Nurture or nature? Does anyone have any answers? #paradox #paranormal #timeslipnovels #timetravel

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!

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.

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'.

~

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.

If you like time travel romances, check out Wide Awake Asleep #time #timetravel #backtothefuture

Fate is predetermined.

It’s a road for us mere mortals to follow until we reach our destiny. But what happens if fate makes a mistake? And that mistake snowballs and snowballs until destiny is never reached?

This is Julie’s story in a time travel saga called Wide Awake Asleep.

Julie's approaching her middle years and finally has the life she wants and worked hard for, but back in the early 1970s her fate-line snapped and plunged her into an existence that never should have been.

Her destiny is demanding to be put right.

Julie doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to be sent backwards in time to correct the broken fate-line.

Amazon.com | Amazon.UK

The end is sometimes the beginning

WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP

EXCERPT (taken from Chapter Four):

I woke with a bump; like I’d been submerged beneath water. Gasping. Breathless. The shimmering man slipped from my consciousness as I fought to hold on to him—I felt he was important but the dream disintegrated as panic overcame me.

I scrabbled around, getting my things together, knowing I had to get out of the car before it became my grave. It was still daylight. I’d missed the meeting though. Sod the meeting. I reached to grab my bag and briefcase from the footwell. My hand stopped in mid-air. A beaded yellow and red bag was in place of my Ted Baker handbag.

I took the bag anyway. I needed money to make phone calls for a recovery service and a taxi. I’d pay whoever’s bag it was back. I grabbed my briefcase and opened the car door. The car was at an angle, pointing downward, and I slipped. I had to grab the door one-handed as my feet disappeared beneath the car. But I felt strangely light; as if I could jump and easily reach the swaying trees making a canopy over the road. I threw the bag and briefcase to the top of the embankment and climbed up.

On my knees, I opened the bag, hoping to find a phone inside. There was a packet of cigarettes. Players No. 6 to be exact. I turned it over in my hands. Even as a non-smoker I knew this brand had long been replaced by something else. I dropped them in the bag, maybe whoever they belonged to was a retro smoker.

I searched further, but other than a discoloured makeup bag, an opened packet of strawberry Spangles, a pen, diary and a hideous brown purse there was nothing that I could use to help me out of my predicament.

My iPad!

I reached for my briefcase, but as I did, I realised that that too wasn’t mine. In fact it was nothing like mine. This wasn’t genuine leather, it had no long handles and it was scuffed and well-used.

Too late to register, an old Cortina wooshed past. I stood quickly, yelling and waving my hands, but it had disappeared around the bend in the road. I ran after it a few paces, but stopped, knowing it was futile.

There was nothing for it—I’d have to walk. I couldn’t be far from civilisation. This was England for goodness’ sake! I picked up the handbag and briefcase. I didn’t want whoever’s it was to say I’d stolen it. I’d have to look after it until I could return it. The garish-coloured bag went over my shoulder.

Something made me turn to look down at my poor, smashed up car. Ghost-like figures surrounded it. I couldn’t make out features, colours or anything much, just strange transparent floating shapes hovering around my car.

Fear caused me to step back. I wasn’t religious, and I disbelieved in anything hocus-pocus and was also suspicious of anyone who claimed they believed in the afterlife, but I couldn’t explain those ghostly figures as anything other than Death trying to find me. Trying to find out how I cheated it, maybe.

I closed my eyes and rocked on my feet as dizziness brushed over me. I opened them again carefully, almost afraid of what I’d see. But it was mist that was surrounding the car now.

Just mist.

‘Silly woman,’ I said, and turned to look around at my surroundings. I was on a typical narrow country road, and I was afraid I’d have a boy-racer come up behind me and finish me off. I wondered what time it was. I never wore a watch, and as my mobile was broken I didn’t know the time. I stopped and squinted up at the sun. It was high in the blue sky, but how could that be? It was January, the sun never rose much during the winter months. I looked around at the gently swaying trees—fully leaved. The field to my left was full of tall rapeseed. The yellow flowers gave off a familiar smell that reminded me of my childhood in the village before I left with my father as a teenager.

This was crazy. It’s January. I’ve not only slept through the night, but the entire winter?