Book Two of Trobairitz is due for publication. Her real name is Fleur but she prefers the nickname Weed. In Book One, Trobairitz the Storyteller, readers learn how she came by that nickname and why she still prefers to use it. At the overnight truck stop near Béziers in southern France, a group of drivers become used to her regular visits as she returns from her delivery runs into Spain. They’ve encouraged her to open up a little more and they return each week to hear more of the stories she tells.
Their favourite character is Madame Catherine Joubert, the 76 year old former sex worker who owns the best house in the village and has some sort of hold over the young mayor.
A landslide at Christmas sees Weed working alongside Jimi in the rescue mission but any further development of a relationship between them is interrupted.
Trobairitz the Storyteller – Book One with its new cover
Book Two is here at last
It’s been a long time in the making. There are several reasons for that.
Hiraeth – Hiraeth, commonly is translated as “homesickness” but it is more than that. It means a deep sense of longing, a yearning for that which has past, a sense of homesickness tinged with grief or sorrow over the lost or departed. I couldn’t bring myself to continue writing novels set in the place I had lost. It was too painful. I needed time to heal myself. I did that by writing about what had happened. I published People Who Hurt, my only non fiction book.
my only nonfiction book
Writing the truth brought its own pain as I relived what I had allowed to happen. It was then time to move on. Still, I couldn’t visualise my setting in Languedoc, now Occitanie, without wishing I was there. So, in 2017 I wrote and published a different novel, The Sandman and Mrs Carter, a psychological mystery set in Wiltshire and a second collection of short stories, Queer as Folk.
a psychological mystery
In 2021 I published a further completely different novel, set in Norfolk where I now live, A Measured Man. Poignantly humorous, A Measured Man is a not-so-romantic comedy.
Aubrey Tennant, a bachelor in his fifties is still looking for his ideal woman
Launch date: November Twelfth
It’s a great feeling knowing how far I’ve come. I still have CRPS and on high pain days I can’t write anything at all. But now the emotional pain has gone. I don’t grieve for the place I lost. I can think of it and remember the places I loved with warmth in my heart instead of deep yearning.
This second volume follows on immediately from the first so even though it could stand alone I strongly recommend reading book one first. Book Two brings further conflict and, in Montalhan sans Vents, new characters cause drama, scandal, a wedding and a funeral.
There might even be a hint of romance if only Jimi didn’t annoy her so much.
Here she is. Preorder for the ebook is available now. Paperback is also available on the twelfth November.
It’s easy to get nostalgic about going on holidays when you can’t go away. I watch the Covid news and sigh. At the moment in the UK we have a traffic light system showing which countries are considered safe for travellers but none of them are where I’d like to go. Actually, I wouldn’t go anywhere this year but I will plan something for next year.
My mother was a great one for planning holidays and I have years of holiday memories to make me smile. Some of them are a long time ago. When I was a child in the 1950s most people I knew didn’t expect to go very far. You could book a coach trip for a day at the seaside and a whole week in a boarding house at the coast was a real treat.
On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep
I’m the lucky kid in the middle in possession of the bubbles. I look to be about five or six years old and, although I can’t remember exactly, it may have been our first holiday away from home – all the way from West Yorkshire to Morecambe!
When I was a little older we ventured further and in Cornwall I learned to swim. No chance to swim in the picture below on a day trip to Blackpool.
Day-trip paddling
Saving for the yearly holiday
The annual summer holiday came during what was called the Feast Weeks – the last week in July and the first in August when all the mills and factories used to shut up shop. Coaches and trains were full of Keighley folk setting off for the much longed-for break from work for which they’d saved the whole year. But my mother, bless her, had got the travel bug and wanted to see other countries.
Each winter she took me to see travel films in the co-op hall. She pronounced it ‘kworpall’ as if it was all one word. That darkened room up the stairs in a building somewhere along Hanover Street is where I caught the bug myself.
Yes folks, that’s what the streets and cars looked like when I was a girl. The dairy chimney and all those old buildings are long gone but I’ll never forget the fascinating films of far-flung places I saw in the ‘Kworpall’.
photo by Keighley News
Holidays to plan for
Our first holiday abroad was to Belgium. I think it would have been all my mother could afford. We booked through Althams, a local travel agent and I remember her feeling proud that we were flying for the first time.
The coach took us to Lydd (Ferryfield) airport in Kent for our short flight to Ostend. This is the kind of aircraft we flew on. I thought it was enormous and wondered how it would ever get into the air. The cabin windows were tiny portholes and the seats were leather with a damp smell. The ride was cramped and uncomfortable and it put my mother off flying for the next 25 years. Watch the video – it’s only a minute long. You might have to turn up the volume. This old film will make you laugh but it makes me realise how brave and forward thinking my late mother was. This first flight to Ostend was the beginning of many more foreign holidays – but all by train.
I bet she worried about the flight home but you wouldn’t think so in this photo from an excursion to a beer cellar.
A night out in a beer cellar
For our souvenirs that year we bought tiny Delft ceramic clogs and clockwork dancing dolls in national costume.
Viva España
The following winter back we went to the ‘Kworpall’ to see more films of enticing holiday destinations. My mother researched at the library and went to the travel agents to find ways to travel avoiding flying. In the meantime, we had staycations in Cornwall and Wales.
In June, 1960 the UK government signed a treaty with Spain to abolish the visa requirement and the very next summer I was twelve years old when my mother first took me to Spain.
The overnight train through France was exciting and my first experience of Spain was mesmerising. Civil guards were everywhere watching everything. Bikinis were banned. Public displays of affection were not allowed. Mum and I saw young Spanish couples walking together, not touching, chaperoned by two elder females following close behind.
I loved the small fishing villages with their ancient streets and buildings with balconies. I loved the mountains and the sea. And the music. Oh, the music. On a special excursion we saw the celebrated flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya. It must have been one of her last tours as she was already ill. The passion in the music and dance enthralled me. Flamenco guitars tugged at my young heart as the floorboards vibrated under her feet. Next day my mother bought me a pair of castanets and I remember the hotel staff encouraging me to learn. (I still have those castanets but my fingers are not so flexible now)
How memories get into fiction
I feel privileged to have seen the ‘old’ Spain. Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of my teenage holidays abroad. Mother had developed an interest in photography and bought a good camera so she could have her pictures developed as slides. I don’t have any of them but I have so many vivid memories I could write a whole book.
My memories of people and places do sometimes find their way into my fiction. In Patterns of Our Lives, I first used my childhood home town as the setting and called it Kingsley. You can click on the link to read a sample.
In my most recent novel, A Measured Man, I’ve used places I know well here in Norfolk.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this short read. I enjoyed re-living holidays past. Please visit my author page on Amazon and use the ‘Look inside’ feature to read samples of all my work. I love to hear from my readers.
Older readers are beginning to have their message heard but I hope the folks in the picture above are in a book club. I can’t think of any other reason why you’d sit around a table sharing favourite gems from fiction you’ve enjoyed with such a wide grin on your face.
Correction. I can actually imagine several reasons. Here’s one:
Maybe the book is erotica and, instead of reminiscing about the days when they could complete the sexual gymnastics described in Chapter Five, they’ve all decided to slip upstairs at the nursing home, swap rooms and give it a go.
Sorry, I get sarcastic when the subject of older readers comes up. Thankfully since my last post on the subject: Gran Lit. Are you serious? there’s been a shift in publishers’ thinking. I’m not claiming any credit for that. I’m just one of many voices including the knowledgeable and experienced members of the Books for Older Readers Facebook page. Here’s a link BFOR. There’s a website too www.booksforolderreaders.co.uk established in October 2017 to promote books (mainly fiction) with older protagonists or themes which tend to appeal to readers in mid-life or beyond.
Older readers. Do they count?
Stephen King reading Lee Child
They surely do. There are a lot of us. And publishers are taking notice. I’m glad it’s happening but it depends on how you define old. In a current competition from Harper Collins HQ division authors over 40 yrs. old are invited to submit unpublished work where the main character is also over 40. Over 40? They call that OLD? Heavens to Betsy, they still haven’t got it right.
Look here, you publishers. 18% of the UK population is OVER 65. In 2019 the total population is estimated at 66, 937,197 so roughly 11 and a half million of us fit this older reader bracket. If you want to count older as being from age 40 you’re looking at a much higher number.
Older readers. Where are they?
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside
According to a 2019 survey the top ten towns and cities where the average age of the population is over 40 are as follows alphabetically: Barnsley, Birkenhead, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Mansfield, Southend-on-Sea, Sunderland, Swansea, Wakefield and Worthing. At an average age of just over 43, Blackpool is the place with the largest percentage of older people.
Now, let me tell you, people DO NOT go to Blackpool for a quiet spell of rest and relaxation. I believe it’s reasonable to say that Blackpool still ranks as the UK’s number one getaway for a dirty weekend. It has night clubs and casinos, break-your-neck rides at the Pleasure Beach and, let’s not forget, Blackpool Tower where all the hip-swivelling contestants aim to be in Strictly Come Dancing every year. Cruise the bars along the promenade this summer and I bet you it ain’t spring chickens under those kiss-me-quick hats.
Older readers. What do they read?
If you Google what do older people read? here’s what you get.
Are older readers anxious?
It’s interesting that once you add the word older, the algorithms assume you’re looking for support with ageing problems. I found Reading interests and needs of older people – based on a survey dated 1973. There doesn’t seem to be anything more recent.
In a section called ‘Books older people can read’ the Age UK website recommends A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler, one of my favourite authors. I approve of their choice but not of their title. What do they mean by ‘Can‘ read? Are they saying we can’t read books by younger writers?
In a 2012 study the university of Leicester asked why older people struggle to read fine print. They came to the conclusion that older people struggle with fine detail and prefer slightly blurred text????
I really don’t get the blurred thing. Larger print – yes. But blurred?
And so to Amazon. Dearie me. If you search the great Zon for books for the elderly they’ll suggest colouring books. Lots of fine details in those things, folks. If you search books for older readers Amazon assumes you mean older children and up pops Horrid Henry. If you search books with older characters Amazon can’t cope. It gets completely confused and offers Peppa Pig.
According to the website Next Avenue-where grown-ups keep growing older readers(female) still want to read romance and, apparently, there’s a growing demand from Boomers for erotica ebooks. I imagine they wouldn’t want the paperback hanging around the house for all to see but Next Avenue’s findings lend some validation to my imagined scenario in the nursing home. Cheesy grin.
Older readers. So what do they want?
from oubebreaker
I posted the following questions on my Celia Micklefield FB author page. I also made a nuisance of myself asking friends and members of local groups I belong to.
Have your reading tastes changed since you were young?
Does it matter that there isn’t a genre for older readers?
Some said their tastes had broadened and they now read the kinds of books that didn’t interest them when they were younger. Non fiction and self-help books featured in this wider taste. However, they still read what they have always enjoyed be it, crime, mystery, horror, sic-fi, fantasy etc. They didn’t think growing older had had any effect on their choices.
Some older readers said they enjoyed re-reading classics and old favourites. This got me thinking and, yes, I would love to read The Thornbirds again.
Almost all reported they didn’t think it necessary to have a separate genre for older readers. They can decide if a book is right for their taste by the blurb, they said, or by recommendation from friends. They feel they already have enough reminders they’re getting on in years without there being special bookshelves for older readers.
So it looks like we’re back to choosing by genre what you read whatever your age.
Choosing by genre
what’s your fancy?
I’ve always had a problem with genre. I enjoy reading books with multiple threads, time slips so you can discover what happened in a character’s past especially when they don’t know it themselves, a strong plot and settings that make you feel you’re walking the streets in the book’s backdrop. Realistic dialogue appropriate for each character is a must and I don’t care if it’s English or U.S. spelling as long as it’s right for the mood and setting. I particularly enjoy characters with problems to solve. Throw in a hint of mystery and I’m on Chapter Three already!
You can find all of the above in a Saga, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Crime, Romance etc. etc. So, for me at least, genre is not the number one factor affecting my choice of book to read. If the first few paragraphs draw me in I’m reaching for my bank card.
The purpose of books?
I love books that make me think
I’m 70 now. Jeez, how did that happen? I don’t live in any of the Top Ten older population towns but in my corner of Norfolk near the east coast of England, I bet we’d make the Top Twenty. I don’t subscribe to the apparent interest in erotica but I did read 50 Shades out of curiosity. After a very short time my practical/dark humour head switched into gear and I wondered where you could possibly find a twenty-one year old virgin these days. Moreover, how she could walk and sit down comfortably after such frequent ravaging for her first sexual encounters beggars belief.
But, what do I know? I’m not a huge best-seller like Erika Leonard. She’s 56, you know. I wonder if she’s been to Blackpool?
The purpose of the books I choose will vary according to how I’m feeling and what my current needs are:escapism, entertainment, wanderlust, educational and so on. Sometimes all I want is an easy read I can pick up and put down as and when. At other times I want to devote my whole day to another author’s creation. That’s the underpinning need for variety in my nature, something that hasn’t changed since I learned to read.
My fiction for older readers
As I love reading a wide variety of kinds of novels I suppose it’s no surprise I enjoy writing them too. All my work is suitable for the older reader and not necessarily just for women.
Arse(d) Ends, inspired by words ending in the letters a.r.s.e. and Queer as Folk are collections of short (and not so short) stories, some darkly humorous, some outright quirky. They’ll make you smile or shiver!
Patterns of Our Lives is a saga from 1935 to 2009. Family secrets from World War Two surface generations later. You might need a box of tissues with this one.
Trobairitz the Storyteller is general/literary fiction set in southern France where I used to live. With hints of mystery and romance my contemporary female troubadour entertains long haul drivers at an overnight truck stop by telling them a story.
The Sandman and Mrs Carter is a psychological mystery/drama. Mrs Wendy Carter never speaks for herself. Five characters tell her story from their point of view. There’s a mystery voice too, partly revealed at the end leaving readers with some thinking to do.
Non-fiction
I should mention People Who Hurt too. It’s my only non-fiction title. Being an older woman didn’t protect me from getting into a toxic relationship when I was in my fifties. People Who Hurt is part memoir and part informational. I know it’s helped others and I’m happy to offer it free on KU. Here’s a link if you’d like to read a sample.
All my books feature older characters with problems to solve. Here’s a link to my Amazon author page
You can also find my work in the English language sections across Europe and beyond.
If you’re an older reader and would like to share your thoughts take a look at the BFOR Facebook page.
see you on Facebook!
Many thanks to Books For Older Readers for allowing me this slot on their Blog Blitz this month. Don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list if you’d like news of upcoming offers. Leave a few words in the comments box too. I love to hear from other readers/authors.
Writer’s block must be the thing holding me back. Lately, I’m not satisfied with anything I write. I rewrite opening chapters or compose entirely new openings. If possible I switch chapters around. I introduce new and sparkly secondary characters. And I still don’t like what I’ve written.
I’m suffering
I’ve hit the suffering button so many times I don’t where I am or which way is up.
My voice has changed
I’m talking about the writer’s voice, the thing that identifies the book as essentially oneself, the trademark of the writer’s voice. You know how you can have an educated guess at which artist produced a painting just by the use of colours and style of brushstrokes even if you’ve never seen that picture before?
It’s a similar thing with a writer’s voice. Readers become used to the style, the tone, the way an author chooses what to describe and what to leave to your imagination. It’s the spirit of the book, the magic to entice you. Dammit all, without it you haven’t got a viable novel to sell.
I miss my comfortable shoes!
Displacement activities
I’ve been filling my time doing other things. Gardening. Painting. Reading. Planning trips abroad.
no inspiration here
A week of winter sun in the Canaries should surely help inspire me but instead I caught another cold, the third in as many months. I joined a gym intending to use the pool regularly. I thought if I built up my physical fitness the brain synapses would follow suit but something always came up to prevent me going on the afternoons when the pool isn’t being used by Aquafit classes or school groups.
And now it’s April. Good grief. Where has the time gone? I MUST finish A Measured Man. Poor Aubrey Tennant, (no connection with anybody I have ever known) has been waiting so long. I like him, really I do. He’s such an odd character and he can’t help the way he is. I blame his mother and all the secrets she kept from him. There’s no wonder he’s never learned how to treat a woman.
Theresa Miller, on the other hand, is causing me problems. I think I might have to change her first name what with all the Brexit stuff going on just now.
Help is at hand
I had a big birthday in January, one of those with a big, fat zero at the end. I know people say age is just a number but this is a number I’m not fond of. But my daughter found the ideal birthday presents for me.
St Francis de Sales
This St Francis is the patron saint of writers. Now I have him hanging over the screen on my iMac. There he will stay for the rest of my life. I’m not a religious person but I do like some of the things he said.
good advice
I don’t do hurry. My inner peace is important to me and I’m good at patience. I have CRPS so I have to be. Some days pain nearly knocks me out and I can’t accomplish much at all. On good days I like to write as much as I can. But first I have to reboot my writer’s voice. Maybe writing this post is a good sign.
St Francis on my computer
And when I find that elusive voice again I’ll be able to jot down notes in this new notebook-another gift from my daughter.
Writer’s Block notebook
But if these charms struggle to motivate me I have two secret weapons sitting on my desk. For some reason, when I was a child I never had a Teddy Bear. Some years ago when I told my sister, she went straight out and bought me the Ted on the left. Until recently he’s been a bit lonely. So when I saw the RAF doing a charity stint in my local Tesco I bought Ted number two. Now they’re best friends
Writer’s Two Teds
One More Thing
It’s time for me to stop reading other authors’ work. Their voices penetrate my thinking. I enjoyed The Cactus, by Sarah Haywood, Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderahand Lost For Words by Stephanie Butland. But, sorry, ladies. I have to get you out of my head now.
Leave a comment below and let me know if other authors’ voices mess with your head too.
I’m not on my own. Most people like variety in their lives. We get bored, don’t we, doing the same things over and again? Who would want to eat the same meal day after day? Would you want to read the same book or watch the same film for eternity? Wouldn’t that be like being stuck in your personal Groundhog Day?
No, we wouldn’t like that at all. We enjoy some change in our lives.
spice up your life with some variety
In fact, the experts tell us that following on from the core basic necessities of life variety is one of the six human needs. Apparently we need:
The Six Human Needs
Certainty – the comfort of predictability. A feeling of being safe and secure.
Significance – a feeling of achievement and being respected and needed.
Variety – surprise, entertainment, the novelty of a challenge, excitement.
Connection/Love – warmth, desire, togetherness
Growth – learning, strengthening and developing ourselves
Contribution – giving to others, serving
I hope I’m ticking the boxes in a positive way but it seems to me that when it comes to variety you can have too much of a good thing.
Too much of a good thing
In our overfed Western society we don’t have to eat the same meal everyday. There is such an embarrassment of choice on the supermarket shelves. Do we really need all this stuff? Isn’t this over-abundance of choice one of the reasons we have so much obesity today?
too much choice?
Here in the UK we talk about the weather. A lot. Usually the weather is changeable and mostly we’re prepared for it. Often you’ll hear us longing for a week in the sun. But look what this year brought.
we’re having a heatwave
Who knew, when we were living with the Beast from the East during one of the harshest winters ever recorded, that this summer it would be hotter in East Anglia than in Majorca?
Be careful what you wish for! Months without our English rain has left parched fields. Lawns? Forget it. Farmers worry about having enough winter feed for their livestock. Some areas are on hosepipe bans.
what happened to our English green fields?
Drying reservoirs echo what happened in the summer of 1976.
what happens after months of no rain
Learning from nature
So here’s how we can learn from nature’s lessons.
We have to accept change because change(variety) is absolutely necessary. Sun and rain are vital. So are light and darkness. We need variety in our foodstuffs to stay healthy. And, according to the six human needs we need change and variety to feel more fulfilled and satisfied with our lives.
This is why I enjoy writing in different genres. I don’t want to confine myself to writing within a certain type of book just because it’s easier to find its place on the bookshelves. There’s excitement in the novelty of writing for different audiences.
But, just so I can tick the predictability box with my writing you can be certain that all my stories will feature people with problems to solve. I may choose a humorous treatment to tell the tale or a darker, psychological angle may be more appropriate. There will be love or the lack of it, respect or cruelty, darkness and light in order for my characters to grow.
In my previous post ‘A Pain in the Arts’, I wrote about how chronic pain interferes with creativity. The chronic pain sufferer is tired. All. The. Time. When good days dawn you want to make the most of them. On my own good days I want to write.
on good days I want to write
CRPS chronic pain and writing
I’ve had contact with another CRPS sufferer who wants to write when he feels well enough. We know we have to pace ourselves. There isn’t enough energy to go round all the simple, everyday tasks that we previously undertook without a second thought.
what having a god day means
I don’t beat myself up about not being able to do everything I’d like to. So I take it as a measure of success that this year I’ve published two books: my third novel and a second collection of short stories. I work at a much slower pace than I used to. Pain relief medication sometimes dulls the ache but makes me feel groggy.
If you’re reading this as a sufferer of CRPS or some other chronic pain illness you don’t need me to explain the myriad ways it affects you. How can you describe to others what it’s like?
words to describe pain
All in all it’s TIRING.
2017 – my fourth year of CRPS
This year has been worse than last. I’m disappointed that even during warm weather I sometimes feel knocked out. I have cyclical bouts of vomiting. The following is taken from the article: The Spread of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) by H. Hooshmand M.D and Eric M. Phillips -Neurological Associates Pain Management Centre, Vero Beach Florida.
INTERNAL ORGAN INVOLVEMENT
CRPS invariably involves the internal organs. Usually the skin surface is cold at the expense of increased circulation to the internal organs. This increased circulation can cause osteoporosis, fractures of bone, abdominal cramps and diarrhea, disturbance of absorption of foods with resultant weight loss, water retention with aggravation of premenstrual headaches and depression, persistent nausea and vomiting, as well as severe vascular headaches mistaken for “cluster headache”.
In addition, CRPS can cause the complication of intractable hypertension which responds best to alpha I blockers (Dibenzyline, Hytrin, or Clonodine). CRPS can cause attacks of irregular or fast heart beat, chest pain, coronary artery spasm (angina), as well as disturbance of function of other internal organs. A few examples are frequency and urgency of urination, respiratory disturbance such as dyspnea and apneic attacks, and attacks of severe abdominal pain.
Planning your day
This morning I was woken by pain at 4.30am. Yesterday it was 5 am. The day before 4am. I get up, make a drink and take medication. When the pain eases I use those hours in the early morning to write, research or edit what I wrote last week.
When everybody else is up and about I start on household tasks you can’t do at 4am or you’d wake up the neighbours. There’s no wonder I often don’t feel able to do much more at all in the afternoon.
I can’t commit to definite arrangements. I can’t always agree to be at a certain place at a certain time. People must understand if I don’t make it it’s because I’ve gone back to bed. So I don’t commit to joining groups and clubs. I opted out of the choir I joined until I’m in a good phase again. (See, I’m still hopeful.) I don’t like letting people down.
I’m a member of various social media pages and that works fine because I can join in with discussions at any time. When it’s 4am. here there’ll still be somebody in Denver, Colorado with something to say, or Florida or California. They don’t know I’m sitting downstairs in my pyjamas quietly waiting for the meds to kick in.
Authors put a lot of effort into marketing their work
Unfortunately I don’t. My energy is carefully apportioned. I’d love to build a band of faithful followers of my novels, send out newsletters, join book blog tours and the like. I know improved sales of my books isn’t going to happen by some lucky happenstance.
But I still want to write. Maybe when all my ideas have dried up I’ll find the time and energy to work on marketing but at present I can’t do both. So be it. May we all have a low pain day.
If you’d like to follow my writing journey with CRPS please subscribe to my blog. Don’t be shy. Send me a comment. Your email remains private.
A new collection of short stories launches on 31st March in Kindle format. Pre-order is open now. A paperback version will be available in April. As with her first collection of stories the author focuses on what makes ordinary people do extraordinary things.
The author? The author? Why am I writing in the third person? Weird, huh? Just one example of why we do queer things.
I’m taking over now. First person from now on. Bugger tradition.
In Arse(d) Ends, my first collection, I used words ending in the letters a.r.s.e. as a queer and quirky link with the narrative. In Queer as Folk each story is subtitled by a profound saying, well-known or otherwise.
For example, in January Girl I chose the following:
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
Mark Twain 1835-1910
For the story, Yorkshire Grit I chose:
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
How queer am I?
Oh, I’m queer. So are we all. Life makes us that way. Maybe our lives are all about following our paths to un-queer ourselves. Perhaps at the end we can count ourselves lucky if we came through having coped with the journey the best we could with whatever resources we possessed.
One of my resources is a particular kind of sense of humour. I have a penchant for dark tales. I mean, I’m into tales of revenge where it backfires or accidental comeuppance for the nasty perpetrator who has made a telling mistake. For me, humour is a way of expressing hope. I want to give my readers a sense of satisfaction at the end of my stories that everything worked out just the way it should.
In Queer as Folk there are 21 stories, 1 poem and a 14 Tweet story I posted live on Twitter (told you I was queer).
As with my first collection some stories are longer than others. I like that variety. Sometimes shorter narratives pack quite a punch. It all depends on the subject matter.
I hope you enjoy this new collection. Here’s a link to my author page on Amazon UK.
Don’t forget to keep in touch. I love to hear from you.
Actually it isn’t a bone. It’s the ulnar nerve. So why do we call it the funny bone?
There are two main ideas about that. One says it’s a pun on anatomy because the nerve runs along the humerus, which sounds like “humorous.” The other claims the nerve got its nickname because of the odd (funny peculiar) feeling you experience after you hit it.
funny ‘bone’
But humour hasn’t anything to do with your elbow unless when you bang it you make other people laugh. So . . .
What makes things funny?
Where do we register humour in our brains? Scott Weems tells us there’s been plenty of research into laughter.
His book Ha!: The Science of When We Laugh and Why explains in detail. But what about studying what it is that makes us laugh? Why do some of us find certain kinds of comedy funny but others don’t?
humour is life enhancing
Humour appreciation appears to be based in the lower frontal lobes of the brain, a location associated with social and emotional judgment and planning according to imaging research. That might explain why people who have suffered strokes involving the lower frontal lobes of the brain may have alterations of personality which include loss of their sense of humour. Also why psychopaths whose brains are wired differently tend to have an infantile sense of humour.
Different types of funny
There are different kinds of humour including the following:
Affiliative humour – the style of humour used to enhance one’s relationships with others in a benevolent, positive manner. This style of humor is typically used in a benevolent, self accepting way. Individuals often use this kind of humour as a way to charm and amuse others, ease tension and improve relationships.
Self-enhancing humour is a style related to having a good-natured attitude toward life, having the ability to laugh at yourself, your circumstances and the idiosyncrasies of life in a constructive, non-detrimental manner.
Aggressive humour is a style potentially detrimental towards others. This type of humour is characterized by the use of sarcasm, put-downs, teasing, criticism, ridicule used at the expense of others. Aggressive humour often disregards the impact it might have on others. Prejudices such as racism & sexism are considered to be aggressive humour. At times it may seem like playful fun but sometimes the underlying intent is to harm or belittle others.
Self-defeating humour is characterised by the use of potentially detrimental humour towards the self in order to gain approval from others. Individuals high in this dimension engage in self-disparaging remarks where laughter is often at their own expense. Self-defeating humour often comes in the form of pleasing others by being the “butt” of the joke.
Does funny have a reason for being?
So what is the purpose of humour?
what would life be without something funny?
Airing social taboos
If we can laugh at difficult subjects might we make it easier to discuss them? In my first collection of short stories Arsed End(s) I wrote about sexual harassment, boring relationships, funerals, infuriating hobbies and the end of the world. I’m a fan of dark humour. I think it has its place in this sub-category.
Social criticism
We can take a poke at local and national government, even specific ministers or presidents, corporations and institutions like Big Pharma or the police. George Orwell set his social criticism novel in a farmyard in Animal Farm. We could laugh at Napoleon the pig whereas in 1984 I don’t remember there being anything funny.
Consolidation of group membership
Jokes about one political party to confirm your allegiance to another. Humour based on the ‘easy’ life of a hospital consultant to establish membership of the junior doctor group. One football team against another. You get the picture.
Defence against fear and anxiety
Turning fears and anxiety into something to laugh about makes them less frightening: death, funerals, impotence, fear of flying, bad drivers etc.
Intellectual play
Clever sayings, puns and other plays on words. Witty reposts and dry one-liners. As Einstein said, creativity is intelligence having fun.
And that’s where I’d like us to leave it. Having fun. All this analysis of what makes things funny and how we assimilate that humorous information takes the shine off the fun, in my opinion. You have to wonder what the ancients laughed at. When some young blood cut his finger on his own sword in the Bronze Age you can bet the others didn’t sit around analysing what kind of funny they were sniggering at.
The oldest recorded joke in the history of mankind dates back to 1900 BC Sumeria:
“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap”
It seems even the ancient Sumerians had a lavatorial sense of humour. I don’t get this ancient quip. I don’t find it at all funny. But I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter why. I obviously haven’t found all the answers yet to my questions about humour.
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Maybe we don’t realise how daring we are being when we write.
We just sit down and write words, don’t we? We write them in such a way as to make an entertaining story for our readers. We have a market in mind. There’s a particular women’s magazine that likes to see short stories about ordinary people with problems to face and how they overcome them. Another magazine prefers stories with a hopeful ending.
Blog readers want to read about the subject we’re known for. So we write blogs on topic and perhaps we do it with some humour and we add photos and memes and illustrations to make the whole thing attractive to the eye.
We want to connect
With our readers. With the world. We give of ourselves in our writing, not in a conscious way, I believe, but without deliberation. We are who we are and we give it. Give ourselves. And by doing this we are exposing our vulnerabilities.
daring to be
We give our opinions. We can’t help doing that. We don’t want to lecture but it’s almost impossible to write without giving opinions. They’re there in our writing whether we like it or not. Even when we don’t realise it, our opinions are hiding in the spaces between the words, between the lines.
My subtitle under the name of my website is ‘write from the heart’. It used to be ‘writer in Languedoc’ because I’d fallen in love with that part of France and couldn’t wait to write about it. I’d given my heart to a man and his son and moved there with them. After ten years he replaced me with another woman.
But I still love Languedoc and want to continue writing about it. I’m not strong enough to do that yet. Imagining the places I loved visiting or looking through my photographs still hurts me so I avoid it. I can’t write my Wicked Stepmother Chronicles now either because as well as losing my partner and my home, I’ve lost my stepson as well. Only insofar as I don’t get to see him everyday, though. When he comes to visit family in England he comes to see me too. So, you see, I wasn’t really Wicked. I made jokes about our differences. I gave my opinions on too many hours spent online gaming and the harm I thought it was doing. And my stepson understands this. He knows I was doing my best to help him make healthy choices. But it hurts that I can’t write either my Wednesday Vine Report or my Wicked Stepmother Chronicles because I’m somewhere else.
So today I’m writing something that isn’t hurting me.
daring to be courageous
But it’s still from the heart. According to Brené Brown writing from the heart makes me courageous in the original sense of the word. I feel the things I write. And that makes me vulnerable. Here’s what Brené says:
She is FABULOUS. Watch all her videos. We can all learn from them. We can learn that it’s okay to be vulnerable. That it’s a necessary part of being human to feel our emotions. It saddens me that there are people who don’t have the opportunity to feel; people who are not only wearing shields or armour to protect them from their emotions but simply do not feel them in the first place. Or they experience emotions only in a shallow and fleeting way and to them vulnerability is the greatest weakness of all.
When I’m not writing posts for my website I’m writing about the people I’ve just described. I’ve known one intimately. He almost destroyed me. I thought I was weak, faulty, deficient in many ways. I was not enough of the things he wanted and too much of the things he came to despise. I know different now.
daring to be vulnerable
But I’m keeping my silence on the subject here on my website. For now. The book is coming along nicely and one day I’ll publish. Writing the book is giving me an inner strength and, encouraged by Brené Brown’s research, I know I’m doing the right thing.
daring to be strong
It takes nerve to be vulnerable. It makes you nervous. You’re taking such risks in being human. Opening yourself to all manner of manipulation by deceitful people. But I have always been one who could cope with whatever life throws at me. I just wish it wouldn’t throw so much my way. Well, I’m still here. I’m still writing.
And now I can stop beating myself up. I’ve made my decision. I’m more informed. I’m not walking away from all the things that ‘give purpose and meaning to living’. I give of myself. It’s who I am. I want to continue loving life. I want to continue loving people.
keep on loving
And keep on daring to be vulnerable.
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Silence is supposed to be golden. Golden implies something of worth: a treasure. And I do think of silence like that, sometimes. I appreciate the quiet of a shady forest and a few snatched silent moments with a cup of tea at home after a busy, noisy day.
But there’s a place for everything. Staying silent when you ought to speak out against a wrong is cowardly in my opinion.
should you always keep quiet?
I don’t like having to keep my silence. But at the moment it’s probably the best way to go. I’ve taken down some of my previous posts in an effort to do what I hope is the right thing. At this moment.
keeping it simple
Words are powerful things. And you never know how somebody else might twist your intent. Words taken out of context are tricky. It’s quite possible that someone could make it look as if you said exactly the opposite from what you intended.
It’s so hard to stay silent when you’ve so much to say.
But needs must.
Oh, I have plenty to say . . .
I have to carefully consider my options. Things are afoot. The very thought of those things makes my throat tighten. My stomach churns. My guts are all in a twist. I want to shout stuff from the top of the world. I want everybody to take notice and hear me. I want them to understand.
But I have to stay silent.
I’m screaming, I’m screaming . . .
Please know that I’m not a coward. There is a very good reason for my silence at this time. I’m taking informed advice. I have to admit, it’s good advice. I can’t have things my way. I must do what’s sensible under the circumstances.
be patient
I’m exercising more strength in remaining silent than climbing to the top of the world and screaming my head off. You cannot begin to imagine what a hardship this is for me.
But I’m trying to find the positives in my new stance.
enigmatic silence?
I’m going to be very beautiful indeed, in that case.
There are a lot of lies being bandied about. My immediate reaction is to put people straight. Why should I have to suffer in silence? Don’t I have the right to tell the truth?
Yes. But not now. And not here.
the silent lie
I would rather have the freedom to tell my truth. Writing, as you know, is what I do when I feel well enough. I need the cathartic effect of writing my truth and it’s been taken from me. For now.
writing as catharsis
My day will dawn. This I know.
I’m good at waiting. I’ve had a lifetime’s practice.
And when that day comes I’ll break this enforced silence on the subject at the heart of all these vague references. Friends and followers, bear with me, please.
I will not be silenced forever.
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