Author: ChanAtkins

Feeling sick today…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

Do you ever wake up like that? Do you ever wake up and think god this world is going to bring me down, some time sooner or later, one day. It could really bring you down, couldn’t it? You know it. If you let it. I mean, in every sense, physical and emotional. If you let it, it could. It could destroy you. Or at least, you wake up feeling sick.

I woke up this morning and I travelled downstairs to begin the usual routine, with this terrible skin of despair clinging to me. No fancy words or descriptions needed for it. It is sadness. I felt terribly sad and it was bringing me right down, because it wants to, and I know why…

A brief flick through Facebook on my phone and this familiar uneasy feeling of disquiet settled in my belly. Except it does not really settle. It stirs and groans and rumbles and churns. It dulls the brightness of everything around me. My home, the music playing, the baby chewing on his toast. I have to shake it off and I will. Keep the music playing. BBC6 Music in the kitchen. Choose some CD’s for the car. Oasis or The Stone Roses will fit the bill for the school run. I need it. Room to breathe. The chance to shiver, tingle, let the brightness seep back through me, let me see the shine again.

It could bring you down but the trick is not to let it. Not the daily dose of misery and selfish tainted humanity, not the tragic loss of everything that was once golden, everything now sullied and dirtied and stained. Nothing precious or fresh or bright anymore, nothing sacred or untouched by greed and hate.

Greedy soulless human hands destroying everything everywhere you look. Our beautiful world, beautiful possibilities and potential all washed away or crushed by the clutching blood stained hands of psychopathic corporate politicians. Yeah, all of them. I don’t distinguish anymore. Corporate greed owns politics and politics owns the media and the media own our fear and our fears allow them to systematically rape the natural world, killing children, dropping bombs and missiles, over and over and over and over, endless war, endless carnage, and the continued dulling of the senses, the turning away that we all do, the blind eye.

So depressing. Every little inch of it. People at the bottom more trodden on than ever. Despised and maligned. Massive yawning gap between rich and poor. Desperate times for so many, and the poisoning of our food and our air. And worse than this, worse than all of this, the dreadful heavy apathy. The don’t care, and don’t see, and they deserved it. The TV addicts and reality show vultures and fast food devourers. Soaking it all up day after day, oblivious and stubborn, lazy apathetic carelessness. Something precious lost forever. Innocence and hope.

You see, you see? It brings you down. Makes it hard to breathe, hard to hope. Hope is so painful and disappointment rages every day, knocking it away. Live in it and crawl, live in it and forget. Don’t worry. Don’t bother. Don’t fight them back. Go back to sleep. Watch TV. Buy things.

But that’s what they really want, what they need, what they expect us to do…Are there enough of us left to realise this? To fight back and stand up? To see the beauty and the shine before it is rubbed away, erased forever? Human nature. Human race. By and large, overall, a massive let down. A dastardly disappointment.

Or will we be able to turn it around at the last moment? Realise what we are doing before it is too late? Will the best of us ever win, ever shine through? Will the good guys ever win? You could feel so angry. I could scream and snarl and spit. It’s our world and they have put a price tag on everything. But what can we do but small things?? Listen, become informed, question everything, seek the truth, speak the truth, grow your own, tell your children. Do your best. Pass it on.

I feel better now. She Bangs The Drums on the way home. Singing loudly. I have a crap voice but I like to hear it singing loudly. Went for a walk and spotted a little fawn on the other side of the river eating some leaves. It looked up and saw me watching and then it went right back to what it was doing. It knew I couldn’t bother it. It knew it was all right. There it was, like all the animals and the insects living it’s little private life peacefully. Made me smile anyway.

The heavy feeling is still there. I still feel sick. Never know whether to watch the news or tune it all out and try to be happy. Sadness is allowed, though theirs is so much greater than mine in my cosy little life. The right amount of anger, sadness and rebellion is needed, the right amount of realism and joy, and most importantly keep looking for the shine.

Is Writing Selfish?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

Hmm, well ask my seven year old this question right now and he will probably tell you that it is. I am certainly feeling the guilt for spending so much of my time on something that only really benefits me. When I was a kid it was so much easier! School, home, write. Weekends, just write. I lived in my own carefully constructed little world of characters and stories. I lived and breathed my stories and my characters. I raced home to be with them. I stayed up late at night banging away on my word processor. I took a notepad and pen everywhere I went. My head was full of it constantly. My mum would roll her eyes at me and tell me to get my head out of the clouds. Daydreamer, they called me. In a dream. Away with the fairies. Yep, and I loved it. But I only had myself to please.

Then came the years I let the writing slip. University followed by employment followed by children and more employment. There was just never the time. Every now and then I would grab a notebook and pen and curl up in a chair with them. Every now and then I would re-read something I had written in my younger days. People used to ask me; did you ever do anything with your writing? Do you still write? What happened about all your writing? God it was depressing. Every time I heard a question like that I felt like another little piece of my true self had been chipped away. Noel Gallagher once said ‘while we’re living, the dreams we had as children fade away’, and he couldn’t have been more right. This is exactly what happens if we are not careful. Life just simply gets in the way. There is pressure everywhere you turn. Pressure to fit in, pressure to make money, pressure to have a career, to contribute to your family and society in general. There is no time in all this to pay attention to passions that are yours and yours only.

When I was a kid my teachers loved my writing, but I was too afraid to show it to anyone else. I had no idea whether it was good or not. When people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up I always said be a writer. People often laughed at this. My dad in particular said there was no money in this, and you needed to make money in life. I needed a plan b.

It has taken me a long time to conquer the fear I had of sharing my work. Four books published and two blogs on the go, and I no longer have this fear. Like it or don’t like it, either is fine by me. I know why I write and I have blogged about this before. I write because I have to, because it is who I am, and I have finally clawed this back after years of letting it go. I won’t ever let it go again. I am happier than I have ever been. I feel like I am living my dream. I am me again.

However, this new found obsession with writing brings its own problems, and the main one is guilt. Writing can make you money, and I am slowly and painfully learning how to make this happen, but the chances are you are never going to be rich. So there is guilt about this all of the time. I could do other things and earn more money. I could throw all this energy and time into work that pays! But I would lose myself completely.

Then there is the parental guilt. I guess all parents feel this to some degree at least some of the time. Especially mothers. If you don’t go out to work, you feel guilty for not contributing. If you do go out to work, you feel guilty if that means leaving your children. If you are self-employed things are not really any easier. You have to find a way to concentrate within the home, throw yourself into work while washing sits in the basket, and dinners need to be made. It is almost impossible to find peace and quiet in my house. It does not exist. I am writing this now while Doctor Who blares from the TV behind me, a remote control car is zooming around the room, and the dog has just opened the door and run upstairs with a bone he has dug up. Not to mention the 12 year old stood right beside me playing with my phone whilst asking me how she can become an extra in Sherlock. Arghhhh!

Inevitably I get stressed out, I get snappy, Christ, I just want to get things done! I’ve got this bloody to-do list you see! And if they make much more noise they are going to wake the baby up and then….well.

In the day, it goes like this. Up at six am, with writing on the brain. No lie. It is there all ready to go, fizzing and crackling, winding me up, already setting off a certain panic that I will not find the time. Sort the baby and the animals out, then get the other kids up. All out of the house by 8am. Back home after 9am and walk the dogs. If I am lucky laptop is on by 10am, but then I automatically feel a surge of horrible guilt for neglecting the last baby I will ever have…I do what I can before he needs changing and feeding again; usually emails, some simple promo stuff like Facebook and Twitter, links to my books etc, maybe a few other things from my promo list if I can. The rest of the day is basically taking care of the little man. Another dog walk, and kids home from school. Dinner, baths, lunch boxes, bed. The trouble is now the other kids are older they don’t go to bed as early as they used to. I have to grab whatever there is of the evening before the little one wakes up.

So when my seven year old lingers around the laptop, leaning all over me, chattering away about Doctor Who, asking me for snacks, I have to finally turn and say to him; mummy is working. The look of confusion on his face was highly amusing. No you’re not, he said in reply, that’s not working. So I had to explain to him that actually it is. That mummy writes books that make a little bit of money, and that mummy also gets paid if she writes articles about writing books! Hmm, he said, still confused, that’s not work.

Well, fair enough. How can you explain it to a seven year old? I had better luck with my twelve year old when we were looking for a new coat for her on ebay earlier. When she hit confirm on the paypal button I told her that all the money in the paypal account has come from my writing. My writing bought her coat. She looked at me and frowned. Really? She sounded as surprised as my son earlier.

The thing about writing though, is that it is with you all the time. I find it really, really hard to switch off. Even when I am making the dinner, or hanging out the washing, my thoughts are on my characters and my plots. Sometimes when my kids are talking to me, I drift off, totally unable to hear what they are saying. Just like when I was a kid, my head is off in the clouds. God I feel guilty. They know when I am doing it as well. Oh yes, they know.

Sometimes we will be on a family day out, or enjoying a pub meal, and again I feel myself drifting off. I am thinking about a new promo site I found earlier, or I am listening to my characters converse in my head. I want to grab a pen and write it all down before I forget. But then I feel them all looking at me….

Well you know you can’t win. Whatever you do. Writing is selfish. I know it. I can’t justify it. It is never going to make us rich or famous. I do it because I want to and I have to, because it is my dream, because it makes me who I am, because it makes me feel happy. It is pretty much benefiting me and only me. It takes me away from my kids, and makes me rush them into their beds. How awful. I sometimes tap away at the keyboard with the baby on my lap, trying to write while he tries to hit the keys. I have a constant gnawing terror that one day when they are all grown up, my kids will turn to me and say their main memories of me are me sat at the laptop, tapping away…

So there it is. Writing is selfish and so I am. I have to try to strike a balance. I have to try not to let one important thing slip. My writing means the world to me, but my children are only children once. I hope it might teach them a thing or two that is just as important as spending time with them. I hope it teaches them that living your dream is not simply a dream. That actually you can do whatever the hell you want in life, write, paint, draw, teach, sew, knit, grow things, whatever makes you happy, and if you are strong enough and work hard enough you can also make a living out of it. I hope it teaches them to follow their dreams and stoke the fires of their passions rather than let them peter out. I want to tell them that they do not need a Plan b, or a better paid career. I want to tell them they can do whatever the hell they like and just be happy.

And I also just promised my seven year old I will definitely, definitely play Doctor Who figures with him on Saturday…

My Music Memories

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

So many, where to start? Don’t try to organise them, just go!

Travis; Why Does It Always Rain On Me? Glastonbury, no idea what year, beautiful clear blue skies, they start singing this and it starts raining! Lead singer grinning, laughing, everyone happy to be rained on…Flowers In The Window..still can’t sing along without choking up…working at Asda, stacking shelves, first child inside my belly, listening to the lyrics, let’s plant new seeds and watch them grow so there’ll be flowers in the garden when we go outside….wow look at you now, you are one in a million and I love you so, let’s watch the flowers grow..the video was all pregnant women and now can’t ever hear that song without remembering how it felt to be pregnant for the first time, just makes me think of her every time…

Embrace; Come Back To What You Know…relationship break-up, about to go away to Uni, living with mum, summer, jogging in the fields around the estate, still friends, not sure, scared, excited, not wanting to let go…was this song trying to tell me something?

Radiohead; all the songs on OK Computer…veeeeeery drunk on Sangria??!! In my bedroom, on my own, writing on my word processor, listening to this, writing random thoughts and thinking about lyrics, ended up on the floor, big jug of Sangria, what was I thinking? Why?? Still got those notes now. Hilarious to read. Thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams and an over-riding feeling of cold despair and fear for the future. Feeling that nothingness existed just for me. Thinking drink would help. Knowing it would not.

Oasis; Champagne Supernova…New Years Eve, 1998?? Everyone there, all the usual faces, everyone in love, everyone hammered, everyone crushed together in one hot dark horse shoe shaped pub, and this comes on….and everyone is singing, everyone is swaying, and hugging, and drinking, and loving, voices getting louder and louder…singing it all the way back home, drunken wobbling in heels along pavements of Christchurch…Cigarettes and Alcohol, Slide Away, Supersonic…getting read to go out music, loud as possible, wine on the go, tall mirror, heels, silk blouses?? Friends. Writing the lyrics around the edge of the pages in my diary…thinking, knowing, these are our songs, these are about us, and this is our band, this is our time…

Soul Asylum; Runaway Train…watching MTV house/dog sitting at my mum’s friends house, eating doughnuts, feeling fat, loving music, buying the vinyl single in Our Price

Gomez; Get Myself Arrested…summer of the break up, said boy turns up at my house in blood spattered shirt, not his fault, drunken night gone wrong, someone elses blood, standing up for a pal, got lairy with police, spent night in cell, and this song is out, this song is there, couldn’t be more perfect…Tijuanna Lady…Glastonbury, not sure what year, me, all alone, ankle deep in mud, band are new, crowd is small…start playing this, and a beautiful, in fact let’s get it right the most beautiful sunset of my entire life is happening right behind the stage, and all of life is hazy and shimmering and magical…and it is just me, all alone, soaking it up, one of those moments that you will never, ever forget…

The Stone Roses; I Am The Resurrection…had to have it loud every day, at least once a day, Uni days, got me going, had to be loud, all that mad drumming..Ten Storey Love Song…said boy taping these songs for me, me writing the lyrics out in a love letter to him, circling the special ones…Finsbury Park 2013, one of the best days of my life ever…all these songs, with so much attached, I am crying, actually crying, and so are people around me, because we love them so much! And when it is over, walking down the road, everyone singing This Is The One, this is the one, this is the one! This is the one, this is the one, she’s waited for! 

Steve Mason; Fight Them Back, listening to this album repeatedly all the way to Camp Bestival and back, summer 2014, me and my oldest and youngest child, windows down, slow, hot traffic, A Lot Of Love…will always think of my kids and that festival when I hear Steve Mason…then watching him live there, ranting about politics, just brilliant…

Super Furry Animals’ The Man Don’t Give A Fuck…Glastonbury 99?? Not sure. Middle of crowd, they are singing this song, and some truck or van is being driven through the crowd, no idea who is driving it or why, but people are climbing on it and dancing on it and it is moving very slowly through us, and it’s the same refrain over and over and everyone going nuts and loving it…no he don’t give a fuck about anybody else, no he don’t give a fuck about anybody else!

The Smiths; best of album, my go to sleep at Uni album for about a year, go out, get hammered, stagger home, fall into bed, head phones on, The Smiths. Weird.

The Beach Boys; God Only Knows, walk down aisle to be married, Wouldn’t It Be Nice? Walk back up aisle, married!!

Oasis; Wonderwall….first dance

Pulp; Mis-Shapes…me and my geeky friend, our song, all the lyrics just for us, about us! Watching them at the BIC, and Jarvis lights a fag and bends down to give it to a fan…and the crowd surge forward and we are right at the front and our ribs are crushed against the barriers and the barriers move, and the security men rush out, but all is ok, people move back, sorry, sorry, and Jarvis says don’t get hurt people, I don’t want you to get hurt

so many more, every CD I own will cause a slow collapse of memories and feelings, quite bizarre when you are driving, doing the school run, and all this stuff comes back to you…oh yeah, do you remember when??

The People In My Head

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

There is one thing that dominates my writing life, and that is a sense of panic. It is not a panic about selling books, or being heard, or writers block or anything like that. It is a panic about running out of time. I am forever panicked that I will run out of time. Life is busy. There is stuff to do.  There is always something I could, or should be doing. Anyway, forget about all that, that’s another story, and this blog post is about all the stories I want to write, all the stories I need to write, but might not ever get the time to. So here goes. If I die and you knew me well, perhaps you could pick these poor souls up for me?

Working On; The Tree Of Rebels is lucky because I am working on it right now. Spewing out chapter after chapter for my girls to read and comment on. Lissie Turner is almost fourteen and lives in a perfect world, no war, no hunger, no crime, no disease. But the human race only achieved this after endless wars that saw them pushed to the brink of extinction. Question is, is this world really so perfect? A young adult novel of the dystopia genre, and a massive challenge for me. Getting great feedback from said daughters and their friends on Wattpad. They spur me on. At the moment it is a fleshless skeleton of a book. I don’t feel entirely connected to the characters yet, but this will come. This one is going to be told.

This Is The Day; The sequel to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, another lucky book because it is written and only needs one more edit, but I can’t bear to jump back into editing yet…but if I die…well, it is done.

The Mess of Us; sequel to The Mess Of Me, started this but trailed off due to massive amount of editing that other books needed. Several chapters written and I know exactly what will happen. Still love these characters. Will jump back into this when Tree of Rebels is written….

Story with no name number One; written when I was nineteen, lost most of it moving house but still have about thirty chapters. Adam and Jude. Love story. Adam, working class lad, kind hearted, put upon, idealistic, close to his scatty mother who had an affair with his uncle and tore the family apart. Older brother a bully in jail. Younger brother heading same way. Loves and adores his intelligent and complex girlfriend Jude. Lives in a bedsit in rough area. Too nice for all this. World will eat him up. Bad people will infect and ruin him. Jude. Pretty but never believed in it. Mother, up own arse, daughter never enough for her. Secret bulimic. Gets attacked and raped in an alley one night leaving Adams bed-sit. He was too drunk to walk her to bus. What happens next? Police can’t find rapist. Serial rapist. Adam wants revenge. Links up with brothers dodgy friend. Good boy turns bad? What does Jude want? I’ll finish you one day…

Story with no name number Two; written when I was 28…Three women live side by side in old terraced houses. Student Katie, innocent, sheltered, anxious, needs to be free, find herself, get used? Single mother Abbie, private, judged, noisy students on one side, nosy old woman on the other. Lizzie, elderly, alone, unless sister on end of phone…passed by, ignored, unseen now she is old. Motherhood. Loss. Aching. Loneliness. I know these characters but the story/plot has not unfolded for me yet…

Story with no name number Three; written when I was 16/17…Bill Robinson, sixteen, alcoholic, loves to sing. A rough housing estate torn apart by turf war and reprisals. Bill won’t say sorry. Single dad raising him and his younger sister. Bill, sullen, angry at the world, killing himself daily, when he sings he is someone else, free and bright and innocent. Still got this somewhere…written in biro in a notepad…The girl he loves doesn’t know he loves her, he is so shut up and cold and angry…She turns to an older man…

Kezzy Granger’s Guide To Human Nature; in and out with this one, washes over me and then goes away, sometimes so strong I have to go and write down…not sure how old she is, but she is an observer…her mum is a big character coming to me slowly…used by men, retreats inside her home and body, eating to fill a void, sends Kezzy out to live life for her…no bond? Just confusion. Won’t leave the house. Kezzy watches the world from her window. Lady across the street dead three weeks in her house and no one knew but the cat. Feels the urge to reach out to strangers. They could be anyone? Alarmed by the fact once someone passes by you never ever see them again. Could connect and link up? Stay in touch? Even if weird? …Kezzy lies. All the time. To make life interesting. To get people to stay. To make things happen. What will happen? It is coming.

Thanks. Feel better now.

It’s actually less of a panic now, to get them all out, set them up, speak of them. I can do it. One by one. Just don’t let any more of them come.