Dear Reader

...Do You Want To Lose Your Mind? Dear Reader, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that you have been talking about my next subject as much as anyone else has...Clowns. Poor misunderstood clowns. Not so much clowns but the people inside the clown costumes. I mean good grief... When the craze first started in America I saw it mentioned on Facebook, I had been reading an article just before I saw it about Stephen King's famous novel 'IT' being made into a film once again. It had just finished filming so they were attempting to create some hype around it. Now for those who do not know, the leading character in Stephen King's 'IT' is a clown called Pennywise. He is really quite scary, feel free to Google if you wish...in the morning, and he morphs into the shape of whatever children fear the most. Following the last months siege of clowns, I would assume that this is quite possibly what children are most afraid of currently. After seeing the article about...

Dear Reader, I have always been afraid of the dark, I don't recall a time as a child when I wasn't afraid to lie in bed in the darkness of night without the comfort of a light in the hallway. I suppose it must have arisen somewhere at some point but I don't have any memory of it. Stephen King once wrote "The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle." I'm sure that, at some point, dear readers, that you have too been scared of something lurking in the dark corner of your room even though it makes no logical sense. But I think at that time in the night, logic doesn't tend to come into the equation.  I wrote this story piece about a year ago, maybe it will resonate with you or maybe you're lucky enough to never have been scared of the dark. But either way, I hope you like giving it a read.  Dar...

Dear Reader, One of the books I’m reading at the moment is ‘Stephen King; On Writing’ and he writes a piece about how sometimes you have parts of a story and you just can’t quite make them work. He calls it the ‘teacup and the handle’, you can’t have a teacup without a handle nor is a handle any use without a teacup. I attempt to write short stories, dear reader, and I often come up with teacups with no handles or handles without the teacup. Bits of stories that you just can’t make work or can’t figure out which direction they’re supposed to go in and so just come to a halt. I can’t tell you that my short stories are good nor can I tell you that they’re awful because to be honest, I’m not sure I know. Can any writer turn around and honestly say that they think one particular piece of work is truly awesome? I have no idea whether my writing is any good at all. I really need to give my old English teacher, Mrs Mack, a call and get her to pop round for a cup of tea and a good...