A good weed? by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb

Book 1 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

 

Is there such a thing as a good weed? 

I look in my gardens and think not. I sigh as I admire the wee flowers poking out of the newly warmed ground (in southern Ontario, the overnight temperatures are only now above zero Celsius). So this past weekend, I dived into the dirt, knees bent and arms outstretched, wishing I could strangle the weeds that are strangling my growing flowers. Aarrgh!

I ask again: is there such a thing as a good weed?

Redroot Pigweed.
Famous (?) for devastating grain crops because they produce between 10,000 and 30,000 seeds per plant. And if that isn't bad enough for your home garden,
 the seeds can lie dormant for up to 40 years.  

Yes, you know what these are.

Garlic Mustard.
Nasty rotten no-good weed.
The roots are thought to produce a toxin that contaminates the soil for adjacent flowers. 

The weeds in my garden are not good (see above). They spread like wildfire and their roots are similar to the highway system of a huge metropolis. The nerve of them to grow in my garden. I can't identify some of the weeds when they're tiny so I let them grow for a day or two and then, dang! Suddenly they're a foot tall and spreading their strangling roots. The very nerve.

And then I look at my lawn. There are yellow weeds everywhere - you know them... dandelions. Who thought of that name? They aren't dandy at all and they have no resemblance to lions. If they weren't so vivid in colour and if the bees didn't love them so much, I would have my way with them and they'd be 'dandydead.'

In my flower gardens, I tried to outsmart the weeds. I added a layer of mulch. 

The weeds laughed.

I tried adding a thicker layer of wood chips. 

The weeds laughed harder and my perennials cried for sunlight.

There's no way around it. I have to weed out the weeds. 

Weeds are like bullies. They throw their weight/roots around, striking a nerve whatever they touch. Being a bully comes naturally to Jayden, one of the main characters in The Twisted Climb series. Can she maintain that character trait while her dad encourages her inner kindness? Or will her cruel, alcoholic mother continue leading her down the 'poor-me' path. Check out the award-winning series and you be the judge. Be bully, or be nice?

In the meantime, stay safe everyone.

 

J.C. Kavanagh, author of
The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
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Childhood Bullying and what to do about it

 

 

Nearly everyone has been bullied at some point in their lives, especially during their school years. Most have experienced it occasionally and for only a short while. But what if a child is subject to daily bullying, lasting weeks, sometimes months and even years?

The consequences of long-term bullying, for children and teens, can be devastating. Younger children express the daily anxiety as stomach aches, headaches, sleep disturbances, withdrawal and nightmares. For the especially vulnerable, bullying can result in dropping out of school, self-harm, panic attacks, depression, and violent behavior.

At least one in three adolescent students in Canada have reported being bullied, while 47% of Canadian parents have reported their child being a victim of bullying. Studies suggest that roughly 6% of students aged 12 to 19 bullying others on a weekly basis while 8% are victims of weekly bullying.

Children get bullied in several ways. The most common is verbal bullying, which include racial slurs, unwanted sexual comments and threatening words. Another is social bullying, which includes mobbing, public humiliation and graffiti. Cyber bullying, the use of the internet, smartphone and other devices to intimidate, harass and spread rumors or explicit images, is a fairly recent phenomenon. Finally, physical bullying, the hitting, poking, stealing possessions and unwanted sexual touching, has been around since time immemorial.

The sex of the victim plays a role in the type of bullying. Girls are more likely to be subjected to cyber and social bullying than boys, while non-cisgender children are three times more likely to be victimized.

What about the bully? In many instances, bullies are also victims—of violence in their homes, dysfunctional family situations and of unhealthy power relationships in their lives. Studies show that 40 percent of bullying boys engage in delinquent behavior as compared to 5 percent of those who don’t. Many grow up to be troubled adults, displaying psychological problems, aggressive tendencies and adult depression. The prevention of bullying in children and youth is an important factor in reducing future possible criminal behavior.

Much can be done to counter this problem. Among the most effective are in-school programs, which provide comprehensive, school-wide models that seek to track, prevent and alter both the environmental factors and the victimization of students. Students can be taught some simple steps to protect themselves, such as walking away, asking for help and staying in groups. Programs, such as BullyingCanada.ca offer free hot-line services and counselling to both students and parents.

 

 Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary romance. (www.mohanauthor.com) He is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

 

 

My Hobby Is People Watching...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for my BWL page

Three very different books with three very different heroines, and written over a period of several years. Why is this interesting? Well I've just read an interesting blog by one of my fellow BWL writers, Roseanne Dowell, where she talks about creating characters. In it she says that characters are all around us from elderly relatives to friends and loved ones, or from just observing people in restaurants, or at the airport, or anywhere else where we can watch the world go by.

It got me thinking about how I create the very different characters that inhabit my books and I realised that each one is made up of a mix of people I have either met or read about. Take Mel in Double Fault for example. Hardworking, determined, prepared to do almost anything to protect her children, she is very much like someone I know. Emotionally, however, she is very different. She has shut herself off from love because she never wants to be hurt again.  I've taken that from an entirely different person. Then there are the opposing characters of her twin children, one ebullient and one much more reserved and shy. I love writing about children because although they all have very different characters, there is a universality about them from cuteness to tantrums that tugs at the heartstrings. 

There is also a universality about all my heroines. Every one of them is feisty and determined, Arabella in Miss Locatelli particularly so as she battles to save her family business. And in Cabin Fever, Ellie faces up to her own work challenge with an obstinacy that borders on the impossible...until she pulls it off of course! 

And then there are the heroes, all of whom have problems and idiosyncrasies of their own, the same as my heroines, because none of them are close to being perfect. After all, who is in real life?

Something else apart from Roseanne's blog has has triggered this introspection about creating characters, however. It's what has been happening in my own life in the past few weeks. I live right opposite a nature reserve. It's an idyllic spot comprising miles of woodland, sand dunes and wild beach. For much of the year it is relatively quiet and much enjoyed by local residents. Unfortunately, thanks to social media and TV,  it has now been discovered by the wider world.  I use the word unfortunately, not because local residents don't want to share our lovely beach and countryside, but because the nature reserve and the village don't have the necessary infrastructure to cope. There isn't enough parking. Toilet facilities are minimal. The routes down to the beach are almost inaccessible for families with small children in strollers as it's a long haul up and over the sand dunes carrying picnics and blankets. When someone has travelled 2 hours in a car for a day out, however, such difficulties are not going to deter them. Consequently, on a sunny day there are cars everywhere. They are parked across resident's private driveways, on grass verges and pavements, on corners, and across double yellow lines and, worst of all, when these very frustrated tourists drive around in search of that elusive/non-existent parking space they cause such terrible traffic congestion on narrow roads that residents are confined to their homes, unable to get out. In recent months an elderly woman was knocked down, an emergency vehicle was unable to reach a house where a man had had a heart attack, and nurses and carers haven't been able to get to their elderly and/or chronically ill patients. 

So how does all of this feed into the characterisation of the people who inhabit my books. Well for a start I have a front seat view of how people behave in what is often very stressful situation, and how they resolve their individual problems. This includes the reaction of residents as well as the day trippers. And now, because the whole situation is becoming untenable, a group of householders have come together to petition both the local council and the organisation that runs the nature reserve. We are asking for better traffic controls in residential areas and more parking and toilet facilities much closer to the beach. To do this we have had to knock on doors to invite people to sign our petition, and although I can't speak for my fellow petitioners, what fun it has been for a writer. 

At last I've had a legitimate reason to ring doorbells and engage strangers in conversation, and the old adage is perfectly true, everyone does have a story and it takes very little encouragement to get them to share it. Being interested is enough. I have learned about family histories, the successes or otherwise of children, details of local business people, ditto local villains (that surprised me!) plus, most fascinatingly, the hidden history of the village where I have lived for so long. How, for example, many years ago, the field opposite my house used to flood sufficiently in the winter for the locals to ice-skate on it. Now it doesn't flood at all. Is that a small window into local climate change? Also how, in the summer, the same field used to host the village fair, an event that has now moved much closer to the village centre. 

I've also been able to peep into houses, either from the doorstep or through a window as I approached the door, and seen how very differently people live. There are the pristine, beautifully curated homes with floral displays and shining floors. There are the homes bursting with children where trainers and boots are scattered across the porch and toys litter the hall. There are dogs of every shape and size, and everyone of them aware that, as a dog owner, I probably have dog treats in my pocket. Then there are the very elderly who, because of the exigencies of Coronavirus, rarely have visitors. These were some of the most interesting because their memories of local events go back a long, long way. And in almost every case  they were pragmatic about their situation and determined to make the best of it. So all in all my experience of watching and engaging with people has been very interesting indeed. I now have plenty of material for many more books. All I need is the time to write them!

New Series, New Book!

 

Find My Books Here

I'm delighted to be presenting a new YA series this month...the Linda Tassel Mysteries. Linda is a daughter of the Eastern Cherokee nation in Georgia. In Death at Little Mound she is discovering about the ancient people of her homeland through her work on an archeology dig. Into her life comes Tad Gist, a recent transplant from Buffalo New York. Just in time to help her solve a murder.

my first Nancy Drew mystery...The Secret in the Old Clock!

I enjoyed writing about Linda from Tad's point of view. I set the stories in the 1990s, when my children were teens.  What fun to revisit that time of their lives. When I was a teen, I loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries, but was frustrated that Nancy stayed a perpetual sixteen through all her adventures. I plan to follow Linda and Tad through their teen age years and deepening romance.

I hope you or a young reader you know will join them!

Monet's Cataracts - and mine

 

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Last summer I noticed a cloudiness in my left eye. I suspected it was due to cataracts, which run on both sides of my family. My husband had them a few years ago, with similar symptoms. When my eye doctor confirmed the problem in both eyes, she remarked that she likes referring severely near-sighted people for cataract surgery. In most cases, the treatment significantly improves their vision and they'll need thinner eyeglasses, and sometimes, none at all.

Cataracts are one thing that make me glad I don't live in the past. My relatives who had the surgery in the 1970s were hospitalized for a week, and afterward they had to wear Coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses. My grandmother was an early recipient of lens implants in the 1980s. They worked well for her after her month of bed rest. Today, recovery is quick--minor restrictions like no swimming for a week.           

After cataract surgery, I'll be able to snorkel without prescription goggles. 

I used to think cataract surgery was a 20th century invention and people who lived earlier simply went blind. But it goes back to the fifth century BC. The treatment then involved striking the eye with a blunt object, dislodging the eye fluid and restoring limited vision. Centuries later the surgery evolved to inserting a needle into the eye and extracting the cataract. The basic method hasn't changed a lot since then, according to my cataract information sheet. Today's treatment involves inserting a fine probe into the eye, removing the cataract and then injecting a lens implant. 

The year after my husband's cataract surgery, we took a holiday in northern France. On the way to Paris, we stopped at Giverny, the former home of impressionist painter, Claude Monet. We were intrigued to learn that Monet had cataracts for almost twenty years before they were treated with surgery. We wondered if this explained the muted and blurred shades in many of his impressionistic paintings. 

Monet's failing vision led him to use larger brushstrokes. He saw some colours differently with cataracts. Fog increasingly shrouded his view of everything. Post-surgery he destroyed or redid some of the paintings he created when he saw his world through cataracts. 

Water Lilies by Claude Monet, painted in 1920, three years before his cataract surgery, hangs in The National Gallery, London  

Due to my high astigmatism, my eye surgeon recommended I upgrade to a lens that corrects this problem. I further upgraded to a multifocal lens that can handle distance, intermediate (computer) and reading vision.  The standard lens sets vision to only one level, making glasses necessary for most people. 

It's now two weeks after surgery on my second eye and my vision isn't perfect. My right eye is 20/20 for distance. The left is worse, but much better for reading. The left also sees halos and glare when I watch TV. The eye technician says these should diminish in time and I can expect my eyes to take 4-6 weeks to settle. I see well for most activities, which is a huge change after wearing glasses since I was ten years old. I'm still getting used to my naked face and find myself trying to remove or put on imaginary glasses. I wear sunglasses on windy days so grit doesn't blow into my eyes. But it feels great, if a little strange, to wake up every morning and see the world clearly. 

     Monet's garden, Giverny, France