The Thin Places

Posted on September 24, 2022 by Rob

We live in a world, that has been built on the foundations of Christianity. The bible is the corner stone of what we call western civilisation, and it has over many hundreds of years, influenced politics, law, and education. The whole fabric of the society we now live in, is based on Christian values, and in the last two hundred years, that has been propped up by science. I find it fascinating that if something is not supported by the church, or backed up with proven science, it is disapproved of, ridiculed and made fun of as superstition. I suppose superstitions all have their origins, and would more than likely be based in some fact, be it a small one. I have come to the understanding, that those who are unsure, or uncertain, dismiss what they do not understand, which is certainly the point of view of the establishment. Yet, to the surprise of many, there are a great deal of people who believe in what the modern world dismisses as nothing more than mere superstition.

All of my life I have encountered things which did not make sense to me, and so I questioned them. I have had a few long conversations within my past with local vicars, who to a degree did not appear happy with the questions I asked them. As a young boy I once asked a vicar how do you know, can I see the proof? To a degree his response was what science and modern society do today, I was asked to leave, rather than be spoken to in a way that would help me understand, I was bluntly told, that it was true and I should not question the power of the almighty. I suppose thinking back to my 12 years old self, I am still curious, and given the chance, I would probably ask the same question, even at my age now of 58, although through that experience, I have learned in my life to not bend to dogma and blind belief.

One area of life I became very involved with in my late teens to early thirties, was what I refer to as the faith of the Earth, more commonly acquainted to, as Pagan. In many ways over time, my spiritual beliefs have merged with spirituality, science, nature and my love of history, especially Celt tradition. Looking back at that time in my life, and knowing the pyramids and Stonehenge were both older than Christianity, it was clear to me that before the Romans came to our shores with word of the Christian god, there was a belief in something else, and I was curious as to what.

Since that time, my curiosity has led me to many books, lectures, museums and visits to sacred sites, and always with the burning desire to learn more about our time before the days of the crucifix. I am not knocking Christianity, I have no issue with any person’s personal beliefs, I will defend anyone’s right to hold a spiritual belief, as I know it gives them hope for something beyond the veil we know as death. I hope they are right; I hope they get what they are looking for and bask in the paradise of their belief, we all need to hold something close to our hearts. For me personally, and coupled with my love and adoration of the natural world, I have pondered for a great many years those natural feelings we get, when placed in certain situations.

It is reported that long ago we had many other senses, call them survival skills, or even fight or flight responses, my point being, that within us is a natural sense of something other than our normal modern sense of self, especially when we feel, we are in a sacred space. I adore churches and cathedrals, not because they are places of worship devoted to a Christian god, it is more a feeling of peace, a feeling of safety and reassurance that I get when I walk within them. There is something quite wonderful about sitting quietly in an empty country church, which is something I have done a great deal in my life. I love stained glass windows, the gothic architecture, and the smell of the old polished pews. I am not remotely Christian, and yet I find them places of comfort, a shelter from the storms and chaos of modern life, where I can sit quietly alone, and reflect on the world around me. It is something I wrote into my character of Abigail, in my book Abigail’s Summer.

I get the same sense sat in stone circles, or in sacred glades and places devoted to pagan belief. I absolutely believe in the power of a woodland to ease the soul and calm the spirit, I have felt the power of other forces sat beside a quiet river or stream, and visited places of great lakes that are deemed to be sacred, such as Bala in north Wales. I understand how in Japan, a doctor will write you a prescription for ‘Forest Bathing,’ as a means of helping relieve the life of a stressed out person, something I agree with, and have done many times alone in my youth as I dealt with harsh issues. According to Christianity and science, it is not the place, it is my inner dialogue, and yet when I encountered the sacred tree at Glastonbury in my youth, and saw all the ribbons and silks that had been tied on it, I had to question, if science and Christianity are right, why do so many other people seek out these places, and feel as I do, in their presence?

I once knew a Druid who spoke of the ‘Thin Places’ These were areas when he believed that the veil between worlds was thinner than others, and where a connection could be achieved that went beyond this world and into the next. These places are normally remote, hidden and filled with the abundant natural life of our green world. It is not unsimilar to the traditional pagan belief that on Samhain, the veil across the whole world thins, so we can commune with, and feel close to our lost ones for a short space of time. It is a belief that goes back thousands of years, and one adopted by the Romans, when they founded their belief in Christianity, so much so, that Halloween/Samhain, is referred to in their faith as ‘All hallows Eve’ a time to be close to those who have passed on, as we remember them.

Is there something to this belief in ‘Thin Places’? Science says not, it calls them superstition, and yet today, especially with the rise of Wicca, more and more people believe in these places, and the one sacred day where we can connect with those who came before us. Is science wrong, do we all have some lost gift of the past where we sensed more than we can today? It is something I cannot answer, and yet even Christianity included a version of it within their faith. What I can say is this.

I have stood at Stonehenge at dawn on the solstice, I walked around the stones at midsummer, and I have sat at Callanish and felt my surroundings, and I intend to again before I die. I personally felt a sense I have not felt in any church, or on a high street, or within my home for that matter, was it spiritual? For me, it was, would others perceive it that way? Of that I cannot answer, I can only speak for myself, and to say it had a profound effect on me. I have talked to many over the years about it, and the power of the land I felt rise up within me, was it simply the power of those stones, and the achievement of those who toiled to build them? It could be, but I do not think so. In many ways it is like that feeling you get in a crowd that someone is watching you, and so you look, and they are. We have no way of knowing why we felt that way, we just did, and it was proven to be a correct feeling, almost like it was yet another aspect of our hidden senses.

Have we lost something from our ancestors, something tied to life and death that helped them survive, and through which we have thrived as a race? Possibly, science says it is not possible, and yet I have felt it, and have no idea as to why, but I have experienced it. In many ways, these and other questions have slipped into the stories I write. In Heirs to the Kingdom, Sapphire feels the power of the stones at Callanish, so much so she makes it her home. Even Runestone remarks on the power that the land holds, and Gwendolyn uses the energy of the land around Carnac, to aid her abilities when making the swords of power. Opal sits in a sacred glade, set with a large stone table below her feet and turf, surrounded by a wide circle of trees of protection. In many ways, it is a temple built from the life of the natural world, almost a ring of life to protect her from death.

The Mabinogion which is the folklore of the Celts talks of many places that are sacred, such as rivers, lakes, and mountains, and it appears to me, that there has been a long held belief in some form of life after death, that predates Christianity, and I ponder as to if this was also where the Christian belief got it from, did they use it as it ran parallel to paganism? Like many of their festivals, is religion really a simplified rewriting of older tales, and do we all believe in the same thing but name it differently? I feel it is plausible, and is probably the one thing we all have in common, that need to explain the unknown.

Modern society hides from death, in many ways it feels like it is a subject that is hidden from sight, and one not easily spoken about. When a person dies, they are taken away by strangers and the body is taken care of in what is a relatively unknown process. In ages long gone, that was a task usually undertaken by the close families, but that is no longer a western practice. After that, in most cases all we see is a casket, be it wooden or basket, the person we know and recognise is gone never to be seen again, it feels almost like we must hide the dead and not talk about it. During the dark ages, we built stone enclosures to house the dead. In many ways I find it odd, that buildings of stone were built for those who died, whilst the living had not started to build their dwellings of stone. Bodies were placed on view, these enclosures of stone were not sealed, village and family members could enter to view the remains and say their farewells, or praise them for the achievements of their life, and promise to stay close to them in the thin places.

In the early times of man, and as reintroduced by florists during the era of Victoria, Violet became the symbol of loss, passing, and to the Celt, rebirth. The Celts believed in the circle of life, as reinforced by the circle of growing crops, every year the crops would rise again to feed them, and their spiritual beliefs followed the same model. We are born, we grow, we die, and are born again, it is no different for the Christian church. It appears as we have built up our society through Christian belief, in many ways we have stopped asking about the after life, because we have been instructed not to, and told that it will all be taken care of under the watchful eyes of our God. The Celts believed something different, they trusted in other realms, where the spirit that had departed the body, walked intact, again this is something I have stitched into the fabric of my series of books Heirs to the Kingdom. Other realms where we walk in the thin places, could these be the instances where people talk of Ghosts? Science says that is not true, but again, I ask the question, how do you know?

Does it really matter if you say soul, spirit or energy? If you think about it, all of us are saying similar things, it is actually the one thing we all have in common. Whether we realise or not, we all believe in the thin places, where we can communicate in feelings or spirit to those we love and have lost, after all, isn’t that what prayers are for? We talk to a person/spirit, who resides in the realm that our loved one have passed onto.

In the book Han’s Cottage, I write of a temple that is inhabited by the Nairn. It is an ancient place, something that was there long before they were, a place no one knows who built it. It is a series of stones circles with altars, a stone obelisk and a large stone table. The imagery for the story I based on Ilam in Yorkshire, a place known as the Druids Temple, although in truth, it was built in 1820 as a folly for an eccentric lord, who paid a Druid to live there as a hermit. It has a strange history and some strange tales, rituals have been carried out there, some by pagans, and there is even rumour of satanic rituals in the past. The stones used are ancient, you can tell by the lichens that grow on them, as Emily points out when she visits the Nairn temple in Han’s Cottage. People who have visited there, talk of a powerful feeling in the air, almost as if they are being watched, I pose the question, are these people feeling one of these thin places?

There is no science that would back up the theory of ‘Thin Places’ and yet millions believe in them. There are sacred sites all over the world where people visit on a regular basis, and leave offerings, or place rocks to show they have visited. There are quite few trees that have ribbons adored to them by the hundreds, all placed by people who believed there was more, something other worldly, another realm or a heaven like place. This is not new stuff, it has been around for thousands of years, and the belief in these places is as strong now as it has always been, and yet there is no rationale theory to prove their belief is real, just like the vicar who asked me to leave, he too struggled to give me something tangible to strengthen his case.

Recently I sat and watched the impressive pageantry that surrounded the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. There is no denying it was a spectacle of impressive tribute to the queen, but as I watched, something else occurred to me. I was fascinated as I watched the procession from Balmoral, then London and the lying in state, and finally the actual funeral, because what caught my attention the most, was the people. We hide death, it is an unspoken subject, usually rebuked with dismissive remarks, such as ‘Time heals all wounds.’ It is almost as if we fear it as a society, and do not want to be exposed to it, just in case it is catching. The Queens funeral saw an outpouring of grief, and it felt almost as if people felt a need to travel such distance to be close to the coffin, almost as if they were confronting death for the first time in their lives. They all walked silently past her coffin as she lay in state, almost with child like fascination, and I have to ask, did they have questions like I did that they wanted answering, which science to date has refused to show us the answers?

In Han’s Cottage, I have looked at all of this, and placed a staunch believer with a sceptic who believes in science, and I have pitted their beliefs against each other, and then presented them both with an explanation of what an afterlife could be. Shelly refers to it as energy and backs it up with the theories of physics to make it more palatable by Emily who is a scientist, but the truth be told, neither of them is prepared for what they discover, and that in a way is my point.

I do not fear death, and I honestly believe that neither should society, and yet it feels to me like as a collective we hide it and avoid it. I know a few people who will fall apart at the mere mention of it, and that has always fascinated me, because if I am honest, it is the one thing we can all do equally. There is no immortality, it is good for fantasy novels, but ultimately all of us will reach our end and pass on to something else, of which we do not know what. I feel it is that fear of the unknown that frightens people, maybe that too is a sense from our past. When we walk in a strange land, we are nervous because we do not know the terrain, so why not be equally as nervous in a different state or realm?

I truly believe that those who fear death, stop living, because they become so preoccupied with that final moment, they tie up their time in worry and negativity, and without realising, they lose their joy of life, which to me, is a precious and glorious gift, and one that should be embraced and sampled. It is not something we should so freely throw away as we become eaten up and disjointed over a problem we cannot solve, because no matter how you live, ultimately, we will all share the same fate.

We all believe in something, and it is that belief that gives us comfort, as to who is right and who is wrong, I think that is a pointless conversation, because ultimately, we will take our own private and personal belief with us.

Maybe that is a good thing, because then we will finally do have an answer, that will leave those we leave behind us with their own beliefs, which will give them comfort to guide them in their loss, and remembrance of us.

Han’s Cottage, has taken quite some time to write, and it is a mixture of theories and fantasy, but it does ask questions and pose answers which are open to the interpretation of the reader. It is a wonderful story if you simply want to escape, or a trail of possibilities for you to follow with your own beliefs. For me, it is my tribute to a remarkable person, who I had many conversations with about these very subjects, and like her, the story has a wonderful heart, and I hope you would feel you would like to read it.

As with all the books I write, if you enjoy it, do not be quiet about it. Authors needs talkers, so tell people, share your enjoyment, and look me up on social media and like, share, and comment on the posts I put up, so I can let others know if my books are enjoyed and loved. My thanks as always to those who support my writing, by reading, it is so deeply appreciated.

Heirs to the Kingdom, The Curio Chronicles, Rise of the Raven and Han’s Cottage by Robin John Morgan, are all available in print and digital formats, from all online book suppliers for purchase or download.

Writing Timeless

Posted on June 26, 2022 by Rob

It is rather odd, as I sit here during the summer solstice of the year 2022, and I remember a time, many years ago, gathered with my Druid friends, at Stonehenge, on this same solstice day, watching the sun.

It is funny, remembering the times and the long talks with those around me, about being a natural human being, and living life, connected to the world around us, and honouring it. I was so young and filled with wild and creative ideas, and yet here I sit on a muggy humid day, and I feel no different. I have aged, I have wisdom (Allegedly) and the silver is running in threads through my hair, and yet time feels stood still, nothing has changed and everything has changed, it is a fun and strange place to be in life.

There is a quality to my thoughts and thinking process that feels timeless, I still believe in freedom, and living as natural a life as is possible in this modern cyber-tech world, and I am still captivated by those stories that never appear to age. If anything, as you read them, they appear to be relevant, even if they were written one hundred years ago. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells still appears as relevant now as it always has to me, it is a quality I have always admired in a good book, and in many ways, is something I have tried to emulate in my own stories.

Does the reader know which age HTTK is set in, or the year Abigail goes to university, and meets her roommate Birch for the first time? I hope they don’t, it is something I have tried to erase to keep the atmosphere and feelings of my work present, so the reader always feels they are in the moment.

The strange thing is, I actually use real calendars when I write, so that all my days of the week and special events are perfectly timed through my stories. The story of HTTK, actually starts on January first, 2038, and travels through the eight books, to finally end in mid August of the year 2039. The whole eight books last for a time period of one year and seven months, as this story was set in the future, but did it feel that way?

No… Not really, and that is because I took a group living in the future, threw in a whole host of modern day items, mixed up with items from yesteryear, and played one thing off against the other. As the result, it created a story that appeared so real, the reader no longer knew what actual age they were in. I, as always, lobbed in a few things to create that sense of time that had past, so that the reader in the present day would identify with them, and forget this was a futuristic story. A good example, would be. “Cool bangle.”

Jade utters these words as she picks up a very everyday object, such as a roll of cellophane tape, it is something we all know, yet to her it is a strange item, and one she mistakes as an item of jewellery, which is one of home occupations. Another good example from book one would be when Jade leans over a reading guard, to discover he is reading a Harry Potter novel. Before killing the guard, she whispers her approval to herself, regarding the novel as “A classic.”

That one line takes the story into the future, a future where the work of JK is an established classic of literature, which I do believe one day it will be regarded as such, once enough time has passed. The comment puts Jade in the future, it is a gentle reminder of what kind of story you are reading. Uncle Walter died hunting elephants, as Robbie explains, as he describes the barbed arrowhead, he has got the smithy to make for him. Hunting elephants in Britain, since when you ask? It is in that moment you realise, the world was destroyed and left to ruin, and obviously elephants escaped from the zoo, to find freedom roaming in the British countryside, of which Uncle Walter was a specialist at hunting them down.

The world came to an end in 2012, and this is 2038, which is 26 years later, and a great deal has changed. The readoption of the words lord and lady again, shift the clock. Titles revised from age past, and the story starts to feel like it is more a medieval story, with talk of King Arthur and Robin Hood, until of course you realise, Blades is sat on a roof fixing a wind turbine to generate power, aided by young Eric, and Harry thinks his vibes ain’t cool, because he thinks Eric is after bedding his daughter.

One era crashes with another, and the ancient walk side by side with the modern, and the reader no longer has any idea which era they are in, they are too engrossed in the story to care, and it all seems to sit happily side by side and no one notices the story has become a timeless work. Is it modern, medieval, or futuristic, who knows, it just fits? Actually, it takes a massive amount of thought and careful writing to create such a smooth flowing story, that washes away the time period, and lulls you into the words?

I do feel setting a book in a specific era can be a great thing, period dramas especially fit. My wife has a passion for Pride and Prejudice, a real classic period novel, but I also feel it can be limiting. Does anyone really know when Rise of the Raven was set? I cannot deny, for this one I used sleight of hand. It is clearly pre-Roman invasion of the British Isles, but apart from that, what else can provide a clue?

Rise of the Raven by Robin John Morgan — Robin John Morgan’s Rise of the Raven

I will not deny, there is a little deviousness involved in this one. The Fae are far more advanced at this time than the realm of men, we see this in the day to day living of Branna and Ariel, who at this time are using charcoals and quills to write on parchment, something the world of men has not yet come to adopt in day to day life. Most of the realm of men cannot read, so why would they write, their life is hunting and toil in the fields. When Branna makes her escape, her first encounter is a hunter who trades furs for gold and silver coins, he is considered a very rich and wealthy man by Roack, who realises his possessions will enhance the status of Branna.

Later in the settlement at Tintagel, she enters a long house, of wood, with dirty floors and a fire pit in the centre, it is a very different way of living compared to her small brick house in Avalon. There are no separate rooms, just one large one, and they all sleep on the floor, where as Ariel and Branna sleep together in a bed in Avalon.

Bouncing the two completely different life styles, plays a trick on the mind, and suddenly the era and dates disappear, and all that matters is the story. To add more weight Berengar walks out on his father, passing through a door, that has a heavy cloth to cover it. The house is of wooden construction, and yet they hang heavy materials to create their doorways, all of this distorts the time frame, and draws the reader closer to the details of the characters and their dialogue.

It is sleight of hand, and deliberate, as I want these stories to flow in such a seamless fashion, the reader becomes more and more engrossed. What year is Abigail’s Summer set in, does anyone know or really care?

Abigail’s Summer, the Curio Chronicles Book One.

It is a modern novel set for this age, and yet the years over the series pass by. In book one Abigail is nineteen, in book two she is twenty four, and by book five, she is twenty nine, and each book feels like it is being read as something set in this moment, this year, possibly this day. There is only one person alive at this point who knows the year, and that is me, because once again, I set the story to a real calendar, so that the bank holidays and dates line up perfectly to each day mentioned. On the calendar, Curio’s Summer is set exactly five years later, and yet, the date appears to be irrelevant, you are reading it now, and it feels like now, because the themes of the story fit perfectly with today, or tomorrow, or to that fact, the day after, and the day after that. No year appears to fit, and yet the story like Kingdom feels like it is happening now.

The Curio Chronicles have lots of clues as to this modern age time, but what year? Well it was all written in 2020-1, but was it relevant for that year? Well no not really, we know this because there is no virus in the story. I deliberately did not make any mention to the lockdowns or the virus, simply so in five years time, the books will still feel they were written for that time. There is social media, and Insta, and Abby swipes open her phone, so it does fit now, but there again, it also fits six years ago, and will probably fit in another six years.

Curio's Summer, Robin John Morgan — Curio’s Summer, The Curio Chronicles, Book Two

I use the phrase, “Gossip travels faster than email.” So, it is a current book, and just to throw the reader off, in the last book of the series, (Not published yet) I add, “Gossip travels faster than messaging.” It shows the advance of technology, and keeps the books fresh. Birch is a naturist, and lives naked, which fits nicely with the 1980’s and 90’s, but does it fit today? Actually, with over fifty million naturists in Europe in 2021, and those are just ones we know about, Birch is a hell of a lot more current and up to date than most people realise.

At the start of the next book. (Book three whilst writing this) there is a reference to the World Naked Bike Ride, an event that has been running globally since 2007, and once again the story is modern, but how modern, and that all plays into the comfort of the reader who imagines the things happening in the book are going on right now? It is a deliberate ploy to make the reader place the characters in a modern time frame in their minds. The reader can create a picture of Abby, based on their own knowledge of what a quaint country village looks like today, or next year, and that brings Abby to life, and makes her very real to the reader, and as a result, the reader can identify better with her.

One of the best aspects of writing stories that appear timeless is the characters, it is clear from HTTK, that Hearne, Opal and Morgan le Fey are ancient, but the one character I especially enjoyed writing was Ariel. We see her in Rise of the Raven, where she is just under 200 years old, and yet appears young and vibrant, like a mid twenties modern woman would be. In kingdom eight, which is set many hundreds of years later, she is lifted from her box, where she has slept for ten lifetimes, and is revived by Runestone, she truly is timeless as she has not aged a day in her magical period of sleep. In two more books I am writing related to kingdom, Ariel will be featured, one set ten years after Rise of the Raven, and another one set eighteen years after the end of Heirs to the Kingdom.

It is a concept I wanted to play with more, and Kingdom is the perfect vehicle for it, and through Ariel within these stories, the passage of time becomes important to who she is, as she reflects back on her life which has spanned the ages. It is similar to Una and her sisters, who were imprisoned and then awoken, and had to adapt to a completely different world. I wanted to elaborate more on this in Kingdom, which I did in book five, where she talks about meeting King Arthur. I wanted more, but was defeated by the page count, and so through Ariel, I have the chance to express it more through her life. She truly is a timeless character who can look back on the world of men at its start, and has moved through the ages to live in the future.

For myself, it is all a big part of the joy of writing, and I hope for the reader, it makes the story more intense, and real. I want the readers to be focused and present in the moment, and so engrossed the story swallows them up, so they bask in the pleasure of immersive reading. Has this been achieved yet? As the reader of this blog, and I assume my books, only you would know. It is always a joy to get feedback on the books and how the reader perceives them, and all the comments and messages I get, I read with a thrill, knowing in part I have achieved my goal, it is also another great joy of writing for all of you.

I want seamless and timeless stories, and I am always looking to make the effect deeper and better for each new reader, and so, with that in mind, I will to look to the past, and note the improved efforts, and then, I shall continue my quest, and try my best to write timeless.

Robin John Morgan is a writer and blogger, who has published the fantasy magical adventure series Heirs to the Kingdom, and the modern sexual and body positive series The Curio Chronicles, he has also written Rise of the Raven, a dark fantasy, of political intrigue, love, loss and betrayal. He blogs his thoughts and opinions on ‘Robin’s Space,’ here on HTTK about his writing life, and also blogs as a guest for other sites, which includes a naturist world.

All his books are available world wide in digital and print formats.

Why Read… Why Write?

Posted on May 24, 2022 by Rob

Why do people write, or read for that matter, what is the point in wasting your time, when you could be working making real money?

That has been said to me many times, and I feel that those people miss the point.

In 1994 I took a five day holiday, I was exhausted, but I worked for a company where the boss had told me a good few times. “Your job will always be safe with us; we will never let you go.”

At that time, I really needed to hear that, oh, no one really has any idea how much that meant to me. I had worked hard long hours for that company and given it my all, I would even say I gave the best of me to that place. I loved the place, I adored the job, and I cared very deeply for the people I worked with.

I had holidays owed to me, because I never really wanted to take any, I loved working there so much. In the six months prior to my holiday, I had separated from my partner, it was not an easy breakup, and I became a single parent, and I will not deny, the pressure of working and not letting my employer down, raising a young girl alone, and juggling the bills I had discovered after my partner left, was taking its toll on me.

The breakup had been hard and very stressful, not just on me, but also on my daughter, I still feel it had a huge negative impact on her life, and changed her forever. When told I had to take a holiday or lose the days, I took it, and had a week alone in Wales with my daughter and rested, it was really needed.

I arrived back in work a week later on the Monday, and five minutes later, I was unemployed, and so shocked, I could hardly speak. Saying goodbye to everyone was soul crushing for me, and having to walk away from a place I loved dearly, destroyed me completely. I have never forgotten that moment as I walked out of the gates and looked back across the small bridge, and I swore to myself that after the betrayal I felt, I would never give my all to anyone else again. From that moment onwards, I would only work for me, and I have been true to that vow since.

Life got hard after that, and I struggled to survive, and yet, even though my confidence crashed and I fought like hell to stay afloat through what became a really bad bout of depression, I manged to do what I did best at the time. I saved all my spare change, propagated plants, and slowly built a business that was for me. Against the odds I fought like hell to survive, and in my spare time, I attended night school to occupy my mind. One other thing I did, was I wrote stories, one in particular, after all, when you have worked from dawn until dusk for years, being out of a job, you suddenly have a lot of spare time.

In many ways it was therapeutic, and today, I really do feel that it saved me. It certainly helped restore my sanity, and my devastated feelings, and slowly my confidence began to grow, as writing my thoughts down on paper, brought me back to life. I actually wrote a journal, about my whole life, which was thousands of pages long, and when finished, I burned it. What I learned from that experience, was the true meaning of facing the truth, and it became a big part of the way it would shape me for my future. I learned to be free, and lose the fear, especially when writing.

Night school taught me counselling and psychology, as did online courses. Daytime allowed me the space to build up stock for a new horticultural business, and spare moments and weekends gave me time to write, and slowly, between 1994, and 2005 I got my life back together. My business was not easy to build, I had so little cash to start with, but as a plant propagator, I had skill and knowledge, and so used it, until I had five thousand British pounds of good quality stock. It was then, I started to book market stalls, and began trading. I built the business up very slowly, it was a tough time, and I was not rich, but there again, I had lived on almost nothing, so the money I made, whilst not a lot, was far more than I was used to. Finally in the early 2000’s, I took on a wooden Market building, and fitted it out with an investment of my own cash.

I started counselling in my spare time, in a voluntary capacity to help kids, which as I learned more skills and got more training, I moved into sexual dysfunction, relationships and abuse, and I always worked for free. I have never charged any client, I saw them as the victims, why would I charge them, when it was the abuser who should pay? Once again, I was laughed at, and told. “You should charge, you are an idiot, you could be rich.” Those people had no idea at all about the value of life, and owning your own.

Through all of it, I wrote, a little here, and new idea there, and slowly over many years, one story in particular really gripped my imagination, hell it still does, I am still writing things for it behind the scenes.

the first book in the series heirs to the Kingdom by Robin John Morgan.

The one thing I will say without hesitation, is that since 1994, no matter what I have done, and as many people who have laughed at me will tell you, I never did any of it for money, I did it because that was simply what I wanted to do. I have never forgotten the helplessness I felt stood in that office after a holiday I was forced to take, and being told, the job I loved so dearly, was being taken away from me. Ironically, it was by the same man who had promised I would never lose it. I knew then, no one would ever have that power over me again, and since that day, they haven’t.

In 2006 the local council told me I was losing my tenancy because they wanted to pull down the market and build a garden style public square, how ironic, they booted the gardener out, and again I had to face reality, and I will not deny, I was pissed off, and so I fought the local council, and everyone laughed and told me, you will lose everything, I just laughed back, and told them, I know, but I will do it anyhow.

They were right, I lost almost all my savings and ended up with a garden full of stock, and yet smiled, I had been here before. Luckily for me, in 2006, I also began to write my story, the one that had been stuck in my head for such a long time. A friend of mine got to read it, and told everyone it was amazing. I told him, I have no hope of publishing it, he laughed at me and told me, do it anyway, so I did.

I shocked everyone who knew me, by announcing, “I am giving up horticulture and walking away from it.” It left them speechless, and some even laughed at me and told me, “You are so stupid, it is your life, everyone knows you are the go to guy for plants, what is wrong with you, are you deliberately trying to ruin your life?” I shrugged it off, I was done with life, I was tired and weary of the long hard hours, the freezing cold wet days, and I wanted more out of life than I was getting. If I was going to do something that sucked up all of my day, it was going to be something that gave me a restful peace, and the freedom to live as I wanted. So I published a book.

The publisher charged almost all my savings, and I ended screwed and never got a single penny in royalties, so I cancelled my agreement, and told those around me, sod it, I will publish my own books. In 2013, I sat down and started to learn as much as I could on how to publish a book, it took a while, but on January 1^st 2014, I launched my imprint VCP, and did a full rewrite of my own works, and put them out. Again, I invested everything I had left in the bank, crossed my fingers and hoped to hell it worked, as I was really close to the wire and this time, I had nothing to fall back on.

I am still here eight years later, am I rich? Nope, do I care? Nope. Why?

I am a writer, and I learned something very important, as I faced all the trials of my life. What I learned, was betrayal from family, employer, and friends, false promises, fake personalities, people pleasing, guilt, lust, desire, greed, power, conceit, arrogance, shaming, fighting, simple living, survival, anxiety, dark thoughts, temper, abuse, victimisation, bullying, and a thousand other things. I had the advantage of a window into so many other peoples lives, as well as my own. I did not realise at the time, how important each of those moments of learning would become to my future.

When I was ten, my grandfather sat me down with a copy of Ivanhoe, and made me read it out loud to him. Watching him sat listening to me read, is still one of my fondest memories of him. I loved how he would occasionally smile, or nod his head, and the way the story impacted on him, and it made me a reader forever. It was not always easy, I do have dyslexia, and at times I confuse words and get mixed up, but it has never stopped me reading, and I have struggled to overcome it all my life.

I love Phillip Pulman, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien, John Windham, H. G. Wells, and countless other writers work, and I have read thousands of books throughout my life. I learned to love stories of life, and my wonderful English Teacher from school, Miss Casey, inspired me to read more. To Kill a Mockingbird, Roots, 1984, A Brave new world, The Chrysalids, they changed me forever. I understand now, they also taught me something, they taught me what a good story is like for the reader. It has to be honest, written straight from the hip, and confrontational if needs be, and it has to also be alive with wonder, and suddenly I understood something very important.

At age 44, I knew a good story, and understood life better than anyone realised, and finally, something that had been more of a hobby in my past, became the focus of my life to come. You see, I love day dreaming and making up stories, and I love people watching and listening to their own stories of the lives they live. I absolutely love writing them down, and armed with a life seen as filled by mishaps by others, and working with hurt broken people, I had an arsenal of information built perfectly for my future, because I aimed to be writer forever, and now at 58 years old, I am.

The first job I mentioned, taught me how to use arrogance, complacency, greed, betrayal, and survival. It taught me the value of friendship and comradery, and the humour we bounce off each other working in difficult conditions. Being alone raising a child who hated me for throwing her mum out, taught me loneliness and dealing with the stress and pressure of taking care of others. It became Heirs to the Kingdom.

My fight with the council and some of their dirty tricks, taught me about those who felt entitled by their position, and how they abuse people because they were so ruthless, they can toss them away without a care. It all made HTTK even better, and it added such a powerful weight to the lead characters, that they walked off the pages like real people to those who read it.

My time as counsellor, taught me abuse, shame, victimisation, sexual behaviours and practices, manipulation and self hatred, and it became the foundation of The Curio Chronicles. It really gave me an insight into a life behind closed doors very few knew about, and has allowed me to follow the life of my character Abigail and some of her friends, as they go through life against a community that is set against them. I can hold up a mirror to modern society and show the real truth, behind the fake morality of this day and age. Why, because I have lived there.

A bad first long term relationship taught me the real pain and anguish of betrayal. Control of an arrogant boss, lies and deceit, combined with a corrupt council, gave me everything I needed to work into the dark fantasy of Rise of the Raven. The battle of Branna to stay true to her word, and fight through the darkness for Ariel. Her hatred for the fake image of Rhiannon, I have lived that and seen it, for me it was real and painful. For Branna, it became her story to overcome the dark to keep her love for Ariel alive and strong.

In 2007 I met a young woman, an artist, a reader and a creative person, and she changed my life. Her example became parts of Runestone, Jade and Jett. She inspired Abigail, Birch and Chloe, and also played a role in the relationship of Ariel and Branna. She added to the value of the person I was, and she became my wife. The daughter we had, has been an inspiration for other characters, and again it has all added to my later life as a writer. Not one day passes that I do not sit back and consider myself to be man of great wealth, and yet I have very little in the bank.

Nine years ago, I lost someone very special and very significant to me, and it is something that had a huge impact on my life, I have never quite recovered from the blow. I have not often spoke about it, some say I should deal with it and get over it, and I have continued to live my life as normally as possible. That aspect of me will appear in small parts of a story I have been working on for several years, and although no one will really know which parts, it has helped me to write it. Once again, my teacher and instructor of writing, are those I have read, and those who have impacted my life. Not that long ago I was told. “You need to make more money, you will never be rich writing, do something more valuable to society.” I simply smiled, at stupid they sounded to me.

I am a writer, nothing more, and I love it. I have been called a dystopian writer, a fantasy writer, even a writer of kink, which made me laugh. I have books in the fiction, Arthurian, LGBT, battle, magic, fantasy, rural, genres and a few others. I do not really pay that much attention to them, as I see myself as a slice of life writer. I take a character, and I write their life story, the whole living truth of it, regardless of where it is set, be it fantasy or real. I am a teller of tales, nothing more. It makes me so very happy.

I am told, I should sell myself more or I will never be rich, like it is some prerequisite for the successful life. Well, I can assure you, I will not tick that particular bench mark, and actually I don’t care. Money is not everything, I love what I do, I love being able to sit for days and use my mind, my dreams, and creativity to write down all these amazing and wonderful characters, that are a pale patchwork taken from the reality of everyone I have met. My thoughts and my words, paint the picture of a character that comes alive on the page, now that to me is real magic.

In essence, that is the joy of reading, every book opens up an aspect of life we never knew about. Each book is a challenge on some level, and we may not always agree with a part of it, but our eyes are still opened. We can sit alone, and live many different lives, and experience the unknown, which in turn expands our horizons and broadens our minds, and that is why I write. You see, all those writers I have loved, did the same, and it has helped me through life, and I aim to continue it on.

Life is not about fast cars, big houses and designer labels, it is about being real, and being honest with yourself, admitting your flaws and embracing them, and living a life that has real value, not monetary value. That moment with a loved one, when your eyes catch that momentary glance they stole of you, and you smile to yourself. Those moments when your child turns and says, I love you dad. That joy of a parent who looks at you and says, I am proud of you son, those count, they have true meaning, and no amount of money can buy them.

Knowing the darkness will pass, or that no matter how hard life gets, you will make it through, you have no idea what that will look like, but you know you will get there. Being smacked down, and having to get up again when you feel at your worst, but knowing that was the lowest point, and from here you will rise again, that is the true value of life. That is what I write about, because one day, someone as lost and feeling as hopeless as I did, will read my words, and just like I did, they will start over and move forward again, that is why I write.

So, again I ask, why do we read, and why do we write?

Simply put… Because we should, because within those pages, the answer to inspire you is waiting, or in need of being written down.

We live in a world that is losing the ability to understand why books are written, and my best advice to you, would be simply this. Never be one of them, books have the wisdom to guide you forward, forget that at your peril, and keep reading. If you cannot find that one book you desire to read, then write it, you have the skills, you have already lived them.

Go read, or write.

Robin John Morgan, is a writer blogger, who has written the series of fantasy adventure, Heirs to the Kingdom, is currently writing the slice of life fiction, The Curio Chronicles, and has also published Rise of the Raven, a dark pre medieval fantasy of political betrayal. He continues to write more. All his work is available in digital and print formats from all leading book retailers.

The Inspiration of a Parent.

Posted on November 8, 2017 by Rob

It suddenly dawned on me the other day what a creative family I come from.

I was stood inside a small room at Burnage library in Manchester UK watching my father, who is a published poet, talking to a gathered audience about his life as a small child in the second world war, and reading out some of the poetry that had been inspired by those times, when I realise what an incredible guy my father was.

I guess I always wondered when I was younger, why I had this lightening mind filled with dialogue and images that just pulsed with creativity, and yet there in that room it hit me, because the depths of his creativity was what I also saw in myself, and my daughter of 8 years. It was then I began to understand that maybe this could well be the reason why my family is actually quite involved in the arts and crafts.

I have an older brother who works for the courts, but in his spare time makes the most incredible scale models of trains and planes etc. I have no idea where he gets the patience from to create such beautiful detail. I have another brother who is very involved with the stage, and even though only an amateur, is a really creative and stunning performer, who has had several awards for his acting, I have often wondered why he never took it further than he has, because he truly could pull it off. He is also hugely talented sketch artist, he does not draw nearly enough, and I would love his talent, for I am a very frustrated artist who paints very poorly.

My little brother is an avid football fan, well we all have one in the family don’t we? I should also say he also a really hard working DJ, who has brought a lot of happiness and smiles to a great many people, especially children in his work. His ability to create on the spot and make people happy is indeed a massively create skill. And there in the middle is little ole me, the weird one of the family, who rebelled from day one, and blazed a trail of colour through the 1970’s with his hippie mates. At the grand old age of 43, I got busted writing something by a friend, and here I am today having finally confessed to my hidden passion, a published Author of fantasy and adventure, we are a busy lot and no mistake.

It was an odd sort of moment, because as we all know, hair or eye colour tend to run in families but it got me thinking, is this why my days are spent writing as I pulse with creative inspirations, is it actually a family thing that is somehow implanted into our DNA at birth, or is it something else?

There are four boys that as kids fought like cat and dog, I have always thought all of us as are different as chalk and cheese, and yet stood watching my father listening to his words, I could see his attention to detail that would match that of a model maker. I felt the laughter from the group, as he turned on the character for each of his poems, reading some with a broad Lancashire accent like an actor would, and I smiled to see that he has such wide tastes in most things, which is a quality of my little brother in his musical appreciations.

The most surprising thing was listening to his well-crafted words, and the very delicate way in which he fitted them together to create such wonderful and descriptive passages. He spoke of how he creates his written words and is surprised as he reads them back to himself, and there I was looking at an older version of me, and understanding I was actually the younger version of him. I have always felt the odd one out, I honestly felt I was different from all my brothers, but it was there in that silent room, that I understood probably for the first time in my life that I was not different, I was in actual fact one quarter of the man who created me, and the other three pieces are all securely implanted within my other three brothers.

For many years I have always written within my stories that we are all the sum total of those who came before us, it is something I deeply believe to be a massively important factor of every person’s life, and here for the first time in my own life, I was watching it live. Behind us through the annals of time, we all have that long line of people who met, fell in love, and survived long enough to bring children into the world, and the further back we go the stronger that survival skill must have been. But, I actually think that not only that, there is now a very long line of creative people who must have used their skills to help or entertain all of those who came before us. I love the idea of that, somewhere in the darkness of the past, there must have been entertainers, writers, builders and poets, and they have all carried that DNA that I see around me in my living family today. It’s a wonderful thought, and for a moment as I watched my father, I felt a huge sense of pride.

All of us must have these connections, and I would say to everyone who reads this, take a long slow look and let your imagination flow, look at your parents and find those skills and traits that stand out in them, and then see if you or your siblings have them. Think back, and maybe you too will understand the honour all of us must share in the past of humanity, and the very small part our families have played to bring it forward into these times.

My father is a pretty amazing guy, every day he teaches me, which at my age is a massively wonderful thing. If you are reading this Dad, thanks, I love you, and thanks for such a wonderful gift that I hope I will pass on to my daughter, for through her, I now understand both of us like all our ancestors will live forever.

Just so know, it may be your DNA, but the royalties from the books are still mine 🙂

Pondering as a Writer.

Posted on October 25, 2016 by Rob

I am often asked why I started later in life to write, and it’s a good question that I am not sure I always answer correctly.

One of the benefits of being a writer is that I get to ponder a great many things. Whilst working on Heirs to the Kingdom, I have had a very broad canvass on which to throw my thoughts and speculate, and then using a little creative licence, I have had the opportunity to create elements of life and living in a completely manufactured world and scenario.

When I first began to write, I had to decide whether or not this world I created for my characters was going to appear real (As in based on the world today) or imaginary. I chose to use a world created on the basis of the real world today, and to some that may have appeared limiting, after all, a completely imaginary and fabricated world would have given me greater scope for something utterly fantastical. In a fabricated world I could have expanded my imagination to its limits, and I have to confess I do have a strong desire to write something completely manufactured at some point.

But here is the crux of the deal, this world actually presents as equally as wide a canvass to write about. I understand that may appear odd at first, but if you read the kind of books I do, then very quickly you will understand that this current world in which we live has so many mysteries and riddles that we cannot solve, that it provides a doorway into which we can take our imagination and expand out many different scenarios and theories.

Take for instance subjects such as Ghosts, Magic, Witches, Faith, ESP, Alternative Medicine, Meditation, The Bermuda Triangle, UFO’s, History, and dare I even mention Archaeology?

It’s a curious list, and yet in these times of our so called modern advancement in science, we still have many unanswered questions about the validity of many things. Science says if it cannot be proven then it cannot be accepted, and yet every single item within the scientific community that we all accept as fact, is but a theory until someone comes along to disprove it.

For a writer that is simply a loaded gun waiting to be fired, we can wander inside our minds and expand anything using the theory of its true until proved otherwise as raw material just waiting to be given a basis for reality, and I personally have been delighted to do exactly that.

I was once visited by the husband of a reader who wanted to purchase the latest book, and as we sat chatting as it turned out he was an old friend from work, he asked me. “How do you do it?” Meaning how the guy he once worked with could, (who he had no idea was a secret writer,) create this world of fantasy that his wife had become quite involved with. I could clearly see his confusion as he tried to join what are the two very different natures of me, one being a dedicated horticulturalist, and the other being the writer I had become. In his mind it was clear that these two very different personalities did not entirely gel, but as I explained, if you look at the world there are so many questions and contradictions, it surprise me more people do not see them and ask questions of them. I am not sure he was convinced, but the fact is, that if you look hard and deeply at most things, I am sure you will find a thread on which you can weave a tale.

Look at History? Let’s be honest here, the one thing we know is fact about our history books is that history is always written by the victor. The guys that lose do not get too much of a say in what goes down in our history books, I look to my own life for the best examples. Simply looking at what was taught in school during the 1970’s and what has emerged today shows me that a great deal of what I was taught is falsehoods and lies. The victor chooses what will be written, and to a certain degree hides what they would prefer kept in the dark. Not sure you agree, well let’s look at say Native American history, or even the slave trade, both have now been proven to contain many false hoods to hide certain acts of evil, and comparing what we know today with what I was taught in school forty years ago, the facts are now very different indeed. Creative license was most certainly a contributing factor to our so called books of historical facts, and I think in a way it is a flaw in mankind to try and present them in a better light than maybe they deserve.

Look at the battle of Hastings? We all know the story of the glorious victory of William the Conqueror and how he faked a retreat to lure Harold off his hill, and then turned on him and his mighty warriors beat down the Saxons to victory and the crown of England, we have the Bayeux Tapestry to prove it was all true.

Ok well firstly it was made at the court of William (The Victor) so I have some doubt as to how exact it is. Secondly what it fails to show is the fact that Harold had spent most of the weeks prior in the north beating back the Vikings, whom he routed from Britain and pushed back into the sea. Harold then got word of William, and made a hasty long journey back towards the south in order to meet him in battle. The day of the battle, Harold’s men were tired from an exhausting march south, and had Harold chosen to wait and rest his men before taking on William, history could have told an entirely different story. These kinds of missing facts and contradictions within history are gold to a writer, they create loop holes in which we can slip in and spin a creative yarn.

Another of my personal favourite topics is archaeology. I know right, people always look at me and have that, “he is well beyond reality look.” OK I get that, but do some research and you find all sorts of wonderful tools to fuel a writer’s imagination. I grew up being taught Stonehenge was approximately four thousand years before Christ in age. Today it is now being touted that it could well be dated as being somewhere around fifteen thousand years BC; I mean how delightfully thrilling is that? We just took a giant step backwards in time of 11 thousand years, which can only mean that we have been around far longer than first thought and we have been building stuff long before it was believed we could, Yay the pre-iron age men.

Speaking of the Iron Age, just when exactly was that? If your search engines are right, and they say they are, the Iron Age has been dated to somewhere around 1200 to 600 BC, in the UK it is closer to the 600 BC as it took many years for the techniques to travel to this land. Hmm ponderous this thought, so I ask the question, how come at this moment in our time are the very same people who dated this age, finding Celtic metal and gold artefacts that date back to around 3000 BC in the UK? Another thing that always confused me at me school was, how come Rome was this glorious city made of marble with amazing buildings, and yet the history books tell us when the Romans arrive here (Britain) we were all in mud huts and unable to create anything? Rome grew to its glorious heights, as the history books prove, because they paid the Celts to guard the northern boarders of Italy, which basically places Celts on their door step for a very long time before Rome grew to power, are you seriously telling me all they learned was how to make wine and fight, I think not? You see what I mean, loop holes everywhere, and for me as a writer, the real world is providing me with some fantastic information to exploit.

As a writer I see my job as the creator of a vehicle that will open up a scenario that will legitimately allow the reader to use their imagination, and be transported into a life that can feel as real as their day to day life. I write thick books that can take anywhere between 4 to 11 days to read depending on the reader. I spend several years working away behind the scenes to create each book, I work every day on some kind of scenario be it research, writing, editing, talking to others, or simply pondering. I look at life and people and what we know, and then I rip it apart and rebuild it in a way that I hope will fascinate and make you think. I lob in real life mixed with fantasy, I take the human and mix it up with faith, magic, and all the other none proven things in this world, and when I work at it for long enough, I create something so extremely different that it actually makes some kind of sense, and hopefully it entertains. It is a wonderful thing to do, and it gives me the greatest of pleasure, and even though I sit here alone with my thoughts and will never meet the people who share my words and my world, simply knowing they have derived some form of pleasure is more than enough to keep me searching for more.

Heirs to the Kingdom is a full and complex tale based on life, and embroidered with many loop holes that I have exploited to create my own tapestry. It does feel very real at times and occasionally a little fantastical, which I adore. I have embedded many little pearls of wisdom, and some philosophy for good measure and given it all a thoroughly good shake up to mix it well. I hope it is indeed something that will delight anyone who reads it, it has certainly been a truly wonderful thing to create. I do get asked a great deal why I gave up working in horticulture after 35 years, and the simple truth is, my mind wandered elsewhere and it gave me a huge amount of joy.

And that folks, Is why I chose to become a full time writer.

Truce for Christmas.

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Rob

This is a very special time of year for families, it matters not what your faith may be, because a vast part of the world has been swept into the hustle that is Christmas. For many it is a time of peace and quiet, as the shops close and most of the countries take a pause, to allow those of faith to celebrate their own unique customs and rituals that represent their own ideas of family and their celebration of it.

It is a time I think, most of us consider as a time of peace and goodwill to all, and so it is very unlikely that many of us would be thinking of war. Sadly today there are parts of the world caught in conflict, and even though many of those involved will be placed somewhere on guard and watching, far away from their loved ones, in the backs of the minds of those individuals, there may be doubts as to why on this time more than most, men would want to fight and kill each other.

I am very much opposed to war, as those of you who know me will agree, it is a belief that runs deep within me that most ordinary simple men do not want to leave home and have to kill others. Many feel the pressures and are forced into enlisting, a great many feel a sense of duty, but if you were to ask them all how they feel deep down inside, I think you would find that they simply would much rather find a better way to resolve the conflicts they have been caught up in.

This year more than any other, I find it to be a poignant fact, as we celebrate an event that is 100 years old and highlights my point perfectly. I refer to the celebrated Christmas Truce of 1914, where enemies for a short while walked out onto the battlefield, and stood as the men they truly were, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

Soldiers meet in a temporary peace for Christmas

It is a fact of history that the Pope had called out on December 7^th 1914 for there to be a ceasefire, but those in charge on all sides of the war refused to make any form of official agreement, and they ordered the troops to stay alert and be combat ready. I love the fact that all along those cold miserable front lines of France, groups of both German and English soldiers defied their officials as they sang carols and hymns across the no mans land together, and eventually walked unarmed out onto the battlefield where they stood face to face, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

It stands I feel, as testament to the character of ordinary men, and reinforces my view that there is always another way to resolve a conflict, as long as the simple man makes a stand for what is morally the right thing to do. War is never about ordinary people, they are just the casualties that become swept up into the conflict, war is about the greed and lust for power of the individual, who drives that power to force an issue and embroils the others around them.

There are many cases in history that show us that there were men on all sides who took a stand against those who ruled them, but I don’t think the message here can be given a greater significance, than the simple act of those simple soldiers 100 years ago. Mankind has come so far in this world, and yet we still stumble and fall into conflicts that kill, maim, and wound men, women, and children across the planet. Most people shy away from doing something about it, they fear the system and so remain silent, so maybe it is the time to stand up and use the one weapon we all have and use it, and that is simply our voice. Speak out against the wars and injustice, and think more about peaceful solutions, and then voice those thoughts to others. Time and time again it has been proven that when we all speak up with one clear voice, those who lead eventually listen, and maybe 100 years after such an act of peace and goodwill, we too should take a stand as simple ordinary people, and say with a loud clear voice enough is enough.

World war one and two wiped out a generation of young men, and killed countless women and children, because as we know, regardless of what NATO or the UN may say, civilians die in vast numbers in all combat situations, as they get caught in the middle, just look at the media of 2014 and it clearly shows the despair created from the loss of loved ones.

The human race has the intelligence and the technology to wipe out poverty and world hunger, we have the capabilities to provide everyone with a home and a stable lifestyle, and yet even though today many will remember the unofficial truce of 1914, sadly despite all our advances, as humans we have learned little. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn from one hundred years ago today, and decide that from now on, the best way to honour those soldiers who as enemies, met and wished each a Merry Christmas, would be to do likewise? There is far too much hate in the world and it is bringing the world down, maybe we should learn and sit with our enemies and try for once to find a peaceful solution. Tolerance should walk beside us, and a smile should be our greeting, not bayonets or bullets.

Whatever your faith may be, and wherever you are on this planet today, I wish you a time of peace and safety, beyond today and into the coming New Year. RJM.

Soldiers meet on the battle field in France 1914

Behind the Words.

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Rob

One of the biggest drawbacks to being a writer, is there is this expectation that all writers should court the public to gain more readers, and therefore sales. In an age of public profiles on the internet, and socially sharing the contents of your lunch on Twitter, writers are expected to list every detail of their life, along with endless photos of themselves, with the aim of showing everyone on the planet how swell you are, so people will immediately run out and buy your books.

Every help blog and writers aide is the same, sell, sell, sell yourself or you will never make it as a writer. There appears to be this unwritten rule that the public must see and love a writer, before they are able to understand the stories they like, otherwise how could they ever read your books? If like me you are 80% introvert and just 20% extravert, and a quiet isolated life is your choice, then the thought of any of this instils very deep terrors indeed.

I have been published for a little over five years, I have been writing for most of my adult life, and if I am very honest, I had no intentions whatsoever of publishing Heirs to the Kingdom, I was if anything pushed. You see the thing here is very simply in a nut shell, I am not being rude, but, I don’t want you to know me, I don’t want you to know every detail of my personal life, I have zero intentions of showing the world my life, family or how I choose to live. I hate being photographed, and would rather be alone in the woodland than at the heart of a press conference or in huge crowds. The whole point of writing is that very fact, I write fantasy, not my life, and yet I am constantly pushed to sell my life so it will sell my books.

Call me old fashioned, or introverted, but isn’t the whole point of a book the words? I love John Wyndham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien and H.G. Wells, never met any of them as they largely lived before my time. I have read a great deal about their lives in their autobiographies, but that was only years after reading and loving the books that they wrote. Their stories sold me at the time of reading, I did not care who they were, it was their words on paper that exploded my imagination and sent me to the library or bookstore to find yet more of their books, and to be honest, I still think that is how it should be.

I like my comfort zone, and to be honest you should too, because if you take me out of it, I simply cannot write. Writing can be intense, I sit alone away from everything, I put on my head phones and play inspiring music, I am surrounded by files that hold the results of my research, which also includes pages filled with pictures of places, clothing, weapons and fantasy art, and I drink endless cups of coffee as I sit with a cigarette (that is usually unlit as I forgot to light it) hanging from my lip, as I reach that zone that allows everything to flow from my mind into the words on the page. It is mentally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and the world ceases to exist until I have finished the chapter or piece I am working on. There are times when it takes just an hour, and others where it takes almost all of the day, but the result is the start of what will appear in the next book.

I can tell you now; there is nothing within that process I want to share with the rest of the world. I am scruffy and relaxed, usually unshaven; I have even written naked on hot days, (Honestly you don’t want that picture believe me). I laugh as I make up the funnier sections and feel the tears in my eyes as I rip at my emotions to get those special moments just perfect. I talk to the characters as if they were present, as I try to work out if the conversations are flowing right, and too be quite honest, if you were walk in and film it, most of the world would think I was insane. The one thing I know without any doubt at all is that those moments are private and should remain so.

Ok I get that it is me, I understand that as the writer I impart a lot of myself into the story, after all it is my brain, my imagination and partly my view of the world, but it is also not me, and this is where knowing me is a pointless exercise. To explain it a little simpler, I pretend, yup you got it, I actually try and wear the shoes of another and make them do things I could never do. I do not hunt, actually I am a vegetarian, and have been for 25 years. I do love trees, but I have never killed anyone, (I am actually quite happy about that) and I never would, Mason Knox is very capable, and yes I wrote him, but that does not mean any aspect of him is me.

The words together free from any ideas of who the writer is, allow the reader to judge the story completely free of any bias, and that is the whole point of writing, it is and should be to a certain extent an anonymous act. Modern social networking has decayed one of the most important boundaries of any writer, as it has asked all of us to remove our privacy and reveal everything about who we are, but sadly knowing the writer will not enhance your experience of the book, if anything it will cloud it. Take my word for it, find a book by a writer who you know nothing about and sit quietly and ingest their words, once you have taken the words inside yourself, then let your imagination fly and paint the pictures chapter by chapter, and you will experience reading at its best, because that is the only way we should ever read a book. Who wrote it should be the last thing you think about it, and as to what their eye colour is or what pants they wear on the train, should never be anything other than the Author’s concern.

Sadly the world has taken a shift over the last few decades and we have become preoccupied with Celebrities, a whole industry has grown up around them, and it appears that writers are being dragged screaming into the mix, but the reality of it from a writers point of view, is that we would much prefer not to be. I understand there are those individuals who court the cameras and enjoy the exposure they get, but they are actually a very small number. The world has rolled into 24 hour news, and we have reached a point where media has become the only sales tool of anything creative, and it is a sad fact of modern reality that digging into the private life of any individual appears to be the way books, movies, art and music is sold today. Gone are the days where a news report would project a picture of the author or the book in the background screen, it has to be a live interview that is the feature of the moment, and sadly for the very many introverted and creative people who write, that is more than a little bit uncomfortable.

I use social networks, I have a few accounts across the many, none of them really feature me, I try to focus on just the stories. I do give opinions from the point of view as the one who wrote the books, I also provide insights and alternative theories as to why maybe the stories twist and turn as they do. I love to talk about the characters and what they like, and will do so for as long as people ask, just don’t ask me to tweet my lunch menu, sadly I am incapable of doing so.

It may sound odd, but the only reason I ever published HTTK was simply because I was asked to. It took a great deal on my part to share the story with those very few early readers, writing is a deeply private part of the person I am, and writing comes from the quiet isolated part of my life, it is from my comfort zone. I do not deny I can step out when required to meet and talk with people about the stories I write, but for me that takes a lot of effort and is emotionally draining, I am by nature reclusive, only feeling at ease around small well known individuals, and it is because of these very facts, that I am able to pour emotion into what I write and connect with the readers using words. I know a few creative people, and we all agree that being isolated is the place where our creation comes from, sadly the roar and turmoil of the crowd is not a very creative space to be in, something I am sure my wife who is my only witness during writing can testify to.

I often bring to mind an interview I read with Dan Brown which came out after he had published the Davinci Code, which had become a huge success. He actually told the press that actually his life was very normal and boring, and he had no plans at all to change it. I remember reading it as if a light had flashed inspiration before me, as I completely understood him. It was a wonderful moment of clarity, as he was an A list selling author who admitted he did not want the press intrusion, he did not want to tour the endless streams of press and TV interviews, all he wanted to do was stay at home with his family in his quiet rural home and write, everything else was just another distraction that prevented him writing.

To conclude, I think, I can safely say I am a writer. I write every day, some days it flows, and on others it staggers just a little, but it is a process that I am unable to switch off. I write my books, and endless amounts of short posts that I either blog, or store up on file for later use. I have a Facebook Page, and anyone can message it to ask me something, so in that respect I am always available. There are few days when I am not sat staring into space, putting together the pictures I see in my mind with the right words, and I feel it is very important to do the best I can to make the things I write as interesting as possible. In between those moments of creation (Which I do not control) I do everything else, including update social media and plan other things I feel may be of interest to those who read what I write. The more time I spend talking in the media, the less I write, and I am driven by some inner compulsion to write, so that tends to win over the day.

It makes me happy, and having spent 30 years outdoors in all weathers working in horticulture, I find being warm and dry surrounded by my family, who are a huge part of who I am suits me more and more as I get older. I am dedicated to writing the best story I possibly can, because that is what I feel the reader expects, and knowing out there in the huge world are people who have smiled, or shed a tear having read my words matters a great deal, it matters not if I have ever met them, it is simply wonderful just knowing I helped make their day a little bit better. No amount of media or press will ever change that, because that moment when I write that small piece which warms your day, is far greater than anything else I could ever do in front of a camera, and that for me is what writing is really all about.

A Modern Metropolis

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Rob

I was born in Cheadle, Cheshire, moved age one to Farnworth in Bolton, and then when my parents separated at the age of four, I came to Hyde.

It’s sad really that Hyde is famous for the sadness and pain of the moors murders and Dr Shipman in the rest of this country, because actually Hyde was once such a beautiful place. I say was, because today I think it has been allowed to die, and as this is the place I consider to be my home town after 45 years of living here, I have seen so many changes that it feels heart breaking to walk around, and see the destruction and neglect brought upon us by a Metropolitan Council.

You see, back when I was a lad, Hyde was run by its own local council, my grandfather ran as a liberal candidate for it at one time, like many of the other locals, because it was run and maintained by local people who saw it as an act of local duty and pride, sadly that too is a thing of the past.

Hyde was a country dwellers place in the early days, it was run by the gentry, and it was a thriving market town, which actually boasted the biggest market in the area. I remember well the busy Saturdays, I think in many ways it was the hustle and bustle of those wonderful Saturdays that at the middle of my life in Horticulture brought me onto the markets myself as a trader. My mum in my youth worked right at the top of the long market street, in a store called the Economy Store, I loved the place, it was the second shop down at the top of the hill, and it sold everything under the sun to help clean the house or fix it up, and all at reasonable prices. I remember standing out on the wide pavement as a boy and looking down the hill that was crawling with thousands of people, as they hurriedly did their weeks shopping before heading home for their Saturday meal. Hyde was so beautiful, Market Street was lined with trees that ran all the way down to the town hall and the market, where the trees were bigger and lush and filled your eyes with clouds of deep green foliage. I look at it now and despair.

The beauty of this town was inspiring, never in my life had I seen such beautiful buildings. We paid the rates on Greenfeild Street where there was the most magnificent building with tall Roman pillars. It felt like walking into an old Roman forum, and my brothers and myself would fantasise about gladiators and the Roman Legion. The post office, and the theatre, were massive and architecturally stunning, the fire station was opposite and we would run up and look through the large glass windows and wave at the firemen. The town hall contained the police station, and we shuddered with nerves as we passed, even though we had done nothing at all wrong, but the site of the old architecture was enough to bother us. The Town Hall was a beautiful and impressive building, today it still stands but looks a little Jaded due to lack of care. The Library was my Mecca, I visited it every week and devoured as many books as I could, it is still the one place in Hyde I love the most for all the happy memories I have of it, but that is soon to end.

Then came the merger into Tameside, a metropolitan borough, and out went the old local council and the people who cared, to be replaced with what I can only describe as career politicians. Since that time I have watched it fall brick by brick as it was uncared for and unloved by those who enjoyed the power and status as they moved everything slowly to the centre of Tameside, and their jewel in their crown Ashton.

There is no more Roman Forum, the fire station is a mile away up a side street, the beautiful Old Post Office was closed and moved to a new modern building with no charm. The theatre is empty and dilapidated, and the market has gone and been replaced with a glass roofed enclosure filled with expensive shops and cubicles no one can afford, governed by a company in Liverpool. Half the shops inside are empty, and the cubicles are being removed because no one can realistically afford to pay the high business rates and rents. The same can be said for Market St, you no longer see the sea of people walking up and down, and all the shops are take a ways and shabby. There are very few trees on the market, and even less market stalls, we did have free parking until Tameside wanted to sell the land, so they started to charge a stupid fee and that left it empty, so they told us no one uses it and demolished it to build a KFC, yet another part of American heritage added to our country, as we wipe away ours.

We do have large superstores, but that is why we have no local shops, Hyde had so much diversity to offer, and the narrow minded profit thinking of the Metropolitan Council wiped it away, we do have young women’s fashion, Agos and take a ways, stood next to nail salons and estate agents, the bedding shop has gone, so has the kitchen supplies, Old Mr Brooke the tool shop has gone along with the gardening shop and the many other small unique traders, and we have endless charity shops on discounted rates, and we have also lost the lights at Christmas.

We moan the destruction of youths, and yet like us older ones they have been robbed, gone are the disco’s and boys clubs, where are the meeting places we all attended? They have been wiped away in the so called needed cuts, yet there is always money for demolition and new buildings, they can find the cash to improve their offices. They call it progress; I call it heartbreak, narrow vision and greed.

The council at Ashton do not care about us, they sleep at night in their posh homes safe in their fat cat lives, they will not lose a nights sleep knowing that our Library will be moved so the building can be sold, one of the last beautiful buildings of Hyde and a shining remainder of what our town was once like under the caring hands of those who lived here. They deny it will be sold, but we have been here before, and everyone knows what their agenda is. The grammar school is going, the college moved to Ashton, and Hyde is a sad reflection of what it once was, and there will be no lights this Christmas. I remember the lights as a lad, they were magical as they lined the whole of the long Market Street and all of the market, strung across the road in many colours, they were so bright in the dark evening as we gazed down the street in wonder. The shop owners would decorate trees and put them in brackets above their shops to add to the beauty, it made Christmas feel so special, it just feels like another dark winters eve now, its hard to believe it is a week before Christmas, there is so little to show it.

I hear all the time that Britain is losing its identity, well I am not surprised. How can we maintain any sense of who we are, when the places we live have been asset stripped and sold off by the pound? The very thing we held pride in has been ripped away from us by local councillors who care for nothing but their own vanity, they tell us they care when they need our votes, but if they get in, the last thing they do is what we want, they are cold and self serving with no idea of value, they are wrapped up in their arrogance and see us as nothing but underlings to rule over. They are the reason Britain has fallen, and they are the ones who have destroyed our identity, and then they sit around griping how people are disenchanted by politics, hell can you blame us? We have been lied to far too many times and listened to your spin as you side step our questions and divert our answers, your lack of openness and honesty has appalled us to the point where we are weary and worn out trying to understand why it is you do not fight with us to improve the places we call home.

Hyde has died, the green has gone and been built on, the beauty was sold or torn down and replaced with ugly, what little that is left we fear will be taken; even the park has less for our children to admire. It’s so sad, because the people who live here really care about the place, and they like me are as heartbroken.

Where did the hope go, we had such high ones? Progress for the sake of progress does not bring attraction, it brings destruction, and replaces heritage with limited life. My Grandfather ran for the local council not for power or prestige, he felt it was his duty as a proud member of the town, I shudder to think what he would say if he was still here. It is called a modern metropolis, and it’s brash and dirty, and for too long now it has swept the land changing the face of the places we live, to the point where we recognise nothing. It is yet another sad reflection on the world today, where progress is built on greed, with no regard for need.

The Wonder of Books and Song.

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Rob

I remember when I was just 7 years old and at school, and I was asked what did I want to be when I grew up?

It makes me smile now, but at the time I got into a huge amount of trouble, because for me it was not a great time being a child. My parents had separated when I was just four years old, and even though I was not aware of it, I was not going to see my father again until I was 35 years old, and at that scared and lonely age of seven, I missed him and wanted desperately to see him again. I hated my childhood years, I was in a school where my grandfather had been one of the most successful headmasters of his time, and was still remembered by all the staff, which had been trained by him. To be honest I never had a chance of living up to the standards expected from the staff of Mr Renwick’s grandson. The headmistress hated me, as she was reminded daily of her shortcomings compared to my grandfather, and went out of her way to make an example of me, my mum was also a dinner lady at the school and my every move was reported to her, so I took the added humiliation of being reprimanded very publicly by her. That resulted in making me an easy target for every bully in the school, and as I withdrew into myself, I was different, and awkward, and that made it hard for me to even be accepted by my brothers at home, life felt hard and was a miserable existence, I was a loner lost in world I felt I did not belong in, so when I was asked what I wanted to be, I replied very honestly, “An orphan.”

I can laugh now, but at the time it was like trying to live through a nuclear holocaust, I guess I was too honest and lacked great tact, something which at times these days I can also be a little guilty of. It wasn’t easy growing into a man without a father’s guidance, yet two things saved my life and restored my sole to happiness and inner calm as I grew older, they became the friends and faithful companions that would take me through the rest of my life, and in time help me come to terms with who I was, and who I was capable of being. I think at the age of 50, which I have arrived at this month (February 2014) I can say with clarity, they saved my life, and those two faithful companions have been my books and my music.

Words hold a great place in my heart, I have learned to live by them, as they have been the things I have held onto in the hard times, and my life has had its times of great sorrow and great happiness. My book case and my very precious vinyl record and CD collection are in many ways like a bar code of the days of my life, each coloured stripe marks a particular moment in time that is relevant to what I was doing and who I am today because of it. Every book on my shelf has the advice I needed to get me through a rough patch, and the lyrics of my vast rock collection guided me through my teenage years and have inspired me to grow and learn more and more about life and living through all of my days.

At the ripe old age of 50, I think through my reading and the endless years of listening to music I have finally learned to be at ease with the world and more importantly myself. I made it out alive, thanks to the hopes and dreams of every author and every crazy love sick or troubled musician, who opened their heart and wrote it down on a lyric sheet. To them I have much indeed to thank them for, I feel sorry for the youth of today, they have switched off from the world of books and music opting for the user friendly computer games console, which to be honest teach you little but how to kill your way out of zombie apocalypse or drive over enough police officers and pedestrians to get away from your crime scot free. Modern day consumer driven business I feel has ripped them off and left them high and dry, which if they read a book or too they would understand. I was enrolled into catering college at 16 (not my choice) and even though it was not a place I wanted to be, at that time I did not actually know what I did want to be, so I read all the books I could, and then took what I learned and turned it into lyrics to match all my favourite songs to revise by. It worked out fine as I silently hummed my way through my exams and walked out of college with all distinctions. I smile every now and again as I hear a track playing and remember a recipe or a particular part of my food science exam.

It was at that point rebellion kicked in big time, and off the rails I went, I was to say the least the last of a wild bunch of hippie radicals dragging out their existence through the 1970’s and I dumped catering and went into horticulture to be at one with the universe, and spend my life surrounded by plants. Again I had my books and music, my botany library is indeed a vast one and I very quickly started to shine as I had the ability to learn and apply massive amounts of information setting me well above most of my colleagues as a fountain of horticultural knowledge. I loved my working life in Horticulture, I learned the true meaning of satisfaction in a job, I never made masses of money, but I lived well and taught myself well beyond the limits of the examining board ending up as a public demonstrator, horticultural teacher, container gardening specialist, houseplant expert, tree expert and last but not least bonsai teacher, instructor and designer, not bad at all I think, and all thanks to my books and my love of music which played endlessly encouraging me in the background.

Words on paper and set to rhythm have dominated my life, and behind the scenes they gave me something greater and deeper to ease my soul and help me make the changes within myself that helped me find the courage to change into what I hope is a better and more at ease person. They helped me to write and express what at the tender age of seven I was unable to. Writing allows me to open up and lay things out in black and white so I can read it back and understand the lessons of life and learn from them, writing has been a great therapy that has aided my growth as a human being. I still smile at the faces of those who I meet and they discover that I have walked away from horticulture and become a full time writer; it was something no one either saw or expected until I did a complete U turn and published a book confounding all my friends. These past seven years sat writing have been the best years of my life, for I believe my precious books have finally brought me round in a complete circle to meet the person I was always meant to be, and he is sat here at this very moment, wearing headphones and playing a wonderful version of Bachman-Turner-Overdrives, You aint seen nothing yet, writing this article.

The important thing here I feel is, that reading and listening to some incredibly well written music lyrics taught me, how to forgive, how to communicate and hold down a good job. I learned how to change and become more social, and the true meaning of courage. I have learned respect for all, and acceptance of the fact that everyone sees the world differently, and I will not always agree with them. It has taught me no one wins a war, as everyone suffers, and how everyone deserves a chance to show they have the ability to learn and progress. I also learned how to build a shelter and grow food; I have learned that the wilderness is like an open store filled with the needs of everyone. I too can kill zombies and fight off vampires, and I know all the best places to bury treasure. Most importantly I learned how to live and be happy and to know when to change things to make me happier, and spot the girl of my dreams, and how to hold on to her as I have and always will.

There is a great deal to learn from my life, I was a kid with no idea of what I wanted to do, I was unhappy and afraid of pretty much everything. I was riddled with self-doubt stumbling on from childhood into an adult life devoid of any direction, but I was never alone, I had the power of those who have been before me laying out their ideas of life in verse or fantasy story to guide me slowly forward. Books hold such a wealth of great advice and truths, as do the living experience of those who can be creative and translate that into song, its like having a vast bank of advisors beside you to guide you, and they can help you make up your mind about something, or bring a smile to your face and even make you weep with delight. The thing is they are there silently sat on a shelf waiting to be requested by you for something to take you through that moment of difficulty or give you a well-earned break from the reality of life. The ability to write has to be the greatest achievement of the human race, and we here in the UK we are in serious danger of throwing it all away.

In this country (UK) today we have less than 1000 indie bookshops, and we are slowly destroying our libraries and closing them down, which from the point of view of myself, a lifelong user, I think it is a massive and dangerous mistake for this country. The recording industry is a good example of what is in store for the book industry if we the people to do not take heed and take back what should be there for everyone who is need of it. The government is slashing budgets left right and centre and raising taxes, and soon like the music shops, all the bookshops will close and there will no longer be local libraries. The music industry once offered us a huge choice as did the book industry, but larger commercial enterprises are taking over and refining our selection, and great works are fading away never to be found again, those indie stores that kept us all in touch with all that was available are becoming less and less each year, and even with the libraries that remain open, thier range and selection have lessened, taking vital knowledge away from the good of all of us, and our future generations.

It is time all of us made it clear, we do not wish to see another generation of our young raised without the wisdom of those who have gone before us at hand. We need to use local bookshops and oppose the closure of libraries. We should see it as our duty to encourage everyone we meet to read and use what they learn in life and in leisure. So many complain about falling standards of education in schools, well are you surprised when for over ten years books have not been actively encouraged as a full and important part of a person’s life. If we lose more local bookshops and libraries, and allow the large corporate companies to rule and dictate the terms of our reading, how we will we ever recover as a nation in the future, if those that follow us, are not capable of reading a good well written and educational story? The music industry has lost any hope of keeping independent musicians thriving, the industry has been destroyed and rebuilt as a corporate money maker, and look at the results, it gave us Justin Bieber to inspire our children. It’s a scary thought indeed, and more fitting for a horror story, let’s not let it happen to our beloved book industry and libraries.

I was told at 16 by my careers officer when I wanted to enter into Journalism, “You don’t have what it takes try something else.” My library, bookstore, and music told me different, and today after years of attempts I am a published author, so let’s start now and protect and preserve what we have, and keep the knowledge and life experiences of every creative force with a pen available for future generations.

My Reason To Write

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Rob

If your only reason for writing a book is to make money, think again.

We all have that age old picture of the Dickens era writer with black ink stained fingers, scratching away at his parchment by candlelight, and to be honest, when you look at the industry today with all its high class technology, you could be fooled into thinking that writers have it easy and are sat on a good size pile of constantly flowing cash. But the harsh reality is, for the writer things have not improved a great deal from back in the days of Dickens.

Writing will not make you rich overnight, well not for 90% of those who choose to do it. Yes there are those chosen few who the chips fell right for, and they have the privilege of living a life of comfort and security. For the rest of us that is a dream we can only dream of, as getting a book written edited and then out for sale is a mammoth task, and that is just the first hurdle, then you have to make it sell. Most of the big publishers are not that interested in new writers, there is little money to be made as the investment in promotion is very high, and the returns may not recoup their initial investment, they prefer the tried and tested route of known name celebrities and writers, as their first consideration has to be profit driven. Self publishing does give you a much longer term programme, and personally considering the fact that with a traditional publisher you have pretty much the first four months of release to make a profit in order to stay on their books, then self publishing does make more sense, as you have time to sit back and wait, especially if you are constantly writing new material. This is how a lot of writers are starting to think now, looking at the bigger longer picture, but even so, the rewards in the form of financial gain will never be high.

It’s a very real fact that your average writer earns less in a year from writing than most people do in a month of working at their usual job, you may see the handsomely priced books at £5, £10 and £15, but believe me, when it comes to the royalty of that price being paid out to the writer, it has dropped to less than 10% of the book price per sale.

So why do it?

The fact is that most writers are book geeks, they love literature and reading, and are driven from within by a compulsion to sit for days and weeks slaving away slowly crafting the limits of their imagination into words, that hopefully one day they will share with the rest of us. It’s not very glamorous, and at times it can be quiet boring, and yet the need to write drives all writers forward.

Looking at my own life, I sit alone separated from my family, happily tapping the keyboard lost in a world of my own invention, I lose all sense of reality and time as I watch the words appear on the screen, and I feel the rush of whatever related emotion is present within at the one lost moment in time. Where it all comes from I cannot say, I have a plan in my mind of what I want to say, and how I want the story to develop, but I can assure you the finished result is far superior to what I had first imagined. Woven into my thoughts and my words via this wonderful process of merger between my conscious self and the depths of my soul something wondrous and beautiful is created, as every thought I have ever had and every experience, be it happy or from the depths of my despair fuses into the words of the person you think to be the creator of the story. It may sound odd, but the conscious part of me cannot happily take all the credit, because writing unleashes huge deeper parts of me, and that is something that I find mind-blowing, as it reveals parts of my own self that even I was not aware of when I began. I suppose that is my reason to write, that part of me is cooler, wilder and far more adventurous than ordinary everyday me. Put plainly I would say, its more addictive than any drug or substance you could offer me, and leaves me thoroughly exhausted with just the single thought of deep happy sleep to occupy my mind as I drift off slowly.

Reading what I have written back is like reading a code known only to me, as I gasp at what has been revealed. To any other reader it is simply a story, a tale to captivate the mind and intrigue the soul, but for myself alone at my desk, I see my life, my feelings, my hopes and dreams, it’s so deeply personal that it almost feels like standing naked before the world, my only security is that I know no one will ever truly work it all out.

There is no part of the process where I have thoughts of money and gains, I feel no need to embrace vanity and be adored, if anything I am possibly one of the most reluctant writers to publish. Publishing is a drag; I find it tedious and annoying as it takes me away from writing, as I am forced to promote the book. I am the worst possible person alive to ask about what I write, because when I look at what I have committed to paper, I find it hard to break out of my deeply private sense of privacy and talk at any length about how the story came together. I am in many ways also the biggest critic of what I have written, I am never satisfied with the finished result and always feel it could be better, so promoting it is not an easy task, and I would much rather be sat at my desk lost and alone caught in that moment of wonder where it all spills out onto the page.

Selling a book feels like real work, writing comes to me in an uncontrollable compulsion, and there is nothing in the process that I do not take great joy from, money plays no part in it at all. I cannot think of sales and income, it is too much of a distraction from the process of physically writing.

I am a pretty rational person, and yet I am a full time writer, I know it means things can and will be tough, and as selfish as it sounds I don’t care, I have spent the last 30 years of my life breaking my back working in horticulture from dawn until dust, in every kind of weather, and I was not rich then either. It’s nice to sit at my desk, snug and warm and rest my aching body that has the scars and has paid the price of my labours since youth. Writing has afforded me the time to watch the world and take note, it has given me back a family life, and a chance to walk in the world and enjoy its wonder, it doesn’t pay in sterling, but the rewards have been vast in so much as it has taken a tired workaholic and given me back a life of quality and value.

There is little financial gain to be made from writing, but there is the huge payoff of knowing that I have shared something deeply private and special with those who turn the pages of what I write about. I have the reward of being closer to those who I love and love me, so because of writing I feel I have become the wealthiest man alive, and if by chance I do need money, well hey, there are always part time jobs.

heirstothekingdom.com blog

Robin John Morgan shares his thoughts on Life, Writing, Publishing and his published works

Category Archives: The Writer