In memory of James Douglas Malcom; My first love, My first hero, My Daddy!

My beautiful Daddy left us this month, there is a black hole in my life knowing I will never get to speak to or hug him again. So my return to blogging is going to be a tribute to my dad, a memorial of the day I had to say goodbye to the first man I ever fell in love with! 

JAMES DOUGLAS MALCOLM

20-3-1952 – 14-10-2014

dad at our cousin Sandy's wedding

 

Dad was a great man, with a huge personality and an even bigger heart. He never hid his emotions and wore his heart on his sleeve. He loved unconditionally and unashamedly claimed pink as his favourite colour, wearing anything he could in pink and often stealing my sister's pink accessories. His obsession with the colour is the reason many people honoured him by wearing pink to his funeral.

 

There was nothing dad loved more then a good yarn, he was never without a story to tell and his stories were never short winded. What better way is there to honour dad's memory then with a few of his favourite yarns.

James Douglas Malcolm was born on the 20th March 1952 to Nancy and Doug Malcolm. He had four sisters, Maureen, Kathy, Julie and Janelle, who sadly was a still born baby. As well as one brother Peter.

 A baby picture of dad

Dad married Jeannette, the love of his life on the 23 June 1973 and to hear dad or mum tell the story he quite literally swept her off her feet and stole her heart. Mum was dating his good mate Dougie Gray and one night after they had gone to the movies a car sped up as they were Crossing the street and two guys jumped out and threw the couple into the back seat. Dad turned round held out his hand and said "Hi I'm Jim." That was the last date mum had with Dougie.

Dad and mum went on to marry and have three awesome children, myself, Annie and Dougie. Although their marriage ended in later years they remained close and everyone knew mum held a very special place in his heart right up until the end.

mum and dad's wedding photo

 

Dad always said “blood is thicker than water”. For many people this may just be a nice saying, for dad it was a way of life. He lived and breathed for his family and there was nothing he wouldn't do for any of them, especially his children, the three of us were his world. 

 Mr Saunders, myself, my sister, her partner and my brother with dad

Growing up every year without fail dad would ensure we went to the Cairns Show not just once but on all three nights. It was a sacred event for dad and he demanded that his nieces and nephews go all three nights as well. He didn't care if he was broke after those three days, they were a time for spoiling the kids. When we went to the show dad made sure we wanted for nothing. In later years when he couldn't make the show it became the custom for anyone to bring him home a dagwood dog and a waffle.

When we all became too old for the show and discovered night clubs we knew if dad wasn't sitting in the parking space between Tropos and the Sports Bar all we had to do was ring him and he would come and get us. Dad always had to feel useful and this was his way of taking care of his loved ones. It was our cousin Adam who dubbed this Jim's Taxi service.

Dad worried about us when we were out in the world. He would always say I trust you I just don't trust the rest of the people out there. He especially worried about Annie finishing so late at the casino and he would always be down there at 3 am waiting for her to finish work. Often asleep in the car with all the windows down and Annie's huge dog Tzar there to protect him. If Tzar didn't know who you were you needed dad's permission to touch the car. A fact a poor police officer learnt when he almost lost his hand as he prodded Dad awake one morning.

 Annie and dad at her graduation

 

Watching his kids grow up and leave the nest was bitter sweet for dad. He saw us less but was happy to see us creating our own lives and extending his family. All he ever wanted for us was that we were happy. He was a protective father though and I had to promise to only hold hands with Jason until we were married and sleep with a pillow down the middle of the bed. Annie was smarter than me she just agreed that John and herself slept in separate rooms. Dad only met Carrie briefly but he was overjoyed that Dougie had found someone to make him happy.

He was over the moon when Annie blessed him with his grandson Jaxon, ask anyone in this room, he was his happiest knowing he was at last Dar. Poor Annie though, he told her she had been downgraded to second favourite, Jax was now his number one.

   a couple of photos of Jax and his Dar

We had our ups and downs with dad, we didn't ways see eye to eye but this was because dad raised us to be independent and think for ourselves, he realised this meant we wouldn't always agree with him but he knew he had also taught us about unconditional love and we could disagree and still love each other dearly.

He told me writing was a difficult profession to break into it would take a lot of hard work, he never told me I couldn't do it though and over the years he patiently listened to many of my poems, some...well most of which were truly dreadful. He was most proud of the book I am writing though and it is sad that he won't be here to see it published.

Raising us to be able to take care of ourselves is something dad was really passionate about and apart from giving him Jaxon this is what he was most proud of Annie for. Out of the three of us he knew Annie was the one who could stand up for herself. His favourite story about Annie proves this point. Annie was really young maybe about 6 or so we ordered Chinese for dinner and they messed up the order this wasn't good enough for Annie so she rang the shop and gave them a piece of her mind scoring herself a free bag of prawn crackers. Dad always said this was the moment he knew he had raised her right.

Dougie was dad's only son and this makes him pretty special. Dad was proud when Dougie started playing as a hooker for brothers in the under 11s, after all you played for Brothers or you didn't play at all. He was ecstatic when Dougie excelled at the sport.

Seeing Dougie become a qualified chef was an awesome moment for a man who loved good food, he would use every excuse he could to get his son to cook for him. Dad loved curries and chilli and it could never be hot enough, a challenge Dougie took up. He made dad this curry and he was sure it was so hot dad couldn't possibly eat it. He dished it up to dad outside under the awning and then sneaked around the back to secretly watch dad suffer, only dad didn't suffer he finished the meal and told Dougie it was spot on!

 

Dad's humour was a little off kilter at times, almost always completely inappropriate and politically incorrect. Nanny always tells me he shared a morbid sense of humour with his father and brother. His humour also got him into trouble at times, at our cousin Sandy's wedding the priest came down to bless dad as he sat in his wheel chair he touched dad's forehead and dad couldn't stop himself from saying "it burns, it burns!" we tried unsuccessfully not to laugh but I don't think the priest was impressed.

In 2004 dad's ranking as first born and only son was blown out of the water when nanny received a surprise letter from Peter announcing to the family that he was in fact nanny and granddad's first born son. Dad had never been happier, he had always wanted a brother to banter with instead of 3 sisters to torment.

He welcomed peter with open arms and the same unconditional love he showed all his family and friends. Though they had only just met dad was chuffed by the similarities between himself and peter. Peter is a taxi driver and just like dad loves to tell a good yarn.

 dad's brother and his partner with dad

 

Dad was, let's just say a tad accident prone. From his early preschool years he gave his parents lots of reasons to worry.

He put his hand through a glass door at kindy. He always maintained he was pushed.

He rode his push bike into the back of of a stationary big yellow garbage truck. Running home to tell nanny he ran into a post at school. Too bad he was caught out when a neighbour who had seen it later told his mum what happened.

His first and most serious accident was as a passenger in a chandlers work vehicle where he nearly lost his life. It was this accident at only 16 when dad was given the last rites and from growing up listening to dad's many yarns I can tell you he counted every day after this one as a blessing.

Dad went on to have 2 motorbike accidents and another car accident while driving for black and white taxis.

Dad loved his time as a cabbie and made many good friends. Victor and Mick the Irishman continued to come by to visit dad long after he stopped driving taxis. Annie remembers poker games held at our childhood home after the night drivers finished work. Rusty and little Jim would be there. Dad was of course known as Big Jim!

 dad in his cabbie days

Dad would be the first to tell you be was a larrikin and some of the stories his good mates could tell would make your toes curl. He was the master of truancy. A talent he started honing as early as year one of edge hill state school when he would hide under the bush in the front yard or down at the corner store. If I remember correctly from Nanny this caper ended when the front bush developed a little cough.

By the time dad hit Cairns State High School he was given a nickname by his teacher Mr Jim Leahy... He was... The scarlet pimpernel! A name dad embraced. He would often quote "they seek me here, they seek me there, they seek me everywhere".

In his later years dad's passion became the Brothers Junior Football League. Every Friday night he would sell raffle tickets at Brothers Leagues Club to raise money for them. Where he was by the way quite a hit with the ladies. On Saturdays you would find him sitting on the gates taking admissions. Though his phone and pocket radio were always close by as Saturdays were race day.

Not long ago dad was given a motorised scooter by rotary to give him more mobility... He named her Lulu... and boy he loved zipping around on her with his akubra on. But in keeping with his history of things with wheels, he and Lulu suffered a few scrapes.

Dad had three things he loved in life, his family, his friends and Boofy, his beautiful white cat, sorry "white Siberian tiger" whom he trained to shake hands and come to him when he whistled. He was loved and adored by so many and truly the world is a darker place for having lost the light he shone upon it. The one thing I can hold on to these days is knowing the last thing I ever got to say to him was "daddy, I love you", there are not too many people lucky enough to be able to do that.

 a baby photo of dad and myself

dad and myself at my 21st

Can good fiction really change the way you view the world?

Of course it can!

Anyone who reads knows how easily a good story can get under your skin and permeate your every waking thought. These are often the same stories that plague your dreams, everywhere you turn it seems something reminds you of a character, place or even line of dialogue. It is the mark of a great story when you steal the characters as your very own imaginary friends. I can only hope readers will fall in love with my characters the way I do with those created by my favourite authors.

Sometimes however a story is so remarkable it transcends from great fiction into something more. As you read it something inside you shifts and you know you will never be the same as you were before you cracked open (figuratively for those of us with e-readers) the cover. This internal metamorphosis is a rarity, many great pieces of literature are entertaining and deserve to be praised, but not every masterpiece is leaving us with soul shattering realisations about ourselves or life in general.

Today’s blog comes to you courtesy of one of these truly extraordinary and rare moments when a story becomes the catalyst for a long overdue emotional epiphany. If you would like to know which story try my other blog On the Couch with a pot of tea and a good book.

So what is this epiphany?

If you're not happy, you can't be healthy!

Actually there are lots of competing thoughts and realisations coming from this one book but all of them be boiled down to the very concise line above.

I view myself (and am told by many other people) as a positive person who will try and find at least one good thing about any situation. Until today I thought that meant I was happy. Positive and happy are just not the same thing however, related yes, but definitely not the same. Lets look at an example of the difference from my life:

I moved to Mt Isa for my day job, always one to look at the positives I focused on the extra money, opportunity to further my career and excitement of discovering a new part of Australia. All of my friends are back in Cairns or Brisbane but that’s ok because I'll have time to write when I can't just casually hang out with them at the drop of the hat.

I can say all of that and I can mean it, until I look too deep. Upon inspection (and not that close of an inspection), it isn't that much extra money and it sure is expensive in Mt Isa, while I love my day job my genuine passion is for my writing and lastly, I am a social creature and I need my friends.

These are just a few of the positive pep talks and rebuttals I have given myself while here in the Isa. It isn't that I hate it here, the town has a certain charm (though I am decidedly not a fan of the dessert), it just doesn't have all of the things I have always taken for granted.

I have been sick and stressed a lot since coming to Mt Isa and at times staying positive is even a struggle, but I fight onwards. I keep the bitter pill inside and put the fake smile in place for everyone to see. I'm not letting myself be angry by my choice to come here, I’m not letting myself expunge the ill ease and negative feelings, I'm holding on to baggage I don't need. As a result I'm not happy, fooling everybody (including myself) with my positivity, but it is just a damn good act.

I'm not happy, I'm not healthy, some days I fear I’m not really even living, just running through the motions on auto pilot.

That changes today though. It changes because of one novella I read and one concept it contained that resonated deeply within me. Lance your soul of sorrow and make way for joy. Tears are healing, so cry your tears of pain and suffering and when there is no more hurt left inside let your tears become ones of joy.

I am not going to ignore my darker emotions, I am going to let them out and I am going to do this without burdening anyone else with my malaise. I'm a writer, a pen and paper, a computer, a voice recorder, these are the tools I can use to lance my soul and make room for happiness to find a home.

I will be happy, I will be healthy and I will continue finding inspiration in the books I read and stories I tell.

Now I want to ask you, what story has changed the way you view the world?

Hi my name is Sarah and this is my dirty little secret!

My name is Sarah and I am a reality Television addict

For my friends and family this is not a mind blowing admission, it is something we don't talk about much, something that gets swept under the table with all the other dirty little secrets we keep for each other. I have some friends who would rather I come out as an alcoholic or drug addict (I'm not normal and neither are my friends so stop judging us!) than as someone who spends a chunk of their evening watching train wreck television. At least if I drank or took recreational drugs I would be up for a good time right?

Instead of being the life of the party however I am at home making sure dinner is cooked by 7:30pm so we can watch Masterchef, and if Mr Saunders thinks I am talking to him after it finishes he can think again! The last two nights I have been changing the channel to catch the end of 'When Love Comes To Town' and let me tell you that is a total bus wreck. If you don't know what I did there then you haven't watched the show, or any of the many, many advertisements.

I also watch The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, The Bachelor, Next Top Model (any of them), Hard Core Porn, Pawn Stars, RBT, Cops, Wife Swap, Tabitha's Salon Takeover....Come on you get the picture right? I really love that cringe worthy, fifteen minute of fame chasing, fake honesty that you get to see when you sit down to watch reality television. Occasionally there will be someone who seems so genuine that you have to admit they are probably exactly as they appear to be on TV...or a VERY good actor, either way these people are the true gems of reality television.

I try and rationalise my obsession, to my friends and myself, hell when my pets look at me funny I try and rationalise it to them too, I am pretty sure Brandy (the dog) is ok with it, but Ninja and Burley... well let's just say you haven't truly been judged and found wanting till you have been judged by two cats who will never forgive you for keeping them locked indoors!

My excuses are simple, I'm a writer and it's great research for character development. Mr Saunders sometimes pretends to believe this one and I would trust he really did believe so much more if I couldn't hear him laughing at me from the other room. My other big justification is I'm not really paying attention, it's just background noise...This excuse would go a lot further if I ever answered my phone or engaged in conversation with Mr Saunders or house guests during the shows. I once answered a call (and only because it was from my mother) with “You're interrupting Masterchef, I’ll call you back”, before promptly hanging up without letting her say a word. Not a moment I'm proud of but we are talking about an addiction here.

It’s not just the show itself that gets me either, all the social media and live tweets that go with reality television are quite riveting, there are so many extraordinarily funny people on twitter all just waiting to get their quips out there. Reality TV is such an interactive sensation these days, the social aspect makes it so much more fun. When Love Comes to Town is a great example of this, if it was just the show itself I don't think I would keep watching, however, add the (mostly) witty or dry humour of fellow Australians and it becomes a very enjoyable hour of entertainment.

Of course I watched these kinds of shows long before I used social media, Facebook and Twitter simply add to the immense pleasure I find in the saccharine fame seeking, humanity destroying, false privilege building, phenomena of reality television.

They say everyone has a vice and this is mine, reality television is my kryptonite, I can make all the excuses under the sun but the truth is I just really like watching it. So I am am sorry Mum for airing my dirty laundry across the internet but that’s my dirty little secret!

Feel like sharing? What's your dirty little secret? Are you brave enough to leave it in the comments below?

Too many "to do's" means I don't!

I hate to do lists, not because I am lazy and don't want to do anything but rather because I never know what to do first and I end up staring at the list for ages caught up in some funky kind of decision paralysis...Which “to do” is the most important? How do I start? Am I able to do it with out other preparation? And gods forbid there is preparation needed because that is a whole other list of things to do!

I just don't know how to work my way through a list of chores or obligations, I find it overwhelming to have too many things to do and prioritising them makes it worse. show me a list of things to do and I instantly turn from a highly motivated girl with a “can do” attitude to a stuttering fool incapable of even the simplest action.

It isn't just a written list that gets me either, my brain has a list of things I should be doing and it often makes me just want to crawl under a rock and ignore the world. Of course it probably doesn't help that my darling brain starts listing things while I am in bed or busy doing something else. My beloved brain also almost always insists its list is of the utmost importance and must be done now...right now...even though it is 11:30pm!

For the last week I have had so many things I want or need to do and have not been able to achieve anything. I want to finish one of the many, many books I have started reading, finish editing my WIP, write my blog, arrange a time to catch up with our friends to play some games and do something towards the organisation of my wedding...oh yes and Mr Saunders and I are on holidays in a week so I have that to think about too!

As a result I have done nothing but go to the day job and come home all week, I don't know what to do first or how to work my way through the magnitude of some of these things, how is it possible that I got myself into the predicament of reading over 10 books at once anyway?

Organising a wedding to be held in Brisbane while you are working mega hours in Mount Isa is a whole to do list in itself and I just don't know how to go about finding florists and hairdressers when I won't meet them until one week before I get married. Luckily Mr Saunders has taken over planning the honeymoon and most of our looming holiday, I just sent a message to my amazing friend to catch up next weekend and pouring my anguish out on paper has given me my blog. So it really is just the big things left, the ones no one can help me with.....so maybe the first thing on my “to do” list should be stop staring and do something!

How about you? Do too many choices leave you with decision paralysis?

Are you as good as your favourite authors?

So many writers have published work out there these days, and it seems (especially with self-publishing and e-books) it has never been easier to get your story out in the world, but should every story available truly be there?

For me personally it is my favourite and most read authors that become the measure I hold my writing up to. Is it arrogant to believe I can write a story as captivating as Stephen King, Richard Laymon or Kelley Armstrong? No, it is not, if I didn't think my storytelling could match these well known and well loved authors why would I even be writing?

If you are working towards being published for the first time or even writing your third or fourth book you should be able to hold your head up high and proudly throw your literary piece in the ring with the strongest contenders. It is true we can't all be the next Mark Twain, J.R.R Tolkien, or even J.K Rowling, but if that is not what we are aiming for then aren't we just wasting our time?

I have complete faith in my stories captivating readers, and I am willing to put in the hard work (and trust me the repeated editing is hard and tiring work), so I can publish something that will hold its own on the new release shelf of any book store.. If I didn’t have faith in myself and pride in my WIP I could take the easy way and self publish an incomplete poorly edited version of what I want my literary legacy to be.

Not that I think self publishing is an easy way out, or that all writers who self publish are not great writers, after all even Mark Twain self published! It may even come to pass that I do indeed choose self publishing when I finally have my WIP ready for public consumption. But if I don't think my writing is up there with my favourite authors then it will never see the light of day, and it is my very strong opinion that everyone who writes for a living should answer this same question, so how about you? Are you as good as your favourite authors?

Why New Years Resolutions never work!

How many times have you made yourself a huge list of things that will change with the new year?

How many things on your list do you think you will still be working towards by the end of 2014? How many will turn up again on the 2015 resolution list?

New years resolutions are impossible to uphold, all we do is set ourselves up for failure. Writing that fateful yearly list is nothing more then self sabotage, something that as humans we are already very adept at. But why does it fail? We start with such high hopes and good intentions, but everything falls apart before the dust on the new year has even settled.

The biggest downfall for well meaning resolutions is the sheer size of most peoples list, how many of us put 10 or even 15 things on a list sculpting a huge change in our current lifestyle? Too many things to do at once is overwhelming, where do you start? Faced with the seemingly insurmountable our subconscious has already given up before we have even consciously started.

Working in retail management, where self development and improvement is as mandatory as adapting to change I often struggle with all of my shortcomings and perceptions of failure. I use to write huge lists of skills I needed to hone... Until I was given invaluable advice, a self improvement list should be less then 5 things to work on, three is a perfect number, finish that list before adding more.

Now isn't a list of New Years resolutions a very personal self improvement list? So why are we loading our selves up with so many things at once? Three things a year to work on is such a manageable number, and if we did it one thing at a time we would have 4 months for each resolution to become reality. In my case I have chosen to commit to just one thing and spend a whole 12 months improving one very important aspect of my life.

The other thing that lays waste to our carefully constructed list is a lack of detail (another lesson from retail management), goals should be both challenging and achievable, we don't truly appreciate what we achieve unless we work hard for it and likewise hard work needs to lead us to something for us to continue. What should our hard work lead us to? When is it enough? How will we know we have achieved our gaol and nailed our resolutions?

We need to be able to measure our goals, knowing how far we have come and how much further there is to go. The terms we set in our new years resolutions need to be realistic and specific and we need to give ourselves a fighting chance to achieve them.

For example lets take my one and only commitment for 2014 and break it down. I want to be a published author, so I could write my list of one as Get published, I can even measure that, either I will or will not get published in 2014. It is definitely challenging and seems achievable, but it is open to all kinds of interpretation. It is not specific and with the amount of naivety and innocence I have as a publishing virgin it isn't setting a very realistic picture.

I have a lot of work to do before I am ready to send my manuscript off to publishing houses, publishing is so far away I will surely get disheartened before achieving this goal. Challenging, achievable and measurable with milestones along the way, this is what I need. This is what we all need. So what is my actual one and only New Years resolution?

I will treat my writing like a part time job until such time as I can swap it to a full time job. I will work on editing my WIP, and educating myself about the professional world of publishing. After my WIP is edited and I am ready to seek out a publisher I will keep writing. I will not neglect my blogs, Facebook, Twitter or other tools an author needs like I have in 2013.

There you have it, longer then your usual New years resolution, if I was inclined I could make it into 4 individual yet related resolutions. I know I can achieve this and I know I can watch myself get closer to the dream of being published. It will be challenging finding time for a part time job when I already work a 50 hour a week day job, but I will work hard on my one and only resolution to improve something that is such a central aspect of my life.

I know I can achieve my resolution with hard work and dedication, how about you? What is on your New Years resolution list?