Loneliness Can Kill
So be kind
Your smile might be the only light today
So be that kind stranger
Be the light
writing
Favourite Film Quote
Tomorrow Land
There are two wolves who are always fighting.
One is darkness and despair.
The other is light and hope.
The question is: which wolf wins?
The one you feed
What’s Your Favourite Film Quote?
One and Only
No one person will ever be your everything, no one person can possibly give you all that you need.
This is the advice I want my kids to have, don’t give that power to anyone and don’t put that amount of pressure on yourself. You are the only person in charge of your happiness.
You can give people your gift and they will give you theirs if you are lucky but it can’t possibly feed all of your hopes and dreams, aspirations, needs and wants.
Everyone needs input, we can all realise where we want to be in life but we can’t possess every attribute we need to get there. We need help from others and they need help from us.
Everyone has something to teach us. Everyone.
The Alchemist and The Secret
We moved house recently so I got to revisit a lot of memories unpacking. These two books appeared from a box and immediately I remembered the lessons they taught me.
After travelling around Australia in 2002 my mum decided to come and visit me in Perth and fly back to the U.K with me. We stopped off in Thailand on the way home and in Bangkok on the Khao San Road. The Alchemist grabbed my attention inside a tarpaulin book stall. I had heard about it for years and finally I could lay my hands on it! As soon as I finished it (about three days) I gave it to my mum to read and then every friend that I trusted to return it!
So what did The Alchemist give me? It gave me peace, a sense that everything will work out and courage to relax and trust my instincts. Having just travelled around Australia it served as a full stop to a year of searching and also a bridge to the next chapter of my life.
The Secret arrived in my life after this I’m not sure when but obviously I asked for it! It told me what I already knew, what we all know but sometimes don’t practise enough. If you want something all you have to do is ask for it.
It gave me focus, focus on what I wanted and sure enough a lot of things came my way.
As I write my treatment for a screenplay I can’t help thinking how much these two books have helped me get to this stage. Then of course there is my third lesson, always say your Thank you’s!
Buy The Alchemist here
And Buy The Secret here
Thank you Paulo Coelho & Rhonda Byrne
All or Nothing
‘Write something worth reading or do something worth writing’
Benjamin Franklin
Sometimes there is no point adding your thoughts to a quote!
My book is available to download below
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GD8OG98
Kobo
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/sharks-lovers
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/isbn9781925457209
A Community of Smiles
The playground at my children’s school is full of smiling parents who generally say G’day. However this isn’t always the way, rushing around not having the time to give a quick smile and hello can be the death of a community. Eyes down, eyes on a screen, no eye to eye. Is smiling at a stranger a dying art?
I try every day to smile at others and generally this is returned. Occasionally though I get a scowl or a blank. Are people so absorbed they have no room in their life for a smile? What else in their life are they missing out on?
As society has evolved to hours spent looking at screens instead of each other, is a smile an endangered species?
Are we becoming more isolated in a world that’s population is only ever-increasing?
How can this be?
We have so many different ways of communicating via different apps, let’s not lose the smile. It is as precious as gold dust and shines brighter than the sun.
Smile, start with your reflection first.
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
Capote Still Has Me By The Balls
‘Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart’
Led through the twists and turns of Holly’s tumultuous trists. Yarns of her internal and external pain that occasionally snag at the stories thread. I start to admire her honesty, her flighty language and her lack of attachment.
A small child with bold abandonment, isn’t that who we all are inside? Wanting a hand to hold, not hold us back?
Miss Golightly was definitely more likely to flee than stay and fight I knew that. The fuel of an angel is obviously stored in her wings!
Onwards and upwards Holly, I wonder where you are now? Are you still hiding behind those dark glasses in a cafe? I imagine you chatting to a handsome stranger, occasionally letting the game slip and showing your honesty, unknowingly sucking him in.
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
What is your Purpose? What is your Word?
Over the last year or so I have concentrated on words, not surprising for a writer! However I am talking about completely absorbing these words. Just like a fleeting hello with a stranger words are not always acknowledged, absorbed or translated into our own language. Read or written is not enough. A word conquered is a word understood.
Capote
Capote, Hepburn and Monroe
I start reading the book in the basement of Dymocks on Collins St, Melbourne. Immediately I am taken back to the apartment with Audrey Hepburn, her dressing gown endowing her narrow frame with fluffy curves. Apparently Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly Golightly. Perhaps a silk kimono would have adorned her more voluptuous figure. Men knocking on Marilyn’s door would have been slightly different don’t you think? Lighter not in weight but cynicism. Surely they would be drenched in wit and charm, oozing fun and filth, whipping Miss Monroe into a frenzy of squeals. Marilyn would have added a slight (frosting) or icing sugar to the scenes, whilst Hepburn’s angular frame was exactly what the book portrays, this poking and prodding of every character and their traits. Marilyn was probably just too soft and fluffy. I wish I could watch that version alas it will only ever play in my head, not on the big screen.
It hits me immediately as I start to read that Holly was never real, I wonder if Holly is Capote’s anima. Rusty Trawler; is that his version of himself? Do we all paint our self portraits with darker colours than necessary? Perhaps Rusty is someone who betrayed him, or maybe he truly existed. Sometimes the strangest characters are real, sitting right in front of you or even staring back from the reflection in the mirror.
I think this author is my new obsession. I needed to drift away from my Tolstoy/Steinbeck phase and Capote seems to fit the bill nicely. Not dark like Tolstoy, or black and white like Steinbeck. Capote’s writing is sepia, shades and shadows implied and encouraged. Secret scenes and sunbeams occasionally floating through the air.
I can’t wait to carry on reading and find more sides of Capote in his work. In Cold Blood will be my next read, why do writers go looking for dark in others, in ourselves and at the bottom of bottles?
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
Seven Lessons
I thought I would list the biggest lessons I have learnt this year as we head towards 2016.