Influences
My recently departed Gran will always be the biggest influence over my life, and will remain to me my biggest inspiration in life. My close family, and my sisters especially will always be important to me as well and have long been the two sources of light that pull me through the darker times in my life. Suffering as I do from many highs and lows in my life, without the memory of my Gran and my two amazing sisters I don't know where I'd be.
In terms of other influences over my life, music and the world of literature are my two biggest sources of intellectual stimulation. Musically my inspiration comes mainly from the three guitar geniuses that are Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen, but also from my favourite band W.A.S.P. who provided some of the lines that have inspired my best writing to date. These four artists have provided me much comfort over the years, especially when I'm down and I now use Malmsteen as almost compulsory listening whenever I need to write. Every time I put on 'Far Beyond the Sun', my mind is instantly calmed and taken back to that comfortable place that I very rarely find away from nature and the joys of the outside world.
This brings me on to another important influence behind all of my work: nature. I am a bit of a Romantic in the old, literary sense of the word. I place an extremely strong importance on nature as an inspirational force. Without the ability to take long walks and visit the local parks, sometimes just to sit and soak up the atmosphere as the world goes by I don't know what I'd do. My close family, music and nature are certainly the three most important influences in my work.
For links to some of my many inspirations including my favourite books, albums and poems, please follow the links in the sidebar. I leave you finally on this, a poem suggested to me by my long time pen-friend (or is that email-friend) and 'intellectual mistress' Vanessa. I have a copy of this poem stuck to my wall just below my light-switch...
Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.