by
Louise Wise
I tend to write about lonely, could-have-psychological-problems characters who mingle with the 'normal' so my books have a dark edge, and my latest book is no different, but it has got me thinking about the human psyche and our chosen path in life.
My character starts out as a hard-nosed career woman in her late forties. She has no family other than an elderly mother. Her words 'I have no time for relationships' is true as she rushes from one business deal to the next.
Now, although this is a book plug, it has also made me think about the nurture/nature thing as my character (Julie Compton from WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP) is able to change her past by taking a different road in life, and I wonder how nurture, as opposed to nature, shapes all of us.
The protagonist from Wide Awake Asleep was shaped by her past, but as she is spirted back to her childhood she makes different choices and changes the very psyche of her being. Is that nature or nurture?
As I understand it:
Nurture = how we're brought up/outside the family influences/schools/friends/how family deal with tragedy/extreme happiness and excitement.
Nature = genes pure and simple.
If one of your parents has an illness you're more likely to get it, but if the illness is avoidable (through diet/awareness) it can be halted (type 2 diabetes for example) but if you 'catch' an avoidable illness it's back to nurture (learned habits).
I thought it was cut and dried, too. But another thing puzzles me... the little 'ticks' people have ie fiddling with your hair, that particular way you have/do things that is copied from your parents. That should be nurture/learned behaviour, surely?
OK, here's the story that got me thinking, I was visited the other day by a young relative who was brought up by her mum and never saw her dad (he died) but her mannerisms were EXACTLY the same as his. It was so startling it was uncanny.
This wasn't nurture/learned behaviour. It was passed down through genes.
How fascinating that simple gestures are passed from one generation to the next!
How fascinating that simple gestures are passed from one generation to the next!
WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP
Find out
what happens when an extraordinary event takes Julie Compton on a paranormal
adventure through her past to correct a time paradox.
 |
| Amazon.UK | Amazon.com |
‘Past events can be changed but one
must be careful of how one does it because it’ll impact on the rest of one’s
life.’—Dáire Quin, Modify your Destiny if you Must, 2003
No one saw Julie’s car leave the road, no one saw her crash into the watery ditch, no one saw the gnarled tree branch pierce through the window screen and impale her in her seat.
No one heard her screams.
Yet, this was the beginning of Julie’s life.
Julie Compton, is a forty-something woman, striving for success in a male dominated business world. She thinks she’s made it. She thinks she has it all.
No one saw Julie’s car leave the road, no one saw her crash into the watery ditch, no one saw the gnarled tree branch pierce through the window screen and impale her in her seat.
No one heard her screams.
Yet, this was the beginning of Julie’s life.
Julie Compton, is a forty-something woman, striving for success in a male dominated business world. She thinks she’s made it. She thinks she has it all.
Trouble is, her destiny has been travelling in the wrong direction and Julie is
now forced to relive her life by occupying people’s bodies from her past in a
time-travel, paranormal adventure.
For readers who enjoyed books like 'The Time Traveler's Wife' and 'The Lovely Bones'.
For readers who enjoyed books like 'The Time Traveler's Wife' and 'The Lovely Bones'.
~
Excerpt
from WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP – a paranormal, time travel romance.
Disorientated,
I looked around at my surroundings. I had the strange feeling that I wasn’t
here at all. I thought I heard a voice, and I cocked my head, but it was
carried away on a gust of wind. The feeling of hands touching my body subsided
and I was left in this paradox universe where I was me inside someone else’s
body.
I
looked down at myself and the first thing I saw was a plaid skirt, and thick
tights, which sagged at the knees and ankles.
My
heart began to beat in horror. No, no. Please, God, no.
My
hands touched the stained cardigan over my large droopy breasts. Up further to
my face…
My
hands recoiled.
I
felt a moustache!
I
gasped in horror. I was ‘Auntie’ Iris Grimshaw!
It
was bad enough being goofy Sarah Marshall, but now I had a moustache! And a
bloody monobrow!
Iris began to walk, and I felt a sharp
pain in my hip. I slowed, but the pain persisted. It shot down my left leg
every time my foot touched the ground. No wonder the old sod was grouchy.
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