I am often asked where I find my ideas. Well, ideas is quite a compliment as I would more accurately describe them as irrational thoughts carelessly transferred into text (most often in Arial as I quite like the plainness of this font) and then irresponsibly published on either paper or in the gaseous cloud we have come to call the internet. My ultimate aim is to be published on either papyrus or granite, but I am told that this idea is rather backward looking.

Anyway, I have digressed from the title of this blog post.

To cut to the quick of it, I have discovered that by some strange freak of nature and clearly a small mix up in my DNA processing, I have ended up with and extra and rather odd gland. It is located quite inconveniently in my right cheek, and tends to swell at the most embarrassing of times. Over the years I have learned to have some limited control over it. If I grit my teeth firmly shut, the gland tends to stay quiet and flaccid. But if I allow my teeth to part, my tongue immediately goes into action and titillates the gland to a lumpy, cheeky sort of lump protruding from my right jowl.

In this state it is almost impossible to speak, although guffawing is possible with some effort. With limited oral communicative ability I find that it is the best time for me to get a pen or a keyboard and start writing pronto.

After conducting a lot of research over a period of about two minutes, I discovered that I may not be the only person in the world with this extra gland affliction. (Check the accompanying picture as proof.) I am happy about this, because I really do not want to feel as though I am a singular freak of nature.

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It may be of interest for some to learn that a book can start from the smallest and silliest idea. For me, the following brief and almost non-sensical notes began the process for what has now become my latest book, Milo Moon. From memory, I wrote these notes more than ten years ago, and then found the notes again a little over a year ago.

How they transformed into what is now a finalised book is still a mystery to me. However, you never know what a flower will look like by looking at a seed.

If you have read Milo Moon, good luck in finding the connection.


Spinning disks. Colourful. Falling from the sky. Floating, yet spinning. Coming closer. Full of children. One slamming into a roller door of a suburban garage at a racetrack located in the back yard of my grandmother’s house. Children killed.

Retiring to the garden at the side of my grandmother’s house. Watching our handbags being used as sprinklers. Deciding to walk home. Upset at the tragedy. Walking miles. To the house I lived in as a child. Two doors away from my grandmother’s house.

An old friend who I had never met (yet!) was already at home watching TV. Waiting for us. I approached the door with my wife, and entered the house of my childhood. Also with my other wife, who I had never met, but knew she was going to be my wife.

Three parallel universes. In the same place and time. Created to increase the economic output of Earth, as it was not meeting galactic quotas. Developed and implemented by the Central Galactic Economic Advisory Committee to accelerate the technological and economic output of Earth, so it could join the Western Orion economic zone, 7 million years ahead of schedule.

Life forces were in limited supply. Stories of souls by monks and priests were not far from the truth, but were used to explain and pacify ‘crossovers’. Heaven was used to explain re-bodying of life forces. Three parallel universes of Earth made better use of life forces as bodies were easy to produce but life forces were governed by a strict galactic quota.

Earth humans were way behind the rest of the universe. Third world like. The oligarchy were in charge of the plan. A ‘get rich quick scheme’ with many tax incentives.

Three way division of life forces had drawbacks. Only one third of each personality could be used in each universe. So each individual was incomplete. Hence no one was completely balanced as elsewhere in the universe. Leading to a breakdown in society values and behaviour. Needing new strictures and supervision. Police, military, government, churches. To control the inevitable lack of discipline one third of a human psyche could attain. There was no need for these controls in a single universe. It was hoped that three universes could be merged back into one in three or four million years once economic performance and technological evolution had been attained.

Dreams were crossover points. Ones that were impossible to eliminate because of the strength of a single life force. But were explained away as just dreaming. Occasionally a life force would wander too far from this dream state and realise the reality of the situation. In a three way split state, all dreams, fantasies, odd thoughts and déjà vu feelings were just consequences of the reality. Simple crossovers. The results of not being able to completely split a life force into three.

I was being briefed by Nimrod Kwic on a small hill overlooking Jerusalem. Why here? And why me? And why now?

Like him, I was a rare revert. The merging of my three split forces had been gaining pace in recent years. This was monitored by the authorities and any such occurrences were sent here. And where is here?

The fourth dimension. A holding reality. Where life forces exist on hold until the eventual merging back of the three spilt universes (Earths). Only a few million years to wait. But we had no actual reality. No bodies. We are complete and balanced, as there is no such thing as an imperfect life force. But because life forces are in limited supply, we are not to be wasted. Just kept on ice per se.


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There is always a feeling of let down after the completion of a major project. One is so busy and involved for so long that when the time finally arrives to let go, a void develops very quickly and the search is on for a replacement. As my latest book is now out of my hands and is being set free to fend for itself, I am starting my hunt for a new challenge.

While a number of choices have crossed my mind including macramé, knitting, body building, parachuting, molecular cooking, amateur brain surgery and learning to play the oboe have crossed my mind, none of these have really grabbed my imagination. They all seem rather fleeting.

I suppose another book or a new compendium of original music would be the sensible way to go, but I have a feeling of been there, done that about these. There was a period last century when I was pretty handy with canvas, brushes and oils, so maybe I should consider destroying the second bedroom and turn it into a studio come grotto and let my mind and paint splatter run free Pollock style.

Breaking a bit of crockery recently gave me an idea that pottery and ceramics might also be a viable and practical alternative. It’s also a great way to destroy a second bedroom as well.

Then again, maybe this is just the time to enjoy procrastination and wait for a creative bus to just lumber along when it’s good and ready.

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I get asked all the time. Well no, not all the time, but sometimes, or at least once I recall anyway, being asked how I manage to keep a daily blog going. Now as you can imagine, coming up with pithy, relevant, interesting and entertaining words every day can be a bit of a slog. It also does serious damage to my coffee and cigarette budget, so occasionally it’s worth speeding up the process. How do I do that I hear you ask?


Here they are then.





10 Ways To Zip A Blog Post In Less Than 60 Seconds.

1. Grab any video from YouTube. Doesn’t matter which one really as no one is going to watch it anyway.
2. Post some family snaps. If you have iPhoto it should take less than 30 seconds. Try and use baby or puppy dog photos to attract attention.
3. Copy a really old poem or three. Really, really old so you don’t get into copyright problems.
4. Post some of your witty Twitter comments. (You can even get a widget to do this automatically for you.) So cool.
5. Search your hard drive for recipes. There’s always a couple hiding away. (Vegetarian preferably so you have less chance of offending anyone at all.)
6. Just put the word ‘Apple’ in your title and simply ‘iPad’ in your post and watch the search engines listing your blog in microseconds.
7. Re-publish a previous post. (Make sure it’s at least 3 months old as some of your readers may have good memory.)
8. Post a song! Well, be careful here as audio tracks could get you into copyright problems and anyway, they look boring. So go to rule 1 and get a YouTube video of your favourite song.
9. Keep junk email. Make use of the pests by copying some half interesting bit of text. (Perfectly safe as I don’t think spammers would copyright their crap?)
10. Post an out of office message. (My favourite.)

So there you have it. Happy blogging!

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While very few will become as famous or as well known as Stephen King, Dan Brown or JK Rowlings, that does not stop of from us writing. I would imagine there are millions of us who write. Well at least more than just a few emails or a dear diary entry every day.

My definition of a writer is someone who just can’t help themselves and has to record something in words every day. Whether it be part of a large project such as a novel or non-fiction work, or perhaps a regular blog or article writing. The other definition would have to be that you do not earn a fixed or regular income from your passion. Perhaps you may be lucky and sell some of your books, but at the end of the day it is a labour of love.

So why do we do it? For me it is quite simple I suppose. I write primarily for my own enjoyment and personal expression. Not being guided by anyone else, I write as I want, in a style I like or feel like experimenting with and am free to choose my subject matter. Another reason would have to be that I have aways wanted to be an artist, but my paintings and drawings were crap, so I had to find another outlet.

Do I write only for my myself? No, not at all. I certainly want people to read what I write, but I am not driven by having to please a certain market segment. I write to entertain, inform, provoke and hopefully express an idea worthy of more than two seconds of superficial thought. But I don’t write with an initial sense of wanting to please or pander to a certain reader group. Read here vampires for instance. Just can’t do it.

So in the end, my writing is the same as so many others. A passion and ingrained daily habit. There remains of the course the extremely minimal chance of being ‘discovered’ (should I have written exploited instead?), and becoming an ‘overnight success’ after thirty years of hard work. But that really is in the realms of winning the lottery, therefore on we plod. Pen (keyboard) and passion hand in hand.

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I was toying with a silly idea a few weeks ago, and started clacking away on my keyboard. At first I thought it might be a fun 500 word blog, or a start on a little essay to store away and forget.

However, for some silly reason, I looked at it, read it, and then decided to re-write it in the third person. Don’t even bother to ask why I did that. I do silly things like that very often. I even fell over a silly name to give my character. So after -re-writhing it, I started to add, play and develop more very silly ideas.

Now, some weeks later it has developed into a work in progress novel. No planning. No carefully crafted synopsis. No research. Nothing. Just vomiting words out through my fingers and seeing where it takes me. At a couple of junctures, I have had to stop and think. What the hell happens now? But after a beer or dinner or a good night’s sleep, something pops into my head, and away I go again.

I have no idea where this story is going to take me. At the stage I am at, I don’t even know if I am ten percent or eighty percent through the story. As for an ending? Well, that is still a mystery. I have no idea whatsoever of how it will end.

Should it happen that I do find an ending, it may well eventuate into a new novel. I’ll keep you posted.

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One of the first hackneyed expressions I learned in business was, ‘Don’t Feed With The Fish.’ As simple as it may sound, it took me a long time not only to understand the full meaning of the quote, but longer to know how to implement it.

I should rephrase that last phrase. It took me an extremely long time to be courageous enough to even try to implement it. To move away from what everyone else was buying, selling, recommending and doing took fortitude. It’s much easier to follow, go with the flow and amortise your failure along with everyone else who failed in the crowded grab for a sure fire winner. That same sure winner that everyone knew about.

The pity is that it has taken me too many years to fully appreciate the wisdom behind this truism. Not only to dare to be different, but also to have enough self confidence in believing that I can find enough to eat away from the school has taken self belief if not just pure pig headedness. My motivation has been independence.

It is a flaw in my personality perhaps, but I hate being just one of the crowd. I much prefer to be the loner on the out skirts of society. The lone wolf, the radical, the one who chose to be different. Call me normal and one of the crowd and I’m likely to projectile vomit.

Be careful however. If you start to believe too passionately, you tend to ostracise yourself and believe that being a loner is somehow spiritually uplifting and necessary for fulfilling a life with purpose, and then you go hungry. As with anything, balance is the key.

My preferred truism now is ‘Dare to Be Different.’ Same philosophy, but slightly easier to implement, and also to live by. Look at what others do and analyse how you may adapt, alter or modify their ideas to suit your own specific needs and individual abilities. Don’t rush to simply copy. I love stealing ideas, but then changing them to my own needs and importantly, my capabilities. Once I have done this, no one recognises the original idea that I so eagerly stole.

As Pablo Picasso famously said: Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

But every now and again, I have an original idea and then I get as excited as hell.

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I woke up suddenly from a dream last night and wondered, yet again, about how illogical dreams seem to be when you awake, but so very logical when you are in the middle of one. I say yet again, because this thought has so often run through my mind. This morning I started to think about dream logic again and suddenly remembered taking some notes a long time ago.

After searching high and low, I found the rough notes I had made. I had woken suddenly from a dream one night and had tried to note down as much as I could remember. Still half asleep mind you. With a little, but not too much editing, I have pieced the notes together to try and recreate the dream for you.

The Threesomes Dream

Spinning disks. Colourful. Falling from the sky. Floating, yet spinning. Coming closer. Full of children. One slamming into a roller door of a suburban garage at a racetrack located in the back yard of my grandmother’s house. Children killed.

Retiring to the garden at the side of my grandmother’s house. Watching our handbags being used as sprinklers. Deciding to walk home. Upset at the tragedy. Walking miles. To the house I lived in as a child. Two doors away from my grandmother’s house.

An old friend who I had never met (yet!) was already at home watching TV. Waiting for us. I approached the door with my wife, and entered the house of my childhood. Also with my other wife, who I had never met, but knew she was going to be my wife.

Three parallel universes. In the same place and time. Created to increase the economic output of Earth, as it was not meeting galactic quotas. Developed and implemented by the Central Galactic Economic Advisory Committee to accelerate the technological and economic output of Earth, so it could join the Western Orion economic zone, 7 million years ahead of schedule.

Life forces were in limited supply. Stories of souls by monks and priests were not far from the truth, but were used to explain and pacify ‘crossovers’. Heaven was used to explain re-bodying of life forces. Three parallel universes of Earth made better use of life forces as bodies were easy to produce but life forces were governed by a strict galactic quota.

Earth humans were way behind the rest of the universe. Third world like. The oligarchy were in charge of the plan. A ‘get rich quick scheme’ with many tax incentives.

Three way division of life forces had drawbacks. Only one third of each personality could be used in each universe. So each individual was incomplete. Hence no one was completely balanced as elsewhere in the universe. Leading to a breakdown in society values and behaviour. Needing new strictures and supervision. Police, military, government, churches. To control the inevitable lack of discipline one third of a human psyche could attain. There was no need for these controls in a single universe. It was hoped that three universes could be merged back into one in three or four million years once economic performance and technological evolution had been attained.

Dreams were crossover points. Ones that were impossible to eliminate because of the strength of a single life force. But were explained away as just dreaming. Occasionally a life force would wander too far from this dream state and realise the reality of the situation. In a three way split state, all dreams, fantasies, odd thoughts and déjà vu feelings were just consequences of the reality. Simple crossovers. The results of not being able to completely split a life force into three.

I was being briefed by Nimrod Kwic on a small hill overlooking Jerusalem. Why here? And why me? And why now?

Like him, I was a rare revert. The merging of my three split forces had been gaining pace in recent years. This was monitored by the authorities and any such occurrences were sent here. And where is here?

The fourth dimension. A holding reality. Where life forces exist on hold until the eventual merging back of the three spilt universes (Earths). Only a few million years to wait. But we had no actual reality. No bodies. We are complete and balanced, as there is no such thing as an imperfect life force. But because life forces are in limited supply, we are not to be wasted. Just kept on ice per say.

Now, all of that seems perfectly logical, doesn’t it?

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The very first word that is used with a degree of dexterity by any young child is the word no. In any language, the usefulness of this one small word is so obvious to a young mind. So useful in fact, that the necessity to use the affirmative is usually a few more years in the making, and even then is used in extreme moderation.

Our propensity to be initially negative to any give idea, offer, situation, plan or change seems to be a basic human trait. In some cultures it is a form of politeness to say no to even the most trivial offers of kindness or generosity. So what is it about negativity that is so cool?

Personally, I just love negativity in all forms. It has the ability to delve deeper into a topic and extract reasoning and justification that agreement cannot hope to achieve. By arguing the exact opposite, you place the onus of responsibility on the opposing view to prove its point by reasoning and example. In my case, I love to write from a negative viewpoint as it provides me with the opportunity to use thousands of words to justify myself to myself.

Another beautiful aspect of the negative is its ability to provoke. This can simply be a point of view that is opposite to the mainstream view. For example, if I was to express the view that George W. Bush was a really cool guy because he had a neat colouring book and yo-yo collection and that he was just a bit misunderstood when he invaded Iraq, I am sure I would provoke a lively response.

The double negative to me is another wonderful way to express negativity. It is a frowned upon grammatical no-no, but to me it is merely double the fun. I don’t know nobody who don’t like them. I haven’t heard of no place that isn’t hot no more since we got global warming is view I wholeheartedly agree with. But then again, I haven’t done nothing to help the cause neither. While on the subject of double negatives, it worth noting that without them we wouldn’t have no good blues music at all.

The one dilemma I have with my passion for negativity is that if the laws of physics apply, and opposites naturally attract, does this make me a positive person? This notion would cut down my argument in an instant. Would this mean that the young child using negativity with sublime dexterity was actually displaying absolutely positive tendencies? Does this undermine my want to be a positively negative individual?

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t really matter because I am Swiss. So therefore, by the fact of being a very proud Swiss citizen, I must remain utterly, completely and totally neutral.

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