problems of indiscipline in our society

PROBLEMS OF INDISCIPLINE IN OUR SOCIETY

What is indiscipline? What are the causes of indiscipline in our school?What remedies can we offer to solve this nasty problem of indiscipline in our society? Well,I hope to provide answers to the above questions in the course of this essay.

Now, let us take the first question: what is indiscipline? Before finding out what indiscipline means, perhaps,it would be better for us to find out what discipline means itself. Well, discipline, according to the Advanced learner’s Dictionary of current English is the training especially of the mind and character ,to produce self-control and habit of obedience. chambers’s Twentieth century Dictionary also defines discipline as training or mode of life in accordance with rules ,subjection to control, order. From the above definitions, we now have a clear idea of what indiscipline means.

Indiscipline means lack of discipline ,lack of control, lack of proper training;it means unruly behavior ,disobedient ,disorder.This means, when students beat up their lecturers, when they flout school rules, when they cheat their examination hall ,when they riot in the dining hall and else where organised a immoral parties, smoke Indian hemp and get drunk, when they lie and steal, they are in effect ,exhibiting instances of gross misconduct in the respective university.

What then are the cause of indiscipline in our university? Certainly, the cause of indiscipline in our university are many and varied. we can , however, classify them into three main factors namely, the bad home influence, the poor university administration and the pervading bad influence in the corrupt society.

Let us now consider the above three factors in turn and see how they contribute to indiscipline our university today. Take for instance, the home influence.

If a child has no home training ,how do you expect him/her to be a disciplined student at university?Today due to materialistic pursuit and economic exigencies, many parents have little or no time for their children and so, the child behave as she likes.Young girls put on fantastic and expensive dresses bought for them by their rich, pot-bellied, sugar-daddy, boyfriends. How can you expect girls from such homes to be a disciplined student.

On the other hand, there are some rich parent who prefer to spare to rod and spoil their children. They over-pamper their children and buy them too many expensive gifts.Such children from affluent homes who are driven to schools daily in gleaming Mercedes Benz often look down down with scorn on their poor ,struggling teachers who can hardly afford to buy a so-called ordinary “tortoise” car.And when such spoils child misbehave and they are caned or discipline by their poor teachers their financial weight and influence to ensure that such teachers see “hell-fire” in one way or the other. such a situation can only worsen the problem of indiscipline in our schools.

The worst cases,however are the children from homes. They vent their anger and frustrate in the society and are therefore rebellious in nature. They are usually behind the student riots at university.

What about the school influence? how ,for instance does the Vice-chancellor of a university with his staff contribute to indiscipline in the school? well, the principal of a school, like the captain of a ship, can influence his school for good or bad. Take the case of a lecturer who is a habitual late-comer, a chain-smoker and and an occasional drunkard. Do you think such lecturer can command the respect of his students and inculcate discipline in them?Never!

Again, take the case of a Chancellor who embezzles the money meant for tuition fees of the student or who connives with the management to cheat the student . Does such a chancellor not invited student riot and can blame the student for chasing out such a mean and mercenary chancellor with guns and bullets.

How can you really expect discipline in a school where many of the teachers don’t prepare lessons in advance ? What about some shameless teachers who take delight in having immoral dealings with female students? can such teachers have the moral guts to preach discipline to their students? Never! such then are b some of the ways some unscrupulous chancellors and their their staffs do contributes to the indiscipline in our universities today .

Now comes the society! how does the society contribute to the wave of indiscipline in our society today? This is done by many ways . For instances, go to the post offices and the airports and see the struggle to rush and this leads to confusion here and there. This is so discipline in the society and this ,in turn, influence our student adversely.

What about the political leaders who are supposed to give exemplary leadership? Do they live up to expectation? The sad truth is that many of them breaks the law of the land with impunity and embezzle large sums of the money meant for goods and services for the masses. what type of in disciple can such corrupt leaders pass to our leaders of tomorrow?

Our society is indeed sick. The lack of indiscipline makes many people act lawlessly disorderly. Even policemen who paid to maintain law and order and arrest criminals often turn a blind eye after receiving bribes.Students ,as we know, learn fast.So,when bribery and corruption becomes the order of the day in our morally healthy?Never!such then are some of the way our sick society contributes to the indiscipline in our universities today.

Now ,what remedies can we offer? How can we eradicate or minimize the incidence of indiscipline in our society today?

Indeed, to wage a successful war against indiscipline in our society all hands must be on desk.We must all be involved.There must be a total revolution in our ways of life and sense of value. The home and the home must have a close ranks and devise concrete ways of solving this problems of indiscipline.

For a start,parents must now show a great interest int he welfare of their children.They should close-up the usual communication gap between children and their parents,help their children to solve their individual problems and thus preventing them from bad company.Above all,parents must know that examples are better than precepts and so,instead of merely preaching discipline they must practice discipline by living exemplary lives.

The chancellors and their staff can also play their part in giving the student much-needed leadership.They should be fatherly,kind and firm with students.Indeed, the chancellors and their staff should be ace- medically sound ad morally upright so that they may be worthy and shining examples to their students.

However, for the teachers to pay their roles most effectively,the various government must see that teachers are well-paid.when lecturers are made to fell proud of their profession, they will be in a better position to in calculate and maintain discipline in their various institutions.

The student themselves must be accorded to their due rights and obligations.There should be no communication gap between the staff and the student.whenever they have problems,student should be free to approach the chancellor or lecturers.This helps a lot to eliminate problems that normally give rise to student riots.

Another good device in solving problems of indiscipline in our institutions, is the proper use of the lecturer-student association,where the student and lecturer are brought together to deliberate on the welfare of the institution.such association enhance the image of education considerably and helps to promote discipline.

Finally,our political and religious leaders must learn to live up to expectation.they must know that they are the mirrors of the society. The masses look up to them for political leadership and moral guidance.If they are corrupt,the society are bound to be corrupted which eventually leads to gross indiscipline.

6 love short stories

 meet her whenever she went outside. As we approached, I saw a nearly blind man walking with a cane outside of the lady's house. He came up to us and took his beloved's heavy bags from me. I immediately recalled how often I was too lazy to meet my girlfriend on the way home from the supermarket or from the train station.

I lost my leg when I was 19. I was dating a girl at that time and we were very much in love. After a while, she suddenly decided to move abroad, claiming that she wanted to earn some money for us. I wanted to believe her, but was convinced that she was lying. I told her we needed to break up and that it would be better for her. One month later, my doorbell rang. I took my crutches, opened the door and there she was. I didn't even manage to get a word out before she slapped me and I fell down. She kneeled down beside me, hugged me and said, "You're an idiot! I didn't run away from you. We're going to the hospital tomorrow and there's a prosthesis waiting for you. I went abroad to earn money so you'll be able to walk again - do you understand?" I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I couldn't utter a single word - I just hugged her tightly and cried.

My older sister got married. Her husband is a picky eater and is very hard to please when it comes to food. Every time he openly criticizes her cooking, I always recall my sister's ex-boyfriend. Whenever she cooked chicken liver, he always ate it and said he'd never tasted anything better. It later turned out that he was actually allergic to chicken liver - he just loved my sister very much.

After giving birth to our son, my wife's vision started to get worse. She was already wearing glasses, but it suddenly got really bad. I couldn't stand to see her suffering, so I took a second job and accepted some online work, as well. I worked day and night and couldn't get any proper sleep the whole year. Finally, I saved up enough money for corrective eye surgery. My wife recently returned from the hospital and she was amazed at how clearly she could see everything. The past year was tough on me, but I do not regret it one bit, because now I have a healthy son and a happy wife. They are the most important people in my life.

My mother was struggling with a heart problem and I lived with her for one week while my father was away on a business trip. He was due back yesterday and while we were sitting in the kitchen waiting for him, I noticed how beautiful she looked, despite being so thin and pale. There was a serene expression on her face, but her hands were shaking. Suddenly, we heard the lock turn and my mother jumped up and ran to my father, embraced him tearfully, and mumbled something into his shoulder. He hugged her in return and I just stood there, watching them and smiling. My father's love is my mother's greatest remedy.

I met a funny, kind, and educated young man on the internet. He was also very handsome. We used Skype to stay in touch for several years. After a while, I understood that I loved him and he said he loved me, but he was afraid to meet. I insisted on meeting and traveled thousands of miles to see him. It turned out that the young man was disabled and he couldn't walk. We spent 3 months together and we quickly got engaged. He is the best and he is perfect for me - my Professor

Sad short stories

 Howard is an avid short story reader who likes to help others find and understand stories.

If you want to wallow in some sadness for a while, you're on the right page.

The following short, emotional selections feature tragedy, mistreatment, grief, touching moments, and injustices.

There's a lot to read here, but it might be best to spread them out a bit. Give yourself some time to recover.

I hope these affecting stories are a cathartic experience for you.

A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane

A child is standing on a street corner when a little brown dog approaches. They have a friendly exchange, but it quickly turns rough with the child hitting the dog. The boy loses interest in the dog and heads for home. He notices the dog following. The boy beats the dog with a stick. Despite the mistreatment, it's eager to stay with the boy.

Read A Dark Brown Dog

Vanka by Anton Chekhov

Vanka is a nine-year-old orphan boy apprenticed to a shoemaker. He stays up late on Christmas Eve to write a secret letter to his grandfather. Vanka suffers abuse at the hand of his master, is given little to eat, and has no comforts. He begs his grandfather to take him in.

This story can be read in the preview of Great Short Stories of the Masters. (select in Table of Contents, 73% into preview)

Coco by Guy de Maupassant

The huge Lucas Farm is populated by many animals and farmhands. Among the animals is an old white horse named Coco. The mistress of the farm keeps him for old time's sake. His care is entrusted to a fifteen-year-old farmhand, Zidore. He doesn't see the point in wasting resources on this old nag, and the others make fun of him for getting stuck with this job. Zidore takes his frustrations out on Coco.

Read Coco

The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the horse.

— Guy de Maupassant

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen

It's snowing on a freezing night. A little girls walks along the street, her head and feet bare. She's selling matches but she's had no buyers all day. She can't go home to her father without any money. She's getting numb from the cold. She wonders if she should dare to light one of her matches for a brief flash of warmth.

Read The Little Match Girl

Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it.

— Hans Christian Andersen

Alyosha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy

Alyosha has been working since he was a young boy. At nineteen his father sends him to work for a merchant. He's an excellent worker, and everyone in the household orders him around. He never sees his wages. Alyosha maintains a cheerful attitude. He's used to having value only in relation to the services he can perform for people. One day he notices that his relationship with the cook has a different character.

Read Alyosha the Pot

Twilight by Wladyslaw Remont

Sokol, an old sick horse, lies dying. His only company are the hunting dogs he used to run with, but they don't stay with him long. His nights are solitary and frightening. His plaintive neighing goes unanswered. He longs to run one last time.

Read an adaptation of Twilight

. . . they took no further notice of Sokol, except for the occasional furtive kick to remind him that he was dying too slowly. The others, thankfully, took no notice of Sokol at all.

— Wladyslaw Reymont

My Dead Brother Comes to America by Alexander Godin

The narrator recounts the foggy winter day his family arrived at Ellis Island. There was a crowd waiting for the passengers to disembark. People called out to their family members. He heard a shout calling his mother's name. It was his father. The family hasn't seen him in years. He went ahead of them to America. Now, he's waiting to see his wife and four children again.

Redemption by John Gardner

On a spring day, Jack Hawthorne accidentally runs over and kills his younger brother, David, with a tractor. His father is nearly destroyed by it and turns to smoking and women to survive. His mother is sapped by grief. She gets comfort from food and her friends. While no one blames Jack for the tragedy, he takes it badly, replaying the accident in his mind and viewing himself as evil.

Read Redemption

Even at the last moment he could have prevented his brother's death by slamming on the tractor's brakes, easily in reach for all the shortness of his legs; but he was unable to think, or rather thought unclearly, and so watched it happen, as he would again and again watch it happen in his mind, with nearly undiminished intensity and clarity, all his life.

— John Gardner

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

Young students in a classroom excitedly talk about the possibility of seeing the sun. They live on Venus where its been raining for seven straight years. The scientists say it will stop today, but only briefly. Margot is old enough to remember the sun, but her classmates don't believe her.

Read All Summer in a Day

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

The narrator, Jack, remembers when he was a young boy. His mother folded origami animals for him. She was able to breathe life into them. His mother was a mail-order bride from China. As Jack grows up, he draws away from his mother, preferring American toys and food. He won't answer her if she speaks Chinese. He's embarrassed by his mom.

Read The Paper Menagerie

What kind of woman puts herself into a catalog so that she can be bought? The high school me thought I knew so much about everything. Contempt felt good, like wine.

— Ken Liu

The Kiss by Unknown

A father rushes out of the house, late for work. His daughter rushes to see him off, but she's too late. She calls her dad, telling him he forgot to give her a goodbye kiss.

Read The Kiss (second story)

In the Restaurant by Unknown

A grown son takes his elderly father out for dinner. The older man makes a mess. His son helps him and takes care of everything.

Read In the Restaurant

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

Akakiy is a low-level official in public service. He's a copyist and he does his job efficiently and without error. He's shown no respect in the office; his coworkers make fun of him and his overcoat. He accepts the teasing, only objecting if it interferes with his work. The Petersburg cold becomes too much for Akakiy's old, worn out overcoat to bear. He knows he has to get it mended.

This story is longer than the others on this page, but it's one of the all time best.

Read The Overcoat

The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted; recounted there in his presence various stories concocted about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of seventy; they said that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and strewed bits of paper over his head, calling them snow.

— Nikolai Gogol

The Stray Dog by Sadegh Hedayat

A stray Scottish setter hangs around the town square. It's hungry and tired. The dog has become anxious. No one cares about its suffering. People drive the dog away by hitting it and throwing rocks. The dog can still remember its former life, but those memories are fading.

Read The Stray Dog

Dog Star by Arthur C. Clarke

An astronomer wakes up to the sound of barking. He realizes it was in a dream. His dog, Laika, is long gone. He recounts their history—finding her as a puppy by the roadside, teaching her to behave, and their growing attachment to each other. Once, she even saved his life.

Funny-short stories

 Funny Tale of a Lost Senior CitizenFunny Senior Moments

 When I went to lunch today, I noticed an old man sitting on a park bench sobbing his eyes out. I stopped and asked him what was wrong. He told me, 'I have a 22 year old wife at home. She rubs my back every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshly ground coffee.' I continued, 'Well, then why are you crying?' He added, 'She makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favourite biscuits, cleans the house and then watches sports TV with me for the rest of the afternoon.' I said, 'Well, why are you crying?' He said, 'For dinner she makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favourite dessert and then we cuddle until the small hours.' I inquired, 'Well then, why in the world would you be crying?' He replied, 'I can't remember where I live.'

The Silly, Hilarious and Funny Side of DIY [Do It Yourself]

 Rosie Hall buys a self-assembly, flat-pack, cupboard from her local Homebase store. Reaching home Rosie reads the instructions carefully, counts the pieces then assembles the cupboard in the bedroom. It looks really great and she is delighted. Now, Rosie lives near a railway line and as the train passes by the cupboard collapses. Undaunted by this misfortune she re-reads the instructions and reassembles the cupboard. Once more, another train passes and the whole cupboard collapses again. Rosie now frustrated and thinking that she must have done something "wrong" re-re-reads the instructions and re-re-assembles the cupboard. Shortly, a train passes and the whole cupboard collapses yet again for the 3rd time. Rosie is now fed up, cross and rather angry so she 'phones the customer service department. She is told that this is quite impossible and that they'll send along a fitter to take a look. Funny Short Stories The fitter arrives and assembles the cupboard. Again, a train passes and the cupboard collapses. Completely baffled by this unexpected event, the fitter decides to reassemble the cupboard and sit inside it to see whether he can find out what causes the cupboard to collapse. At this point, Rosie's husband comes home, sees the cupboard and says, 'Oh, that's a splendid looking cupboard,' and he opens it to look inside. The fitter, who had been wondering how to explain his position in Rosie's bedroom cupboard, blurts out, 'You probably won't believe me, but I'm standing here waiting for a train.'

An Irishman's Jocular Tale

 An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman all entered a 26 mile long swimming race. After 12 miles the Scottish man gets tired and drops out. Then after 16 miles the English man gets tired and drops out. After 25 miles the Irish man decides he can't finish the race, so he turns around and swims back to the start.

Fun At The Movies

 Last week Ronnie Walsh went to the movies at the Rialto Cinema in Bristol to see "Slumdog Millionaire" but because of two women loudly chatting together who were sitting in the row in front of him, Ronnie was unable to hear the dialogue clearly. Ronnie leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, 'Excuse me ladies but I can't hear.' 'I should hope not,' stormed the woman, 'this is a private conversation.'

Amusing Married Men Only Story Men Only

 Will and Guy have no information as to the veracity about this funny tale from the USA. Apparently in a small town somewhere in the USA there is a large factory that will only recruit married men. One of the local women, one Brenda Davy, a feisty young lady, was angry about this and demanded to speak to the manager to find out why. Brenda demanded to know, 'Why is it you limit your employees to married men? Is it because you think women are weak, dumb, cantankerous.......or what?' 'Not at all, Ma'am,' the Factory Manager replied. 'It is because our employees are used to obeying orders, are accustomed to being shoved around, know how to keep their mouths shut and don't pout when I yell at them.'

Short Stories

 If you don't see the topic that you are interested in try our 'Search' box because we have a large selection of amusing yarns, tall tales and strange but true stories.

A Funny True StorySpeed Trap

 Police Officer Bryant found a perfect hiding place for watching for speeding motorists. One day, the officer was amazed when everyone was under the speed limit, so Bryant investigated and found the problem. 10 year old Dennis was standing on the side of the road with a huge hand painted sign which said "Radar Trap Ahead." A little more investigative work led the officer to the boy's accomplice, another boy about 100 yards beyond the radar trap with a sign reading "Tips" and a bucket at his feet, full of change.

Here are Examples of Our Really Funny Short Stories

 Our mission is to amuse you with our funny really short stories. While we aim to surprise, we never want to offend or shock you. Please not that the ABOVE links connect to other pages, while below are samples of our short stories.

Easy to Swallow?

 My sister, Paula, and her husband, Chris, had just finished tucking their young ones into bed one evening when they heard crying coming from the children's room. Rushing in, they found Tommy crying hysterically. He had accidentally swallowed a 5p piece and was sure he was going to die. No amount of talking could change his mind. Trying to calm him, Chris palmed a 5p coin that he happened to have in his pocket and pretended to remove it from Tommy's ear. Tommy, naturally, was delighted. In a flash, he snatched it from his father's hand, swallowed it and demanded cheerfully - 'Do it again, Dad!'

Heard This One Before?

 A man boasts to a friend about his new hearing aid, 'It's the most expensive one I've ever had, it cost me USD$3,500.' [£1800] His friend asks, 'What kind is it?' The braggart says, 'Half past four.'

Fake Pigeon Story

 Will and Guy bring you the story behind the pigeon story. Zhang Liang, apologized for his 'bad behavior' when he forged a picture of pigeons receiving bird flu vaccine shots from medical workers. Amazingly this picture won first prize in the 2005 China International Press Photo Contest. 'I would like to apologize to the public,' said Liang, who was dismissed from Harbin Daily. Pigeon Fake Zhang Liang He copied the pigeon in the top right corner of his photo and pasted it in the top left corner. 'I did it to make the photo perfect,' Zhang was quoted as saying. 'It was the first time for me to perfect pictures with computer technology and I did it only once.'

Will's Experience at Gatwick

 After his return from Rome, Will couldn't find his luggage in the London Gatwick airport baggage area. So he went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that his bags hadn't shown up on the carousel. She smiled and told him not to worry because they were trained professionals and he was in good hands. 'Now', she asked Will, 'has your plane arrived yet?'

More Funny Short Stories

 

Lesson in Employee Relationship

 Fred Gibbs was in his early 60's, retired and had started a second career in catering. However, he just couldn't seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 2, 3, 5 minutes late. However, he was a good worker, really clever, so the owner was in a quandary about how to deal with it. Finally, one day he called Steve into the office for a talk. Fred, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a top class job, but you're being late so often is quite a worry.' 'Yes, I realise that, sir, and I am working on it.' replied Fred. 'I'm pleased to hear that, you are a team player. It's odd though, you're coming in late. I know you're retired from the Royal Navy. What did they say if you came in late there?' 'They said, "Good morning, Admiral".'

Aircrew of the Month

 

This next yarn reminds of my former classmate Pete. At school, Pete was always in the top 2/3 in our class, but once he left school, he never could settle in a job. He landed a job as a bus driver, but his denouement came when he took a detour and drove the bus to his home. Pete, got out, went in, left the passengers on the bus, had a cup of tea and drove on half an hour later. When the bus company discovered his antics, his supervisor dismissed him on the spot. The Airline flight attendant in this next tale is going the same way as Pete.

From a Stingem employee....' Welcome aboard Stingem Flight XXX to YYY.' We are pleased to have some of the best pilots in the industry... Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight...!'

Then he progressed to the famous ' Fasten Seatbelt Routine' . What he said was: 'To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised.'

In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with two or more small children, decide now which one you love the more.

After the plane landed, he said: 'As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants'

His final announcement was: 'Thank you for flying Stingem Airlines. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.'

Scotsman, Irishman, and Englishman Story

A Scotsman, an Irishman, and an Englishman are each sentenced to a year in solitary confinement; before being locked away, each is to be granted a year's supply of whatever he wants to help him get through the long, long spell alone.

The Scotsman asks for a year's supply of whisky; it's given to him and he's locked away.

The Irishman asks for a year's supply of Guinness so he's locked up with several thousand bottles of it.

The Englishman asks for a year's supply of cigarettes and he's given a pile of cartons and the cell door is shut on him.

One year later, their doors are all unlocked.

The Scotsman staggers out and shouts, 'I'm free!' and then keels over dead from alcohol poisoning.

The Irishman is dragged out into the light, whereupon he promptly dies of liver failure.

When the door to the Englishman's cell is opened, everybody watches eagerly to see what sort of a wreck the man has made of himself.To their surprise, he walks right out the door, sidles up to the first person he sees, and asks, 'I say you wouldn't happen to have a match, would you?'

See more Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman tall stories

Boot on the Wrong Footboots joke

This tale is based on a true story told to Will by a friend [Tessa] who is an nursery schoolteacher in Drayton near Portsmouth; names have been changed to protect the guilty. Marlon asked the teacher to help him get his shoes on at the end of a busy day. After quite a struggle with the shoes, which were a little tight, Tessa finally got them on. 'They're on the wrong way round, Miss,' mumbled Marlon. She realises that he is right; they are on the wrong feet. Staying calm she and swaps them over for him. 'They're not my shoes, Miss,' Marlon murmurs again. Tessa fights hard to keep her cool and asks Marlon why he hadn't told her before. She then kneels down again and helps him pull the shoes off. 'These aren't my shoes, they're my brother's and Mum told me not to tell anyone.' At this point Tessa can feel tears coming. She helps him back into his shoes. She gets him into his coat and wraps his scarf round his neck. 'Where are your gloves, Marlon?' asks Tessa quietly. 'Oh, Miss, I always put them in my shoes!'

Texas Halloween Investigation7734 - Hell

There was a murder in Texas at Halloween, and the FBI were called in to investigate. Hitchcock, one of the officers, saw something written in blood on the wall. It looked like the number '7734', but he was not sure; anyway, he took lots of pictures. When Hitchcock got back to the lab he developed the film of the crime scene, but he still could not make any progress with the number. In the hope of inspiration, he took the sheaf of photographs home and spread them on the dining room table. Just at that moment his 7 year old daughter Emma came in through the patio door opposite, and looked down at the photographs. 'Why have you photographed hell?', she asked, then Hitchcock saw that when held upside down, 7734 spelt: 'hELL'. [Kindly corrected by Matt Seibert.] Footnote: Please send us your really funny short stories.

HOW TO BE A BETTER BLOGGER IN 30 DAYS

 HOW TO BE A BETTER BLOGGER IN 30 DAYS

 Have you ever dreamed of becoming the next Malcolm Gladwell, Ernest Hemingway or Stephen King?

If you’re a writer, then the answer is obvious.

But in this day and age, more and more writers are turning to a more accessible platform:

Blogging.

Of course, writing a blog is much different than penning a New York Times bestseller. 

The medium works in smaller chunks and calls for major concision.

Smart bloggers understand this because they also understand that modern readers have short attention spans.

In fact, a Microsoft study found that technology has reduced the average human attention span to 8 seconds, which is 1 second shorter than that of a goldfish.

I won’t lie to you: Becoming a better writer and running a successful blog isn’t easy. But, if you follow my tips, you can start producing engaging content in as little as 30 days.

Remember that when it comes to writing a great blog post, your ultimate goal is to communicate your message or idea quickly and powerfully. 

Magazine content usually has a stipulated length, but blog posts can range from 300 – 5000 words or more.

Regardless of the length of the blog post, you still have to persuade people. You’ve got to get people’s attention and hold it.

The benefits of blogging are enormous. According to HubSpot, writing and publishing a blog daily will generate a higher inbound ROI for your business, compared to blogging just a few times per week.

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Blogging may not yield quick results the way paid advertising can, but I can assure you that it’ll produce sustainable and motivated leads and customers for your business. What’s more, blog posts are an excellent medium to share on social media platforms and improve brand awareness. 

If you’re ready to start a blog–or ready to hone those blog posts in your arsenal–let me show you 5 simple ways to become better blogger in just 30 days.

Here’s the first… 

1. Write down ideas, all the time

When you write down your ideas, you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools. – Michael Leboeuf

Nurjean Chaneco revived his blog by continually writing down new ideas. Andrew Lynch, founder of The Daily Practice Journal, improved his blog writing skills the same way.

In his words,

I genuinely feel like an idea machine. I am MUCH more creative, often come up with novel or interesting solutions to problems.

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Stop seeing yourself as an aspiring writer. There’s only one way to become a writer and that’s to start writing.

In this case, write a blog post.

How do you begin?

Start by writing down ideas as they occur to you. Make it a habit and keep doing it consistently by installing a note-taking app, like Evernote, on your mobile device.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re having lunch with friends or waiting for a doctor’s appointment — ideas occur to us all the time. You need a way to capture them when they do so that you can turn them into a great blog post in the future. 

James Altucher recommends that you write down 10 ideas per day. Make this a daily practice and you’ll become a better writer. What’s more, you’ll never run out of ideas or experience writer’s block.

From 2014 to date, I’m able to write 8 blog posts per week, while running 5 successful companies. In large part, this is because I immediately write down ideas.

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For example, when I attend a conference, I always have my mobile device with me. Apart from the occasional browsing, I primarily take notes.

When a speaker is on the stage, you’ll find my eyes glued and my ears attentive to every word.

According to one academic research study, we often remember what we’ve written down. If you fail to write it down, your brain might not remember it when you’re desperately in need of it–like when you’re ready to write a blog post.

Cultivate the habit of writing down ideas. Don’t postpone this daily practice, grab your pen and write down ideas after reading this post.

In fact, do it now. After all, generating topic ideas is one of the best blog writing tips around.

2. Start with a story

Once you’ve mastered this habit, it’s time to capitalize on innate human nature with storytelling.

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Your story doesn’t have to start with “once upon a time…”

Storytelling, in our context, is all about conveying your thoughts, experiences, processes and results in a memorable, engrossing way, using words, sounds or images.

When you tell a story in your blog post, you’re answering a specific question.

For example, Dollar Shave Club, in their story-based video content, answers the simple question, “why pay more for shave tech you don’t need?”

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When you’re able to take readers from Point A to Point B, you already possess the attributes of a good storyteller and a successful blog writer.

Better blog writers are storytellers. In fact, if you’ve ever read a blog post that pulled you in and got you excited, chances are it’s because of a compelling story.

An example of a storytelling-based blog post is Jon Morrow’s epic post titled “How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World.”

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This post was all about storytelling. Jon narrated the story of how, in April 2006, he was hit by a car going 85 miles per hour, resulting in 14 broken bones.

Within 3 months, he quit his job, sold everything he owned and then disappeared.

You can read the rest of the story. But, I’m emotional right now, because the substance of his blog post could make anyone cry.

And guess what? This particular blog post has generated close to 500 comments, as well as thousands of shares on social media and inbound links.

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Stories are memorable. Stories resonate. And, we can tell and retell them to everyone who cares to listen. If you’re just about to start a blog, keep this at the forefront of your mind: Your reader wants to be entertained.

Stories pull people in and help dispel doubt. That’s because, through storytelling, you’re able to develop a scene where people can relate with what you’re saying and picture themselves doing it.

Become a memorable writer by integrating stories into your blog posts. It doesn’t have to be your own story, either. You’ll notice how I shared Jon Morrow’s story in this post and it still provided value.

Here’s another great example of storytelling:

DANIELLE LAPORTE, on managing & loving money:

No one ever taught me how to manage money. My folks were young and working, Catholic High School didn’t give me any tips, and I skipped college. So that left me and my Visa card, which mysteriously showed up in the mail on my nineteenth birthday. I promptly went shopping that weekend. And the next weekend.

3. Develop an easy-to-follow outline

Before you sit down to write a blog post (or any content for that matter), you should develop an easy-to-follow outline. This isn’t optional – it’s an essential step. 

Once you’ve picked a topic to write about, from the list of ideas that you’ve written down in #1, create an outline.

The outline should contain the headline or title, the major points that you want to make in the body and a conclusion.

To get the juices flowing, I recommend that you actually write the introduction and the conclusion first, then add a list of things that you’ll cover in the body.

For example, here’s a typical outline:

Headline:

3-Step Process For Turning Casual Visitors into Buyers

Why are your site visitors not buying your digital products?

Well, the answer is right under your nose: You’ve not nurtured them, and therefore, they don’t trust you enough to spend their hard earned money on.

But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to show you how to turn casual site visitors into buyers. You’ll love this.

Keep reading…

Subheadings:

i). Capture email leads with on opt-in form

ii). Launch a lead nurturing program

iii). Offer an MVP (minimum viable product)

Conclusion

There you have it. The 3-step formula for ensuring that your site’s casual visitors transition through your marketing funnel and get excited about purchasing your product.

If you haven’t yet added an opt-in form on your blog, do that now. Then, drive traffic to your landing page, and begin the process of lead nurturing.

An outline guides you when you start writing a blog post or other copy. You already know what should go into the subheadings, even before you get there, so it helps you stay focused.

100% of my blog posts start as outlines, including the $100,000 case studies. Indeed, outlines are one of the most essential blog writing tips that you should internalize. 

The introduction to your blog post should be compelling. Knowing how to open your blog post introduction with a bang will guarantee that your readers will read at least 65% of your content, if not the whole thing.

For the body, make a few bullet points, like I did with the subheadings. Ideally, these bullet points should describe the major ideas that you want to cover.

You can include keywords in the subheadings, if they flow naturally there. Don’t try to manipulate search rankings or stuff keywords.

In the conclusion, you’re simply reiterating what your readers have learned in the post. See how I concluded my recent post:

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Obviously, not everyone will read every word or sentence in your blog post. Readers who skim posts will benefit from the conclusion and grasp what you were talking about in the body of the post.

Don’t worry about perfecting the outline. After all, it’s only an outline, not even a first draft. With your outline, you can flesh out your thoughts easily.

Outlines can help you plan future writing,

 says Jeremy Porter.

And, according to the Harvard College Writing Center, “A good outline will also save you time in the revision process, reducing the possibility that your ideas will need to be rearranged once you’ve written them.”

Whether you’re a beginner or experienced, even successful blog writer, always begin with an outline. It’ll make your life easier.

4. Read other great writers

If you want to write better blog posts, then you MUST read other great writers inside and outside your industry. It’s one of the most vital blog writing tips you need to memorize and put into action. 

Read about writing. For example, I’ve read On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser, as well as The Elements of Style, among others.

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The books, journals and blogs that you’ll read may not be closely-connected to your topic (e.g., lead generation), but you’re training your brain to think outside of its comfort zone and give you more great ideas. In turn? You’ll be better equipped to write a great blog post.

The truth is that if you don’t read great writing, you don’t really know how to do it–and that successful blog that you dream of will evade you.

I’ve learned that I get a better education from studying authors’ best work than I do from waiting for a piece of advice from them.

Remember that words are powerful. Humans are, in a sense, made up of words. If you want to know what Seth Godin believes in and what drives his writing, read his bestselling books and his wildly popular blog.

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If you want to find your voice, start by reading great writing and studying great writers. You’ll find your voice, over time, especially as you keep practicing your own writing, preferably in those blog posts you’ll draft (and eventually publish).

Read a lot and read diversely. Watch TED talks, take notes and study infographics from effective writers. All of these can help spur you towards better writing.

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Make sure that you pay close attention to style and mechanics, then develop a unique style for yourself.

5. Find relevant questions and start answering them.

I know you’re probably tired of hearing it, but it’s worth repeating: Consistent writing is one of the easiest ways to become a better writer.

The question is, what should you write about?

As a beginner, write blog posts that answer questions.

I told you earlier that reading is my #1 priority as a blogger. I don’t write a blog post until I have read a lot about the subject I’m about to approach.

On the web and in real life, there are too many questions with too few answers.

That’s good news for you.

Considering the level of competition online, you can become a better writer and actually build a loyal audience by answering questions on your blog.

Why do you think sites like Quora are so popular?

It’s because people want answers to questions.

If you don’t know what to write about, I encourage you to find relevant questions in your niche or industry and provide answers to them.

Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko.com, has mastered the art of answering his users’ questions in his blog posts.

He’ll go to Quora, find questions related to search engine optimization, then go the extra mile to proffer solutions in the form of a long-form blog post.

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85% of my blog posts are based around questions. Take a look:

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Don’t worry about providing the single best right answer, regardless of your knowledge about the question. You can search Google for content that addresses the question.

When you find informational content that provides some form of answers or hints, expand on it. Write a better headline, develop an outline and make sure that your subheadings and bullet points answer the question.

Conclusion

You don’t need any special qualifications to become a better blog writer in 30 days. Nor do you have to have an MFA or the pedigree of Hemingway to run a successful blog. 

Oftentimes, what you require to write a great blog post is right under your nose: time.

Time is a precious commodity. When you invest adequate time in reading, you’ll most assuredly become a more confident and persuasive writer and be able to write blog posts that shine.

As a rule of thumb, when you’re writing a blog post, don’t waste time trying to please every reader. It’s not in your best interest. After all, you don’t need everyone following your blog.

Instead, write blog posts to express your worldview. Because that’s building true–and authentic–brand awareness

Comments

Short romantic stories

 A man bought 12 flowers. 11 real and 1 fake. He said, "I will love you until the last flower dies."

A girl asked a boy if she was pretty, he said "No". She asked him if he wanted to be with her forever, he said "No". Then she asked him if he would cry if she walked away, he said "No". She had heard enough; she needed to leave.

As she walked away he grabbed her arm and told her to stay. He said "You're not pretty, you're beautiful. I don`t want to be with you forever, I need to be with you forever. And I wouldn't cry if you walked away, I would die."

Boy: Can I take a photo?

Girl: Why?

Boy: I just want to show my children how their mom looked when she was younger.

There was a girl named Becca and a boy named Joe. Becca was in a burning house. None of the firefighters could get in the house because the fire was too big.

Joe dressed in one of the fire suits and got into the house. When he got up the stairs, the steps fell off behind him. When he got into her room he sealed the door up behind him. He held her tight, kissed her, hugged her, then said that he loved her.

She asked what was wrong, and he said that he was going to die. Her eyes widened as she began to cry.

He picked her up and jumped out of the four story house. He landed on his back with her on top of him. He died to save her life.

There was girl who loved a boy so much she said to the boy, "If I told you that I liked you, would you take it as a joke?"

The boy said, "Yes I would."

She asked, "Why?"

The boy replied, "Because I know you don't like me, I know you love me!"

A girl and guy were speeding over 100 mph on a motorcycle.

Girl: Slow down. I'm scared.

Guy: No this is fun.

Girl: No its not. Please, it's too scary!

Guy: Then tell me you love me.

Girl: Fine, I love you. Slow down! Guy: Now give me a big hug. (Girl hugs him)

Guy: Can you take my helmet off and put it on? It's bugging me.

In the paper the next day: A motorcycle had crashed into a building because of brake failure. Two people were on the motorcycle, but only one survived. The truth was that halfway down the road, the guy realized that his brakes broke, but he didn't want to let the girl know. Instead, he had her say she loved him, felt her hug one last time, then had her wear his helmet so she would live even though it meant he would die.

Me and my boyfriend were out to dinner and there was an older couple sitting near us.

All of a sudden I heard the older man say "Remember when we were like that?" I looked at my boyfriend and we laughed and giggled.

When I turned back around, my boyfriend had a ring in his hand, and said "I can't wait until we're like that!"

Once a guy said to a girl: "Love is like a rainbow, it's colourful and makes people smile.

Love is like an ocean, it's deep and beautiful.

Love is like the sun, it shines and it's warm.

Love is like rain, it's calm and refreshing.

Will you let me show you that love?"

The girl shook her head while smiling: "No"

The guy looked down sadly and then he heard her saying these words: "I want you to show me YOUR love..."

One day, a lover was angry with his girlfriend and tried to stab her with a knife. He accidentally cut his own finger badly with the knife, started bleeding, and knelt down in pain. His girlfriend bent down and bandaged up his finger and tended to him.

There was a blind girl who was filled with animosity and despised the world. She didn't have many friends, just a boyfriend who loved her deeply, like no one else. She always used to say that she'd marry him if she could see him. Suddenly, one day someone donated her a pair of eyes.

And that's when she finally saw her boyfriend. She was astonished to see that her boyfriend was blind. He told her, "You can see me now, can we get married?"

She replied, "And do what? We'd never be happy. I have my eye sight now, but you're still blind. It won't work out, I'm sorry."

With a tear in his eye and a smile on his face, he meekly said, "I understand. I just want you to always be happy. Take care of yourself, and my eyes."

Boy: I would like you to do something important for me.

Girl: Yes?

Boy: When you get home today, thank your mom for me.

Girl: Sure, but why?

Boy: Thank her because she gave birth to an angel who was put into my life and one day whom I hope will become my wife.

happy birthday messages

When my boyfriend and I were 15, he wanted to give me a piggy back ride, but I refused because I thought I was too fat.

He picked me up and said, "You better get used to this, because I'm picking you up like this on our wedding day."

We got married last week and he carried me just like he said he would.

One night a guy and a girl were driving home from the movies. The boy sensed there was something wrong because of the painful silence they shared between them that night. The girl then asked the boy to pull over because she wanted to talk. She told him that her feelings had changed and that it was time to move on.

A silent tear slid down his cheek as he slowly reached into his pocket & passed her a folded note.

At that moment, a drunk driver was speeding down that very same street. He swerved right into the drivers seat, killing the boy. Miraculously, the girl survived. Remembering the note, she pulled it out & read it. "Without your love, I would die."

Today, my boyfriend told me that he loved me. When I asked why, he took out a list. It was 301 reasons long, and he said he had a pen in his pocket in case he remembered any new reasons.

A boy was dating a girl who always hurt him. One day, she broke up with him and told him, "I don't ever want to see you again."

A few months later, the girl had a change of heart. She realized that she loved the boy, so she went back and said to him, "Give me just one more chance. I love you and I need you. I promise that I will never hurt you again."

But the boy just laughed and said to her, "Only a fool would take back someone who hurt them so much."

The girl felt hopeless and began to cry, but the boy put his arms around her, held her tightly and said, "...and I am one of those fools."

When my sister was younger she came home from school one day and demanded that I take her to the library so she could get books on sign language.

I asked why? She told me there was a new kid at school who was deaf and she wanted to befriend him.

Today I stood beside her at their wedding watching her sign "I do".

There was a girl who was playing in the park when she saw a picture in a bush. She kept the photo but forgot about it until she was married.

Her husband asked, who is that little boy in her wallet.

She answered; "My first love."

Then the husband smiled and said, "I lost this picture when I was nine years old"

Girl: Can I confess something?

Guy: Sure!

Girl: You have the prettiest smile I've ever seen.

Guy: Can I confess something as well?

Girl: Yeah.

Guy: This smile only exists because Of you!

Today my boyfriend came over and met my parents for the first time.

After he left, my dad told me, "Your boyfriend loves you."

I smiled and asked, "How do you know that?"

My dad responded, "Because he looks at you the same way I look at your mom."

When I was in 3rd grade, I gave my boyfriend a friendship bracelet. I moved away in 5th grade so we had to break up.

Years later, I moved back and I saw him at the mall the and he was still wearing the bracelet.

We are getting married next year!

My boyfriend lost his wallet one day. He spent hours looking for it at the park where we spent the day together.

I found his wallet at my house. He had no money, credit cards, or other valuables in it. The only thing in it was the first letter that I had written to him.

Possession

 The demon came as demons do, during the faithless hours of early morning. I’d been ascending through ever shallowing layers of sleep when finally I breached the surface. I stretched for my phone and groaned. 4 a.m. is a brutal time to wake up. Too late for a sleeping pill, too early for a new day. I shut my eyes again but almost at once the usual worries began crowding me, quickly magnifying from the banal to the absurd. What if the accumulation of everything I’ve learned adds up to nothing? What if the story I’ve sold myself about life isn’t the real story? What if I’m dying of that rare kidney disorder I read about in Time last week? 4.02. A branch tapped against the curtainless window. Outside was wintry black. The night had a child’s-picture-book quality to it: a waxing gibbous moon, spores of mist drifting through it. The air became eerily still and for a moment I felt dislocated, suspended in time. My insomnia makes me vulnerable to the tricks night plays, so I wiggled my toes under the blankets; then, reassured I was awake, resolved to count my way back to sleep on the rhythm of tiny taps and creaks generated by the silence. I was close to succeeding too when I heard something, at first faintly, then increasingly clearly – the tread of footsteps coming up the stairs.

My eyes snapped back open. I was alone on the property and this was the first night I’d slept there. The grounds were still a building site, my bed the only piece of furniture in the house. This isn’t right, I told myself. I’d distinctly remembered locking doors and bolting windows. But – and this perhaps was the first sign that my thoughts were originating from a place below the level of conscious reasoning – instead of fear, I felt mild outrage, as though whatever was coming up those stairs was not playing fair, not playing by the rules. Somewhere deep inside me, I think I already knew that whatever I was dealing with was not human.

My husband and I had bought the property two years earlier and immediately begun renovations. To say that the project was stressful was a gross understatement. It was as though the house had been storing up its grievances for centuries, and now with every brick pulled was releasing them back upon us. Bats, rats, floods, rot – one by one they came, the seven plagues of Oxfordshire. The house was an old rectory next to a Norman church and graveyard. There was a sense of unrest about the graveyard’s higgledy-piggledy layout, as if bodies and bones had been shifted to make room for newcomers and now the original occupants were muttering like angry commuters on a packed train. It was possible, I suppose, that this honey-coloured village had been an idyll for milkmaids marrying their farming loves, but it was equally likely that it had been a finger-pointing, witch-burning community, meting out who knew what kind of innovative torture in the name of God. Long before the footsteps started up the stairs, I’d wondered whether the place might be haunted.

I became aware of a presence in the room. The side of my bed dipped as if someone had sat down heavily. Arms encircled me from behind. I felt the embrace of pins and needles as a body pressed against mine. It seemed to be made of iron filings – millions of them, detached, free moving, yet somehow magnetically drawn together into a human shape. I never saw it, but this was the image that developed in my head as the arms gathered me in. Good God, was it spooning me? For the first time in a long time I felt cherished and safe. Tears blurred my eyes. I was exhausted, demoralised, struggling to finish a novel. The building project had caused so much antipathy between my husband and me that we were barely speaking, let alone spooning. I sighed. The arms tightened in response, as if aware of the comfort they were giving. I sighed again. Again the arms tightened – the iron filings moving fluidly into the gap left by my exhalation. I pushed out against my diaphragm but once again, as my lungs deflated, the space was stolen from me. I began to panic. Whatever this thing was, it was not benign. I called out but no sound came. I tried to break free but found I could move neither my arms nor my legs. Soon I could no longer breathe. Pressure rose in my chest. I’d experienced something similar to this once before – after the delivery of my first child by Caesarean. Something went wrong while they were stitching me up and the pressure had built, culminating in a tremendous burst of pain in my heart. Simultaneously I heard the beep of the monitor flatlining. As medics pounced, some misplaced survival instinct told me they were trying to kill me and I’d fought them with the last of my strength. Now I did the same – mustering something internal, something almost telekinetic. There was a rushing in my ears, I felt the violent throwback of an explosion and, suddenly, I was free.

In the bathroom, I splashed cold water onto my face and stared into the mirror. My skin was the colour of parchment, my eyes flat.

I’ve always suffered from nightmares. I can’t tell you the multitude of ways I’ve watched my family being dispatched to their graves over the years. I’ve seen my brother hanging bloodied out of the mouths of monsters, a faceless woman leading my mother away, my son waving at me, then turning to jump to his death down a bottomless black hole. Nor am I merely a spectator at the horror show of my subconscious: my hands have been chewed off by creatures of the deep, my eyes prised from their sockets by gelatinous fingers. In one of my cheerier recurring dreams I am forced to walk down a narrow corridor whose walls are a pulsing, rippling lattice of serpents, some oily and brown, others speckled and wickedly fluorescent, all with tongues that flick out as I pass. Like the video game whose next level is unattainable, I am invariably struck before I reach safety.

I have tried to understand the psychology of these nightmares and the experiences that fuel them. Humans, of course, are born with an evolutionary bias that predisposes us to fear any creature that poses a threat. Estimates put snakebites at around 5.5 million a year, resulting in 125,000 deaths, 30,000 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa alone. That’s a lot of venom, but then I don’t live in sub-Saharan Africa; I live in London. What I had was a rational fear repeated in an irrational setting – in other words, a phobia.

There’s a school of psychoanalysis that suggests that something grisly in childhood accounts for adult obsession and fears. My mother grew up in Africa, and certainly her stories of being chased across the plains by the black mamba were the stuff of bedtime legend. Closer to home, I remember running barefoot through the long grass at my grandmother’s house and seeing the writhing coils of mating grass snakes below me. In that one airborne second, I managed to adjust my trajectory. Grass snakes are harmless, amiable creatures; nevertheless I later felt sick at how close I’d come to landing on that foul, spongy mass. Further back still there had been a strange incident at the Bronx Zoo. A cobra, demented by captivity, had repeatedly bashed itself against the glass of its cage. Even as my mother tried to pull me away, I’d stood my ground, as fascinated as I was scared. So, yes, snake nightmares I could account for – as for the rest, who knew? Not that it was relevant anyway, because the iron filings had been no nightmare. It had happened while I was awake.

‘Fuck,’ I said to my reflection. ‘Fuck fuck fuck.’

4.20 a.m. No possibility of sleep now. Back in bed, I tried to regulate my breathing but after a while became aware of my body feeling fractionally out of sync with its surroundings. A branch scraped against the window – the Maurice Sendak world of moons and interwoven fairy tales knocking to come in. Again the air went still. No, I thought, please no! I wiggled my toes under the covers and looked round the room. Everything was as it should be: the edge of the fireplace, the splintery uncarpeted floorboards, my hand raised in the gloamy light.

This time when the bed dipped, I felt a burning sensation on my skin. Arms closed around me and tightened. Overwhelmed by a sense of inevitability, I felt myself soften. The pressure began building, quicker this time, more urgently, but instead of fear or panic I felt a savage, primordial arousal, then the sensation of being penetrated, utterly possessed, before the unstoppable rush to orgasm, as intense as it was short, after which, once again, spell broken, I found myself alone.

Everyone relishes a good haunting story. Bella has a sex ghost. The delighted whisper came back to me full circle within the week. Suggestions poured in. I should hire a paranormal investigator, approach the local priest. Friends recommended their exorcist in the same casual manner they might have passed on their plumber or family doctor. By the time my dentist, who’d just completed a course in hypnotherapy, offered to have strict words with my subconscious, I was so unsettled by all the teasing that when he told me to relax and find a happy place, the best I could come up with was the chocolate-croissant counter in Pret A Manger. During all this, there were two more visits, both at 4 a.m., both while I was awake. On each occasion, the presence – as it was now officially known – returned a few minutes after I had initially broken free to push into the empty crevices of my body, take me to the edge of the sexual abyss and then carelessly drop me over, adding a frisson of shame to what was already a profoundly frightening experience. I was raped, brutalised. The creature had worked its full will upon my body and yet, yet . . . I’d taken pleasure in it?

It was left to my friend, a journalist and polymath, to identify the problem. ‘What you’ve described,’ he said over dinner, ‘is a classic visitation from an incubus.’

I Wikipediaed ‘incubus’. Under a helpfully graphic image of a satanic creature hovering over a prone unconscious female were the words: ‘An incubus is a demon in male form who lies upon sleepers, especially women, in order to engage in sexual activity with them.’ Attributed to everything from incest to the slovenly habit of eating in bed, the appearance of the incubus turns out to be a phenomenon in every corner of the globe. The Ecuadorian Tintín, for instance, is said to be a dwarf with a penchant for overly hairy women whom he serenades with a guitar. In Brazil, the Boto is a dolphin in the form of a beautiful man who, when dragging his women to the river, considerately wears a hat to disguise his blowhole. Germanic folklore tells of a winged goblin that rides on the chest of humans while they sleep. And so it goes on, round the world – imps, jinns and spirits from South Africa to Russia. Cultural and mythological variations aside, all incubi come with the same dread warning on the label: ‘Repeated sexual activity with them may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.’

Thoroughly spooked, I moved the bed into a different room and refused to sleep alone in the house. After the building project was completed, I went to Australia to finish my book. A new country, new people, new sounds and smells – Australia was escape and escape is my oxygen. I hadn’t thought about the incubus for months, when somewhere north of Adelaide, alone in a sweet roadside motel, I woke to a sense of heightened unreality and the presence between my thighs. I reached down in protest and the unmistakable iron fingers closed over my hand and pushed me away.

By the end of that year, having experienced three more visitations in Mexico, in Colorado, in Afghanistan – all places I had gone to lose myself – I understood with a terrible clarity that I couldn’t outrun this thing. Wherever I went, however far I travelled, there it was, next to me on the aeroplane, unfolding its iron-filing legs, reading the in-flight magazine and ordering the chicken or fish. There was no demon living in the spare room of a Cotswold house back in England. The demon lived inside me.

In the panoply of the supernatural, possession is one of the more terrifying concepts: the idea of something lurking inside you, something inherently evil, something that can’t be controlled or killed off. I thought about my other phobias and the stories that I had collected around them. The Chinese man with a live worm eating through his brain; the woman who had swallowed a snake egg in a river in India that hatched inside her, coiling around her organs, stealing into the hollow spaces of her body until, eventually, on the white sheets of the operating table, unable to move or breathe, she’d died – no longer human but merely the shell, the husk of a malevolent guest.

Poltergeist, Paranormal Activity, The Devil Inside. Like everyone else, I’d watched these horror flicks through spread fingers, laughing nervously at the pastiche of the woman in her white nightie – haunted, controlled, before finally being dragged across the bedroom, her nails leaving raw scratch marks on the wooden boards. Suddenly it all felt very close to home. Paranoia is not good for insomnia. I shut windows, slept with the lights on, tuned the audio of my hearing to its most sensitive frequency to listen for signs of unlawful entry. Nothing helped. It wasn’t long before I found myself caving in to the self-pitying mantra of the victim: why me?

The upside of being a writer is that whatever answers you’re unable to find within your own life, you can simply make up. I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself. If the thing was feeding on fear, I would make light of it; better still, mock it. I’d exorcise my incubus by writing the thing clean out of me. I began working on a comic novel about a depressed obsessive–compulsive who falls in love with his succubus, as the female of the species is known. She was fleshy, voluptuous and a marvellous cook, if something of a slob, who left crumbs in his bed and liked to eat Viennese Sachertorte in his bath.

I couldn’t make a single story thread connect. Would my hero choose death and happiness with a figment of his imagination or the misery of life with his unloving, bloodless wife? Writers create characters and the world for them to inhabit, and usually it’s a world so much more captivating than our own that we happily fall into it for years at a time. In this imaginary kingdom, we are the legislators of laws, the architects of every edifice. Writing fiction is the ultimate expression of megalomania, but when you’ve lost control of your own life, you lose the ability to puppeteer the lives of others.

The creative block that followed was both absolute and shattering. Day after day I sat blankly at my desk while, like grain filling a barn, the iron filings continued to pour into the empty store of my imagination.

Repeated visits from an incubus can cause illness and sometimes death. Death of what? I thought bitterly.

My publishers were patient. My husband was practical. ‘It’ll come when it comes,’ he said. I couldn’t quite make him understand the problem. It wasn’t just that I’d lost a muse; my muse had been replaced by a ravenous parasite.

And then I discovered science. How on earth did it take me so long to get there? In my defence I can only say that the mythological explanation of my demon was so uncannily accurate that it never occurred to me to look for another. But suddenly there it was on my screen, the result of a few minutes’ distracted googling. ‘Sleep paralysis is a state between wakefulness and sleep characterised by complete muscle atonia and often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations – specifically of an intruder in the room.’

Sleep paralysis always happens during REM – dream sleep – to prevent Tarantino-style carnage as we act out our nightmares. During REM, body and mind cooperate beautifully, ensuring that when the cycle finishes, so too does the paralysis. At least this is how it works for most people. For others – narcoleptics, night workers or unlucky souls such as myself – something goes awry. In our case, mind and body are not on speaking terms, allowing us to drift into sentience before the REM cycle has finished.

And it’s at this point that the science gets really interesting. When we wake up paralysed we feel under threat, which, under normal circumstances, triggers a fight-or-flight reflex. Being paralysed, of course, we can do neither and this throws us into a state of terror. It turns out, however, that the brain is a bureaucratic organ with an almost neurotic determination to balance its books. To account to the department of logic for this terror, it calls on the office of imagination to conjure up a worthy vision. Enter the incubus, the malevolent intruder, the giggling goblin squatting on your chest. Enter your deepest terror, courtesy of your own subconscious.

So forget the monsters, the pulsing tapestry of snakes, forget the bottomless black hole. Though these too grew out of subconscious fears, they were subconscious fears in concert with recognisable outside influences, and they didn’t leave any lasting impact on my psyche and soul. The incubus felt different. The incubus made me feel that the thing I was most frightened of was myself.

‘You don’t need an exorcist,’ my husband told me. ‘You need a good shrink.’

On the continuum of sanity I’ve always considered myself closer to normal than the twitchy loon of the asylum, plucking flies out of the air and eating them. Perhaps that sounds smug – or lacking in self-awareness – but on the whole I’ve always been pretty sure of who I am and what I believe. I hate bigots, snobs and ignorance, and even if the inside of my head is a pinboard of politically incorrect gags, snap judgements and coloured flash cards of what to eat for my next meal, that’s a paradox I’ve learned to live with. Believe me, nothing any doctor can say is going to straighten out the kinks in those telephone wires.

I understand that psychoanalysis works miracles for some people, but I was brought up to believe that talking about yourself was the height of boorishness, not to mention very un-English. The suggestion that I should go out and find a shrink raised in me a whole new raft of anxieties. I have to admit that in general I’m leery of doctors and their credentials. You only have to look at my incubus to see I haven’t always been the best picker of men. If the shrink I chose was subpar, he’d probably fall for my tricks and lies; if he was savvy enough to tap into the dark oily streams of my unconscious, chances are I’d be spending the rest of my days among the whispery chatter and muted shrieks of the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. I’m not sure I believe in the process of therapy either. However crooked the journey that brings us here, here is where we are, and to trawl through the past looking for someone to take the rap for the way you turned out seems neither fair nor right. I come from generations of pragmatic, stubborn DIY copers and I was determined to work this thing out myself.

Sleep paralysis was a stunning revelation. The scientific narrative stopped me from feeling like a crazy person. Once I stumbled over it, sleep paralysis was everywhere. In forums, medical journals, splashed over blogs. It even had its own documentary film about to premiere at Sundance. And take it back as far as you like: how many ghosts, how many Gothic stories and devils in literature could be attributed to it?

I decided to revisit some of the ghost stories that scared me as a teenager: The Turn of the Screw, A Christmas Carol, Edith Wharton’s ‘ The Eyes’. It seemed to me that the last two were both cut-and-dried cases of sleep paralysis. Scrooge is haunted by his own greed and misanthropy, while Culwin’s egotism is tormented by a pair of red eyes at the foot of his bed, which turn out to be the manifestation of his guilt and shame. It occurred to me that my ‘ghost’ might also be a metaphor for some secret if unexpressed emotion. Who hasn’t at one point or another been possessed by the demons of jealousy, hatred, lust, low self-worth?

I don’t consider myself an addict. I smoke a little, chug down the odd shot of alcohol and will happily swallow any pill that’s slipped to me, but I can easily live without these things. Escape, running away, solitude: these are the highs I crave. When I’m at home I love everything it represents, but sooner or later it becomes too comfortable, too easy, and a fear of complacency sets in. I veer quickly from feeling safe and loved to feeling edgy, unable to breathe and finally so claustrophobic that I will do anything to break free – to experience the adrenaline and bliss of freedom.

And how compellingly similar was this pattern to the one of my haunting? I thought back to that day in the Bronx Zoo, standing hypnotised as the cobra banged its head against the glass in its determination to escape. The following day it had. The glass smashed, and the snake was gone. As a little girl this had terrified me. The serpent had had me in its sights, with every intention of hunting me down. But now I thought of it slithering through the unfamiliar streets of the city, excitedly taking in the new sights and smells, revelling in its liberty and independence. I fear that snake, but I understand it too. How long before it tired of freedom, before it curled up in an alley, cold and lonely, dreaming of a dead mouse and a dry cage? How long before it yearned to go home, back to the only place where things made sense?

This opposing pull between home and away has been the central struggle of my life for as long as I can remember. Addiction doesn’t always come out of a bottle. It can be any habit that most adversely affects our behaviour, our sanity or the people around us. I have studiously avoided dealing with this issue, preferring instead to live in the eye of the storm, seeking out adventure and needless danger, immersing myself in worlds that are not my own and shutting myself off from the ones that are. I have driven my family crazy with this selfish behaviour until finally my guilt and unease began manifesting themselves in some sort of inhuman form. No wonder I couldn’t move on. Deal with me, my demon is saying. I am your demon and you need to pay attention to me or I will paralyse you forever.

As a diagnosis, it’s muddled, simplistic and moulded to the shape that suits me. Have I really dealt with the sexual aspect of it? Not even vaguely, but what does it matter? This is my demon. I conjured him up out of the nocturnal landscape of my own subconscious. The only person he has to answer to is me.

We still see each other from time to time, my incubus and I, though it’s fair to say that some of the heat has gone out of our relationship. Sometimes I wake to find his hand on my shoulder before he slips away between the shadowy gaps of my sleep. Recently he’s even acquired a sense of humour – should you choose to call it that. Earlier this year, as I felt his iron filings drain from my body, he touched the palm of my hand with his finger and said, ‘You do know I’m married, don’t you?’ The day I began writing this piece, he appeared to me, no longer a collection of iron filings but made of flesh-coloured sandstone and, instead of a finger, he had a rotating drill on the end of his hand, which he extended towards me. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said scornfully, and went back to sleep. Only later did the significance of this encounter occur to me: It was the first time I’d seen him, not as an image in my head, but as a ‘real’ entity outside it. Though in terms of recovery, arguably we still have some way to go, I took this as progress.

The truth is, I no longer wish to be rid of my demon. His visits always come when I’m alone, usually far from home, and they serve as a reminder to pay attention, not to mess with the balance of my life – and that makes him a friend, not an enemy. Besides, what’s hidden deep inside us can also be the thing that drives us forwards. I’ve started working on a new project. A collection of non-fiction stories about a fickle, restless writer, forever probing new people and places. Even if the journey that has brought us here is crooked and can’t be changed, I’ve decided it can’t hurt to take a look at it. Books after all, are not unlike nightmares. They too can grow out of grisly past experiences.