Flash Fiction - Slow

Flash Fiction - Slow

By Casey Douglass

Spinkel had always been slow. Not slow in a dimwitted kind of way, but slow in both movement and speech. His friend Rami often joked that Spinkel lived life at half-speed. Spinkel felt this was an exaggeration, as he knew he would have to do his version of “running” to even approach “half-speed”.

The doctors were stumped as to whether his condition was mental or physical, or both. After years of tests, pumping him with caffeine, stimulants and courses of cognitive behavioural therapy, they did what any caring doctor would do. They washed their hands of him.

As far as Spinkel’s job prospects, they shouldn't have been zero, but they were. He’d achieved good grades at college and shown himself to be a friendly, sociable chap. Employers however, wouldn’t touch him. Job after job passed him by. The Job Centre tried to help. They had the bright idea of having Spinkel re-classified as a robot. It didn’t work. They penalized Spinkel for their own failings. He told them to go fuck themselves. Slowly, of course. With diagrams and everything.

On a darkening evening, Spinkel found himself on the roof of the local multi-story car park. He considered jumping. He idly wondered if he would fall at a slow, ponderous rate. It was as he ruminated on this that he spied a gathering in a back garden on the other side of the street. His heart hit a heady forty five beats per minute as his breath began to catch in his throat. He saw a group of people, and they were slow too!

As it turned out, they were full-speed people, but people behaving in a deliberately slow fashion. After his chat with the leader, he bought a book on Tai-Chi and other meditative movement-based disciplines. He wondered if he’d found his niche in the world. He studied hard and became a teacher, running his classes at the local town hall and amassing such a following that he soon had to expand his operation. He brought his innate slowness to the postures and movements he performed, something even the best ‘normal’ instructors could only dream of. 

Spinkel fell in love with a frazzled woman who’d worked herself into a nervous breakdown. Together, they found that his tempo and her over-drive blended perfectly into the bosom of their intimate relationship. They had two slow children, were adopted by a moderately-paced cat, and lived out their days in a quiet cottage, packing every second of every day with only as much as it could comfortably carry.

THE END

Stranded - M.E Awareness Week 2018

Stranded - M.E Awareness Week 2018

By Casey Douglass

© 20th Century Fox

Well, it’s M.E Awareness Week again and this time, I actually found out on the day it started, which was yesterday I believe. I usually miss it. CFS/ME is a horrible illness, and one that sees sufferers thrown on the rubbish heap by pretty much any institution they approach for help. The main symptom, for me at least, is the mind-numbing exhaustion. There are days I can’t read more than a few words before having to rest my eyes, and others where holding my head upright for long, or following a conversation, is beyond me. I have some better days, as in, not so shit, but these are rarer than a kind comment on a news article. Oh, and there’s no cure or effective treatment either, just to add some spice to the situation.

I’m a massive fan of The Martian. I love the film, and recently, have been enjoying the audiobook. If you only know the film, I recommend the audiobook/book as far more happens in greater detail. Anyway, Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and has to engage in much problem solving and using-your-own-manure-potato-growing to stand a chance of surviving long enough for NASA to rescue him. He draws great comfort from knowing that NASA, a multi-billion dollar space institution, is doing all it can to bring him home.

I feel a lot like Mark Watney, except in my case, “NASA” has decided that one life isn’t worth the cost, and has basically said “We can’t help you, but let us know if there is anything we can do!” A message I have heard time and again from the doctors I’ve seen about my illness. I had a few blood-tests (to exclude other things) and got my diagnosis, pacing advice, and that’s it. A diagnosis of CFS/ME is another way of saying “You’re ill, but we’ll be damned if we know what’s wrong.” So, worthless in many senses of the word.

I wonder if I was a Royal, say Prince Harry... If he was being treated on the NHS, I’d be willing to bet that they would exhaust a few more avenues before lumping him with a catch-all diagnosis that means very little. Time and again stuff happens that means it’s hard not to feel that my life doesn’t matter, that I’m a nobody and just not worth helping. CFS/ME has taken almost everything from me that made life worth living, and 18 years on (Yes, 18 fucking years), I find myself still reliant on my parents for shelter and food, and my so-called writing career earned me about £10 in the last 5 months. And can I get any help from anywhere, with my health, my work, or anything? Can I fuck.

Having the illness has led to much depression and anxiety about my life, stuff that no amount of CBT, self-help or medication seems to be able to dent. So the picture of Mark Watney sitting on his rock above resonates with me strongly. In his case, he has hope, no matter how small, that he might make it. My hope is gone, blown away by the winds on Mars. Here I am, sitting, waiting for my last breath, and for the struggle to end.

Blinking Heck – When Games Resonate in Unforeseen Ways

Blinking Heck – When Games Resonate in Unforeseen Ways

By Casey Douglass

Anyone who knows me or reads my posts will likely know that I play horror game Dead by Daylight. After reaching Rank 1 as both Survivor and Killer, I decided to devote myself to mastering the Nurse, the Killer widely viewed as the very best, when played by skill fingers at least. My general Killer skills are decent: reading and predicting Survivors, robbing them of their lives usually coming reasonably easily. Playing Nurse is like putting the spotlight of scrutiny on these skills. If you can’t mind-game or predict accurately, you’ll be chasing shadows all game long.

This difficulty in mastery comes from her unique Blink ability: being able to teleport through obstacles. First, you have to get the muscle memory and timing set in your head in order to be able to Blink the distance you would like to, and to land where you hope to. This, for me at least, only came through hours and hours of play. I didn’t have to ‘try’, it just kind of clicks. The kicker is that after you Blink, the Nurse is hit with a large “Fatigue” effect, where she looks down to the ground, sighs, shakes, and generally makes it hard to see where a Survivor has run to for a few seconds.

I’ve made great progress with learning the Nurse, going from barely getting a few hits per game to averaging one or two kills. The strange thing is that, on recent nights, I’ve just lost interest mid-game. It seems to take about 30 mins. Last night I downed a Survivor, and I just couldn’t be bothered to pick them up and hook them. I went to the Killer basement for a few minutes instead and just rested in the dark corner. This is something I’ve not done with any other Killer in the game, and I only this morning, seem to have a guess as to why.

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I suffer with exhaustion all day every day. I suspect that something about the Nurse’s exhaustion effect is tapping into my own feelings of despair and helplessness, and this is twisting my mood after prolonged exposure to her play-style. I mean, the game in which I just couldn’t be bothered to hook the downed Survivor, it’s not as if I couldn’t catch someone. I wasn’t angry, stressed or annoyed, it was just like someone drained my interest in what I was doing. After a short time doing nothing in the basement and hearing the exit gates power, I felt able to come out again and ended up damaging all the Survivors before they were able to escape.

It’s a strange thing, and I’m not sure if it’s just my mind reaching for connections that aren’t there, but it’s something I will be reflecting on for a little while. Sadly, my exhaustion doesn’t come from using some god-like ability such as teleportation, but maybe I do have some more mundane ability that is going unnoticed. Who knows. I can certainly keep a Fruit Pastel in my mouth without chewing. I hope that’s not it, that’s a bit dull. Oh, I do have the ability to meet up with women and the very next person they meet, they end up getting married to. That could be construed as a superpower I guess, even if one that doesn’t benefit me. Might make a bit of money from being some kind of love lucky charm though, more than spitting out words ever earns me anyway.

Thanks for reading.

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Japanese Art, Porno Puns, and Life Writing with Illness

Japanese Art, Porno Puns, and Life Writing with Illness

By Casey Douglass

Last night, I watched most of a documentary about Japanese art, about how nature is so pivotal to it, and how it inspired some of the greatest creations throughout Japanese history. The fact that I only watched most of the documentary isn’t a negative review by the way, I was just too tired to watch it all.

Thinking about it this morning led to a flight of fancy about what it might be like to actually visit the places that were shown, such as the Bonsai museum and Mount Fuji. I fancied that if it ever happened, I might even try my hand at travel writing, and wondered at what it would feel like to actually have something exciting to share, by way of words, pictures and video.

Of course, me being me, my flight of fancy soon became a morbid rumination on my health issues, and how a trip to Japan would likely be some kind of suicide. Oh, that’s reminded me of another place I’d have liked to visit, Aokigahara, the suicide forest near Mount Fuji. Not to partake, but just to experience the place. (VICE did a nice little 30 min documentary about Aokigahara, well worth a watch, if you are interested).

The result of my thoughts was in how frustrating it is to not be able to experience life in a way that would help me to have material to write about. I can’t even consume entertainment in any kind of normal way, which is a bit of a fucker for someone who likes to review stuff. I read books at a rate of ten pages or so a time, and then have to rest. I watch films in two sittings, often needing to lay down half way through. I can only listen to around 40 mins of music a day as any more just tires me. And as far as video-games, even one that might have around six hours of content would take me at least three or four days to pace myself through. It’s not ideal and it’s damned frustrating.

All I am left with is my own internal experience (sounds like a title for a posh porno “Internal Experience 2: The Physical”) or writing fiction. Dealing with those in an arse-about-face manner (sorry, still in naughty porn pun mode), fiction is dandy but is even harder to make progress with than the non-fiction stuff. Even if you create something pretty decent, you’ll still be lucky if A) more than ten people read it and B) you make more than a tenner if you pop it up on Kindle.

As far as the internal experience stuff, who really cares? Unless you are setting yourself up as someone with “the answers” and writing hackneyed listicles like “7 Ways to Beat Anxiety Fast” and “12 Must Have Mental Health Tools” (god I fucking hate listicles, but I find it very amusing that my spellchecker suggests testicles as an alternative. Even computers can detect bollocks it seems), people won’t read it. I also refuse to set myself up as some kind of expert on anything. Not because of the backlash against experts in this age of rising ignorance, but because I don’t have the answers, and I wouldn’t bullshit my way through an article about something that I couldn’t backup with my own experience. I know stuff, I write about that stuff, but I’m not prepared to “market it” in the guise of some holy grail of “this will solve your problems” and then adding “Why not take my course?” (Everyone and their aunty seems to think you have to offer some kind of course on your website now. Just fuck off. Really.)

Anyway, internal experience. I spend a lot of time alone, struggling through the day. Unless I create some kind of twisted fiction story out of that, with imaginary beings that live in the corners and are at war with each other. “Oh, we don’t go into corner four in the spare-room, the O’Cleefes murdered one of the Spitzers there, so they are forever at war with the third cupboard from the fridge in the kitchen!”. As The Cumshots (great band) say in one of their songs, “These four walls, that's my society”. If I start basing fiction in them, I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t go loopy. Loopier anyway.

I don’t know what the whole point of this post was. Partly, just to write something and get the juices flowing (not in a porno way). Partly, to have something to focus on for awhile, and partly, (more parts than a gore movie so far), partly, in the hope that my mind might throw up some sort of answer. Sadly, I’m shit out of luck on that count. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you are having a good day or night, whatever you are upto. Unless you are writing listicles.

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One Tiny Action

One Tiny Action

Written by Casey Douglass

Yesterday was fairly decent. Well, the couple of rest-punctuated hours in the morning in which I finished a review and wrote another post for my blog. I won’t talk about the rest of the day as it went downhill from there in a whirl of overeating, despondency and sleep. As far as sleep, I slept like a bag of shit last night (do bags of shit sleep?). I feel like I’m pushing through thick water today, barely breathing, barely awake.

Then silly me, what did I do? I browsed Freelancer.com (a place where employers list jobs for freelancers) and saw job after job after job that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Actually, I would now I think about it, I hold grudges effortlessly. Once you rule-out the jobs that pay a dizzying few dollars for an hour’s work, the people advertising themselves rather than being an employer, and all the bollocky naughty jobs like being paid to write positive reviews (something I strongly feel should be punishable in a horrible way), there often isn’t a great deal left. A wave of tiredness crept up on me and I found myself looking for ways that I could find my own clients and pitch to them directly, avoiding sites like Freelancer altogether. If I found someone I wanted to pitch to. And decided on how I would put myself across. And if I finally come up with a tagline for my website that really tells what I do. And if I sort out my portfolio page to show only the pieces of work that I decide, rather than be exhaustive like it is now.

After all of that, I found a few suggestions for Facebook groups for writers. Many of them seemed self serving to the creator, “Join the group, buy my course” kind of thing, but one of the ones that wasn’t in that vein seemed promising. I clicked Join Group. That was my tiny action for the day. I won’t mention the group as it did kind of look only marginally better than the others, but if it turns out to be good, I’m always happy to spread the love by bigging up things I find useful. I’ve got to wait to be approved though, so time will tell. In a groggy haze I floated back to my bed and listened to what I’ve termed my “depression album”.

Bring Me The Horizon’s That’s The Spirit seems to be the one album (that isn’t dark ambient) that really hooks into my feelings of suffocation and worthlessness. They aren’t a metal band that I thought I would like but via Throne, I gradually grew into the other tracks too. I read awhile ago about how the lead singer Oli Sykes struggled with depression, so maybe that helped form some kind of connection too. So many of the tracks echo what I feel, I just get drawn to it (in a nice way) when I get low. I’ve linked Avalanche below, the lyrics “It's like an avalanche/ I feel myself go under/ 'Cause the weight of it's like hands around my neck/ I never stood a chance/ My heart is frozen over/ And I feel like I am treading on thin ice” really hit me in the feels.

That’s the thing with any kind of illness, sometimes the smallest of actions are the only thing you feel capable of doing. I know that after my music therapy I then went on to write this post, which is certainly a bigger thing than the tiny action that started this sequence of events, but at least it proves there can be wiggle room when everything seems stacked against you. 

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Possibly Entering My Last Business Year As A Writer

I’d hoped for some kind of release after having finally written the title of a post that has been looming for about six months now. If there was a release, it was a tiny one. I just feel sad now.

The health issues I live with have made the last few years incredibly hard. To function on any kind of level as a freelance writer on top of these issues has bordered on self-abuse at times. But I’ve stuck with it and pushed myself far beyond my comfort zone on many occasions. I am trying to tell myself that, whatever happens next year, I can be proud of my efforts, but me being me, I am an expert in mental self-flaggelation: “Did you really try hard enough?” “Did you really give it your all?”. You get the picture.

One thing that I can’t choose to look at in a positive way is my lack of earnings. I’ve made losses year on year, and that doesn’t look set to change in the near future. I can’t let that carry on for too much longer, my meagre savings have already taken one hell of a battering. It’s with this in mind that I am putting a limit on how long this can carry on for, and a sensible deadline seems to be the end of the next business year (so that’s the end of March 2018).

I hope I can turn things around and I am genuinely going to try. Hopefully in a year’s time I will be writing another post saying “I can’t believe how close I came to calling it a day!” this time last year. The possibility also exists that I could be writing a post called “My final post”. Time will tell.

Fear Factory's song Expiration Date seems quite apt for my mood now. If you like a bit of metal, and even if you don't, check out the video below:

Shit For Brains (But a Fussy Kind of Shit)

Bombastic title aside (I quite liked it when it occurred to me moments ago), I have been struggling a great deal lately, and the sentiment kind of arises from that. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome have had some kind of secret meeting and decided that their host must be pulled to the ground and thoroughly beaten, that there is just nothing else for it. As their host, I would say mission accomplished.

I’m quite good at accepting (read as making room for) my anxious thoughts, even at times being able to accept that my physical health is about as robust as a cobweb fluttering from a car aerial as it hits 70mph on a dual carriageway. Sometimes no amount of CBT, mindfulness, progressive muscular relaxation or acceptance can lift my spirits and give me space needed to find the good stuff in life again. The image of Atlas holding up the sky kind of applies, but with knees almost on the floor, and a mightily pissed off look on his face.

That doesn’t mean I’m giving up or anything like that, but I’m really feeling it at the moment, the isolation, the fatigue, the vicious stabs of anxiety that make the fatigue worse, and so it spirals down. Even putting some of my favourite dark ambient tracks on and imagining that I was dead didn’t do much to ease the stress fracturing my peace of mind (you might find that weird but it’s a valid meditation practice in some contemplative traditions). Treating it all as something that doesn’t need “fixing”, I’m perfect the way I am kind of bullshit didn’t help either, even when I could genuinely mean it without the sneaky underlying goal of changing this “perfect state” into something more workable.

Seeing as I’ve gone all “mystic”, I should probably end this short piece with some trite sentiment about “planting seeds in my shit for brains to grow more positive qualities etc etc”. At the moment, I just feel like scooping it up in big sticky handfuls and flinging it at passers by, like a monkey whose banana was stolen when he wasn’t looking. Yes, I quite like ending on that image, it tickles me.

Dark Fiction - Burn

Burn

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash 

My insides hurt. Worse than that time I swallowed a measure of Dad’s best whisky when I was four. I got such a hidin’ for that. He turned his back for half a minute to do somethin’ at the kitchen table, an’ I walk in in my little red dungarees, lookin’ for somethin’ to drink.

I remember the sunlight shinin’ through the dusty window. It was that late arternoon light that washes everythin’ and makes it look real pretty. It shon on the shot glass, the golden light hittin’ the already magic lookin’ liquid. I think my young mind just knew it was somethin’ grand. Why would it glow like that? I snatched it from the table and gulped it right down. God did it burn!

Dad turned around when the coughin’ started and swore at me when the glass exploded on the tiled kitchen floor. I don’t know what bothered ’im more. The mess, the sick little kid, the wasted whisky. Could ’ave bin all three. Could ’ave bin somethin’ else entirely. Three days my tummy ache lasted. All I could manage was bread an’ milk. I remember bein’ most upset by not bein’ able to eat my sweets. The shop down the road sold chewy jelly worms that always fascinated me. You could bite’em in half, stretch’em, suck on ‘em. You name it, I tried it. Always my favourite. I couldn’t do that now, stretch’em and whatnot. Not with my teeth. I’d swap this tummy ache for that one any day though. Now all I’ve next to me is a small plastic cup thing with thick green liquid inside. The sun is shinin’ on it now, but it ain’t golden. Still burns goin’ down though.

--THE END--

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Dark Fiction - Right Click. Save

Right Click. Save.

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash

Bathed in the soft white glow of the screen, the figure leans forward, his nose only inches away from the display. Indistinct fleshy rectangles dance up the screen as his permanently bent index finger diddles the smooth warm rubber of the mouse-wheel.

The hard-drive clicks and stutters into brief life but the sound fades unheeded. He coughs and clicks the mouse, the images on screen all taking on a different appearance, but their forms staying very much the same.

He drags the mouse to one side as one image flows and fills the entirety of the screen, his hand knocking a small note pad skidding over the edge of the desk. It lands with a dull slap on the floor. He looks down at it and with a grunt, leans down and pushes it away, the pages flicking open to tease diagrams and sketchings, goals and ideas, that disappear from sight into the darkness beneath the desk.

Another image fills the screen, this time a moving one with low moaning sounds and fleshy thumping grunts. A small sigh darts out from between clenched teeth as he adjusts himself on his chair. 

A tinny beep causes him to sit more fully upright, snaking fingers diverting the mouse to another open window. This one contains a smiling amiable face, the eyes still alive and interested. His. A mass of expertly honed text spreads out beneath, every word and turn of phrase weighed and mulled until it dazzled. A pop-up slides into view announcing a special discount for anyone wanting to upgrade to a premium membership, assuring any reader that they will be sure to find more success in love should they take the chance and back themselves with a token of belief. Twenty tokens of belief as a matter of fact.

He snorts and dismisses the message with a vicious jab of the left mouse button, the small white pointer causing the little trash icon to flicker and the message vanish. Two more deft clicks sees him back to where he left off, his eyes glazing slightly as they drink in the sights.

He right-clicks and saves, right-clicks and saves; the cascade of file requests coming and going like a fly repeatedly buzzing against a closed window.

His tongue moistens his dry lips. The room is muggy, the air thrumming with the warm exhaust of the computer fans and the occasional sigh of its human occupant. 

He feels like a troll. Sitting in his cave watching the world pass by the entrance. Those people who looked normal and fine practically a different race to his own, their lives full of the kinds of things that life should be full of. The people who looked so friendly and kind, yet were either unaware of his existence, or disinterested in it to varying degrees.

Right-click. Save.

People...women who wouldn’t give him the time of day. Oh they talked a good game, but when it came down to it, they wanted someone more able, someone who had so much more to offer. He understood that, but it didn’t stop that old spiky feeling in his bowels; when his innards turned to ice and he just wanted to not be here any more.

Right-click. Save.

He was out of ideas, well and truly. Wherever he went, whatever he did, it all came to nought. Not that he craved mere sex; he wanted the whole package. He just could never get beyond “You’re so lovely. Why are you still single?” Just like someone praising a painting on sale but never actually buying it. 

Right-click. Save.

So he chased ghosts. The abstractions of what could have been. These women who he worshipped from afar and who infused his mind with the tickling tingling of hope and then smothered it with pity. He found those like them on the internet. He enjoyed searching, enjoyed the hunt. Revelled in seeing their most private moments of vulnerability, even though it was often staged and sponsored by some big faceless company, eager for his money to sell him even more stunning milfs, gang-bangs and Hollywood film parodies. It was a sham, it was a hollow promise. He knew it...but it was a window into a world he was barred from.

Right-click. Save.

--THE END--

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Dark Article - Writing While Ill

Writing While Ill

By Casey Douglass

 

At various times, I have searched the internet for any articles that might feature tips on how you can feel like grim death but still write as much as you want to. If such an article exists, I’ve yet to find it. In lieu of this, I thought I might just have a stab at one myself, knowing that it could easily turn into a case of the blind leading the blind, or at best, a show of solidarity with no real answers. If nothing else, I am hoping it might get me past some of my own frustration at the least.

This piece will focus more on people with long term health issues. If you have the flu or a cold or something like that, do what you want and be thankful you will recover. If you are the type to force yourself to sit at the laptop trying to catch your snotty sneezes in a wet tissue while your fingers struggle for purchase on the keys, knock yourself out. If you have to take yourself off to bed to tremble under the covers and curse life, do that too.

I have been chronically ill for more than a decade, and while I don’t want to get into the details, it’s a real fucker. My prospects for recovery are now pretty much as close to zero as they can be, and I am gaining a collection of other health issues like some strange macabre set of Pokemon. This means that even if I really feel like writing something, my health can very much get in the way, be it struggling to sit upright or just feeling so exhausted that my eyes struggle to focus and my hand to write. This bugs me, it really does. I can usually tell the difference between this kind of obstacle and the “writers block” kind which seems to be equal doses of procrastination and lack of ideas, which is a different beast altogether. I have worked through a lot of my own issues in that area: the anxiety that writing can cause, the mental tension that comes with trying to suss things out and the lure of quick feel-good pastimes like firing up the Xbox for a quick game of something. If you do suffer from that kind of issue, there are certainly some good books on creativity, procrastination and writers block out there, and it is well worth investigating those.

As far as the illness side of things, yes you can power through and force it, trying to shoehorn yourself into some routine where you write everyday without fail, but what happens when day after day you have to reduce your word counts, lose other things that you enjoy being able to do or just feel so shit in yourself that you lose all interest in life in general? The last thing you will be worried about then will be your writing. On the other side of the coin, what if you just wait until you feel like writing? Days can drag on to weeks and maybe months, waiting waiting waiting. Not a very attractive prospect either.

Like many things in life, it seems to be that the middle ground holds the most promise. I find that I can sometimes write when I feel very bad, and other times I just have to concede defeat and see how I will be the next day. If the next day is no better, there’s always the day after. This creates its own kind of stress of course, which is why you need to have some kind of basic self awareness and enough drive to actually stay the course, or you might end up floundering in a sea of apathy which takes even longer to get out of. Every time the thought enters your mind “Can I write something?” you need to realistically judge if it’s feasible, not just procrastination, and won’t make you feel too ill.

I sometimes have the fantasy of wondering what it would be like to wake up at my laptop/notepad one morning having written and worked so hard that I just had nothing left to give. Then it occurs to me what that would do to me and the health consequences I would likely have to live with for the next weeks and months. I guess that that is at the heart of so many writing issues and doubts. Any writer wants to feel that they have done their very best, not held back or compromised and achieved something worthwhile, overcoming all the obstacles that that may entail. This is very much the game, whether you are ill or healthy.

This balancing act is all that I have found mildly useful since trying to increase my writing output and quality while struggling with my illness. I don’t doubt my motivation, and as far as my ability, past evidence does indicate that I have some. Of course there are always doubts about how far you can take something: do you have what it takes to turn pro, build your readership and become the name on at least one person’s lips when asked which writer they recommend?

Like any skill, the most important thing is just to write. It’s the only way to improve your craft. Any obstacles that get in the way of that need to be assessed on an individual basis, and the decision taken on how best to deal with them. Don’t become a writer who needs everything to be perfect before you start something, and don’t waste money on writing aids or too many books that teach you about writing. Write and put your creations out there and you are a good way towards winning the battle.

This article has come to an end without much in the way of answers, which I thought might happen. With this in mind, I will share a few general writing tips that I have found particularly helpful below.

Keep a notebook to write down ideas as they come to you. I find that if I do this, my mind sends me more ideas, as I am showing that I am interested in what it has to say. On a day where I feel too ill to write, the ideas often flow like this, and can lay the foundations for some good writing when I have a better day.

When you have finished a first draft, leave it for a few days and work on other things before coming back to it. We get too close to our own writing, and just a few days focussing elsewhere will help you in a big way when you come back to begin your editing process. It’s the mental equivalent of trying to see an elephant from an inch away or moving back a few metres and seeing the whole thing.

Acknowledge that some days, you will be in a media consumption mode rather than a creation mode. I might write for a few days and then find myself wanting to read/watch films/play games more than actually write. In my own experience, I find it is best to just allow this. I don’t know if it refills the wellspring or just gives my mind a break or outlet for other pressures, but I find it broadly helpful. Just take care that it doesn’t become your default mode. I find that too much of this makes my mind feel more sluggish and leaves me more prone to procrastination.

These are the tips that I consistently put into use and that I have seen work time and again. There are lots of other things you can do of course, but like anything, that becomes a personal choice for the writer and it’s their own personal task to see what works for them and what doesn’t.

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Afternoon Dip

Just recently, the last few days in fact, it gets to about 1pm and my mind seems to want to bed down for the rest of the day. I have to rest allot, its part of my illness, but this mental shutting down has been like clockwork lately. Even if I am relatively well rested, and fancy trying to do something pretty untaxing, like a bit of reading or writing, my mind just doesn’t seem to lock on. 

A short moment ago I was looking out of my window, my mind blank, but not in that pleasant Zen type way. It was more like the silence that fills a room after someone has let rip a really loud fart and the whole restaurant has fallen silent in shock and awe, a kind of tense silence. The thought then arose that it seemed similar to what Terry Pratchett spoke about in one of his books (it eludes me which one). In it, he says that ideas are like particles, shooting through space and falling to earth, with no regard for where they land or whose mind they may enter. A truly ground breaking idea, instead of saving humanity, could just as well end up in a horses head, or even a rock. 

When I was staring through the window, I felt that I might have been close to the state of the rock, but even worse, I could act on any idea, but would I? Well I did, as here I am typing this. 

If I had a journal, today would definitely get a nice little entry, double underlined in nice big capitals. “Today I proved that I am better than a rock.” Although not at doing rock type things, I’m not that hardcore.

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Life Getting in the Way

I haven’t forgotten the blog, far from it. I feel I should be writing on it daily but my health has been a struggle for me lately, and my writing has ground to a halt.

There were a number of promising competitions coming up for Halloween that I had hoped to enter but whenever I tried to conceive or develop an idea, my mind seemed to clam up and mock me with silence. I’m not sure if it was writers block, procrastination or just my mind being worn out and telling me to get stuffed. Even worse, when I have been able to watch a little TV or play a little Xbox, my mental "kick-him-when-he's-down" coach chimes in with “Oh, you can do that but you can’t write 100 words?”

On the plus side, I am reading a lot more and getting through books in record time for me, so at the least, I am expanding my horizons in some measure. Actually, when I am in the mood to write, I don’t read so much, so maybe that’s my natural pattern. Who knows.

I have a few blog posts already fleshed out so will be upping my output now hopefully. Don't worry though, I won't be posting about my every meal or bowel movement, no matter how spectacular lol.

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Did something just move? - Hello

It's time to do that first post, that corrupting moment where a pristine blog or page becomes sullied with the thoughts and ideas of the creator, imposing his will on the limp and dead form that is laid before him. That's a bit Frankenstein-esque but it seems a fitting way to start things.

I have only studied writing seriously for the last few years, but have always had a love of writing my own stories, even to the extent of asking our English teacher at school when we could write another story. Sadly, the answer back then was something along the lines of "That's about it I'm afraid."

I have been struggling with a chronic illness for the last decade or more, and this has led to me leading a very indoors life. When I am not resting and trying to feel slightly less than shit, I am quite limited in my choice of hobbies or activities to pass the time. Since being ill I have done a few correspondence courses, the last of which was a two year diploma in literature and creative writing, done with the good people at the Open University. While finding the course easy enough to understand, the effort required for me to write, with old-school pen and paper or even on a PC, was quite substantial, and left me more often than not feeling worse than ever. I did however rediscover my love of writing, and my course marks and tutors seemed to suggest that it was something that I could do, and do very well. So here I am.

I have an affinity for writing horror stories. I will turn my hand to other styles but I think horror will be my main focus for sometime to come. My biggest influences in the horror field being authors like HP Lovecraft, Brian Lumley and James Herbert. I do like the genres of fantasy and scifi also, so some of my work may feature elements of those. I greatly admire the humour and invention in Terry Pratchett's discworld novels, and also the epic scale of works like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion books.

As a first post goes, I think that is enough for now. I am currently pondering and sifting through some of my finished short fiction that I feel is worthy of being posted, so hopefully something should be up in the next few days.

Thank you for reading,

Casey