I am only a few days out from releasing my first book (the story of my early childhood) for download to kindle and kindle readers via amazon.com worldwide.
As most of you may imagine, gaining credibility as an author is no piece of cake, so in order to help raise my profile prior to the sale of my first book I have released 2 short stories for free download for your kindle from Amazon.com.

What I really need is reviews. Reviews will be the difference between my first, second, third book being successful… or not. When readers and potential buyers are trying to decide whether to buy my work, it will be the reviews of my writing which will encourage them to invest in my book, so…

If you want to do something really lovely, then please download my two short stories: ‘The heart of life is good’ HERE and ‘Qualification: Pain’ HERE

Some of you may have already read those two stories… I would still really appreciate a review!
Thank you so, so much in advance. All dreams have to start somewhere…. I am hoping this is the beginnings of mine.

HEART OF LIFECOVER 5.50.11 PM

NOTE:
If you do not have a kindle you can install a kindle reader free so you can read kindle books on your Mac or PC.
Download the Kindle reader for Mac HERE or for PC HERE.
You can also install a kindle book reading app for your smart phone by downloading it for free from the app store.

About these ads
Life can be cruel, but it is cruel and hard on everyone in different ways. If you grew up in a shitty environment with people who treated you with disdain and cruelty and down right neglect and abuse then this is horrible. Its understandable to be hurt and then battle with confusion and disfunction as a result through your childhood and teenage years but you know what? Come adulthood turn and face that thing head on.
There is nothing that no scumbag mum or dad or uncle or upbringing can do to truly defeat you unless at some point you give up, and if you give up because it was all too much, then maybe no one could even fault you for that, but if you use that scum bag of a father or scumbag of a mother or scumbag of an upbringing to then JUSTIFY treating another human being with neglect and abuse and generally being a scum bag yourself, then you have lost a leg to stand on.
Man up/woman up and learn about accountability.
The greatest men and women in our history have created that history with nothing more than the memories of tragedy/abuse/loss/stolen innocence and an understanding that at some point you have the choice to either stop the cycle, or to keep being a scumbag.
Dont be a scumbag.

Small

April 23, 2013 — 152 Comments

“Your blog has gone kinda quiet of late” He said. “I know” I said.

So here I am, with nothing much to say but with a sense that I should say it anyway.

I write this now from a plain. You know whenever you embark on something they all say to you ‘oh you will see the mountains and you will see the plains’ So this must be the plain. I wish there was a way to write a shrug of the shoulders. You know? When someone asks you how you are or how you’re doing and you don’t speak, you just shrug your shoulders? This post is a shoulder shrug. Its a blah. Its plain.
I credit this to one thing. Depression. Continue Reading…

Redemption

April 10, 2013 — 28 Comments

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The undoing

April 9, 2013 — 64 Comments

I am sitting here trying to see where it began.
If I go back far enough will I find it? If I walk back further along the path will I eventually find a small, worn sign hunched over in the bramble and thorns and thicket that was the path of the last 5 years of my life that reads ‘Danger! Turn back now”? And if I do find that warning will I realize I missed it? What would it all mean then?
Will it mean it could have been prevented?
Will it become my fault, or was this meant to happen to me?

The fingers that are tapping away on this computer are connected to a woman who is more aware than ever of the richness of life, who is thankful for small graces, who is thankful every day for the very life I nearly never had.
Knowing that, can I find purpose in that suffering? Was it all worth it?

This is the story of the undoing.
My undoing.
You already know this story. While you haven’t read it yet, as you do you will realize it is familiar to you because you have seen this story unfold before in either the life of your girlfriend, your daughter, your father, or the person who stares blankly back at yourself from the mirror.

Continue Reading…

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again…

At her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed the brilliant piece ‘The Artist Is Present’, a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the museum’s atrium, while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. Ulay arrived without her knowing and this is what happened.

I post this for my own Ulay.

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Sometimes I play a game.
In the game you guess the lives of the strangers around you. For example the man using the pay phone with the glasses on the end of his nose is a security guard who stands in front of his full length mirror at night quick drawing his walkie talkie and quoting from ‘Lethal weapon’.

Continue Reading…

break

‘Coincidence’ as the Jewish say ‘is not a Kosher word’ and as I sit here stretched out on this chair, 1052 kilometers from the last place I knew as home, looking out onto a crystal blue bay so close I could maybe, just maybe disturb its mirror surface with a pebble if my right arm summoned the strength, I can appreciate that the Jewish rabbi who first uttered the words which became that well known saying was not necessarily being as tongue in cheek as the modern text claims but rather he must have known something which I am just now beginning to grasp: There are no mistakes in life, there is only purpose and our purpose unfolds before us disguising itself in ‘accidents’ or ‘coincidences’ or ‘disappointments’, getting troubling news or ‘missing out’ on an opportunity. I can see now that purpose has to hide within these so called upsets as if it didn’t hide and we learned our story too soon, we would surrender to our human nature and want to manipulate the outcome and so since we were children, planning our future from even those first sentiments of ‘when I grow up I want to be a fireman!’ or in my case “when I grow up, I want to be a mermaid!’ Purpose has been sitting back idly, grinning and nodding wisely, tapping its pipe out on the heel of its shoe knowing that despite all our plans and all our preparations our true purpose would prevail, treading on the toes of our plans if need be, yes even disguising itself in accidents or let-downs if need be.

Anything to prevail.
Anything to unfold without our meddling.

Continue Reading…

Lord give me strength to write this in a way that the reader whose eyes are scanning over these words right at this moment will see the heart behind the fingers which writes them and may their own heart love the woman whose story I am about to tell…

This happened to me today. This story I am about to tell you unfolded in my own home not even 4 hours ago.
Here goes:

Continue Reading…

Watch her thrive

November 21, 2012 — 28 Comments


The Watch Her Thrive Project is an organisation that has been established to give a voice and aid to women in war torn countries. This year I will be working with the Watch Her Thrive Project by contributing to a collaborative book containing stories on hope, courage and strength, which will be published and sold to raise money for these women.

Continue Reading…

Imagine that there is a war. Bombs fall and stray bullets tear apart the ground spitting clouds of dust up into the laces of the boots of soldiers who run, run, run away from buildings that fall, fall, fall to the ground. There is no safety anymore, just things falling apart. The scenery that once made up your life is collapsing around you and amongst the noise of the sound of lives coming undone you can hear a very clear and very sound voice in your head say ‘You have to get out of here’ Continue Reading…

Good morning!
I was interviewed by New Jersey station “Rowan Radio” 89.7 earlier this week for their ‘Womens room’ segment to discuss onethousandsingledays.com and what i’ve learnt so far.
I am continued to be humbled that the lessons I have learnt through my life experiences could have the power to speak to people beyond my physical reach.
Many thanks to Allie Volpe and to Rowan Radio!
You can listen to the interview online HERE

Ease her heart

November 3, 2012 — 38 Comments

Continue Reading…

I decided I would walk back to my Hotel that day, even though I had spent all day and most of my money shopping and my shoulders were aching from the weight of the bags. Flagging down a tuk-tuk would made the trip quick and easy and with the unbearable heat rising up from the sidewalk and bouncing off the city walls and radiating down from above it is a wonder I chose to walk that day but at the time I decided that I would like to wander through the alley ways and stalls and nod my head in greeting to the people of Sukhumvit Road and thats all it was at the time. But it is only in retrospect that we see the significance of seemingly small decisions such as these. We don’t realise how our preferences, no matter how small, act as the fingers and the palms and the curves and the creases of hands to clay on a spinning potters wheel. Every single movement, no matter how slight changes the shape of the clay… just as every step favoured over the other, or every appointment made in favour of the previous day, or the day after can alter the shape of our life.

And so with choosing to drag those heavy bags upon my tired shoulders on weary legs through the streets of Bangkok that day I didn’t know that it would mean meeting him, and in meeting him, I didn’t know it would change something in me for the rest of my life.

Continue Reading…

My time is running out

September 21, 2012 — 143 Comments

These words are about the most precious thing in the whole world. The only thing on the face of the planet that is truly priceless. The thing that dying men beg for, rich men try and barter for, and yet it can neither be granted nor purchased. It destroys gardens and pathways and footprints and castles and empires and memories. It turns rocks into sand, turns black hair grey. Rubies lose their hue in comparison to it and diamonds lose their glitter when shadowed by it and the thing is more valuable and sought after than both combined. It discriminates between no man, no race, no gender, no social status. Oh does your father own the bank? Is your grandmother related to royalty? It means nothing.

It presses holes into the soles of our shoes, draws lines upon our face, closes wombs and weakens bones. It quenches love and creates legacy…
What is it that could possibly have this power? To make and break kings? To be both the father and the reaper of life?

Continue Reading…

You and what army?

September 4, 2012 — 66 Comments

If you witnessed Travis Pastrana to get on a Suzuki RM250, ride it full tit toward a large jump and then do a backflip, then you might shrug your shoulders, maybe nod your head, semi impressed.
However, if I got on that same Suzuki, managed to actually work out how to start it, figured out what makes it move forward, and then rode that thing at top speed toward a huge jump and then pull a backflip, you would go insane right? So why the difference in reaction? We both did the same thing, we both did a backflip while holding onto a loud, wheeled bullet. So whats the reasoning here?

Continue Reading…