Eek, Screech, Rush Up A Tree

Procrastination can lead to terrible stress. I haven’t had the time to procrastinate recently, but after the last couple of weeks of wall to wall stressful happenings, I started to get a little concerned about the old cortisol levels. Not fond of cortisol.

Cortisol occurs naturally in your body. It’s the “Fight or Flight” hormone. This is usually a good guy. Just say you were moseying innocently down the road, humming a little tune, when all of a sudden a large gibbering hyena (I do live in Africa, so…) fell off the back of a truck right on top of you, teeth all gnashing, and looking you right in the eyeball with malice aforethought. Your brain sends an instant message to your body that it’s time to run like hell, your cortisol levels head for the roof, and off you lope to hopeful safety, after extricating yourself from beneath that huge hairy chest, with superhuman strength. After spending a little time cooling off in the dumpster you leapt in to cower in till the beast moved on, your hormones settle, and you smilingly head off to your local to tell your friends how you beat that thing into submission with your handbag, over a nice glass of wine. The end.

Sometimes though, if a person goes through prolonged periods of repeated stress, it appears that the body takes over, and thinks that it’s in danger all the time. This can lead to chronic and debilitating disorders, post traumatic stress disorder being an example. Once you get to this point it’s incredibly difficult to stop the cycle, although many people do, quite a lot live their lives in constant fear. A few years ago life in my little spot of Africa was stressful to say the least, pretty much for most waking hours, seven days a week. Added to that quite a few other random, but pretty horrible, bits of nastiness, and I found myself experiencing some really alarming symptoms. A nebulous feeling of utter terror, heart palpitations, inability to breathe, dizziness, and uncontrollable shaking to name a few. In the beginning they would come on for a specific reason, be it a small fright, or a large problem, but they always receded for a while. Then after about a year of this, they stayed. This was how I felt from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to sleep, for around six months straight. Often I thought that the grim reaper was at the door.

I didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me. I’d never been one to scare easily before. After a lot of research (there was no way I was going to tell anyone – they’d think I was nuts!), I realised that I’d been having panic attacks. Panic attacks that had now decided to hang around as a permanent thing. Cortisol levels so high that your body is always ready to fight or flee, and your mind is looking desperately around for the danger when there isn’t one at all. It’s a rotten way to feel, and no way for anyone to live. I for one was absolutely not prepared to anyway. So I researched some more, and after quite a couple of months of fairly difficult mental and physical exercises, I got a grip on myself. I won’t bore you with the details, but at the end of all that, I found myself in a better place than I had ever been in my life. I felt really strong, and that’s the way I’ve felt for quite a few years now. Now I’m mainly happy, positive, and ready to face whatever life brings on – good or bad. Of course I get stressed sometimes. That’s natural, but I’m not the tiny ball of fright that I was for a while back then. I’ll never be that person again, but I do recognise the signs that you could allow to push you over the edge if you don’t know how bad your destination could be.

Any sort of fear will nobble you if you let it hang around. Fear that you’re incapable. Fear that you’re helpless. No matter how civilized we think we are, we all still operate on instinct. Unless you force your mind to really be in charge of your trip, you could experience really horrible feelings that you shouldn’t need to feel. I’m not suggesting that you hop over the fence at the zoo and say “Hi kitty!” to a panther, but very often things will pop up in life that appear to be daunting, terrifying, insurmountable, but only a tiny few really are.

I like to look at these things nowadays, and ask myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”, and unless the worst involves the death or injury of someone or something I love, I pull up my sleeves and try to fix what is or appears to be wrong. I’m not talking about the really hurt people here. I can’t imagine what they’re going through. I just mean people who have fairly happy lives, that sometimes crumble when confronted with really tough life challenges. Apart from the innocents so damaged in childhood, or the people that have been abused by real monsters in their adult lives, and also those with chemical imbalances in their brains that only medication can heal, we all have the power to face whatever demon happens to pop his nasty face into our lives. Strength always comes if you really mean to call on it. So…

I didn’t mean to launch into a medical saga, neither am I qualified to, apart from my own experiences, but who knows, this might be a tiny help to anyone who wonders why they always think that the sky is about to fall on their heads. As an end to this holding forth, I have to also mention that among other really bad effects on the human body, too much cortisol also slows down your metabolism – conserving energy in a dangerous situation – so when you are in this state, you’ll also likely pick up weight around your middle.

Bad things do happen. Really horrible things happen to all of us at some point. It’s part of life I think. But apart from beasties falling off trucks, or real and visible dangers, no thought or fear should ever be allowed to harm you.

Till next time friends.

Shadow People

What not to do at one o‘clock in the morning if you don’t want to get the creeps …. Google Shadow People, and then read articles about them. I’ve got lots of things on the go right now. One of them being the second book in the Shadow People series. I woke up at midnight with all my projects, and currently hectic real life bits also, zooming around my frontal cortex. Trying to go back to sleep was futile, so obviously it was time to start my day. There I was, innocently sipping a nice hot cup of tea, about to check my emails, when it occurred to me to have a squiz online for inspiration to resolve a tricky bit of Return to Lapillus. So…

The first article I opened told me what I already know. Shadow People is the name of things that many people claim to have had experiences with. They are shadowy apparitions that sometimes appear once only, but often hang around and terrorise specific people. They’re completely black, some have blood-red eyes, some totally white, and some have no eyeballs or features at all. There are quite a few theories about them. One scientific theory is that they are visions caused by an anomaly in certain individuals brains. Others range from the ghosts of dead people trying to manifest as full-body apparitions, alien beings from another dimension, or demonic entities. My Nefandus in Shadow People are a bit of a combination of all of these things, so not new news that brought on any light-bulb moments for me.

When I originally researched these critters I never looked at any of the comments attached to the articles I read. This time I did, expecting the laughter and jeering that this sort of thing seems to bring out in the online universe. Not so much this time though. Most of them were from those sharing their own experiences. Judging by the couple of hundred of accounts that I read, from people (most of whom seem to be just normal folk, leading ordinary lives) who say that they’ve not only seen these shadow people, they’ve been rendered immobile, and sometimes touched or hurt, I started to wonder how close to reality some of our fictional tales are. Given the weirdness of reality in general, I don’t see any reason to doubt the existence of these things.

Each one of the billions of us that inhabit this particular space-rock lives in a totally different reality. Life is experienced differently by all, and seen differently by each different set of eyeballs. Not one of us has any kind of proof as to why we’re here, or even if we’re here, and not part of the fevered dream of some unimaginable being, or the denizens of some wild computer game being played by more unimaginable beings. Scientifically we’re only starting to find out where we are, and it’s highly unlikely that the known universe that we can actually see is all that there is. What we can see is still a mystery anyway. We know that there is more “dark matter” (the invisible mass that must exist because it has a gravitational effect, and therefore weight) than there is matter that is visible.

I also read about a study done years ago, where it was found that the human body lost a couple of grams of body weight when we spiritually depart this mortal coil. I don’t know how true that is, but then again, maybe those grams are what make up the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the universe. And it’s all over the place, so who’s to say whether or not, apart from possibly the souls of our benign great, great, great, great grannies, there aren’t a couple of Shadow People, lurking about in there, waiting to scare the daylights out of us in the dark of the night. Now I think I’ll just be off to turn on a few more lights.

Till next time friends.

Text © Jo Robinson 2013

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Guest Blogger In The Hut – Faiz Ahmed

Today I’m very excited to introduce you to my first ever guest blogger. I’ve decided to host a guest every week on my blog, to share other people’s news and opinions here, add a bit of spice, and maybe start up some spritely chats. These posts are completely written by my guests, in their own words, with no interference from me at all. I may agree with them or not – that will generally be my little secret.

So, without further ado – meet my fabulous friend, Faiz Ahmed. Faiz writes because he loves to write. Why else would an engineer with a post graduate degree in business management give up corporate life to enter this profession? You can find him on Google+ but not Facebook. He’s also on LinkedIn but not Twitter. Contact him – he’s more than ready to contribute to your blog as well, and share what he calls his random rants. He replies to every mail that he receives at mailfaizhere@gmail.com

The Endangered Species of Writers

Ideas can come easily, however, it is difficult indeed to clearly express them. That is why all are not writers. There are people who say, writing is an art which can be grown (or inculcated). I do not buy this opinion. Either you have this inside you or you don’t. If you have it, it can be polished; the art of concise writing (if desired and needed), for instance, can be worked upon. But until you have this gifted and “inherited from the abode above” quality of expressing yourself using written words, you cannot grow into a writer.

Nowadays I see a new trade called “content writing”. I will be honest, I tried my hand in it as well. Apart from the monotony of writing on the same topic over and over, I received another insight. The writers are like robots, who are given a topic, a fixed word length, a bunch of keywords and they start. Let me share a true example with you. There is this website development company I am associated with called IT Chimes and one content writer there wrote these articles in 3 days.

1. Acknowledge When Your Garage Door Asks for Repairs
2. When You Have To Get Your Garage Doors Repaired?
3. How to Ensure Garage Door Safety?
4. Selecting the Best Garage Door Opener for your Garage Doors
5. Garage Doors – What to Do When They Start to Malfunction?

I am not taking anything away from my good friend Vijay Pratap who wrote these. You must be someone who can never be bored to write these topics which are identical really. Then there is also the point of being ingenious to present the same wine in so many different bottles. But my thought drifted to a different direction. With so much of useless information overloading the web, will the good writing hold any value? After all, we must accept that we are spending less time on webpages than ever. And when we make the internet a place to dump coals, I wonder whether anyone will come looking for the diamonds, such as the writings from Jo Robinson here. How can we stop this proliferation with the democratic equality the internet presents to anyone and everyone?

I personally keep my blog well hidden. Not only have I never promoted, I consciously tried to keep it out of the reach of the search engines. That is me, but there are various other places where people write extremely well and also desire to be recognized. There again, I wonder, how well the search engines will rank these places. Yes, we have the power of social media. I met Jo in Google Plus only, but that is because I consciously made that effort. Will those who are not aware that Jo writes well be able to find her write-ups using any search engine? I wonder….

I would certainly like to see a world where pebbles are differentiated from pearls clearly and distinctively. Not only the writers who use their sincere feelings to create memorable and insightful readings need this but they deserve this.

Thanks for joining me in my guest hut today Faiz! Thank you very much also for the lovely compliments, and the chance to share your view on content writing, and the flooding of the internet with sub-standard scribbles. I’m looking forward to hearing if everyone agrees with you. Now… For some reason I’ve got a terrible urge to write a story about garage doors. And another to quickly Google my name too.

Till next time friends. xxx

You’re Invited!

I’m going to be hosting a guest on my site, hopefully once a week, so I’m inviting all my friends here to join me too. You don’t have to be a writer and your post can contain pretty much anything other than writings meant for adults only or hate speech. I’ll even fix any typos for you.

If you’d like to introduce us to yourself, your world, career, book, painting, poem, hobby, or whatever else it is that you do, contact me – my email address is jorobinson176@gmail.com. Also if you’d like to share an article about something you’re knowledgeable about, or care deeply about, that would be great too.

Come on over guys!

Bad To The Bone

You’re unlikely to go through life without meeting a really horrible person or two. I’ve come across a couple with no redeeming qualities at all. It’s true that some people really are not nice in any way. I find them just as fascinating as anyone else though – you never know when you can use them in a future storyline. I think writers are many things. We gather all sorts of knowledge in our quests to fill our worlds, and make them real. We research and learn about things that most people wouldn’t give a moment’s thought to. We’re also just as likely as psychologists to say, “And how does that make you feel?”, to a stranger, or listen raptly to the big-mouthed fellow that everyone avoids at a party.

This is the way of the scribbler though. We have to know what makes people tick if we want to write books about them. I’ve always been fascinated with the darker side of the human psyche. I wonder how people get to be the way they sometimes end up. Life hurts some people so badly that they break and stay broken. Some fight their way out of horrendous situations, and emerge as beacons of love and kindness. Then there are others that go the evil route, and become sadists and killers. It’s the ones in between all these things that I find most interesting.

I have two characters in African Me that are just downright bad. I’ve been trying to find ways to give them positive traits to balance out the awful, because I read somewhere that all bad people must have some good in them. So that got me thinking that they might be too bad to be believable. Then it occurred to me that this isn’t actually true. There really are some people rotten to the core. I’ve come across many as I’ve trawled the web looking for insights into human nature. So that’s one editing chore out the way. My baddies will stay just as bad as they are. If what you write feels right to you, then that’s the way you should write it.

Till next time friends. xxx

Loony Toons

Monday. That word would probably make a brilliant stand-alone blog post, and attract loads of really cool comments too. It’s the day that I park my posterior on the couch for a half hour or so to schedule recording of any programmes coming up during the week that I want to watch. I seldom find time to watch any of them, but I like to have the option. Then I download books that I want – again, mainly wanting to have the option of reading, likely or not.

This is normally a pleasurable thing, but today, not so much. The first thing I spotted was the news on TV. There was some dilly woman, doing a good impression of the head spinning kid on The Exorcist, belting eggs at Simon Cowell on Britains Got Talent. The fact that she later stated that they were organic eggs didn’t make the whole thing any less insane. Organic means it’s OK to chuck them at people? Granted, the man’s a tool, but that’s no reason to throw eggs at him. This Natalie Holt woman has just proved herself the bigger tool, and deserves whatever she has coming to her. Not a good career move, I’m thinking.

Then I zoomed through a few reviews of a book I was about to download, and spotted a one star where a woman said she had stopped reading it because she has zero tolerance of swearing, and came across the F word. Really? She further stated her relief at stopping at this point, thereby missing any s-x scenes (that’s how she spelt it by the way – s-x). Given that her moniker is “Mother of Eight”, I’m guessing that she’s not a nun. Fair enough dearie. Don’t read further, or go buy a boxed set of Wind In The Willows to read, but please DON’T leave an author a one star review because of swearing or sex scenes – just don’t read books that clearly let you know before you open the first page that this is what you’re likely going to come across. There are probably a lot of people who really won’t like what you do, but they’re not going to tell the world about it.

We all do silly things, and sometimes rant at the wrong time, but direct frontal or physical attacks for really pathetic reasons are really a lot more pathetic than the reasons at the end of the day. If you absolutely have to get all steamed up about something, make it worthy. There are thousands of things out there – abuses – killings – you name it – that you could get your p-nties in a bunch about if you really have to. Simon Cowell and the F word in books aren’t two of them.

Now. I’m off to see how many eggs I have. Thinking of lurking in a bush, and egging some fool for walking by and breathing in an offensive way.

Till next time friends. Xxx

A Walk on The Wild Side

I’m all buckled and bent from painting all day. I’m not an artist by any stretch of the imagination – I think pre-school was the last time anyone tried to show me how to draw. I’m determined to give this cover art my best shot though, no matter how doubtful I’m feeling right now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as my dear old mother used to say. I’m doing a stand alone painting for African Me, but for Shadow People I had a bit of a brainwave. It could also be my unfortunate desire for instant gratification. Apparently people who desire instant gratification are actually lazy, and lack self-control. So…

Because it will be a series, it occurred to me that I could get more than one cover from one painting, linking one to the other, and creating a sense of continuity. Lovely idea you say? Well. Even though going from stick figures to the Sistine Chapel was obviously not what I was aiming for, it’s really not as easy as I thought it would be. Regardless, bent muscles notwithstanding, I’m still a bit hopeful that this might work in conjunction with the photo shopping thing.

So, right now I’ve got a humungous piece of hardboard with key scenes from the Shadow People series plopped around and about on a background that needs work – to put it mildly. I’m revamping the first book in the series for release at the same time as African Me. Being the secretive soul that I am, I’ll just share the very first really rough pencil doodle of my vision of what the Voxavi look like (just a tiny part of the total painting). Yes I know I haven’t even rubbed out lines that shouldn’t be there, and he does acquire some really cool spikes in the painting, but… As with the poem for African Me, I’m going to save the final for the actual book. My theory being that if you don’t find the doodle rotten and offensive, and curse me forever for offending your delicate eyeballs, you may not hate the final cover pictures. I’m praying here that ridicule and laughter aren’t lurking in my future.

I will say though, that regardless of whether my attempts are toolish or not, I don’t think that I’ve ever had so much fun. Scribbling is my favourite thing to do, but letting loose, and immersing yourself in art and poetry for a while is really an amazing thing to do. I totally recommend leaping wildly from your comfort zone now and then, and doing something you never imagined that you could. What have you got to lose?

Till next time friends. xxx