Blog: Mel's Muse

Vandalism! Is it fun? Well, it would appear to be so.

Strolling through the parks, on our usual daily walk, I pointed out to my husband a young tree that had been damaged.

'Could that have been caused by the strong winds we've had recently?' I asked, doubtfully.

We then saw two more....

We hear, repeatedly, about the number of young people suffering from mental health issues, but little about any means of reparation. This, despite being told that 'Your mental health is just as important as your physical health'. One of the causes, however, is listed as being 'childhood abuse, trauma,...

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...

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...

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...

I recently wrote a post on the subject of wearing a 'mask' to convince others that we're feeling fine when, in fact, we are not - Facing Up To The Face Beneath The Mask. And I wonder, is the 'new normality' brought on by Covid 19 having a good...

With nearly 40,000 deaths due to Coronavirus in past years, and more to come with the junior doctors' and nurses' strikes, there must be hundreds of thousands of friends and family having to live with the reality of loss. You may have been through Coping With The Initial Shock, learned,...

In these times of Coronavirus, many of us are suffering the death of a loved one. I wrote last time about Looking After Yourself following bereavement, and pointed out - from my own experience - the trauma of having to break the news of that loss to another family member....

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows." Socrates

On this VE day, when we commemorate the courage of those who gave their lives in WW2 so that...

"Why am I getting angry at a tree?"

A question definitely worthy of consideration, I decided, as I stared out of my window for the third or fourth time that week.

It was a huge tree, surrounded by apartments, all in facing and it was Springtime.

The tree was supposed...

Oh, yes! BAFTA winning actress, Jessica Hynes, who starred in the BBC Comedy Drama W1A, with Hugh Bonneville, is campaigning for drama to be given greater prominence in schools. This, she believes, can boost mental health and wellbeing in young people. I'm convinced that she is right....

'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...

DON'T CHASE THE WORLD

Why do I feel such a waste of space?

Why is life always such a race -

To emulate, or, better yet

To surpass the success with which others have met?

Is this the world in which I live?

Is this the future I wish to give

To those who follow on...

THE TRAUMA FOR THOSE LEFT BEHIND

I spent the morning speaking with a male friend, of longstanding, whose mother took her own life when he was in his mid-teens. Coincidence? I had no idea that today, Monday 10th September, 2018 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Nor that my...

SEEDS SOWN

Sometimes people of faith speak of coincidence as being God-incidents. So while a coincidence might be described as random - an accident, chance, luck, fluke, or twist of fate - a God-incident is thought to be an unexpected occurrence in which God is perceived to have had an...

ME AND DADDY, DADDY AND ME

I suppose it was the letters that were the trigger - first for my depression, then for my understanding. Small blue folded airmails that bore my mother's name on them, plus whatever address happened to be relevant at the time. She had kept...

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...

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...

INTRODUCTION TO GUEST BLOG BY LUCY CRIPPS

My novel, A Painful Post Mortem, has been selling now for sometime, and has raised a substantial sum of money for the two charities I chose to support with the proceeds. This month, in addition to the print edition, I decided to make it available as an e-book....

I came across an article, recently, which stated that creative writing courses for aspiring authors are a ‘racket’ - and I wondered what you think?

IS THIS THE TRUTH ABOUT CREATIVE WRITING COURSES?

The author of the post pointed out that among hundreds of writing tips offered by dozens of authors, not one suggested taking a...

What I’m about to tell you will revolutionise the way you perceive your personal relationships. It will also give you immense insight when it comes to creative writing and publishing a book and, in particular, when you’re creating fictional characters. So, whether you are attempting to make sense of your own relationships, or looking for...

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...

I wrote, last week, about public speaking as being an act of investing in people, and suggested that it had a three dimensional nature: I give; I receive; I am filled. Having put in the effort to find out something about your audience, assembled your public speaking ideas and arranged them into a coherent...

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...

See, also, my post titled: Does Glamorising Abusive Sexual Relationships Adversely Influence Society? written in response to a recent BBC discussion about the merits (or otherwise) of a book like 50 Shades of Grey.

What do you learn about life, characterisation, plot or theme from what you read, or watch on...

Last week I began a series of blogs which are intended to be more than simply a swift read by an individual. So if you are part of a couple, read on. My aim, today, is to show you several ways of improving communication between you. And, in the coming weeks, to see how...

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, if we go out for a meal, I find myself people watching. It’s fascinating! There’s the middle-aged couple sitting at the table over by the wall who have said nothing to one another since they sat down and who, now that they’re tucking into their first course, make...

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....

This is the first Post on my shiny new laptop. As I wrote, yesterday on my Twitter wall (I think that’s the correct jargon) setting up a new computer is a nightmare of mistakes, misunderstandings and misapprehension. Hence the lack of time to add anything to my blog for a few days.

So I thought, today,...

Can A Step Parent Ever Replace A Real Parent? This was the topic under debate on the Richard Bacon radio show on BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday evening. As the author of a book titled Stepfamilies, I had been invited to participate to put the positive side of the case, whilst Philip Parkin, General...

I’ve written, previously, about people pleasers and how we can go about managing conflicting priorities in specific situations. We talked about our need to expect respect, and how to promote dignity. Today I want to write about the art of assertiveness as a life style choice.

TAKING ON OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS

A number of years ago,...

Where, in birth order, do you come among your siblings? Are you the youngest child in the family? Do you see yourself as different to your brothers and sisters? Are you aware of a gulf between them and you?

Having previously written about eldest child syndrome and middle child complex, today I’m going to begin...

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,...

Revised: NEW YEAR'S EVE, 31st December, 2009 Much has changed since I first wrote this article, so it seemed to me that it deserved to be revised, amended and added to, with quotes, suggestions and advice. I hope, that in following some of the ideas, you might find yourself stumbling on happiness, without, perhaps, ever...