Sociopathy and Psychopathy are nearly the same disorder, clinically speaking. The differences aren’t worth noting here except to say that it is generally accepted that Psychopathy is a genetic disorder, resulting due to parts of the brain not developing fully, while sociopathy results from an interruption in personality development by abuse or trauma, usually in…
I can attribute many of my greatest successes to my wife, Diane. In dealing with the grief, panic attacks, and oppressive loneliness due to her passing in October, I’ve started to meditate again…on the advice of experts. Part of this nightly 10-minute meditation has centered around GRATITUDE. Finding gratitude when you are in pain is…
You fell so low inside yourself stripped of worth stripped of will stripped of dignity You found me then and found your heart beat in you beat in I beat in we From tear-drenched sleeves to hopeful trails made music made love made free The Decades they flew as our hearts did renew forged by…
Don Occam would say time rubs the flaws away from your memory, like wind and rain on old stone, so only a crystalline, smooth, perfect image remains of your lost love. And he would be right. The old bastard might have become the embodiment of rage against the universe, but after 3600 years of mourning,…
What? How many times a day do you say that? When I started my business in the late 90s I worked from home, alone in a condo in Fairfax Virginia. And having come from the loud and hectic world of an Internet company, having been the head of education with classrooms only feet away from…
I never believed in soulmates. I thought that was romantic nonsense and anyone who ached to meet theirs was in for a long and lonely wait with lots of really bad relationships strewn on the path behind them. I always believed that a good relationship, a fulfilling relationship, was nothing more than lots of hard…
It’s been a while since I posted last. I apologize. I’ve been elbows deep in a new series, trying to write while there’s a moment of peace in my life between Gretel’s treatments. And I’m sorry it’s our current state of affairs that moved me to write today… I’d much rather be talking about Don…
I’ve been asked a number of times if I listen to music when I write. Yes…but only when I’m actually typing the story. I have a process. It’s called all or nothing. I build a story concept in my head, then pull out a trusty yellow pad to sketch an outline. Nothing more than a…
I once served under an Ops Sergeant named Smitty—SFC D. Smith—who I always looked up to as the type of soldier I wanted be. Smitty fearlessly grabbed satchels full of explosives and tossed them over his shoulder. He walked toward the sound of gunfire, no matter the context. We could be in the middle of…
When your mind is filled with information, worry, and emotion, it’s easy to get to the end of the day and feel the time just evaporated behind you. As you get older you begin to feel the same way about weeks, months and years. I remember as if it were yesterday, the time I stood…
Around the age of 31, I started a new ritual; waking up and announcing my gratitude aloud. It seemed silly and I didn’t even say it aloud at first, worried my bedroom furniture would judge me as some new-age, hippy-dippy, crystal worshiping doofus. The improvement was immediate though not significant. I in fact, didn’t realize…
Just as I did with the Crime Novel “Hedged”, I’m making the first raw chapter of Splinter Self available to Mail List subscribers. Don’t worry, If you’re already a subscriber, a message will arrive shortly with the Subscriber page link if you’ve misplaced it. If you haven’t signed up for my mail list yet, just…
So, it’s been a year since my dad died and I wrote my own sharp edged memorial to him. I can’t say I’ve done a whole lot of work in resolving anything with him. It’s been a little quiet from his side, and I’ve been fairly busy myself since my beautiful wife (who was ill…
The year 2016, if it’s not my last, will hopefully be remembered as the worst year of my life. Believe me, I know things can get much worse, but despite the repeated kicks to the crotch this year, I hold out hope that it was a fluke–a confluence of events like a perfect storm that…
He looks like me. He wears my clothes and sounds like me when he speaks, rarely as that might be. The troll at my writing desk is my distorted doppelganger. He comes into existence slowly over a period of days. Sometimes just a shadow, at first. But as my manuscript or editing become more involved,…
I’ve seen the phenomena before without realizing what it was. It never occurred to me that I could dig past the obvious and find a hidden well of emotion–or, perhaps it did and I just avoided doing it. A lone tear sliding down someone’s cheek can be written off as so many things, particularly when…
 I can only imagine how impossible it must feel for someone who has to face clients when in this situation. The reality of dealing with the daily agony of a sick, possibly terminal loved one, then having to go to work, facing clients, buyers, even workmates with a smile on your face has to…
Yeah…there’s no silver lining. Anyone who’s ever flown through a cloud bank knows it’s just water vapor. Hope has shown up, weaker each day as reality kicks its ass and my silver linings have proven to be just that–vapor, shadow, smoke and mirrors. The Dalai Lama says “I find hope in the darkest of days,…
S.L. Shelton 