A month in (back at writing) and I'm beginning to lose the plot.

So today I finished my second full week at being back writing, and I will admit it was a wee bit tougher though not in terms of actually writing words.

At the age of 54, coming up 55, this may not sound a lot to brag about, but today I finished reading 'Danny the Champion of the World' and I am so very happy. You see as a lover of books, one who used to read every day, I've not read a book for a very long time - though I did manage the Silmarillion last year (I think). Every time I start a book my brain struggles to remember what it reads - be this because of my mental illnesses or the tablets I rattle with, I'm not really s

A New Me? Kind of, but not really... I know. Strange title. And it's been a while. October 2022 since I last wrote a blog post. Strangely that coincides with my last venture out for a walk on my own (before this month) and me becoming really reclusive - 10 months, that's bad, isn't it. I've also realised that it's the same time Elon Musk took over Twitter, and it became a much more toxic environment. Is that a part of it? Perhaps. It must surely have a bearing. So I guess, th

I tried reading the Silmarillion when I was about fourteen, after having finished (and falling in love with) The Lord of the Rings. I suppose it must have been 1983/1984. A time of the Tories under the evil that was Maggie Thatcher. There was the Miners Strike, National Front, Anarchy, Greenham Common, CND, great music and genre inspired fashion - Punks, New Romantics, Skinheads, Mods and Rockers haunting record shops and roaming streets - me hanging out at bus stops with fri

Time I reinvigorated the blog. It's been awhile. Being a recluse - and indeed having become even more reclusive over the last couple of years - I guess I was struggling with content. Indeed, my mind has made it difficult to read too, and so book reviews dried up. Now, with the onset of 2022 and all we've all been through with Covid, lockdowns, and the like, I think it's time to start anew. Push this old soul back out into the world and hopefully put some smiles on faces. I fi

Trying to find inspiration for a new piece, a beginning that catches me with character or emotion, and my idle thoughts lead me to recalling someone once said, a genius of course, that the road goes ever on. It does of course. On and on. A walk becomes a recollection, recollection a story, story a tale. Tales grow up and grow old, age for good and for bad, become history, myth, legend and folklore. Forever retold, reborn, heard anew. Many are forever forgot. Some hide in shad

Why Folklore? And why is it important to me? Sounds a simple enough question, only once you start to strip away the obvious you quite quickly get down to things not quite so simple. Nor indeed, nice to face. This is the first time I've written about this, and it starts innocent enough. As a child I loved history, books, stories. Really loved them. I collected all the Ladybird books and read the histories of others over and over again; lived the lives of Alfred the Great, Wi

Over the last few years, whilst struggling with mental health, I've come to realise how important the folklore, history and landscape of Britain are to me. I've learnt how the magick of the Fae and Celts, nature and an ancient past still exist in this green land. It's around every corner. For me it's been a slow discovery, but one that's inspired me to take photos, write, explore my own imagination and, in times of poor mental health, battle madness. It's been productive too

As per my weekly routine, I joined with other writers and Twitter friends for #storycrafter yesterday. It was all about fear and how it...