many authors are, “Why do I write?”.

This is not a straightforward or easy question to answer comprehensively. In fact, if I were to answer that question in full, it would be an extremely long essay.

Which is the answer I gave a few days ago.

However, that question was followed by one which made me think, a question I was, at the time, unprepared to answer constructively.

“Why do you write in the way you do?”

This question made me think, beyond the basics of ‘style’ and further than ‘narration’ alone.

So, in the regular and rambling way I use in my blog posts, I shall attempt to convey to you my thoughts on this question.

They are as follow……

I do not write a particular genre of fiction.

Romance stories generally demand detailed character descriptions, a slow build-up of intensity to climax. (Excuse the pun).

On the other hand, Horror readers want faster-paced, less detailed, more action books which cut right to the core. (Sorry, I can’t help myself).

By not being a genre writer, I have not developed a style limited by the parameters of reasonable expectation of those readers.

Neither do I write for a syndicated publisher, such as Mills & Boon, who have strict plot and style guidelines and can drop any contributor in an instant, should their suggestions not be strictly adhered too.

I am a truly free, independent author.

I have written an offbeat tale of abduction and intrigue, which is also a romantic story, a tale of finding oneself and humorous yarn all rolled into one. It is ‘The Abduction of Rupert DeVille’. Available on Amazon, just click the link!

This book alone breaks all the genre-specific boundaries it touches upon.

I did not set out to intentionally break any rules, I simply ignored them all and wrote the story I wanted to write.

I have also published two collections of poetry.

The basic premise of each is human emotion. Fear, love, hate, anger, regret and so on. I like the challenges of poetry. The differing forms, such as haiku, present wonderful opportunities to develop wordsmithing skills that can be adapted to storytelling.

That is how I like to think of myself, as a storyteller, a mythmaker; weaving tales into people’s consciousness, making them re-think and to consider life and the world around them in a way they may never have done before.

My book collection, three volumes of short stories called ‘Tales of Crime & Violence’ are designed to do just that, to make the reader reconsider their point of view, to side-swipe their general conceptions, to come at them from left field and leave their minds floundering with a myriad of questions, questions they now find they are asking themselves. (Click the link)

That is what a great story should do. It should stay with you, lingering within your mind a long time after you have closed the final pages of the book, maybe even forever?

I have also written a children’s book and non-fiction stuff. Very different disciplines than writing standard adult fiction of any sort.

I am, at the time of writing this, working on a novel about an escaped psychopath. ‘Floyd’ is out on a bloody revenge spree against those who had him committed. This book must be considered a ‘Slasher’ type of story. It is a crime thriller certainly, a horror…in parts possibly, but not really.

Once again, I am writing what I want to write, in a way I want to write it. The style and narration I am using is unique to this book. It is not one I have adopted previously.

Which, in a long-winded and round-about way, brings me back to the original question of “Why do I write in the way I do?”

Taking note of the above (and remembering my independence), has allowed me to indulge in many experimentations with style, narration, pace, plot, POV’s and all the other ‘literary technical stuff’ writers put far too much emphasis on when discussing writing.

Each of my novels is written from a totally different personal perspective. Making each quite distinctive from the last. Even so, my personal mark is to keep an element of humanity, of emotion, of people’s dreams, hopes and fears running through all my fictional stories, even those involved with psychotic killers!

My short stories reflect those same values, the human passion for life, the experience of relationships, of desire and love, of living, of loss and of death.

I like to explore these areas of the human psyche, areas often forgotten or neglected by other writers and authors. I like to reveal them at a certain pace, a pace which suits the individual story being told.

In some I might come at you from the shadows, smashing into your mind like a train wreck. In another it may be an insidious creep, slowly weaving itself between your receptive neurons, until that is the only thing your mind can focus upon.

This is where the poetry and experiments with lexicon come to the fore; they allow me to use words as a basic material, melding and moulding them, twisting and forming them, until they convey to the reader, not only the description and facts, but the feeling of being there, of being within, of being part of the nether world where my story lives and, without doubt, to see, hear and feel the trauma, the worries, the excitement and passions of my characters as they stagger from one conflict to another.

You can read several of my short works at https://alittlemorefiction.wordpress.com/ I always have a few stories on this blog, although I do delete and change them at random intervals.

So, in brief, that is my answer to the question – ‘Why do I write the way I do.’

I hope you can pick something useful out of this.

Thank you for reading, Paul.