Moments of Importance 

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Some moments are ment to change us and some are meant to fade like a smoke ring carried on a passing breeze. Such moments like, the first look from a girl across the room. The first time a girl holds your hand. The first time you pluck up the nerve to kiss her on her lips, the clash of teeth and the acupaning realisation that you are not as good a kisser as you thought.  A true Constant in life is love. And if your lucky enough to find it and you hold on to it. Then happeness will follow.

Whatever love may be, I think its emotion, the rawest emotion of all, it fills our lives with Purpose. Without it memory’s will fade and dullness takes over. Just remember that in the end we don’t look up a picture of our best car or wish to see a statement of our closing balance.

We look into the eyes of a loved one and remember them moments of importance. Them moments that filled our life with love and smiles. Have a good day and I hope it’s full of such moments.

Photo from http://funny.pho.to

The Sun, how it changes my day.

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I walk with my wife, the sun breaks through the clouds. I feel warm, I feel happy.

There’s a definite change in women when this happens. In the winter months, when it’s cloudy, it’s raining, there’s drizzle and it feels miserable. Oh and not to forget it’s wet and damp. Well women cover up, they have there hats on, umbrellas sprung open and big coats covering from chin to toes.

We don’t really see then. We just don’t notice them. They become part of the grey back ground.

So as soon as that sun comes out my wife and women change, they evolve like a butterfly, they will go from this covered up form, kin to a nun and transform into a beautiful glowing sun filled person, full of life with the embodiment of all things nice. They really do entice us all, my male friends pretty much say the same thing, we all notice. With the first bit of sun the first thing a man notices is his partner or wife. It Isn’t the sun its self. We love the sun only because women are gorgeous in its light. I’m including my wife, as she is very gorgeous. She does the same, see changes, see becomes vibrant and colourful, there is a little bit of flesh that shows after being coved up for the winter months. The skirts, the makeup, and then “the smile”.

This is the most important of all the changes, the smile comes on most faces. I drive round the streets or I walk round the town centres, I go for walks at the weekends. If the suns out with blue sky’s and fluffy clouds then people smile, men are smiling just as much as woman. I like to think that I smile more in the summer too.
So I think this post is a testament to all women. To say thank you for uplifting my day and most other men’s day too. I don’t think you realise what impact you have on us, us men of the world.

Thank you sun and thank you women of the world, most of all thank you, my wife.

 

The picture I used today was taken by James Heathcote, find more of his work at www.jamesheathcote.com

Character Relationships and Development.

Sometimes I think we can get so court up in the big full-on relationships of ours characters that it is possible to lose sight of the whole picture.

We are told that when developing characters that we should make a personal profile, by giving each and every character there own back story. Basically a life before the plot.  This is to give us (The writer) the ability to write from their (The character) life experience. Now this is good as long as you keep the exercise to the point of view characters. I say this because when I first started writing in a more than caesural manor, it was this that through me the most. Know one has ever told me that the least important the character, the less back story you need to create. Making a full and colourful life for all your characters will be fun, but I’m not sure if its necessary. To be clear I’m not the kind of writer that writes a full profile on any of my characters. I make them in my head and they stay in there. I was asked to explain this once and my explanation spooked me as much as it did the person asking. They said ‘How do you make these people up?’ my response was a few moments of fumbled thought and a few scratches of the head, then. ‘Its like there is a small room in the back of my head, where there are many little people. (I mean little people in my head) They kind of listen to what I want and when I’m stuck I hand over to them. They then spend what ever amount of time is necessary to make things work. I can be washing the car or cooking the tea but when they have finished working with the plot or character problems. I get an alert that things are ready to move. This normally comes in the form of that magic called inspiration. I stop what I’m doing and go find my laptop.’ Now the weird thing is that in my imagination this is what happens, a group of people live in my head waiting to help me when I am stuck on plot or character. Snapping into action when required.

Am I schizophrenic? I think not, I just have a good imagination. When you look at your own life and the complex relationships that are held there, you may see a kind of scale. First there is your close and most important relationship, your wife, husband, partner. These are the ones you know most. Then there are siblings, uncles, aunts, friends, work colleague and so on, the list goes on. What we have to remember is that when we interact with these people in the real world, we do so on a much different scale. Some people don’t get on with their mother or father. Some cannot be in the same room with there brother or sister. Some people place friendship far above the family connections.

Also if you give yourself such strict guides as character mapping, you can take the ability for a character to be lied to, or be manipulated by another, because you know too much about them. In life we fight to see the genuine within people but get it wrong more times than any of us would like to admit. By mapping every character I think its possible to take that ability away from your characters and make them a bit predictable. I would be very interested in your view on this, as I find characters fascinating and think its this that drives me to write.

Please comment or send me an email.

Reflection!

When we reflect I cannot help but wonder why. People I speak to seem to reflect back on there life with the filter of  regret. I can honestly say there are only a handful of friends and family in my life that follow my interpretation of reflection.

Above is a collage of words from my tags of the last year. I can say that these are the most important words from my last year of posts. When I look over these, it makes me reflect with in, I see happy, sad and great social times. The last year has brought me the death of my father. The finish of my book. The realisation that I need to do more. Also a great growth within my self. My first blog almost a year ago was (and you can look this up in my archives if you wish) To Van Dyke or not To Van Dyke That is the Question. Since than I have posted fifty seven times subjects ranging from information about my writing  to family holidays, great social events such as the Royal Wedding and some very personal events too.

This is the past and we should learn from this, not repeat it.

We hold onto the past with notions that to persist and repeat will bring better results. It will not.

Most conversations I will have over the next twenty four hours about the future, will involve the past. Trying to make a better future by clinging onto a changed or modified past.

The glory days are just that.

We anchor ourselves with Memories but we set ourselves free with Dreams.

We look forward and shape the future, use your glory days, don’t repeat them.

On this I wish you all a very happy and productive New Year. I look forward to the new challenges it will bring.

 

Emotions part five ‘Hate’

I wonder what we mean when we say hate. I think most people can see a person in there minds eye if I ask.

‘who do you hate?’

I have been trying to write this post for months, it seems that I just cannot get a handle on hate. It could be me, maybe I just don’t have the ability to hate.

Is it hate that we feel? or is it another emotion that we are just confusing as hate. Like jealousy or envy.
Hate is what I would call a prime emotion like a prime colour. It’s one of the big ones, we use this in a combination with others to make our mood or feeling at any one time. It wouldn’t suprise me to find that there are specific parts of the brain that directly involves it’s self to making us feel hate. There has been many times in my life when I have felt hateful towards someone or something; it is normally short lived and happened when I was a much younger person.

In the wisdom that comes with thirty eight years (if any) I seem to have mellowed, It takes a lot more to rattle my cage. Maybe having children has taught me to control this destructive emotion.

Our feelings have developed over many thousands of years. We as a species used to use such things as tools. Only now we live so different to our recent ancestors that we can get confused to which emotion we should be using.
It’s not human to hang on to any situation after the outcome is obsolete. So if you feel hate for someone because they have done you wrong then that’s fine but as soon as your hate becomes self destructive then it’s time to let go. Move on and make the best of what’s left. Whether it be love, money or a family feud. Life is to short and to preoccupy our life’s with such futile endeavours if wasteful to say the least. In the end hate is powered by the situation that gave it life. What we have to do is rationalise it as quick as possible to limit the damage it will cause, because if left it will cause damage.

This is when the empathy comes in; to see the situation from the other point of view will give you prospective and know doubt show you how small it was in the first place. In the end maybe it’s our ability to forgive and empathise with others that makes the difference. Writing makes me empathise with others, after all if I could not empathise I would only write a one sided story. I’m only able to give characters there own life by taking that life from everyone round me. I little bit of everyone I know will be in all my story’s

My oldest brother has some great advice, that is “do to others, only what you would have done to yourself’ (Im sure thats out of a very famous book, involved a man who’s name began with a “J” I think)

So hate is useless and a waste of hormones.

Buddha said “Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love” Be it karma or some faith from a corner of the world or a spiritual intervention, but I do believe that we get what we give.

What I tell my two boys when they blur the line between right and wrong is that ‘bad people get bad things and good people get good things’

So give nice and receive nice in return.

Emotion’s part 4

Affection, Love, Happiness. (all the good ones)

These emotion’s seem really hard to write about.

I think its because where as the other emotions can be broken down I find it harder to break this one, when I do it kind of breaks the magic behind love and happiness.

I do believe in the magic that comes from caring for someone close to you, when you give over all you are. If you are as fortunate as me to have found the one person who you truly care about above and beyond yourself. (I think I will get some stick for this post)

Maybe this is it, we give affection to others in the hope that it will be returned. The problem is that sometimes it’s not returned and we start on one of those other emotion. This is what’s hard about the good emotions, they take an effort to keep. Were as the bad ones like hate and anger these take an effort to get rid of. It’s easy to stay angry. It’s harder to be happy.
Which in its self is kind of cool because most people you will meet are happy. I know a lot of people who are in love with someone. So at least we can take joy from the fact that most people want to smile and be your friend.
This is a quote I like from Albert Camus

Do not walk in front of me; I may not follow.

Do not walk behind me; I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend.

(like I said, I think I might get some stick for this post, showing my softer side I think)

I do like that that Albert Camus has written. It basically says be my friend, not by boss, nor me yours.

When I decided to write about emotions I did a bit of research. Did you know that there are 48 separate emotional states. I won’t cover all of them, that could get boring fast. But I do find the emotional state very interesting, how we mix and match them depending on who we are interacting with. How some people can be angry at one person then turn and be nice to the next. while others get into an emotional state, no mater who they see, that state will not change, it has to run its course. (heart on there sleeve comes to mind)

This variety in the Human emotions makes for very interesting discussions. Me and my wife will talk and when out eating at a restaurant we people watch. It soon becomes apparent that people are all the same, we all have the same worries and problems while at the same time we all have the same desirer to be connected and wanted by others.

Life is good if we understand that deep down we all want the same.

To Lie?

I was going to call this post emotions number four but lies are not really an emotion, although they do evoke an array of emotion.

First  I should define between a damaging lie and a white lie. I believe a white lie is when your partner says they had one biscuit when they really had two. A damaging lie is self explaining, they cause damage. The worst kind of lie is when the lie its self prevents you from fulfilling a promise or stops you from supporting the victim of the lie.

If you lie to someone close to you, the kind of person you would not normally betray. The disappointment you will cause that person will do a number of things to you (the lie giver). Firstly the guilt will make you angry at yourself which you will pass on. Also you would begin to avoid the victim of your lie (the one lied to), this in its self could cause more damage.

Then there is the trust lost, all lies do make themselves known eventually.

Someone once said if you cut your arm you will heal. If you keep cutting the arm eventually it will fall off. A lie is like a cut you only get to do it a few times. Then it will end.

As for the victim lies only hurt. There will never be a good one.

If I sound like a preacher I apologise, I don’t lie.

DO NOT LIE. EVER. EVER. 🙂

Emotions part 3

I try to regret as little as possible.

I believe regret leads to only dark and hurtful thoughts. I suppose that if you look at any disision (it’s disision that make regrets) it’s to not make it a flippant one. Take time and make sure you have covered all aspects.

Looked at all the relevant paths and discarding the weak ones. What you are left with is the few true remaining paths. This for me limits the potential for regret.
It’s not foolproof, I have some regret to disision I have made but I am happy that at the time they seemed right. Hindsight is a wonderful tool only for a time traveler. Us simple folk will just have to make the best we can with what we have.

Today

Its going to be a short one today, I’m a bit stuck for time. In short I want to thank the comments today, its nice to know that people are reading and with such good advice. How can I wish for more, some praise to.

My head expand-ith a little.

I have decided to write my blog each day because apparently if you do then people start to read it. I used to aim for one post a week but nothing ever happened. Since writing one a day I have a follower and comments to boot.

The hard part is to revise the book at the same time, it seams that I’m setting a routine of home from work, eat food then write blog, then revise book and finely bed. All this after a full day at work.

My head expand-ith a little more.

Sounds good ah, well in a perfect world it would be, unfortunately I live in the real world and I have two lovely but loud children and a slightly demanding wife. (in the good way). I was going to repeat the head expand-ith thing but think it to much now maybe.

Said it would be short Didn’t I.

I have put a picture for your pleasure below.

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Sophie my cat. (she didn’t like the flash)

The Day After The Day Before.

Hi to everyone. After the last two posts I have decided to change my site a bit, make it lighter and more colourful. This is in the hope of raising the mood a bit. Suggestions are always welcome,  if you think its to light or to dark what ever you think I will listen. Comment at the bottom of the page or send me an Email.

Hi to my loyal follower, yes I have one Follower, it takes one more to make two then three and so on, you know how it works with counting. On my blogspot site I had a few followers but since moving they all went. When I received the email on my iphone today I was a very happy boy indeed. Also thanks to the recent comments there very welcomed. British Telecom say “it’s good to talk” I say “Its good to write” and I intend to do just that.

For obvious reasons I have found it difficult to work on the second draft of my book this week. It seemed that each time  pick up the macbook I start to digress into some other subject anything but my manuscript. (I can feel it happening now) So back on track, while doing my first edit I have found that I keep finding a lack of for-shadowing. There are a number of events that seem to just happen with no warning what so ever. My question is do I leave it for now and continue with the first edit like punctuation and grammar, or address there plot issues first. my instinct is to start rewriting from chapter one. Could it be that when I started this nearly two years ago I was a different writer. I have the kindle app on my Iphone and converted my book so I could refer to it while out and about. Because the screen is so small on the Iphone the book has over two thousand pages. I skipped to page eight hundred or so and began to read. To my surprise I found it a remarkably gripping read and realised that I written this part almost nine months ago. The difference between the beginning and the middle of the book is vast as to quality of writing. But the story is very strong. It’s questions like these that make me wonder if I should join a writing group of some kind. If anyone has any Comments or suggestions for me them please leave it below or email me.