Blog: Mel's Muse

Have you ever felt useless? Unheard? A waste of space? As if nothing you do has any meaning or purpose? Ever thought you didn’t fit in? In your family? At school? At work? Or that everyone else was more successful? While...

Posted at 12:33pm on 8th November 2023

Are you as fed up with the negative concept of society as I am? Every day we’re bombarded with news about failing governments, education, health and housing services, marriages, families and kids – and that’s without all the heartbreak of drug and alcohol abuse, and 3 million children starving to...

Posted at 12:44pm on 31st May 2023

Who inspired you to be who you are? And how did that come about? Being a bestselling author, this is a question I've often been asked. But whether or not you're a writer, secretary, nurse, or whatever, this is a question, and answer, that could apply to any and all.

Think...

Posted at 12:34pm on 27th April 2023

IS RAIN A PAIN? OR IS RAIN A GAIN?

In my last post I asked What Were The Seeds Sown In Your life? This was in respect of the gifts and purpose for which you are known, As we have been told in John 15:16 I chose you and appointed...

Posted at 16:09pm on 5th August 2022

The questions below are those I raised for the Book Club I lead. Click here for the discussion we had subsequently. Quotes from the book are in bold italics.

Posted at 11:28am on 14th July 2020

2 Comments

LOSS & BEREAVEMENT

I was reminded by my Facebook memories this week that it is now ten years ago since I was invited to speak on an American Radio Station about the death of my daughter. I wept. Because no matter how long ago the event, this is something...

Posted at 04:55am on 5th May 2020

We were nearly a full-house when my Book Club met, last night, to discuss our latest read, Maggie O'Farrell's memoirs, I AM I AM I AM: Seventeen Brushes With Death. We all thought it beautifully written, though there were those who found the theme somewhat negative, and others who...

Posted at 05:46am on 10th January 2020

As a writer, and author of books, do you ever feel - as I have done - that when it comes to promoting your product, you simply don't have it in you? The prospect of booking speaking engagements is beyond you. The possibility of standing before an audience...

Posted at 08:02am on 6th November 2019

Talk about being a lousy leader!

'We might find Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller a lighter summer read, rather than the one I first suggested,' I wrote to my Book Club.

That email was closely followed by another saying, 'Oh, no! Perhaps not. Some of the reviews say it is...

Posted at 09:25am on 20th September 2019

Quotes from the book are in italics.

Never, before, have I made so many highlights in a book! As my Book Club members said when we met yesterday evening, this was certainly a narrative that opened up debate, on a subject not often discussed. With so much material to...

Posted at 10:20am on 13th July 2019

2 Comments

In the Introduction of this Creative Writing Workshop, I asked the question, Are You On the Right Track? There was nothing flippant about this. Before you begin to write your book, there are questions to be asked. And answered!

The content of this, and future tutorials, will...

Posted at 08:38am on 30th March 2019

I love Sheridan's lyrical style of writing - so inviting, so personal, so picturesque. Right from the first page, I found myself enthralled, as if I were meeting someone whom I knew, instantly, was going to become a friend. Likewise, when grappling with sorrow...

Posted at 07:43am on 23rd March 2019

'Making clean-eating a dirty word gets my vote', so says Bryony Gordon in The Daily Telegraph. Quoting the Duchess of Cornwall, who was speaking at a reception for the Royal Osteoporosis Society, she warned young women against 'fad diets' which have the potential of making them ill. Lack...

Posted at 08:10am on 26th February 2019

I lay on a trolley in A and E, my breathing coming in rapid gasps. My oxygen sats were too low and the pain clamped me in a vice grip, leaving me crying out. 'It's a pneumococcal infection in both lungs,' the consultant said, and admitted me for intensive...

Posted at 01:58am on 9th November 2018

2 Comments

Who are you? Whose shoes do you walk in? Is this a question you've ever ask? No. I don't mean do you ask it of other people. That's not British! Downright rude, in fact. So - who are you? Is this something...

Posted at 04:27am on 13th July 2018

2 Comments

Words, words, words. Too many of them thought some members of my Book Club. But words, and their critical importance for good and evil - particularly when used by Adolph Hitler in the lead up to World War II - were the theme of The Book Thief by...

Posted at 07:57am on 20th March 2018

One of the things my Book Club loved about this book, was the way humour was used to hammer home the truths we all need to know. With the enormous pressure upon her, newly elected Archbishop Vicky is all too aware of how little time...

Posted at 04:03am on 12th January 2018

With some members of our Readers' Group being Street Pastors and School Pastors, and all of us attending churches involved in outreach, the issue of whether church is a building or a people was one that resonated. Faced with...

Posted at 07:42am on 12th November 2017

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker was, we all agreed, the best book we'd ever read. A beautifully and evocatively written love story, it was woven throughout with profundity and truisms: a tapestry of an unknown lifestyle, embroidered with recognisable threads.

Set in Burma, the story is...

Posted at 04:27am on 11th May 2017

5 Comments

I suppose I could say it was an attitude of quid pro quo that prompted me to suggest Remember Me? by Lesley Pearse as my choice for Book Club this month. After all, the honour of having a multi-million-selling author attend the book launch for my novel, Chosen? is...

Posted at 07:53am on 12th January 2017

In my last blog post, So you're Planning a Book Launch. Do you Know What You're Doing? we considered some of the forward planning that's necessary. Now, with mine so recently behind me, I'll continue to share my experiences. We've looked at Venue, Timing, and Ease of...

Posted at 03:25am on 2nd July 2016

In my last blog post, What Makes A Writer Write,  I mentioned the World Book Night event at Stoke Lodge, in Devon.  Invited to speak, briefly, to an audience of forty-plus about my own writing career, I began by saying that someone had asked me, ‘What is an elevator pitch?’ ...

Posted at 01:48am on 3rd May 2016

I suggested we read The Jazz Files by Fiona Veitch Smith for our January meeting of the book club I lead, partly because I’d seen the film, Sufragette, starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and greatly enjoyed it.  Fiona’s book, the first in the Poppy Denby investigates series, is...

Posted at 01:45am on 26th January 2016

We meet every other month and, midst this morning's mince pies and chocolate cake, we spent the first few minutes sharing news.
 
David Scott is to be congratulated for having his memoir, Death by a Thousand Clots reviewed in Devon Life, second only to Michael Morpurgo’s latest book.

Roger Steer,...

Posted at 11:11am on 25th November 2015

A good deal of laughter accompanied our Readers’ Group discussion last week.  The book we had been reading, which I had suggested some two months earlier, was titled Naturally Supernatural, and was written by Wendy Mann.  With a new senior minister joining us, in the meantime, we felt sure -...

Posted at 06:19am on 18th November 2015

Arriving for work early one morning soon after my...

Posted at 04:20am on 29th June 2015

I came across this old post, Modern Morality: What is its Place in Contemporary Fiction, by chance and wondered if it had any relevance to the recent discussion on BBC Newsnight about the influence that the book, 50 Shades of Grey, might have in 'normalising' abusive sexual relationships.  While Friedman's...

Posted at 04:26am on 11th February 2015

Have you ever thought, as a reader, about what attracts you to certain books, or particular authors?  What makes you go for one rather than another?  Is it the book cover?  The price of the product?  The publisher’s marketing ploy?  The author’s nationality?

Somehow, I doubt it.  Almost certainly, it will...

Posted at 02:03am on 21st November 2014

Sometimes, when you're counselling a client and she lobs a direct question at you, protocol requires that you bounce it back to her. A case in point is my two-o'clock this Friday afternoon, a mother of three, early-forties, by the...

Posted at 23:25pm on 9th November 2014

8 Comments

Having prayed for absent book club members, particularly one, who is back in hospital on a second course of chemo, we started the evening with a general overview of Jeff Lucas’ book, Faith in the Fog. Without exception the group professed to having enjoyed it, though one person found his self-deprecation...

Posted at 09:36am on 28th June 2014

 FRIENDSHIP: One of the joys of a good book club has to be in the friendship that develops between members, and the freedom that this gives them to speak their minds.  And so it was that our discussion, yesterday evening, spiralled off in all directions, covering politics, faith v...

Posted at 10:01am on 29th April 2014

Although I don’t know her personally, Sheila Skillman is one of my Facebook friends. With what many of us thought considerable bravery, she recently asked for advice from other authors, concerning the lack of sales for her book. I hope she doesn’t feel she received more than she’d bargained for.

Posted at 06:35am on 20th May 2012

8 Comments

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to post the second part of this article: blame my recent appointment as Chairman of ACW - a national association for writers.  As I said in the first part of Interviews With Authors About Their Books,  a reader of my blog asked...

Posted at 08:59am on 31st March 2012

1 Comment

Showing of Love, a book written by Julian of Norwich in the 15th Century, is not an easy read! OK. I admit it. Mea culpa. With much laughter, when nine of us met last week for Book Club, I was roundly - but affectionately - condemned...

Posted at 15:46pm on 6th December 2011

At times profound, at others humorous, the novel, Life of Pi, is the story of an Indian boy who, because he is named after a French swimming pool (Piscine) and doesn't like the nicknames which result, shortens his name to the irrational mathematical number Pi - 3.14...  Pi...

Posted at 16:06pm on 14th October 2011

Are you in favour of assisted dying?  Would you like British law to be amended to allow euthanasia?  Or is the risk of abuse to the elderly, disabled and infirm too great a concern?

Most of my real-time Book Club members admitted, when we met on 28th July, 2011, that they'd...

Posted at 11:00am on 3rd August 2011

Are you an established writer or aspiring author who is also a Christian?  Is there a novel you want to write (or have written) for which you are unable to find a publisher?  Do you enjoy reading mainstream fiction but find that Christian fiction books leave you cold?  How does...

Posted at 15:50pm on 24th June 2011

No matter how long you've been an author, nor how many books you've written and had published, it is always very humbling to receive a positive review of your work from someone who is a stranger to you.  The process of creative writing opens you up in a manner which...

Posted at 22:32pm on 4th April 2011

Everybody's normal till you get to know them at Daves house. This was...

Posted at 18:05pm on 13th December 2010

If you’re selling a product or service, can you conduct your business solely through social media? More to the point, if you’re an author, like me, can you sell books using only the internet? And if you replace the traditional means of marketing your books with internet marketing, are you in danger of throwing the...

Posted at 15:47pm on 3rd May 2010

Hi! I’m really excited about this new Online Book Club, which is starting today, and hope that you will be, too. The beauty of being a member of a readers’ group is that it encourages you to read books you might not, otherwise, have picked up.

But reading can be a solitary pursuit. Half...

Posted at 12:30pm on 21st January 2010

Catch up with the story so far in Part 1:1 The Inner Yearning. It will be posted, in parts, two or three times a week. For a free prompt to follow the story to its conclusion click the Subscribe button on the right.

Early one winter evening, as...

Posted at 14:26pm on 9th December 2009

Catch up with the story so far in Part 1:1 The Inner Yearning. It will be posted, in parts, two or three times a week, with a link from one to the other. For a free prompt to follow the story to its conclusion click the Subscribe button on the right.

During the months...

Posted at 17:20pm on 25th November 2009

"Publishing takes men more seriously than women; female writing is regarded as second tier,” Lionel Shriver says in a Daily Telegraph article on sexism in the world of books.

Ms Shriver, born Margaret Ann Shriver, is an American journalist, and author of the acclaimed novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin. Having disliked her female...

Posted at 11:40am on 13th November 2009

I wrote, last week, about the sad story of Kate Walsh who, at the tender age of sixteen, became a heroin addict and died, alone in a dirty squat. Her parents had asked, repeatedly, for help from various authorities and received none. They had, as the Coroner described it at Kate’s Inquest, fallen...

Posted at 12:27pm on 10th November 2009

Less than a year into Megan’s marriage to James, with her baby born and motherhood now a reality, the cracks which were apparent from the outset, are beginning to widen. As the swinging sixties begin to make themselves felt, the over-riding question is: can Megan find, in James, the love she craves?

Catch up with...

Posted at 00:00am on 4th November 2009

Why do writers exist? What is it about the human race that makes us want to be authors and readers? Tellers of tales, serialisers of stories, weavers of dreams: what compels us? Scriptwriters, dramatists, actors, theatre-goers, radio broadcasters and listeners? Why? What inner compulsion urges us on – those of us who share our inner...

Posted at 01:00am on 23rd October 2009

Newspaper reports on the life and death of Fiona Pilkington and her disabled daughter make harrowing reading. Victims of abuse and anti-social behaviour by local youths, the lives of both were made a misery for years. However, despite making no fewer than thirty-three complaints to the police, her plight, and that of her daughter, was...

Posted at 17:41pm on 30th September 2009

4 Comments

The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, has electrified society for over half a century as the means of feeling valued and attaining success in life. Now, it appears, to have been unplugged – or at least to have suffered power failure and fizzled out! Despite an epidemic of positive thinking for the last...

Posted at 09:53am on 22nd July 2009

3 Comments

Following is an abridged and revised excerpt from Mel’s book Stepfamilies, which the BBC recently asked her to debate on the Richard Bacon show. In previous posts, the inference has been that unless the two people embarking on a second (or subsequent) marriage get it right, there is little chance of tackling other blended family...

Posted at 15:02pm on 22nd May 2009

2 Comments

Last week, in my Friday series on Families & Parenting, which is currently focused on stepfamilies, I pointed out that if American author Charles Swindoll equated marriage to a house, then remarriage could be said to be like a conversion. I then went on to show why love, in terms of romance, is not...

Posted at 07:45am on 15th May 2009

This was one of the issues raised when twenty-one of us met on Thursday to share our impressions of William Young's debut novel. Many of us found ourselves thinking of Madeleine McCann, the four year old who disappeared in Portugal whilst holidaying with her parents...

Posted at 22:50pm on 25th April 2009

The rev rave on the cliff top was no longer a happy blare of horns and engines but had taken on an entirely different ambience, bordering on what appeared to be mass hysteria. From where he stood, in the corner of the car park,...

Posted at 18:01pm on 10th April 2009

3 Comments

I wrote a few weeks ago about Friedman’s Fables, which my daughter gave me for my birthday. The book is a collection of short stories – very short at times – each of which highlights a specific pattern of human behaviour. Because of events in my family, one of the stories particularly caught my...

Posted at 16:21pm on 15th March 2009

2 Comments

I want to consider, today, something which is relevant to human life, in general; to personal development; and to all the relationships which touch on our lives. It’s an issue, however, which is of particular relevance to writers – whether you’re a novelist, an author of self-help books, a journalist, a biographer, or a blogger.

Take...

Posted at 16:02pm on 23rd February 2009

What do you do if you're an aspiring author but can't get your novel accepted by an agent or publisher?  You've been to every creative writing course available, read everything you can lay your hands on about writing and publishing a...

Posted at 17:40pm on 8th February 2009

2 Comments

I hope you’ll forgive me! I’m afraid I’m going to take the easy way out today and simply upload part of a chapter from my Stepfamilies book, on the topic of building effective relationships with somebody else’s children. It’s been a difficult week; as I tweeted only today: my mother has fallen and broken her pelvis....

Posted at 15:37pm on 24th January 2009

2 Comments

I received a piece of work, recently, with a request to look it over and comment on it. It has prompted me to write on the subject of Voice, and the merits (or otherwise) of how it is used. There’s a little bit of grammar instruction necessary here, but I will illustrate my point afterwards...

Posted at 14:42pm on 21st January 2009

I began this study on the seven plot lines that are said to be the basis of all stories, by examining what is meant by the rags to riches story, and that of overcoming the monster. Today I'm going to look at what it means to write about the quest.

Posted at 11:30am on 16th December 2008

Christmas – traditionally the time of good cheer – is also, for many, a time of great sadness. Somehow, the fact that everyone is out to enjoy themselves seems to concentrate the mind when it comes to the tragedies of life. A train derailment or plane crash in the weeks leading up to the...

Posted at 14:01pm on 9th December 2008

Reviews of your book are something a writer looks upon with a sort of love-hate relationship. In a sense they’re the life-blood of a book: a good one serves the same purpose as a shot of adrenaline in the arm, or a stiff G&T, a poor one may do what a dose of flu...

Posted at 00:00am on 27th October 2008

According to the Wikipedia website, one of the first people to suggest that birth order has an effect on personality was an Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler. A contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, he argued that the way in which each of us tackles the major aspects of life – friendship, love and work...

Posted at 01:00am on 17th October 2008

Do you ever feel that there are times in your life when your body is trying to convince you that it’s closer to lights out than it is to reveille? You don’t, actually, have to be in your dotage to feel like this. Neither do the...

Posted at 11:00am on 13th October 2008

It’s a strange paradox that at a time when so many people profess not to believe in God, religion appears to be a subject enjoyed by the masses in almost all forms of multi-media. To mention but a few examples, we’ve had the stage-shows Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell; the book The God...

Posted at 19:12pm on 29th September 2008

6 Comments

Have you ever thought what it would be like if you were unable to read or understand a word of this blog? Doubtless you would be feeling the same shame and isolation as the people I wrote about in my post: Reading Between the...

Posted at 18:11pm on 8th September 2008

1 Comment

Did anybody watch the UK’s Channel 4’s Can’t Read, Can’t Write series? It focused on people from different backgrounds and ages: the young mother who was unable to help with her children’s homework, the labourer who longed to improve his job prospects,...

Posted at 14:41pm on 15th August 2008

A fortnight ago I wrote that legislation against the use of certain words (like Chav) is ludicrous and went on to quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. “It’s not the word that’s at fault,” I said. “What’s...

Posted at 09:07am on 4th August 2008

Dry mouth and sinking stomach.

‘Without wishing to cast aspersions on your profession,’ I said to the photographer, ‘I should tell you that as far as I’m concerned, having my photograph taken is akin to having teeth pulled.’

Actually, I’ve never had teeth pulled – but the sensations I experienced as my sitting room was invaded...

Posted at 10:15am on 29th July 2008

It must be the most expensive single purchase I’ve ever made on my own. Oh, no! There was the house, of course. I bought that at auction, whilst heavily pregnant, and exceeded my husband’s upper limit by several thousand. I could only plead temporary insanity and excessive competitiveness due to hormones. My other half and...

Posted at 09:46am on 10th July 2008

2 Comments