This list is subject to change due to the potential of huge income in the near future ☺ But I was asked the question, so here is goes:

My Wife
Apologies, thing = stunning woman who I exchanged vows with nearly twenty years ago. Without the support of my wife, I wouldn’t have been able to write – period.

My Children
They’re loud and full of energy (and questions), but they keep me young. They also provide the motivation for me to earn mega-bucks so I can sign them up for classes and pay for them to go out and enjoy themselves – a totally selfless act, I promise.

Starbucks 
The Grande Mocha - the fuel of authors!

Email
I seem to remember a device that you could tap numbers into and that enabled you to speak to people on the other end. Not sure what happened to that, so I’ve become reliant on electronic mail to communicate with people now.

Football 
It’s the only way I can sit down and switch off from my writing. When I watch movies, it triggers my creative process. When I watch football, there is no plot, no twists and turns and no intriguing characters (in the story sense!) so I can just switch off and recharge.

My Car
Without it, how would I get to Starbucks to write my books? Oh, and how would I buy life’s little luxuries like food and drink? Once a year I lose it for its MOT – horrible!

My Laptop
I’d look very stupid finger-tapping thin air when writing my books.

My iPhone
Duh! Email. Facebook. Twitter. Web-browsing. Taking photographs. What other possible use would there be for a phone?

SKY TV
Sky TV entertains, inspires and educates. It also keeps the kids quiet!

Food
Think back to Biology class! I also actively enjoy food, of course, but that means lots of walking too, otherwise I’d have no chance of fitting behind a desk. I don’t actually work behind a desk, but for the sake of this question I do. But I don’t. But if I did. It would.

I watch television with my family when it jumps out and swallows me up.  The urge to suck in oxygen overwhelms me, but an unseen might weighs heavy upon my quivering chest.  The urge to cry infects my face as my heart punches the inside of my ribs.

I want to ask for help, but I know that nobody can save me.  I’m on my own.  I slow my breathing and mumble a prayer: maybe God can help me.  Save me.  Listen to me.  But he doesn’t hear my call.

As the blood pumps into my muscles, I grow dizzy and weak.  And then it attacks my sight, forcing me to see the world through whirls and blotches of water and fog.  My stomach twists.  My bones tremble.  What have I done to deserve this torture?  I must be a bad person, because bad people are tortured for their crimes.  I can’t remember what I could have done.

It’s winning.  I crumple to my knees and land on my palms, sucking in oxygen even though I know it will feed my foe.  My sight blurs as I claw at the carpet.  I feel my wife’s hand on the back of my head and her reassuring words in my ear.  But I’m dying. Help!

Tears wash around my eyes and tumble down my cheeks.  I roll on to my side, accepting that these will be my final minutes.  I think about my beautiful wife.  My amazing sons.  My beloved daughter.  My future promises good things, and I have a lot more to give my loved ones.

I close my eyes.  I awake the following morning.  I’m alive.  Breathing.  My wife beside me with my daughter tugging at my arm.

Until next time.

EVER WONDERED WHAT GOES THROUGH THE MIND OF SOMEBODY WHO SUFFERS WITH ANXIETY?

I was told It can’t hurt me.  That nobody had ever died from It before.  I didn’t believe them.  My mind turns on me, disabling my ability to inhale the oxygen required to exist.  It strikes me down when I least expect; watching television, driving home or drinking a cup of coffee.  

I sit with the people around me, my family, friends, existing inside a defective bubble that has so far failed to protect me from my inner enemy.  The one I refer to as It.  From the outside, it hurts me without people seeing.  The only proof It exists comes from the pain in my words, and the torment in my face.  People don’t believe me, think I’m making It up – but It’s as real as the crimson blood flowing through my veins.

It doesn’t care when; I just know that It will.  It strikes without warning.  Without mercy.  It scares me.  I’m frightened that It will never let me go.  I worry It will kill me one day when It has taken all it can from my being.  I have no idea why It stalks me, but I often wonder if I have done something to anger It.  To disappoint It.  Upset It.  Surely, I must have done something.

It was like a demon sitting on my shoulder waiting to inflict psychological and physical pain.  It draws tears from my eyes and attempts to hide my will to live, because living is too hard.  I’m tired and drained from my battles, but how can you fight something that you can’t see or touch.  Only feel. 

I watch people laughing, having fun.  Working, dreaming of success.  But those trivial things other people take for granted appear so far away from my grasp.  I want to cry, curl up into a ball and fall asleep because maybe… just maybe, when I awake, It will be gone.  Like a bad dream with no entitlement to manipulate my mind and hurt me again.

And then I awake.  The first thing on my mind – has It gone?  And that is my first mistake.  A terrible error I have made each morning for the past six hundred and thirty days, because the minute I wake I always think about It and the fear creeps back inside and threatens me. 

I cling on to the lifeline that people have survived this before me, and that one day I will be able to watch people around me with the knowledge that I could soon enjoy life without anguish.  That I will be able to experience healthy debate with another human being without being struck down with fright and ache.  That every bone and muscle in my body will stop attacking me when I want to laugh out loud and enjoy something I once had taken for granted.
  
I pray one day my life will be back in my own hands, and that It will leave me alone.  That my wife can keep me going, and that one day my dreams can come true⎯and I will find pleasure and fulfilment like normal people.