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Blog: Mel's Muse

Showing posts categorised as 'Marriage'

Misinterpreting The Specification: Two Halves Don't Make A Whole

Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.

From: Diamonds are Forever, by Ian Fleming

This cynical view of marriage, once considered exclusively a male bastion for bachelorhood, is fast gaining credence amongst post-feminist women - if certain American TV chat shows are to...

Posted at 17:53pm on 6th August 2023

The Building Blocks Of A Stable Stepfamily

AS A SCHOOLGIRL, I loved history. Not the dry dates and wars of my school books, but the vital characters that strode out of their pages straight into my imagination. People like Henry VIII of England, for instance. His marriages particularly fascinated me. How, I would ask myself, did he...

Posted at 18:22pm on 31st July 2023

Writing The Rights & Wrongs Of Life

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

Posted at 12:44pm on 31st May 2023

People Pleasers: Your Choice? Or The Expectation Of Others?

Trying to please everybody frequently results in pleasing nobody - least of all yourself. The old maxim: You can please all of the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you can't please all of the people all of the time is one,...

Posted at 15:50pm on 13th March 2023

Excerpt From My Latest Book, Picked For A Purpose - Showing We All Have A Worthwhile Part To Play

Are you wondering what your life is all about during the lockdown due to Covid 19? Then read on. My latest book, Picked for a Purpose shows that whatever the adversity, we all have value, and a worthwhile part to play. Here is a complete chapter for...

Posted at 03:40am on 6th April 2020

Creative Writing Workshop: Characteristic Conflict

In the last Creative Writing Workshop, we looked at the way in which we can go about Creating Credible Characters. Now I'm going to show you how you can bring creativity to the way you construct conflict. This is crucial when it comes to writing fiction and memoir...

Posted at 10:43am on 3rd August 2019

A Better Story: God, Sex & Human Flourishing By Glynn Harrison: A Must Read For Everyone

Before I start, I want to say that I have nothing against anyone who is genetically predisposed to the LGBT spectrum. I have personally known people in homosexual relationships, and always found them to be delightful. I also have a family member who is transgender, whom I love...

Posted at 07:41am on 17th July 2017

Break Loose (2015) Fly Free (2016)

What are your New Year’s resolutions? How likely are you to achieve them?

I read an article recently, which said that 95% of diets fail. Why? Precisely because they are diets! Counting calories or eliminating certain categories of food focuses your mind on the very thing you want to...

Posted at 04:34am on 4th January 2016

Time To Shine - A Story Of Gaslighting?

Set in Exeter, and written in the style of Jodi Picoult, this is a gentle mystery drama with a difference, solved not by a Detective but by a Counsellor, and with a psychological twist at the end.

A beautifully written and thoughtful book centred on relationships which will strike a chord...

Posted at 07:47am on 23rd November 2015

A Hint Of An American Romance Blooming In Time To Shine?

And another excerpt from my latest novel, Time to Shine, which has gained more 5* reviews since the last taster on my blog. Sorry that the photos of the sky don't quite match the description in the book.

Here, Evie Adams, with a broken marriage behind her, takes some time out...

Posted at 12:28pm on 17th July 2015

1 Comment

Time To Shine - A Taster Of My New Book

I thought you might like to read a taster of my new book - a gentle psychological mystery - and see a photograph of the setting in Exeter. The protagonist, Evie Adams, is the narrator in this passage, taken from Chapter 2

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

Posted at 04:20am on 29th June 2015

Big Book Sale: Stepfamilies - Practical Help To Build A Stable, Happy Stepfamily

How do you tell your children they are going to have a step-parent? How do you handle disagreements about access and money? How do you deal with past hurts and fears?

All families have their difficulties, but stepfamilies often face special problems. And with nearly a million of them in the...

Posted at 13:22pm on 7th February 2015

1 Comment

Creative Writing: Book Launch & Signing For Time To Shine

Not the best of photographs, but this is me telling my audience, at my Book Launch, yesterday, about my creative writing journey. My love of books began at the age of five, when my father used to read my favourite bedtime story, Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant from the leather-bound...

Posted at 14:59pm on 29th November 2014

2 Comments

Time To Shine - Another Excerpt From My New Psycological Mystery

Josh was still in his pjs, lying on his bed playing some computer game or other on his cell phone when Carl went to tell him the good news. The boy seemed strangely lethargic. Hardly surprising, Carl supposed, given the state of the room - a stinking fug of yesterday's...

Posted at 07:40am on 15th November 2014

Time To Shine - A Mystery. A Marriage Mender. And A Mary Berry Style Bake Off

First in the Evie Adams series: Page one of my new book

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

Interviews With Authors About Their Books: Continued

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

Why My Marriage Bucks The One In Four Trend For Divorce

I’m sitting in the lounge after lunch, about to resume writing my new book, when I hear Paul coming down the stairs.

“Could you let me have my bank card back, please,” I call out.

He has borrowed it to take to the Post Office, because the Sub Postmaster forgot to write my number on...

Posted at 20:05pm on 24th July 2010

The Drama Triangle & The Games People Play

I looked, a couple of days ago, at Transactional Analysis – the Drama Triangle in particular:

First as a means of conflict resolution for those experiencing problems with their personal relationships. And second – for writers and aspiring authors – as an innovative way of creating fictional characters. THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

The theory of transactional analysis...

Posted at 14:30pm on 11th January 2010

1 Comment

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Chapter 3 Part 2 - The Tug Of Two Loves

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.

BANKRUPT – IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE!

Early one winter evening, as...

Posted at 14:26pm on 9th December 2009

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Chapter 3 Part 1 - The Tug Of Two Loves

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you...

Posted at 14:45pm on 29th November 2009

1 Comment

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Chapter 2 Part 3 Lost And Found

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.

SCHISM

During the months...

Posted at 17:20pm on 25th November 2009

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Part 2:2 Lost & Found

Arguing a case against Jesus’ claims about eternal life, Megan is brought face to face with the truth that it is her pride which prevents fulfilment of her inner yearning. A second visit to a Billy Graham rally sees her accepting that even a good friend is no substitute for faith. Only a life...

Posted at 09:15am on 19th November 2009

2 Comments

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Part 2:1 Lost & Found

With marriage, babies and moving house having failed to still the inner yearning in Megan’s life, she feels sure that her new friendship with Eileen must be the answer. Especially when Eileen invites her to hear Billy Graham. Eileen has a faith in God which Megan finds enviable. Eileen knows Jesus as her Saviour...

Posted at 10:25am on 12th November 2009

2 Comments

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Part 1:3 The Inner Yearning

With two babies only a year apart in age, Meg is as lonely as ever. Will moving house be the answer? For a while it seems a possibility. But as James’ career ambitions take him away from home once more, it seems that only a new friendship might fill that inner yearning.

Catch up with...

Posted at 09:48am on 9th November 2009

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Part 1:2 The Inner Yearning

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

Demise Of A Marriage: A True Story - Part 1:1 The Inner Yearning

What follows is a true story, the real life story of a woman named Megan, who was raised in an era when to be married, to be a wife, was the pinnacle of aspiration for a woman. The expectation that you shopped, cooked, cleaned and raised children whilst your husband worked, played and waited...

Posted at 14:25pm on 2nd November 2009