A bit excited... Writing Prompt Challenge

I was going to write a post about common courtesy and about how it seems to be in fact very uncommon these days...if you will pardon the cliched pun. But instead of whinging and whining about people at busy supermarkets I am going to focus on the positive...

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have posted my first ever event on facebook which is a writing prompt challenge. The thought came to me after I had participated in some online challenges. Mostly photo based ones but in the midst of these, I was a reading  a writing prompt book and the idea came to me; what about a writing prompt challenge? 

It worried me at first that it might be hard to write based on a prompt every day. But I thought even just a single sentence would do and even that can be creativity challenging. So why not? 

Given that not long ago I hesitated to even create a writers page for myself I think this is a great step in the right direction. It's scary to think I will have to post a piece of writing every day for ten days. But it's also exciting!

So thank you to all of you who have signed up. I can't wait to see what you all come up with. If you haven't been invited and would like to join then go to my facebook writers page. ( will put the link below) Also if I sent you an invite and you thought 'bloody hell I can barely have one clear thought a day let alone write something...' and have not accepted....then shame on you! No just joking.... It's all fine, this is meant to be fun after all. Feel free to silently stalk the page and chuckle at my efforts!

Anyway December 8th it starts and see... I have already forgotten about that annoying woman in the supermarket who made me want to rant about courtesy....

Bye for now,

Kell

https://www.facebook.com/Kellieawarner

That special friend...

Many of us have different types of friendships. Some friends are people we love like family. Others we see hardly ever but when we do we are simply able to take up where we left off such is the bond. Then there are the friends that perhaps we only see socially as they are fun but we would never trust them with a secret. Then there is that one special friend, the one you share everything with and know everything about; one that you love but can never meet in person for fear they might actually kill you.

Wait, you mean you don’t have a friend like that? Most of your close friends you can safely meet since they are not homicidal? Well yes me too but strangely it is not so for everyone.

Recently I was taken aback just a touch by an article in a regular every day magazine about a woman, Terri-Anne, who had a serious relationship through letters with Richard Ramirez, who was on death row (now deceased from cancer) and was a famous (infamous) serial killer.

If the name rings a bell but you can’t quite place him… Let me give you a run-down. Ramirez was active in the 1980’s and was known as ‘The Night Stalker.’ He murdered 13 people, attempted to kill another 5, and sexually assaulted a further 11 people.

I will let you Google him if you want the gory details but I will give you a small glimpse into his crimes. Ramirez shot and killed 66 year old Bill Doi then tied down his disabled wife and raped her. In another incident he shot Elyas Abowath then repeatedly raped his wife in front of their toddler.

Now imagine seeing this man on TV and thinking ‘He is hot’ and writing to him? What possesses someone to do that? I’m not sure I know or could even speculate. Perhaps I need to get that degree in psychology I once thought would be a good idea. But remember while there are plenty of women that have been seduced by criminals, most tend to believe their paramours to be innocent. Make no mistake this man did not proclaim his innocence. She wrote to him and continued to write to him and became as she says ‘very close’ to him, knowing full well he did what he was convicted of. Indeed remember my opening to this piece… she was smart enough to realise she could never meet him in person for fear he would kill her.

How does that work? How can you care about someone and believe they care about you but you know they would kill you given half the chance? It would be very easy to write this woman off as simply stupid. Why else would you have an ongoing relationship with a serial killer? But I don’t think it is that easy. There must be something more behind it. I went from dismissing this woman as a moron to wanting to find out more about her.

I probably need to mention here that serial killers and true crime do fascinate me. I wonder about the sociopathic brain. What is it that separates their minds from ours? What would it be like to have no empathy? Is a serial killer capable of love in any way, shape or form? Most people think of serial killers as loners who form no relationships at all let alone deep abiding ones. This is certainly true for many. But the Green River killer was married to a woman who loved him and it would seem even if he didn’t love her he at least never harmed her and certainly had some sort of positive relationship with her. Jerome Brudos, the Oregon serial killer known as the ‘lust killer’ was married and concerned when his wife was being questioned after his arrest. Whilst he viewed his victims as akin to insects he wanted to simply squash he spoke well of his wife and children and was never violent towards them.

There are other examples. Ted Bundy formed close friendships and it is believed he killed women who looked like a particular ex whom he loved and never got over. It may well be he saw her more of a possession than a person to love but even so he felt something… something that turned his love or obsession into hate.

So is it possible that Ramirez could be totally indifferent to the lives of most people but be in love with a particular person? From what I could see of his letters, he did declare his love for this woman, in very romantic and even poetic ways. In fact I think plenty of women would love even one love letter such as he wrote to Terri-Anne let alone the 58 or so he sent her. Then again he did request nude photos and asked about her sex life which reads as a bit creepy rather than romantic…

But she might have found it easy to simply ignore any slightly icky moments as he called her his ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and said things like ‘If the sun refused to shine, I’d still be here loving you.' Or 'I’ve never known a love like yours.'

So if he did in fact love her it still begs the question of how she could see past his crimes and also how she reconciled that with a genuine fear for her life if they were ever to meet.

Might it be that she thought he was like some sort of wild animal? That if they were alone together, his instinct to kill would win out regardless of his love for her? Like a Tiger who suddenly turns on an owner after years of being a loving pet?

Or does she really think deep down that he is nothing but a liar? His words of love being used solely to entrap her? She was merely a conduit to his ego… he can still receive attention from women in prison whilst being guilty of the most heinous of crimes?

So perhaps they just fed each other’s ego. She can tell people she had a ‘famous’ pen pal who sends her glorious love letters and he can once more feel he is manipulating a woman and getting pleasure from it.

I wish the article had gone further. In fact I would love to contact her and have a really good chat and maybe see more of the letters. Yes I am a bit of a busy body! I hear you all don’t worry. But we writers have to have a sense of curiosity, wanting to know more, get to the truth. So here I am wondering how this relationship actually worked. Perhaps I am simply being way too cynical in not believing that it was a real genuine relationship. That perhaps not all friendships or even romances are the same. People can be in love yet not be able to live together for various reasons. Others can love each other yet be totally platonic. The fear of a loved one murdering you is perhaps a new one but who knows? Perhaps someone can love you but also want to kill you?

What are your thoughts?

Bloglovin

I am writing a Blog post purely in order for a blog of mine to appear on Bloglovin! My dear friend Nat is coaching me as for some reason it was beyond me to work out how to use it.

This stumped me quite frankly. I felt like perhaps I was becoming my mother who still doesn't understand the difference between MS Word and Windows. She is just a bit... You know... Someone who is not good with technology. The opposite to a computer whizz if you like... An anti-geek.

I however am pretty good with technology. Ok so I can't write code and probably couldn't format a computer without assistance. But I thought I was pretty good with social media and blogging type programs. I tweet, I pin, I Instagram, I have actually once explained in great detail to someone what a hashtag is and how they work. 

So here I am suddenly wondering if I'm losing it? As I'm getting older I'm becoming less and less computer savvy? Will I wake up tomorrow and forget how to post a photo on facebook? By next year will I be calling the mouse a thingamabob? We can only hope my degeneration won't be quite that quick.... I might have a few years left in me yet! We will soon know... 

My Brisbane Writers Festival experience

This is just one of the many collage pictures I have made to try and represent my experience at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Not sure I've fully managed to cram my excitement, creativity explosion and sheer joy into one picture. But it's been fun trying!

                                                     

I spent two days at the festival and each day and session was incredible and inspiring. First up was an urban explorer talking how once deciding to do a story on the phenomena he had to join urban explorers in their risky ( and often illegal) activities before they would talk to him. He found in urban exploring what he hadn't in archaeology and he was hooked. He had incredible stories about the underground in London, the Metro in Paris, old abandoned psychiatric hospitals in England, half built skyscrapers in Dubai.

There was a downside to all this as well what with governments lumping these explorers in with terrorists. Fear at what they simply don't understand.

I immediately rushed downstairs after the session to buy his book. The historian inside me was intrigued and excited. On another level I instantly felt excited about the notion of going for it at any cost and figured this book from this cool amazing guy could me a new found sense of adventure!

One of the most poignant sessions I went to really had nothing to do with my writing... Or did it? The session was about the mind. There was a philosopher, a former psychiatrist who went through a breakdown and then a stroke, a gifted medical practitioner who suffered terrible depression and nearly once sliced her own arm off with a scalpel. Both the last two had written books about their recovery. The final panelist was a fiction writer, mostly of science fiction. Phew! What a panel! Luckily the moderator was very good and each got to speak in turns and there was even a few jokes... Which is bound to happen when talking about the mind among crazy medical people, a
sci-fi writer and a philosopher!

Plenty of things were discussed. Is the mind and the brain different? The mind/body connection, plus how medical professionals deal with being on the other side of the table as patients. Somehow even Doctor Who was mentioned ( which went down well with us all!) and the latest movie Lucy ( which didn't ) at one point the philosopher stated that the only people who can use just 10% of their brains are the writers of that movie script!

What resonated with me was Kate Richards and her struggle with mental illness. Some of the things she described I really related to. She referred to how she felt people were living in her mind. Some were benign and others were malicious and as clever as she was she was so far into her mental illness that it took her many years to realise the voices were a figment of her own mind.

Her book is called 'Madness: a memoir' and sounds like it would be a heart wrenching but important read. Her book came about only due to the fact that she wrote copious notes and journal entries over the years even when at her worse. So despite not always recognising her own words or even knowing what year she wrote some entries she put them together in a book.

Like Kate I have kept journals a lot over the years particularly when I was very ill. I'm not sure if there is a book in them though!

So onto another session which was two debut authors, one Australian and one Irish. Both having books with the word 'Thing' in the title and both having written fiction based on real events they had each witnessed to various degrees. Their books sounded incredibly researched and are on my to read list. Particularly Mark Mulholland's book ' A Mad and Wonderful Thing.' His own brother was arrested and gaoled for being part of an IRA bomb plot. Mulholland grew up with what he called 'charming' men who had this double life as killers for a cause. He said his protagonist, a conflicted IRA member is representative of Ireland and is also a mixture of all those charming men.

Now I couldn't go to a writers festival and not see some sessions on crime novels could I? One was focussed on villains. What makes a good villain? Why do we like them ? Are they just a few brain cells away from us? This session introduced me to a fabulous Scandinavian author
 Yrsa Siguroardottir and I have already bought one of her books.

Another panel was incredibly interesting and just nicely gruesome! Speaking of dead bodies and what happens at a crime scene as well as what crime scenes are usually actually like. We had an ex cop crime fiction writer and a forensic investigator who intrigued me greatly. He had some interesting theories and though he has not written fiction I imagine his text books on the subject would be invaluable to crime writers and enjoyable for true crime fans (like me!)

I did a workshop on feature writing. I figured I knew a fair bit about the art but my problem rather was my perfectionist streak that keeps me from finishing or even starting pieces. But I Learned a hell of a lot! Three hours of useful information. Caroline Overington was a brilliant teacher and she writes features for the Australian Women's Weekly on people like Hilary Clinton so we all ate up every word she said!

Oh and Frances Whiting popped in to say hi to us all.  It was almost surreal. The next day as I was waiting to be picked up after checking out of my hotel I was scanning the paper and there was Whiting herself with a brilliantly funny article. To think she had smiled at me and happily chatted to all us amateurs just the day before!

Phew! What a weekend!

Pirate Yoga Pants? Yes...Really...

So I was browsing through a certain online auction site and there they were. Available at a fairly reasonable price... Pirate yoga pants.

Which of course begs the question - What the hell? I can't tell you the number of things that crossed my mind. Do pirates do yoga? If so is there a certain dress standard required? Are there pirate yoga tops too? Do they come in a variety of colours?

Let's think about it though. Pirate yoga - it could be a thing. I mean I'm sure when someone first came up with concept of Zumba they were shouted down. That would never work they were told. 

So Pirate Yoga. The possibilities are endless. The most obvious being the great new names for the yoga poses. Can you manage The Plank? Not quite? Never fear you can attempt the 'Walk The Plank' instead. Which would probably consist of walking... In a straight line... Pretending to balance yourself.

Downward Dog is so yesterday. All the cool kids are doing the 'You Scurvy Dog.'

Animal names are common in yoga. How about The Albatross? Or The Parrot? Which may or may not involve attempting to sit on someone's shoulder. Repeating verbatim what the instructor says is of course optional.

Clutching your stomach tightly while bending forward and groaning - doing the 'Sea Sickness' pose.

The corpse pose can pretty much stay the same. 

If you want cardio then perhaps a bit of sword fighting? Not strictly yoga but hey a fencing/yoga fusion done while listening to 'A sailor went to sea sea sea',' 6 months in a leaky boot','I am sailing' and 'The horn pipe' could be the next big thing. 

So there you have it. If you have ever wondered what to do with that ill advised late night purchase when you thought pirate yoga pants seemed like a great idea? Well now you know! Let's get started?

 

Camping? WHY?

I always find it interesting at this time of year when people start to talk about their plans to go camping. Well interesting is a polite word actually. What I really mean is that I find it completely bonkers!

I mean camping? Why? Where is the appeal? Why do normal ordinary people get excited about the prospect of spending days in a vinyl tent under a hot sun surrounded by insects? I suppose children I get. Everything is exciting when you are a kid. But adults? Wouldn't they rather stay at a nice hotel? With an actual bed? And a solid roof? And air conditioning?

I  have been camping.... I think twice. Or maybe three times. I've blocked it out mostly. I was a child when I went camping so once I was old enough to decide on my own holiday destinations a tent was never an option. But I did go as a child and pretty much hated every minute of. I was not an adventurous child. Even young and carefree I saw the sense in a nice hotel.

Because if we think about it with a logical mind camping for recreation is quite ridiculous. If we were to tell someone from the 1800's that people actually camp out on the open for fun they will think people of the future are insane. Absolutely insane. Why would you sleep in a tent if you own a perfectly good house?

Because camping used to be of necessity. It was the only thing to do to get from place to place. If you happened to pass through a town with an Inn you would stay there... You know as opposed to sleeping on the hard ground. Why do that if you don't have to?

So camping for recreation perplexes me. I don't understand the appeal at all. It sounds like a form of torture to me. Especially in the Queensland summer, especially when people go north to go camping. It's like saying what is a holiday without a dose of heatstroke?

But imagine I were to go camping now? Imagine Master 4 decides he would like to go camping and mummy must come too? I suppose I would have to brave it. I imagine it would go something like this..

First trip to the camping store would be cut short by my hubby declaring that we really don't need all the things I am picking out. How are we going to transport the generator? Whereas I'm convinced it would fit on a trailer. We could hire a trailer to pack the generator and the portable shower and the bar fridge. So ok maybe the microwave is going a little too far. I will admit that.

So after being told to leave hubby will buy the basics needed to endure... I mean enjoy a camping trip.

The day will come and for some reason we will be leaving while it is still dark. I will ask why and not get a proper answer. I will INSIST we stop for coffee before we enter the middle of nowhere. I may be seen by passing vehicles to be silently sobbing into my coffee and declaring my love for it. Or maybe not. Who am I kidding? That's exactly what passing vehicles will see!

Upon arriving master four will wander off collecting all manner of sticks and rocks whilst hubby tries to put up the tent. I will at this point no doubt be spraying insect repellant all over us like a crazed woman.

At some point a swim will be suggested. Master 4 will be all excited. I will look askance at the muddy water and wonder whether it is safe, I will instil the importance of not swallowing the water! Though I need not have bothered as Master 4 will no doubt run out after a few minutes screaming that fish are touching him! Hubby will swim alone till it is time for lunch. I will try and read but will keep having to stop master 4 wandering off. Eventually I tell him there are Tigers in the bush so he does not go too far..

At last some sense! Lunch is cooked on a little gas cooker after even hubby realises attempting to build a fire would be futile. So sausages for lunch? Pretty cool I suppose. Just like a Saturday morning at Bunnings only we are not going home to an air conditioned house.

Somehow we make it through the afternoon. The only way anyone naps is if copious amounts of meds are taken. Who can sleep in this heat? Master 4 at some stage will ask if he can go and see the Tigers and I will slink down behind my book pretending I have not heard. I suggest the boys go on a bush walk to see the Tigers so I can have a few minutes alone. I will get all of five minutes until they come back exclaiming ' it's too hot out there!'

Dinner will involve probably sausages again.... Not so exiting second time round and alcohol. Yes it must involve alcohol. In fact there is one esky devoted to it. No way I'm camping without a glass of white wine. Or you know a plastic cup of white wine....

At some point it will be time to sleep. I will just get settled on top of my sleeping bag. It will be too hot no doubt to actually get inside the thing, when I realise I have to pee. It's one thing to find a place to pee in the bush during the day. It's quite another to have to find it at night. We did bring a torch didn't we? Didn't we?

The morning will come and I dare say there will be birds chirping and the sunrise will be beautiful. Maybe just maybe I will be delighted for all of a few a minutes with the wonders of nature before wanting to leave them.

Day two will be much like day one. Except at some point I will suggest that I cannot handle another insect bite and it's too hot to do anything so why don't we go? Hubby will pretend to be disappointed but will soon buck up when I mention the motel that is just 3.8km away that according to wotif have a vacancy.

Thus will be my camping trip. Here's hoping by the time master four wants to go camping I will be able to show him this in order to change his mind. Then again camping is the ultimate male bonding thing right? Father and son holiday? Yes? I can stay home lest I inhibit the father/son quality time?

So what is your take on camping? Fun or insane?

Concentrate. Pay attention. Spell my name right.

I remember well the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine ends a relationship over punctuation. Her Beau did not use an exclamation point when, as Elaine surmised, it was clearly necessary.

It sounds a teeny bit ridiculous. Ending a relationship over something so silly? If I had ended my relationship over such trivial things my husband and I would not have lasted 20 years. More like two days.

It is obvious to most of course that this was not the real reason but rather was an excuse. We all have heard of those people who have a fear of commitment who breakup using ridiculous reasons purely out of fear.

I read somewhere once about a woman who ended a relationship because her boyfriend did not fill up her ice cube trays fully. She realised quickly though that this was a metaphor for their relationship. He did not fill up her ice cubes trays. He was 75% in all he gave to her. So perhaps then this was fair enough?

I must admit to having my own silly quirks. I have in fact thought about ending friendships over spelling. Not just any spelling. I make my fair share of spelling errors. But rather over the spelling of my name. It is Kellie not Kelly. Simple really. There it is in all its glory to the side of my picture on facebook, in my bio on twitter and in my email signature. If you have seen it once you really should get it right.

Only people don’t. I get emails, letters and comments in facebook statuses addressed to Kelly on a regular basis by people, even family members, whom have known me for years. Most of the time I simply laugh it off but at some days I just want to scream to the heavens. Why can’t people pay attention and read what is in front of them?

So it is possible I think to break a romance or a friendship over something simple like punctuation, grammar or spelling or even squeezing the toothpaste tube the wrong way. Because it is a signal of someone not paying the attention they should. Not respecting someone enough. That, if done repeatedly can be a huge black mark against someone. If they don’t concentrate on the little things then how will they be on the big things?

Or perhaps I am being way too harsh. Lives are fast paced these days. People are busier than they have ever been and often not concentrating on little details really just means their brains have taken up everything concentrating on the big things and the details get missed. No reflection on anyone intended.

I read a heartbreaking story yesterday of a father who upon arriving to pick up his son from childcare was made aware the boy had never arrived. They found him dead strapped into his car seat. This father had forgotten to drop him off. But in his head he had done just that. Psychologists and experts said he was not to blame. Our minds sometimes do things in order to make us function better. We go on auto pilot. Somehow a switch flipped in his brain that said he had dropped his son off at day care as per usual.

So if a perfectly rational, normal, caring, busy father can forget that which is most precious to him then perhaps I can forgive someone who spells my name wrong? I think I can.

Perhaps there is something to learn here though. We all need to slow down. Maybe just a little bit but we need to be more aware of what is going on around us at any particular moment. If we read something then we should read it entirely and fully absorb it. If we are watching a movie then we should put away our phones and tablets and actually just pay attention to the movie. You get the picture. If we all lived in the moment a bit more, trying to stop our minds racing to the next thing we must do, then perhaps we might take in the small details that may just make a difference to someone else.