Sarah Cawkwell's Blog, page 11

A Nature Documentary

Observe quietly as we watch the Hateful Troll in its natural environment, the internet.

It is not possible to place a sex on these usually rational creatures, because they may take either form. Nobody has ever got quite close enough to one to find out and their particular breed of camouflage – called a ‘monitor’ – means that unless you actually turn up on their doorstep, you are unlikely ever to know the truth. Rumour suggests that statistically, these Hateful Trolls are male, but there are plenty of females in the mix and females can be much nastier.

See now as the Hateful Troll ambles its way across the rolling internet savannah, searching for its next victim. Their hunting methods are strange; most of the time they seek their prey by themselves, but under the right circumstances, they form tight-knit groups, known by the decent folk of the internet as ‘fuckwitteries’ and engage in a brutal take-down.

There! See! Our Hateful Troll has spied its prey! See how it gently taunts the unfortunate victim, pushing at a number of buttons in an effort to get a reaction. See how, when the victim does the right thing and simply ignores it, the poking gets harder. Nastier. More spiteful. Until… yes! The Hateful Troll launches into a complete state of abusive, threatening behaviour which it somehow believes is perfectly acceptable in a social situation.

Observe how the Hateful Troll stands triumphant over its victim, crowing about its victory and how ‘it knows better’. It truly is an ugly beast, rarely breeding due to a lack of social graces that means its living habitat tends to be indoors. Hateful Trolls do not mix well in social groups.

The species has several sub breeds.

Here, we see the Forum Troll. The Forum Troll stalks innocent topics, inserting inflammatory or contradictory statements designed to ‘show its superiority’, but which generally only succeed in ‘showing its malicious streak’. Forum Trolls do not take well to moderation, often bleating, in their pathetic little voices about unfair treatment. They do not understand irony.

Several paces behind the Forum Troll comes the Social Media Troll. This evil creature hides behind its monitor camouflage, safe and secure in the knowledge that nobody is ever going to know what it really is. This breed is possibly the nastiest of all. This is the breed that thinks it’s perfectly OK to send death threats to people whose beliefs or opinions somehow enrage its delicate little sensibilities. These creatures need to be taken to task most severely.

A rarer breed is the Journalist Troll. These strange creatures put up articles that are specifically designed to attract other Hateful Trolls. A penis-waving contest then appears to ensue as the Trolls battle for supremacy. Nobody yet understands much about this breed other than it’s plainly odd.

It has been said that some males of the breed state that ‘women on the internet are fair game’ for such threats and suggestions of violence. Vets should be sent in as clearly these creatures require a check up from the neck up.

The game wardens of the Twitter National Park have installed a ‘report’ button so that tourists wandering their grounds and who encounter and/or suffer at the hands of Hateful Trolls can alert them to it. The true test will be whether the game wardens actively do anything with that process. Scepticism remains.

The Hateful Troll is retreating now, slinking back to its Troll Cave (usually located beneath a bridge). It will go into a state of slimy hibernation until its next opportunity to strike arises. We leave it now, curled up on a bed of cheap pornography, dreaming of the day when everyone acknowledges how awesome it truly is.

* * *

tl;dr? Bullying is wrong in every single form and via every single medium. The installation of a ‘Report Abuse’ option on Twitter is a step in the right direction – it’s what is done with those reports that matters. Nobody should be subjected to threats of violence, whether it’s intended or not. Not ever.

Living in a Material World

I picked up a new car last week. It’s nothing fancy or particularly special; just a Ford Fiesta, but I happen rather to like it. I have a weird bonding process with cars. Sometimes I get into a car and fall in love. Other times, I never really get that attached.

This led to a conversation in the office last week about our first cars. I was able to openly admit that my first car – also a Ford Fiesta as it happens – broke my heart when we parted company. Some guy turned up to my house (I was living in Evesham at the time), paid me cash and drove away in my first ever car. I cried. I couldn’t help it. I’d had it for two years and we’d been through some amazing journeys and disasters together. This was the car that broke down at Leicester Forest East services and left me, to this day, with a fear of breaking down at that place.

The old design meant that the accelerator cable rested in a clip on top of the air filter. My Big Brother had changed the air filter for me before I left for the drive to the Peak District, but not put the cable back in the clip. Thus, it spent the whole trip lying on the exhaust manifold. And comprehensively melted. I still remember the horrors of driving around Leicester on a rainy evening, trying to find somewhere to buy an accelerator cable, with Phil the Very Patient AA Man. I also remember Phil being remarkably startled when I bought him a coffee, saying that nobody ever did that for him. What was I meant to do? YOU JUST SAVED MY LIFE, MR. KNIGHT IN SHINING YELLOW VAN-TYPE ARMOUR!

But it’s an odd thing how we form attachments to material objects. I’m sure most of us had a favourite toy when we were kids; you know, the one thing that went everywhere with us and woe betide if it were lost. Here’s a confession for you.

I have a stuffed toy; a lop-sided, decidedly misshapen little dog who goes by the name of Smudge. Smudge and I have been together since I was about seven or eight years old. Smudge has been all over the world, because for years (I joked) I had massive paranoia that if I was away, my house might get burgled and Smudge dog-napped. Truth was, I am so attached to that little toy, that the thought of it being in the house whilst I’m away used to give me terrible anxiety that the house would burn down. Screw all my other possessions; this is the only thing I TRULY cared about.

Smudge no longer comes on holiday with me. This is as a direct result of him being pulled out of my hand luggage the last time he travelled and being put through the scanner independently, presumably to be sure that I wasn’t smuggling drugs in him. I can see how mad I must have looked. A grown woman, lugging a stuffed toy around. I sort of smiled sheepishly at the airport security guy, muttering something about him thinking I must be a bit stupid only for him to then smile and say ‘don’t worry, I have this bear that goes everywhere with me’. So now, instead of house-burning down paranoia, I have worries that they’d cut him open and perform some kind of Smudge-ectomy on him. And that wouldn’t do. He may be battered, lop-sided, missing patches of fur and long ago lost the black pupils from his eyes (he now has this faintly terrifying, dead stare), but he’s mine. And I love him.

And I DO love him. Is that a strange thing to admit? That I have love for a stuffed toy? That I loved my first car so much that I was able to cry genuine tears of separation when it left?

I suspect that I love this toy so much because it represents a link to my childhood and a reminder of places I’ve been. It reminds me of the time I first got him; a single dog in a basket of similar dogs. He was the only one with an off-centre nose. He was the one who got the name ‘Smudge’ after my big brother whipped him out of my hands whilst we were up at my grandparents and threw him in the fireplace (the fire wasn’t lit – he wasn’t THAT mean) so he got all covered in soot. He’s the one who’s travelled to Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santorini, St. Lucia, Las Vegas and Rome. He should have his own passport.

Alright. It’s a weird confession. So this is where I need you guys to help me out and reassure me that I’m not – ah – barking mad. (Pun re: dog stuffed toy entirely intended). What are your most cherished material possessions?

Smudge. Intrepid explorer, trusted friend and protector of the Universe.

That’s a Comfort

I had lunch with a friend of mine yesterday during which the conversation got around to that of comfort foods. Hers, apparently, is unbaked choc-chip cookie dough. Out of context, that sounds mad… but I can totally relate. If I’m baking, I always have to ‘test’ the mixture and who didn’t love ‘licking the bowl out’ when they were a kid? To this day I swear it’s the best bit of any baking episode. Even if you are eating raw eggs. But still. In context, the whole sentence made me laugh. This friend had been having a bit of a tough time and said her housemate… ‘found me sitting in front of the TV, watching a chick flick whilst wearing my pyjamas and eating raw cookie dough. I’m being a stereotype! Leave me alone!’

For stereotypes everywhere.

My friend Nik posted about comfort food the other day, and in the wake of yesterday’s conversation, I got to thinking about it myself. Everyone’s idea of comfort food is different, of course. People’s taste buds and favourite foods vary as much as the food that’s out there in the first place. I was reading an interesting article on the BBC News website this morning about the obsession with chocolate. The tl;dr version of the article is that people crave chocolate because of the chemicals it releases. Yeah, thanks, research team for hashing over old ground. People have known this about chocolate for years and yet scientists are still getting funded to research it. Maybe people also like chocolate because, well, because they like it? I’m not a huge fan of chocolate myself; given the choice of chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream, I’d hit up vanilla every time. It’s not to say I don’t eat chocolate, I do. It’s just not something I MUST HAVE OMG every single day.

I have much less of a sweet tooth than Himself, who will eat biscuits like it’s some means of saving the world. The hand to mouth motion becomes a blur and possibly breaks all records. This is an actual photographic record.

C is for cookie…

For myself, I lean towards the savoury route for my favourites. There are two particular things that I crave when I want to eat for comfort. Potatoes, as Nik says. There’s something inordinately welcoming about a jacket potato straight out of the oven, or a huge bowl of mashed potatoes or roasties or…

Wait a moment, need to just mop up the drool.

But number one, the head honcho, the quite literal Big Cheese for me has to be cheese on toast. The toast has to be crusty white, the cheese generally a good mature Cheddar and there has to be an involvement from Mr. Worcestershire Sauce. A huge doorstop slab of cheese on toast chases away all the negativity for a while and brings me happily to food Nirvana. I have eaten at some pretty nice restaurants over the years. I have eaten some of the most incredible dishes. But nothing beats perfect cheese on toast. There was an advert a while ago for Farmhouse Cheddar (I think it was) when one person saw another making/eating cheese on toast and they got a craving for it… and started of a chain of people slavering for the stuff. Even my son, who is a self-confessed cheese hater (but who will eat pizza), tried some and acknowledged that it may be the Best Thing Ever. It’s not something I have all that often, but whenever I do, I wonder why it is that I don’t have it more regularly.

HAIL. You see that bit of melted cheese that’s oozed through the crust? Oh, heavens to Murgatroyd. Yes.

So… comfort food. What’s yours?

In other news, I am about to fire up the ol’ word processor and get back to Project: Carpark. I’ve neglected it a bit this month in favour of finishing Project: Comeuppance. It feels remarkably good to be back in the writing flow – which is probably why the blog posts have been coming thick and fast this week. I find that writing a blog is a great way to get myself into the mood for turning my attentions to fiction writing.

The Best of Hammer & Bolter V2 was released – contains a couple of my bits of work and a whole host of other Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy short stories. If anthologies are your Thing, then you could do a lot worse than pick it up! There’s also a collected edition of Space Marine short stories to be found in the Space Marines anthology.

I’ve had a couple of people contact me about my Fox Spirit short story Blood Bound, which is available in tree or digital version, to ask whether I plan to write more about the two main characters. This is always a massively satisfying thing to hear and the answer is… very likely. If Adele lets me, of course…

The List

There’s a video doing the rounds on Facebook. It’s a shot of the space shuttle during launch, taken from the SRBs (solid rocket boosters). You follow the rocket’s path as it charges upwards at phenomenal speed, breaking the sound barrier at around 1:20 before it finally separates from the shuttle and spirals in perfect circles back to the Earth before crashing into the ocean. It’s stunning and well worth a watch. Here:-

Isn’t it amazing?

I’ve always been fascinated by space and the exploration thereof. The whole conspiracy theorist slant on man landing on the moon makes me chuckle. I have no idea if it really happened (although I suspect it did) but weirdly, I almost don’t care. It’s the actual space-exploring concept itself that I love. The idea that we leave this planet behind and go out there amongst the endless stars and planets, carving a new existence across the infinite void.

When I was younger (which did happen), I used to say that ‘seeing the Earth from space’ was right up there at the top of the list of things I wanted to do before I died. Incidentally, I’ve taken a tip from life’s optimists and that list is now titled ‘Things I Want To Do Whilst I’m Still Alive’. I’m under no illusions that this one will remain forever out of my grasping reach. Yes, I know all about the near-orbit trips and what-not, but let’s be honest; I could hardly afford to do the shopping this week. I’m highly unlikely to be booking myself onto that vehicle. But it’s OK. I don’t mind. I can experience the whole thing vicariously through footage like the above.

One of the things that struck me more than anything was the loneliness. As that rocket tumbles back from near-space, obviously you can still hear everything. You hear the propellant burning off, you hear the wind and most ominously, the creaking and groaning of the metal under incredible stress. It’s hauntingly eerie. And I love it. Ambient sounds are one of the most atmospheric things ever. I imagine that’s exactly how a drop pod would sound as it comes crashing down to deploy a bunch of hyped-up Space Marines to deliver some righteous vengeance. Although we did once speculate that perhaps the Imperium provided Administratum-approved Muzak inside the pods.

It’s things like this bit of footage that make me glad I chose to write and read science fiction. Because it’s probably the closest I came to living out number one on my list. Not only do I get to see the curvature of a world as my rocket ship accelerates away from it at impossible speeds, I also get to create it. To populate it. To give it atmospherics, weather conditions, natural history… I’ve done work on creating several worlds now in the course of writing my stories and it’s one of the most incredibly satisfying things. During the course of creating the most recent one, I spent some time on Google Images, looking for pictures that reflected what I was striving for. Here’s a sample.

Ice, Ice Baby.

Even the trees bow to the pressure…

I have a genuine hankering for the snowy wonderlands of our planet’s poles. The stark beauty out there is just to die for. Again, it’s that haunting loneliness and unspoiled wonder. And it should probably come as no surprised that this is also on my List:-

The Northern Lights are in my eyes…

To see the Northern lights from somewhere… well, northern, is also on my List. It comes right behind the space one and is one that’s entirely more achievable. I’m already working out costings and a Plan to do just that. Of course, I know that actually seeing them isn’t always guaranteed, but if I can work my dream holiday out, and save up the pennies to do it, I can well and truly tick one of those things from the List. There are plenty of other things on there, so it’s not like I won’t have anything to strive for. I’ve achieved one of them. ‘To write and publish a novel’. I’ve achieved that one twice, now, and believe me, the thrill doesn’t get any less.

So item two on the List is a possibility. I count this as a win.

In the meantime, I shall continue to live out my space dreams happily via the medium of other people experiencing things for me. Felix Baumgartner chucking himself off the edge of space was amazing to watch, for example. A helmet-cam would have been outstanding, but well. Can’t have everything.

*snrk*

So until the day comes when I can just pop onto the ‘arc across the Earth and arrive at the other side in no time at all’ express service, I have to accept that I will never see the one sight that takes my breath away and brings me to tears every time. I tell you now. Crying when you can’t breathe isn’t any fun whatsoever.

From up there, we’re all the same.

Money (That’s What I Want)

I am completely and utterly my father’s daughter.

By this, I mean that I am either excellent at managing my money, or terrible at spending it. It may sound like one and the same thing, but it really isn’t. I was raised with a simple monetary ethic that was very much driven by my dad. And it’s pretty good advice, really.

If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.

I had a few mad years. I learned the curse of credit cards pretty quickly and have been fortunate to pay off my debts more or less completely now. As it stands, the only things in my life that I don’t own outright are my house and my car.

It’s not to say that I don’t go crazy every once in a while. I do. I really do. I blame TeeFury, mostly. But I’m going to be honest here and point out that Himself is far worse than I am. Check out the bank statement and it’s largely constructed of cash withdrawals made by him. A tenner here. A tenner there. Instead of budgeting for what he needs in a week and restricting himself, he spends money on an ad-hoc basis. He turns on the finance tap and money pours out. I scramble around behind him turning it off again. A bit like chasing a husband and teenage son around the house and turning lights off behind them. (‘It’s like Blackpool Illuminations in here’ – yes, I really am my father’s daughter). But I haven’t always been quite so miserly. What happened?

This did.

I discovered that if you put two people who aren’t brilliant at managing money together in a relationship, things go south pretty fast. It wasn’t until we fused our accounts together in a Transformers-esque act of maturity that we both became entirely more responsible with our cash. I stopped spending because I didn’t know if it was my Actual Money and I think the same can be said of him.

After a relationship break-up, I lived on my own for a few years. During this time, I lived on my overdraft and that forced me into learning how to budget better. For example, this has been a tough month money-wise. Lots of extra expenses we weren’t anticipating have crept in and the bank account has slid, screaming like a kid on a water slide, towards the Point of Ultimate Shame. You know. The -£0.01 balance that takes me from the sense of coping to the sense of being out of control. A positive balance keeps my OCD at bay.

I have an authorised overdraft on my account. I pay a tiny nominal fee for the privilege and I haven’t used it in something like ten years. But I’d rather pay that fee for the security of having a cushion in the event of a disaster. I would never even contemplate approaching a squawking vulture so-called ‘pay day loans’ company. These people are, of course, in the news at the moment. The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury made himself look like just a tiny bit of a fool by soapboxing about the evils of these money lenders, only to be told (probably in a very sheepish manner) by an underling that the church actively invests in the company in question.

Oops, eh? Perhaps the AB of C should be writing articles about war gaming. He certainly seems to demonstrate the same approach to his research before allowing his verbal diarrhoea to start.

Claws away, Sarah. Claws away.

​

Once upon a time, they taught Home Economics in schools. People learned how to manage a household budget. Now, money is just this Thing that gets you what you want when you want it and when it runs out, it’s all too easy to just go and get more. I’m proud to say that the Son saves up his money. When he wants something, he saves for it. Almost invariably, when he has enough, I will pay for half of what he wanted. But only if I have the money myself. This way, he has learned the value of money and I hope that he clings onto that same ideal. Not all kids are so savvy.

Talking to a colleague this morning, she mentioned that her seventeen-year old daughter was ‘saving for a holiday to Tenerife’. She has it all planned out. She won’t need spending money, she says, as she will go all-inclusive. So far, she’s saved £30. And took £10 of that out to pay for a kebab and chips.

I’m lucky. I know I am. Both my husband and I work, and we bring a reasonable amount of money into the house on a monthly basis. We end each month with cash in the bank. We are even at a stage where we can sometimes put a little into the savings account. It’s a nice feeling when that happens, rare as it is. I genuinely feel for people who are in difficult financial situations and believe that more needs to be done to help them. If I knew what, I’d suggest it.

I feel less sorry for those who run out of money through their own greed and stupidity. The ones who complain about it whilst they have a cigarette in one hand, a can of Carlsberg in the other and their Sky TV playing in the background. I don’t want people to give up their luxuries, but sometimes you have to sacrifice them for the right reasons. How many gym memberships are sitting there unused by well-intentioned people who never go, for example? It’d be an interesting statistic, that one.

Am I obsessive about money? Yes, I probably am. But that means that I have successfully fed my household for less than £40 this week and have probably saved myself from the horrors of a negative bank balance. It’s entirely do-able. All you have to do is think. Think, and remember the mantra.

If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.

Thanks, dad.

In Reply…

A recent news blog mentioned a ‘typically geeky’ hobby – that of war gaming and Warhammer in particular. No linkage, because he doesn’t need any more publicity. Also, I am on my phone and don’t have it to hand. So ner.

Anyhoo, the author of the piece asserted, confidently, that this was an exclusively male domain. That there was no place for women. A short-lived but ultimately satisfying Twitter request to my numerous female war gaming friends ensured that his perception was duly corrected by a brief deluge of Tweets. Despite saying he was happy to be corrected, he didn’t acknowledge this fact, of course. He did point out that he considers himself something of a geek anyway. It’s OK! He’s a guy! He’s allowed to be a bit geeky.

But to be fair, the whole thing runs deeper than a personal need to point out that he was wrong. It’s the perpetuation of an unfair stereotype – regardless of the fact it was by a self-professed member of that group. It’s just more ammunition for the playground and workplace bullies who delight in the endless ridicule of people who don’t conform to the presumed norm. They don’t need any more. Just… stop it. Because yes. Stereotypes exist. But people who enjoy geeky pursuits are not all mid-teen/twenty something boys whose glasses fog up at the mere mention of Megan Fox’s name. By the same token, I don’t automatically presume that all football fans are mindless thugs. But more specifically, let’s look at this point. Girls Who Game.

It’s a well documented fact that girls, more than boys, have image thrust down their necks at every possible opportunity.

Image! Be thin! Be fabulous! Be another sheep in the flock!

If you are a girl you must like – in varying proportions – handbags, shoes, jewellery, The Only Way is Essex, 50 Shades of Grey and small, pointless dogs. This is what society shouts at us. The right thing to be, we’re told from our earliest days, is girly girls. These creatures exist in vast numbers, spread across the highways and byways of our green shores. And you know what? Good luck to them. If that’s what they’re like, and if that’s what they like, then may their Jimmy Choo shoes carry them tottering down life’s rich highway.

There are lots of us who eschew All Things Girly. Those of us who see the purpose of shoes only as things to keep our feet dry. Those of us who see only the practical implications of handbags – a device used for carting around objects too big to go in pockets. We lurk in dark shadows, unable to contribute to office discussions on ‘what happened in Big Bother last night’ due to our curse. We don’t dare answer the ‘what did you do at the weekend’ question for fear of causing confusion. And so help us if we’re not up-to-date on the latest Kardashian news. (Personally, I still confuse them with the Cardassians, an alien race from Star Trek. Although a brief glimpse on Google Image search of ‘Kardashian’ makes me suspect they may be connected).

We are that ever-growing societal group. We are Girls Who Game. We’re just as tired of the old ‘pick-on-geeks’ mentality as our male counterparts. And here’s why.

Girls Who Game often get short shrift from non-gaming members of society – male and female alike. Disdainful sneers or phrases such as ‘get a life’ and the like are commonplace. (Incidentally, as a MMORPG player, I have more than one life already, so thanks – I’ll pass). Yet within their own demographic, once it’s determined that Girls Who Game are actually real and not some kind of hallucination, they are treated with politeness, courtesy and total acceptance. In fact, most of the people I’ve met who are involved in so-called ‘geeky’ pastimes tend to be more polite, warm and utterly without malice than amongst any other sector of society with which I’ve interacted.

My son took place recently in the Warhammer national school’s tournament. One of the awards at the end of the day was for ‘Most Sporting Player’. The nominations were made by the kids for the kids. That was a nice touch, I thought. Every single kid I spoke to that day was bright, pleasant, friendly and startlingly witty. They said ‘please’ and they said ‘thank you’. And yes – there were girls mixed into their number.

If good manners, mutual respect and sociable, friendly people is part of what being a Girl Who Games is all about, then I’m both glad and proud to be in that group. Amongst like minds and not being afraid of sharp tongues who criticise you for not having a small dog hanging off your carrying items.

In the meantime, I would like to offer sincere congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for defeating the level boss and progressing to the next stage.

ADDENDENEDENENENDNENDNEDNDDUM

Yes, you can be a Girly Girl and a Girl Who Games. Don’t pre-empt future blog entries. Patience, Grasshoppers!

Then… and Now

When I was about eleven or twelve my best friend moved away from my home village in the wilds of West Sussex to the heady northern town of Bedford.

Yes. I know. Bedford ain’t that far, cosmically speaking. What, about a hundred miles from where I lived, tops? But when you’re eleven or twelve, it may as well be the other side of the world. I visited once or twice, we wrote to each other for a few years and then we lost touch. It’s the way of the world. You meet people, you lose them again. Sometimes, they show up later in life. More than twenty years can pass in some cases, and you meet a person in the most unlikely of places. If your connection with them is real, you simply pick up where you left off.

That happened to me last year. I went to Salute in London. I was sitting behind the Black Library stand, signing books, when there he was. A friend I’d known back when I was eighteen. A friend and his wife who sat up all night with me when I’d had my heart broken and spoke great words of wisdom to me. Two people who gave me a few critical hours of love and affection with no conditions attached.

Time moved on. I moved away (further north than Bedford, but then I always was more adventurous than my friend). These two people and I lost touch, re-gaining one another later through a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook. That’s when I learned his wife was in the terminal stages of cancer. I was genuinely sad when she died and it wasn’t longer after that when we met up at Salute.

Many years may have passed. But right there, right then, the only thing between us was the signing table. I’d like to say I vaulted it in a single bound, but that would be a fib. No, I walked around it. Which is boring, certainly – but infinitely more practical. And we had a hug that dissolved every second of separation.

People come into our lives at a time they are needed the most. Sometimes, it’s for good reasons. Sometimes it’s so you make mistakes and learn from them. Some people stay. Others phase in and out as it suits them. Some – probably most – of the people who meander into your world leave again. You might remember them, you might not.

Sometimes, when I’m in one of Those Moods, I find myself thinking about my friend who moved to Bedford. Does she remember me, I wonder? Does she remember the significance of Thowra the horse? Or my obsession with the A Team? Or teaching me how to play Greensleeves (badly) on the piano? Anything at all for that matter?

Do you ever think about that? All the people that you meet in your life… particularly the ones you remember. Do you ever wonder if they remember you?

Goodness, this is all a bit oddly self reflective. I blame the sun; it’s adding my brain.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Bedford.

The weekend just past, I visited a fabulous place near Bedford with the lovely Nik Vincent-Abnett. She’s written a lovely entry that sums it up here. But the fact was, I got in the car and drove the three and a half hours to Bedford without so much as blinking an eye, when years ago, going to Bedford would have been like an expedition to the other side of known space. When my friend moved there, I never imagined that so many years later I’d be back, with a different friend, with everything under my belt that’s happened to me since then. Think of it all:

Exams. College. My first job. Leaving home. Moving further north. Getting married. Having Jamie. Getting married again. In the time since my friend moved away from me, I’ve lived a whole life. A whole life that she knows nothing about. I don’t think of her every day, but sometimes, when the moment catches and the light of fond reminiscence glints off my memory, I remember how important it was to jump over the path in the playground, because that was the river. I remember how important it was to argue endlessly that Murdock was better than Hannibal. And I remember how important it was to go to the library, take the book on animals off the shelf, turn to the angora rabbit and laugh like a drain.

Some things, you don’t forget.

This is the EXACT PICTURE. See why you don’t forget it?

Blood Bound – Extract

By kind permission of the eternally wonderful Adele at Fox Spirit Publishing, here’s an extract from my novella, Blood Bound. It’s a dirty story of a dirty man, and his clinging wife doesn’t understand. His son is working for the Daily Mail, it’s a steady job – but he wants to be a paperback writer.

The first eight words of that summary are correct.

In short… it’s a dark-themed fantasy about greed, betrayal, demons, zombies…

Sunny, cheery stuff!

Blood Bound is published by Fox Spirit, with cover art by the depressingly talented Jeff Preston and can be purchased from Amazon in dead tree form, or for the Kindle.

Enjoy!

Jareth had been in the establishment enough times to know that it would be a heaving mass of bodies later. For now though, apart from his companion, the only other customer was an old man  muttering fervently in the corner. From what little snippets of the monologue Jareth could make out, he was talking about some war or other he had fought countless decades ago. It was a low, underlying buzz that was faintly irritating. Jareth considered the benefits of a throwing dagger to the windpipe but then decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

Blanking the old man’s mumbling from his mind, Jareth reached for his tankard, taking a long, appreciative pull of the only slightly watered-down ale and considered the shadowed figure sitting opposite him. The offer that had been set before him was intriguing and the mystery surrounding it was all but irresistible to a man of Jareth’s inherent nosiness. He wiped flecks of foam from his lips with the back of a grubby hand and leaned forward conspiratorially.

‘The messenger who set up this meeting told me that you will pay me up front. Is this the truth? I’ve heard such promises before.’ This particular condition had been what had truly piqued his interest and which had led to him agreeing to meet in the inn. As far as Jareth was concerned, this critical point was the fulcrum on which his decision was balanced. Too often he had accepted a job and only received half of the promised payment.

‘Aye, that I will,’ came the reply. The man sitting opposite him was wearing a thick, heavy cloak, the hood drawn up to conceal his features. His accent was strong and difficult to place,  although he spoke clearly and carefully. Every syllable fell into place with military precision. He was not a local, that much was obvious. Probably one of the many merchants who travelled  through the city regularly. All that was presently visible of him were two emerald-green eyes glittering like jewels in the darkness of his hood. The cloak was fastidiously clean and was made of  a rich fabric, dyed a deep, wine red. The style and cut of the garment hinted strongly at underlying wealth. Jareth’s greed had taken in his companion’s fine clothing and had performed an inner dance of glee.

‘Show me the colour of your money then, friend.’ Better sure than conned, Jareth reasoned.

After only the slightest of pauses, there was a soft rustle of material and the man produced a cloth bag which he tossed with casual disinterest onto the table. Jareth heard the clink of coin against coin and reached for the lifeline that was being offered to him. As his dirty fist closed around it, the man leaned forward and laid a hand over Jareth’s.

‘You do understand the dangers implicit in this task, don’t you, Master De’roth?’ His voice held a hint of dark promise; a warning that resonated with every carefully-spoken word.

‘Of course I do,’ scoffed the thief, his tone growing haughty. ‘I am not some stripling without any experience under my belt. I have been in the business of goods reclamation for many years. I have carried out more jobs of this type than I can count.’ Given the limited nature of Jareth’s numerical skills, this was not even a boast. ‘I’m not afraid.’

‘Not now, perhaps,’ said the hooded man, releasing his hand and allowing Jareth to scoop the bag up. ‘But you may well be later.’

* * * * * * * *

Blood Bound is published by Fox Spirit, and can be purchased from Amazon in dead tree form, or for the Kindle.

Courting Controversy

I really haven’t forgotten my blog exists. It’s just… well, there seems to be so little to enthusiastically blog about lately. Work has been keeping me pretty busy and my ‘downtime’ is spent almost exclusively playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. Which I still love.

I’m getting back into the writing swing though: Project: Carpark (which I really, really hope to share properly with you all very soon) has started writing itself as I go along. I’m still procrastinating like a complete hero, though. In fact, I’m so keen to find something to do that isn’t writing what I’m meant to be writing… I’m here.

Thought I’d drop in and invite the Hatred of the Masses with my four-word review of Game of Thrones that seems to stun everyone else into silence.

It’s not my thing.

Wait. Pause for effect.

Yep. That’s right. Game of Thrones is quite simply not my thing. This apparently makes me a lesser human being and if you wish to now pelt me with rancid fruit, please feel free.

I really enjoyed the first series. It was refreshing and enjoyable. Then, about halfway through (and I may be being generous here) the second series, something just flicked my ‘interested’ switch all the way off. More of the same. Some stuff. Joffrey being vile. Daenarys failing to have a clue. Yawn yawn yawn. So I personally chose to stop watching it at that point.

Himself has continued to watch it, but from the comments that come from the living room on a Monday evening, I think he’s sincerely wondering why he bothers. In fact, he’s blogged his own thoughts on it. The first post can be found here, the second can be found here. And hopefully WordPress will actually let the linking work this time. Stupid WordPress.

Incidentally, I started reading the books before the TV series, quite a long time ago. I didn’t particularly enjoy them either. Read one, didn’t bother with the rest. And now I won’t bother with the rest. In part, this is because TV adaptations of anything kind of ruin it. I prefer visualising characters for myself.

One of the shouts that’s been echoing around the universe for the past week or so is the frankly silly comment that ‘if you’d read the books, you’d understand the motivations of X, Y or Z’. Oh, do put a cork in it. If the TV adaptation had been any good at all, you’d not need to read the books.

And that’s another reason of course why I’ve lost interest. Game of Throne fans, listen. You’re perfectly entitled to enjoy your show, your books, your merchandise – please. Carry on. Only please also note that the ‘ZOMGOOSEONASTICK GoT IS LIKE THE BEST THING EVER’ brigade are starting to make you sound like Twilight fans.

Wait. Pause for effect.

No, really. Be careful you don’t start sparkling.

In other news, I’m in attendance at a pretty cool-looking sci-fi convention this weekend, the Futura event at the Light House in Wolverhampton. If you’re in the Midlands, or in striking distance – come along! Should be a lot of fun.

Choices, Choices

In which I muse and meander on the strange task that is being a parent, GCSEs and all things connected.

Thus, cut to save those of you not interested in such waffle.

My son turned fourteen in February. This by itself was alarming enough. In my head, I’ve still only just him. In the darkest, scariest recesses of my thoughts, he’s still that 4lbs 6oz baby lying in an incubator.

He really isn’t. He’s now officially taller than I am, with bigger feet. His voice is in the lower registers and he’s taken to walking a couple of paces behind me when we’re out and about. He’s a young man, not a little boy. However, there are traces of the little boy in him still; he likes to grab a hug and we still have our morning ‘where’s my smile, where’s my kiss’ routine. Until the day he denies me access to his bedroom, that’ll remain.

Academically of course, what turning fourteen means in real terms is taking his GCSE options. And I’m almost entirely certain it wasn’t this complicated for kids when I did my options a thousand years ago. (I’m old enough to have done O Levels rather than GCSEs, so maybe that’s why the process is so different).

Ignore the blue sky. NONE OF THIS INVOLVED BLUE SKY, DAMMIT.

The Son had four option paths to choose from. The core subjects are pretty much the same for all – English, Maths, PE and Ethics and Philosophy (E&P is what passes for RE/Social Studies at the Son’s school). He won’t take exams in PE, but it’s nice that they have to do a compulsory class at least once a week.

Science is complicated. I’ll explain science in a minute.

Path One was a weird choice. Core subjects, plus a language, one option and then an applied GCSE in either Engineering, Art and Design or… the other one I can’t remember. This seemed quite appealing to the Son at first, because he wants to be an engineer. Specifically, his interest is fixed in bionics and robotics. Now he already has a heads-up on me at that age, because I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. So we looked at that choice, only for him to be told not to do it because ‘he was too bright’. A flattering comment, but there we are back at square one.

Path Four was never a choice. Path Four, as Son himself put it, is the non-academic route. It’s the courses that take days out at a local college: bricklaying, hairdressing, animal care.

So we’re left with Path Two, which is apparently the traditional path and Path Three, which is the Triple Science route. Triple Science is, frankly, a mad thing to put your child through. All three sciences can be taken – but it’s at the cost of doing double languages as well. Triple Science, Double Language and two other options and you have no time to breathe. Nine exam papers for the science component alone. For Son, who wants to do science but not languages, this route has also been passed by.

So we’re on Path Two. Dual Science, core subjects, compulsory language (French in his case) and three options. He’s taking History (because he likes it) and then Electronic Products and Resistant Materials (that’s woodwork, metalwork and TD to us old-timers). Dual Science, as I understand it, means they get a GCSE at the end of Year 10 (again – that’s the 4th year to us old-timers) and another at the end of Year 11. If he then wants to go on and study a specific science at ‘A’ level, he has to get a minimum of a ‘B’ grade in his GCSE, with an average of  an ‘A’ grade across his chosen subject.

When did it get so complicated? When I took my options (which I made a complete pig’s ear of – 2 of my chosen subjects never got to exam stage due to the teachers leaving halfway through the O Level year and the subjects being cancelled), it was ‘here are your choices. Take five subjects. One must be science. GO!’ Seriously. If the parents don’t have a grip on what’s going on – and the consensus of opinion at the parent’s evening was precisely that – how the heck are the kids meant to make the right choices?

This is what I expect to see. Although not left-handed, because then I’ll suspect he’s a changeling. Suspect more, I mean.

Son himself seemed to be perfectly happy and content with his choices. He knows that come September, the fun and happy times of doing whatever he liked with minimal homework will draw to a close. For the next two years, it’s head-down studying.

As I get older, I increasingly think these things are thrust on kids far too early. How can a fourteen year old, whose hormones are gaily skipping about in all known directions simultaneously have a grip on their future? Unless they really, really know what they want to do in life – and I know they’re out there – how can they be expected to plan that far ahead?

Parenting is a hard job. When they’re tiny, you worry about them falling off things, falling over things, falling into things. When they’re bigger, you worry about letting go of their hands in crowded places. And now he’s a young adult, I worry most about his choices. The true art is knowing when to guide and when to steer. For most of the Son’s life, he’s been guided. This is no exception. His dad and I both said to him ‘we will support you with your choices – but you pay us back by working hard’.

So yes. Parenting is a hard job. I’ve made it up as I’ve gone along pretty much; not having mum around during the early years and not really having any close female friends or relatives at that time meant that I was largely grasping at straws. But he seems pretty damn decent to me. He’s a nice kid; well-mannered, laid back, pleasant to take out in public, bright and incredibly thoughtful. (Example: for his birthday meal, his dad took out the Son along with three friends and his stepmother. Son insisted that me and The Husband came along as well. Fortunately, we all get along really well, so it was nice – but highlights just how thoughtful he is). People comment on how pleasant he is all the time. We’ve done something right – and I’m justly proud.

He appreciates the light touch. One of his friends has been pressured into taking triple science/double languages even though he doesn’t really want to because it’s what his parents want him to do. I would like to have seen the Son do triple science, but not at the cost of making him miserable doing languages he doesn’t enjoy. I want him to do well, but I don’t want him to develop resentment whilst he does it.

So the die is cast. Now we wait and see.

As a point of interest, my O Level choices were Art, Drama, Biology, Spanish and Computer Studies. Of those, Spanish and Computer Studies Never Happened.

None of the others have been of any use whatsoever in life.

How about you guys? What would you change about your academic choices of the past with the benefit of hindsight?