I, Writer
Page 8
Why, they even gave him a familiar with his pussycat.
BORN TO BE WILD
Was I born to be wild? I don’t know. Are we born to be anything? Or is what we do decided by the experiences we have, the choices we make? I don’t know, but I certainly went towards the wild side in my teenage years.
Maybe that’s why, when I became lead guitarist in a local rock band, we usually opened each gig with – you’ve guessed it – Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild. And I think we communicated with our audience, even though the next number was usually Led Zep’s Communication Breakdown.
Looking back at those years, I always offer a smile. We weren’t a famous band – just a group of local lads trying to make it big, but never getting further than school or village hall gigs.
I tended to look the part, my hair over a foot long and backcombed, my clothes the latest velvets and tie-dyed t-shirts, my shoes, huge platforms from which I quite often fell off. Ah, what we do for fashion still.
I couldn’t afford my dream guitar, a Gibson Les Paul, so I was satisfied with my copy. And boy, did I torture those strings. With a hundred watt stack behind me, my instrumentals were always improvised and loud.
It seemed to have the required effect with the audience. They made me feel I was almost as good as Page or Hendrix. But many years later, I suppose it was put in perspective, when a member of that audience said, in middle age:
‘You were certainly enthusiastic.’
Nothing about my musical ability then?
Oh well. Sigh.
THE MOMENT
They say life can change in a moment, and I think I’m lucky to have experienced a truly life changing one. It was the moment when I turned into a writer. Well, actually, it took years of practice to become one, but you know what I mean.
It was about six months after I’d come down with CFS. I was in the RAF at the time, and when the symptoms refused to go away, I was diagnosed with a ‘mild anxiety state’ and shipped off to hospital for ‘relaxation therapy.’
It wasn’t a cure, but it did make me very relaxed.
Many weeks later, I left hospital and caught a train back to base. However, an hour into the journey, the train broke down. An announcement said it would be two hours before we were moving again.
I, being perfectly relaxed, sat back to enjoy the view, but soon the other occupants of the carriage caught my attention. To a man, and woman, they were becoming increasingly agitated.
It was like Jekyll turning to Hyde.
Believe me, this is no exaggeration. I saw a whole carriage of people go through various emotions and states which could only be described as mildly neurotic. And what had caused this display? These poor people were going to be late.
The implications for my life didn’t dawn on me at that moment, but it crept in slowly. The simple fact was I could only see this because for a while I’d been taken out of society.
Previously, I would have been one of them.
I had had a unique glimpse of a ‘madness’ lying just below the surface of society. Of course, it wasn’t the only thing on my ‘journey’ to becoming a writer, but I suppose it put experiences, past, and yet to come, into perspective.
It had given me a basis for a quest to understand human nature and society. And once realized, it drove me on to understand … and it drives me still.
OPTIMISTICALLY SPEAKING
I’m one of those people you hate. You know, full of optimism. The world is delightful, and nothing can get me down. I’ve heard people like me talking to others, and I’ve thought: ‘what a …’
Well, we won’t go into that.
But nothing, good reader, is how it seems.
I was optimistic as a kid. Not inside, you understand, but how I reacted to life. I suppose today I’d have been classed as hyper-active and put on drugs. In earlier times, I’d have had the ‘Devil in me.’
I was the kid who would see a high gate … with spikes on top … in the snow … as a challenge. As I hung there, a spike through my hand, I said: ‘Ouch.’
I was the kid that nothing could touch. Hence, I wasn’t looking that Christmas Eve morning when I went tumbling into the electric fire.
Optimism is such trouble.
Two years and nine surgical operations later, my optimism – my indestructibility – was still there. It wasn’t inside, but it WAS on the surface, where it counts. And as adolescence came and went, the optimism transferred to the opposite sex.
Sometimes I was successful, at other times not.
You mean I wasn’t a babe-magnet?
That’s the trouble with optimism. It’s a good outlook to have, but it causes misjudgements and calamities.
I realized this eventually, and decided optimism must be tempered with pessimism. It is not a depressing outlook to have, but a means of survival.
Nowadays I live by a simple mantra: plan for the worst and hope for the best. I do this because I’ve realized life must be a balance or it’s a bitch. And with this outlook, most of the surprises are good ones.
POETIC CONCLUSION
POE-M
In the gutter he died,
After days on a ride,
Drunken stupor his game,
His fame unproclaimed,
His mind in a mess,
Forever distressed,
His lover apart,
Oh, his damned tell-tale heart!
He was not very mature,
His burial so premature,
Dupin would have swooned,
He was really a baboon,
For deep in his mind,
William Wilson you’d find,
Causing epileptic fit,
A pendulum from the pit!
A genius to enthral,
As the House of Usher did fall,
During a literary assignation,
No better creation,
Of horrors untold,
Imagination so bold,
Stories never so honed,
As Annabel Lee would have known!
In the gutter he died,
After days on a ride,
Where a black cat licked his face,
And the raven
Flew his soul
Into space
INSPIRATION
Did he have to do that? I can but say,
Images assault me as she lay,
Prone and ready for his way,
Acrobatics without delay
Inspiration comes in many forms,
Poets write of love, of mind, of storms,
Observing life in all its vibes,
How we react in different tribes
Is this possible? I have to ask,
Man is surely not up to the task,
She adorned in a tight basque,
He is hidden behind a mask
But more than life a poet needs,
Inspiration from which to feed,
Words that come from another’s call,
Even etched on the toilet wall
LOST IT
I’ve lost it – damn! Where’s it gone?
I know what it is, where it’s from;
I had it before, I’m sure I had,
If I find it, I’ll be so, so glad!
You’d enjoy it, too, I’m sure you would,
Believe me it is very good;
You’d find it is exceeding fine,
With a marvellously melodious rhyme,
But I’ve lost that damn last line …
SHADOW LIFE
I want to be here, so let me out,
I want to exist, not as doubt;
I’m real, if not completely defined,
Give me life – please be kind;
There’s room in there for me as well,
No need for fear on which to dwell;
Give me space to thrive and grow,
To stop me would be a cruel blow;
I may not be as corporeal as you,
But this is so with all things new;
I’ll
grow, I’ll thrive, I’ll adapt in time,
And now I’m complete, I rhyme
NO TIME
No time to write this poetry thing,
Got to get on, really zing,
Make it quick, let it sing,
I’ve finished – Ping!
But …
This is silly, it’s not that bad,
Rush it too much and it could be really sad;
We don’t want to make people so full of doom,
That all they think of this poem is gloom;
But that’s tough luck,
Life can suck,
I’ve really took,
Oh …
Now stop it!
Such a precious thing is time,
Think it out, make it rhyme,
Ignore the clock, don’t listen to the chime,
Produce the words,
Make people think,
Sublime
HAPPY ENDINGS
Happy endings, we love them so,
In a story we love to go,
From beginning to end in a frenzied haste,
Providing the villain, he is displaced;
And hero and heroine, they come together,
After adventure, adversity, endeavour;
The writer’s job is thus to define,
The threads of life that do entwine,
People and circumstance, good or bad,
As long as we get that cruel cad;
But wait a mo, is this really so?
Must the bad guy always receive the blow?
Of course he must – it’s the way to end,
Or belief we would have to suspend,
In the moral truth of good beating bad,
But isn’t this simply revenge?
So sad
TRANSFORMATION
You think it through, you write it out,
A majestic craft, there is no doubt;
A person will read, planting a seed,
Of change that will never recede;
His actions are imbued by your word,
Coming first, and never second or third;
Your thoughts are out in society,
Made real, made true, growing just like a tree;
The thought branches out, noble and great,
Defining other people’s fate,
As through your mind, your pen, your quill,
You transmit, to all, your will,
As your noble craft,
You do fulfil
DEAR ED
I am a writer, I think you’ll agree,
So here, I send an MS to thee;
It’s not in a bottle for you to throw,
That was the way of Edgar Allan Poe;
I know you’ll sigh! You always do,
It must be submission one hundred and two;
I know what you’ll say in reply:
Not for us, but nice try;
Your reasons for rejection will be fey,
‘I don’t think there’s an audience today’;
Well, this is my final attempt,
Don’t treat with contempt;
I know it’s unsolicited;
I know I’m untried;
I know I’m not a celebrity,
Or an expert, it’s true;
But find enclosed photo, from me to you;
Make my day and my life will be brighter,
Yours sincerely, a writer.
….
A good poem to Ed, you can’t deny,
And here’s what I got in reply -
‘Dear Sir, lovely picture of me in bed,
In an embrace with my lover,’ said Ed;
‘Now tell me what you intend to do?
Send to my wife? Surely this isn’t true;
‘Dear Anthony,’
‘Please find enclosed a contract for you.’
LIST OF STORIES & ESSAYS
FLASH FACTORY
Stories 1 - 6
(1) Criticism of Style (2) Moon Ladder (3) Outrageous (4) Time For a Change (5) Invasion Alien (6) Harvest
Stories 7 - 12
(7) He's One of Them (8) Live Wire (9) He Isn't There (10) The Recipe (11) Finger of Suspicion (12) A Perfect Christmas
Stories 13 - 18
(13) Got the Bug? (14) It's Good To See You (15) Scandalous (16) The Return (17) Too Much Reality (18) I Knew Instantly
Stories 19 - 24
(19) Watching Closely (20) The Candle (21) A Daddy Story (22) A Vision Thing (23) Planet Zero (24) The Formula
Stories 25 - 30
(25) The Bounce (26) Behind the Door (27) The Long Walk (28) She's Perfect For Him (29) How I Met My ... (30) No Journey's End
Stories 31 - 36
(31) The Big Office (32) The Greatest Change (33) Message On a Bottle (34) Getting There (35) The Fool (36) Nuts
Stories 37 - 43
(37) Gone (38) Spirit of the Underbaby (39) Misguided (40) The Richest Man In the World (41) Smiler (42) Window On Death (43) Money For Old Rope
WRITING TIPS
Section One
(1) You're Not Mad (2) Love the Word (3) Tech v Literature (4) How To Do Proper Research (5) Writers' Block (6) Write What You Know?
Section Two
(7) Let Me Give You Some Advice (8) The Best In the World (9) Every Psycho Should Write (10) After the Last Story (11) How I Became a Writer (12) A Writer's Power
Section Three
(13) Literary Trends (14) Shakespeare's Secret (15) A Novel Character (16) How To Write Twisty Tales (17) How To Create a Character (18) Originality Be Damned (19) An Emotive Writer
MEMOIRS
Section One
(1) A Life of Change (2) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - The Beginning (3) Finding a Place (4) Me and the Cold War (5) The Invincible Land Rover (6) Get In Line (7) Working My Ticket? (8) Hills Of Fire
Section Two
(9) I Wasn't Lazy (10) Finding Peace (11) The Quest (12) Fate or What? (13) The Name's Bond (14) Born To Be Wild (15) The Moment (16) Optimistically Speaking
About the Author
1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times … (Oh well).
I was actually born to a family of newsagents. At 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.
When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.
My essays are based on Patternology, or P-ology, a thought process I devised to work as a bedfellow to specialisation. Holistic, it seeks out patterns the specialist may have missed. The subject is not about truth, but ideas, and covers everything from politics to the paranormal.
I also specialise in Flash Fiction in all genres, most under 600 words, but also Mini Novels - 1500 word tales so full they think they're bigger.
Connect with Anthony
Smashwords Author page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth
Anthony's Website: https://anthonynorth.com/
Anthony's Blog (inc current affairs): https://anthonynorth.com/blog/blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthonynorth
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anthony.north.330