#5 - 15 Facts about YOU

So here is the challenge for May 5th in the Odd May Blog Challenge. I must admit the thought of listing 15 facts about me had me a little puzzled. I figured facts were different to what I thought about myself or the usual listing your strengths or positive traits. Then I thought listing simple facts might not make for great reading so do I elaborate or not?

Anyway I put away my crazy train of thought away and just did it. Here they are -

1. I have blue eyes and fair skin. The blue eyes are often complimented upon most notably once when I was in a dentists chair with so much stuff in my mouth keeping it open that my mumbled 'thank you' could have sounded like anything.

2. My ancestry as far as I know is a combo of English, Scottish, and Irish. I'd dearly love to find some Welsh.

3. My maiden name is Sneyd. It is a relatively rare surname and has an interesting history. The Sneyd family had a grand ancestral home in Stoke on Trent in England, Keele Hall. It is now a university.

4. I have no real 'favourite' anything. When people ask what is my favourite colour, film, TV show, food, band or song etc I honestly can't answer. I have such varied tastes that I could never choose just one of any of these things.

5. I'll stand by what I believe in - I'm steadfast. This fact comes courtesy of my husband, David. This was his response when I asked him for a fact about me!

6. I have an awesome husband! 😉 Plus a super awesome, smart, crazy son named Sachell. ( see second photo)

7. I'm a survivor of chronic illness.

8. I grew up watching Rugby League and am a passionate Wests Tigers fan.

9. I grew up in Marrickville, in the inner west of Sydney.

10. I have an irrational fear of dying of thirst in the desert. This came about after watching a mini series about one of my heroes, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. It depicted the incident where the pilots Keith Anderson and Bob Hitchcock crashed their plane in the Tanami desert and perished. Hence why I've never done the epic journey across the Nullarbor Plain and probably never will!

11. Strangely though I don't have a problem flying in planes!

12. I can name the English line of succession from 1066 by memory.

13. I've never had a broken bone (touch wood!)

14. I currently live on the Gold Coast in Queensland. ( see photo - such a beautiful place!)

15. I hate hot weather ... So yes I live in the entirely wrong place ...

Writers - why not give a character an unusual phobia? There are so many to choose from!

There are so many more phobias in existence than I ever thought possible. I found out in an unusual way. I was mucking around with one of those apps for writers where you can look through lists of names, occupations, body types and all sorts of things supposedly to help you get over any writers block that has you wondering - 'just who is the character?' Or else when on page 63 you suddenly think you need to know the occupation of one of your characters and for the life of you can't think of one ...

So anyway there's an app for that. But what this app can also provide you with is a list of phobias. What if you decide one of your characters should have a phobia? I mean spiders is a bit obvious as is heights. So instead why don't you try finding an unusual phobia even if the particular phobia you choose might never actually become at all relevant in your story? Here's a few ideas to get you started.

How about auroraphobia? Which is the fear of the Northern Lights. Presumably this happens to people who live where the northern lights can be seen and have some terrible childhood memory of thinking the lights indicated the sky was falling or something. So the minute they were old enough they fled to more southern areas of the globe and now tell everyone they meet of their terrible phobia and how it nearly ruined their life. Or maybe people simply develop the fear spontaneously never having seen the Northern Lights ...Which poses its own set of problems.

How about barophobia? That's fear of gravity - no I didn't make that up. Where are these people? How do they survive from day to day?

Then there is something that some of you might actually relate to which is syngenesophobia; the fear of relatives. Thinking of setting your book around Christmas time? What a perfect phobia for someone to have. The hilarious scenarios write themselves.

Now here's a good one - xanthophobia which is the fear of the colour yellow or the word yellow. Throw in a scene featuring a beloved childhood big bird toy along with a disastrous visit to a paint shop. Or else an unsuspecting partner suggesting Yellow as a safe word? Pizza and Movie night? Just remember nothing with Minions in it. It is probably also a good idea to hide that Minions onesie.

Then there is plutophobia; a fear of wealth which would be an interesting one. At least you could actually introduce a character happy in a low paying job they love. There’s a character you could do something with. His plutophobia might mean he is constantly giving away his possessions much to the disgust of his other half ... If he has one.

Now how do you make someone housebound? Perhaps you need a device in order for them to require someone else to do all the leg work but agoraphobia is too obvious? Simply give them a fear of walking or ambulophobia. This could work too if you have an ongoing theme of delivery drivers you want to introduce into the story.

You could try for irony and have an archaeologist as a protagonist who tragically suffers from atephobia - fear of ruin or ruins. Or a farmer with alektorophobia - which is a fear of chickens. What about a lighthouse keeper with climacophobia - fear of stairs, climbing, or of falling downstairs? Then again it would be easy to slip in a character who suffers from epistemophobia - fear of knowledge as I believe many people in the world seem to suffer from that ... Alas.

Not quite sure how you could write this one in - euphobia which is a fear of hearing good news but it should be easy to have someone with ergophobia or a fear of work - especially if you fancy writing a few good arguments.

Let's face it - you name it and someone somewhere has a phobia of it. Fear of wind, flowers, and garden gnomes to name just another 3. All manner of things send otherwise ordinary people into a spin. All writers need to make their characters interesting. They need to have flaws or eccentricities, face challenges and even have severe emotional conditions in some cases. So why not throw in an unusual phobia? At the very least it will give your agent or editor a good laugh. 

What is Brave? Who gets to judge that?

What does it mean to be brave? I've seen a lot written lately where certain people have been declared brave. Caitlyn Jenner, Tyra Banks...then it seems some people come and say no these people are not brave...saving someone from a burning building is brave. Having transgender surgery or posting a photo of yourself without makeup isn't brave.

Who is right? I suppose it is subjective in a sense. I wish we could all agree though that maybe each of us individually don't have the right to decide whether someone is being brave or not. There are possibly hundreds of different ways any one person can be brave.

Someone who is scared of heights climbing a mountain is brave. At least I'm sure they feel brave. They haven't changed the world or helped anyone...certainly it isn't on a par with saving someone from a burning building but if they feel proud of themselves then yep let's call them brave, what does it hurt?

Because what happens when actually literally saving a human life is the only thing we can all agree to call brave? Are these people brave? Of course! Though many of them may not even feel the slightest sense of achievement as they are good people who value human life who simply did what they felt they had to do. Yet it would seem next to that anything else is only brave if enough people tell you it is. Cancers survivors are thought of as brave. Quite rightly considering the gruelling road they face. Yet what choice did they have? They couldn't sit in the corner and stamp their feet saying they didn't want to fight cancer? They had to get on with and did so showing great courage. Does that mean people who make decisions that scare them but are not life and death are not brave? 

I think Caitlyn Jenner is brave. Our society still has so many stigmas coming out as a woman after so long living as a man would be very difficult. The fear of rejection could be crippling. I personally would never put a no makeup first thing in the morning selfie up anywhere on social media so I think Tyra is brave. Do they deserve medals? Have they saved lives? No but maybe by doing something that scares others they might just add to the positive change that is needed to make this world a better place. It's slow going. In 2015 one would think we would be an equal society where people could be who they want to be without fear but alas that is not so.

So I can't see how all this 'no that's not brave....this is brave' type one upping is helping anyone's cause. Because someone went in a lift today after a lifetime fear and gets called brave by her friends does not mean that a fireman saving a child from a burning house will not get his due. He may get a medal and the woman in the lift certainly won't. So can't they both be brave in their own way? If you have to go against the grain and do something that is scary to you then that is brave. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's not a competition.