February 20 2024, 20:54

The joy of making things up

It took optimism to enrol on a creative writing MA — I can be a writer! I can be published! — but as I get older, I've also developed a pragmatism, tipping into cynicism, which can easily become procrastination, or even complete avoidance.

Writing feels dangerous. I have a strong, sometimes brutal, censor. It’s safer emotionally to not write the weird, violent, embarrassing, possibly shameful, STUFF, and I’m an engineer for a living, so there are endless projects and problems for me to lose myself in. I’ll write a post for my website, hell, I’ll rewrite my website in a new programming language, but I won't write a few lines of dialogue to get a new story started.

This website is also called ‘Notes from the Peninsula’. During lockdown, I got into podcasts, and I had an idea to start one of my own where I pretended to be a writer in a fictional seaside town talking about the uncanny, ghostly happenings he observed as he tried to write a novel. There was enough energy in the idea for me to create a Patreon account, buy a microphone, research recording tips and record a dozen episodes of me talking about what I'd been reading and watching.

“We are called to become more fully what we are, in simple service to the richness of the universe of possibilities.” - James Hollis

Writing rarely energises me like that. My natural enthusiasms are all over the place, and I’ve spent too much time fighting my desire to diversify. Getting a novel published felt like a validation, but it also made clear writing had to be a hobby because the economics of publishing is stacked in favour of the big publishers. Considering the amount of energy, life force, and years of effort required to write a literary novel, it’s sensible to ask — if there is no money and little chance of success, why bother?

Or more usefully, why make art? And what is success to me?

Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act: A Way of Being is about making art. He believes artists channel the universe/nature through their work, which is a bit hippy-dippy for me, but if you replace nature with the unconscious, I’m in. This unconscious material comes in dreams classically, but also fantasies, slips of the tongue, play of all kinds and especially improvisation. These all bypass the censor, and if we’re doing it well, they’ll bring to the surface unexpected feelings, weird images, dark thoughts and surprising connections. This is the raw material of art.

“One engages with work because it is meaningful, and if it is not, one changes the work.” - James Hollis.

If I want to write more stories, I need to rediscover the playfulness and joy of making things up with words. I want to finish more stories and make them as good and true to themselves as I can. That is real success. How they are received in the world is out of my control.

February 17 2024, 11:04

Back to the path

I spent the weekend before my father’s funeral sorting through his books. He had them on shelves in different rooms, but they were also tucked in drawers, stacked at the bottom of wardrobes and piled behind old televisions. Some went straight to the tip because of damage or being completely out of time, but there were also entire fantasy series, thrillers, horror, that people would still want today.

On a whim, I called in the local library, which is now community-run and needing funds, and I offered them his collection, and amazingly they said yes. Taibach Library is where he took me for my first library tickets when I was five, so it’s part of my story as well as is. He would love that his books are going back into his community.

Dad’s death wiped clean my imagined year ahead and brought up some big questions, like why bother doing anything if we decay to nothing? But his energy lingers in his objects and spaces. When I hold the TV remote I see him in his chair, and when I pull out his books I can see him smile. I’ve created these intense associations from decades of being with him: lottery numbers, glasses cases, his cereal bowl, the knife he preferred, his favourite radio station, the way he liked the recycling bins to be put out, the bird table, fluorescent tubed lighting in the kitchen, golf clubs, his favourite pruners and gardening gloves. I project my memories of him onto the space through the objects I see.

That’s like reading. We turn sentences into our own version of what the author imagined. In that way, our lives are a gift to everyone who spends time with us, because they create versions of us for themselves. Both my parents live on in me as memories I can talk with whenever I want.

The path I’d imagined for 2024 was vague. Dad’s deteriorating health was a constant threat to any plans, so I found myself being reactive and anxious. Sometimes life needs us to step off the path we think we're on and go into the woods. I lost my literary ambitions for a while. It’s been ten years since I enrolled for the creative writing MA, and five years since The Complex was published. Dad won’t read my next book. His reaction to The Complex was that he liked it. That was it. He wasn’t one to articulate feelings, especially love, so that had to be enough, but it’s a tender spot, because part of me was writing for his approval.

Anyway, I had a dream where I wanted to take an important kick in a rugby match, but an old friend with more natural talent pointed out that I didn’t have the power. I knew they were right, and that I had to get serious and practice. That's about as literal as dreams can get short of dreaming that your house is on fire and waking up to find your house on fire.

January 27 2024, 12:39

My father died

Dad died last week. He was eighty-eight. Looking back, it was a miracle we got him home from hospital for one final Christmas. A week into the new year he fell and was taken back in with an infection, and after twelve months of fighting the symptoms of heart failure, his time was finally up.

His chair is empty and the TV is off. I stayed in Wales for a couple of days and threw myself into the admin because it was something I could do to help and as a way to process the loss. I went through his drawers for bills and bank accounts details and insurances and pensions with focussed ferocity. Then I came home and spent time with my own family. Most things can be done from a distance. I’m a six-hour drive away, and I’ve always wished I was closer. He was independent to the very end. We got him to the finish line as he wanted. I’m proud of that.

I’m tired but coming to terms with things. It was a good ending. He had a long life, he was loved, and he left peacefully. The year is going to be different to how I imagined.

January 13 2024, 16:01

Nostalgia

• 07.01: PRISCILLA (2023), dir. Sofia Coppola (C)
• 10.01: OLD HENRY (2021), dir. Potsy Ponciroli

I’m in Wales at short notice because Dad’s been admitted into hospital. The co-morbidities have gathered and decided to strike. He’s in bad shape. I can see him at 2pm and 6pm, and around these visiting times I’m looking for peaceful, distracting activities. This morning I went to Swansea for a coffee and took photographs of the buildings around the castle. Then I drove to Mumbles and walked up to the house I used to rent an attic room in before dropping to the seafront. As ever, ghosts and shadows walk with me in the absence of real people. Swansea is a lonely comfort.

Nostalgia turns quickly to poison once the immediate comfort has passed. Sofia Coppola creates an exquisite rendition of fifties life in Priscilla that is without dirt or dust—no unwashed cars or clothes here—designed to pull you in and keep you there. The performances are similarly immaculate, but the problem with the perfection of nostalgia is that it lacks soul. We want to be back somewhere that never existed. This isn’t Elvis or Priscilla as they were, it’s a story told through sensual details, costumes, sounds, imagined dialogue. It’s fine. The best use of nostalgia is to let it show what is missing now. From that you can create something new.

Artists, especially filmmakers and writers, can recreate the past in their work, and nostalgia can be part of that creative energy but doesn’t have to be. There’s little nostalgia in Old Henry. It’s set in the rural midwest, in 1906, where the Wild West overlaps in history with the start of modern times. This 1906 is dirty and brutal. A grizzled farmer takes in an injured man carrying a satchel full of money, but the chasing gang catch up with him, and a standoff ensues. The farmer’s son wants to fight, but we learn the farmer has a violent past of his own. Old Henry is as exquisitely crafted as Priscilla, but more realistic, with a father-son relationship that sucked me in, and a glorious twist going into the final act that made me laugh out loud. Tim Blake Nelson is astonishing.

Note to self: acknowledge what you need and make something new to satisfy that need.

January 07 2024, 14:28

Fidelity

• 01.01: SILENT NIGHT (2021), dir. Camille Griffin
• 02.01: Assembly, Natasha Brown (01.01)
• 06.01: Infidelities, Kirsty Gunn (02.01)

I’ve deleted my Patreon creator’s account, which was beginning to feel like I was cheating on my website (or the other way around, I’m not sure). Two places for almost the same words, except on Patreon I was receiving money to support me as an artist, and here it’s always been the spirit of blogging on the “free Web”. I haven’t reconciled those two things. A writer needs to pay the bills, and every story (or blog post, or skeet) is a gift. It’s straightforward economically but not psychologically.

One of the things I did on Patreon to “add value” was post a list of films and books I’d read at the end of each month, in the spirit of Steven Soderbergh’s SEEN, READ lists. I published my 2023 Seen, Read list on New Year’s Day. People are fascinated by what famous directors are engaged with while they make their films, so there’s a ta-da moment to the yearly list, but nobody gives a shit about my annual list. I wondered if I could use the concept to think aloud about what I’m watching and reading in relation to what I’m writing. I’m going to give it a go in January. And keep the posts short.

I found Silent Night to be tonally jarring, but that might be the point—a broad comedy (Keira Knightley is hilarious) with vague references to a coming apocalypse that turns hard in the final act into the existential horrors of climate change. It mocks the rich mercilessly and brings a reckoning for their denial of feelings, suffering, and reality. Saltburn did a similar thing in a different way.

There is a far more subtle takedown of the rich in Assembly. A black woman working at a global bank in the City feels the relentless pressure to conform to the expectations of a colonialism-created patriarchy. The title refers to the school assemblies she presents at, and the way she experiences her life as a Frankenstein monster of things other people need her to be. Her boyfriend comes from a rich family. She learns she has cancer and hides it from him. It’s fierce! And it’s the shortest novel (cough) I’ve read at 100 pages.

Infidelities is a collection of short stories. The final story, Infidelity, was the most interesting, in that it digs into the mechanics of writing, playing with all the little decisions writers make and what it means to write something that feels right. It takes care and courage to write a story that has integrity—a useful reminder of what’s at stake.

January 01 2024, 12:00

Seen, Read: 2023

• FILMS IN ALL CAPS (C if in cinema)
• Books, by author, on end date (with start date)

Here’s my list for 2023:

• 01.01 THE CONVERSATION
• 10.01 JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD
• 12.01 THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
• 14.01 THE BATMAN
• 19.01 LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD
• 21.01 THE MENU
• 25.01 BLUE THUNDER
• 29.01 The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham (18.01)
• 30.01 THE CHINA SYNDROME
• 01.02 HARRY DEAN STANTON: PARTLY FICTION
• 02.02 M3GAN (C)
• 04.02 AFTERSUN
• 06.02 SR.
• 09.02 SUMMER OF SOUL
• 11.02 WORLD WAR Z; DIE HARD
• 14.02 SIBYL
• 17.02 BULLET TRAIN
• 18.02 JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION
• 23.02 FIRE OF LOVE; BARBARIAN
• 26.02 JADE
• 27.02 The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard (02.02)
• 02.03 ORCHESTRATOR OF STORMS: THE FANTASTIQUE WORLD OF JEAN ROLLIN
• 04.03 STARSHIP TROOPERS; THE GAME
• 05.03 THE SWIMMER (1968)
• 07.03 8½
• 10.03 OFFICIAL COMPETITION
• 11.03 WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR
• 15.03 SPASMO
• 19.03 EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
• 20.03 Weather, Jenny Offil (03.03)
• 24.03 THE HAUNTING OF MARGAM CASTLE
• 24.03 GLASTONBURY THE MOVIE IN FLASHBACK
• 26.03 THE LAIR
• 26.03 Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector (22.03)
• 27.03 SAVAGE DAWN
• 29.03 NIGHTMARE AT NOON
• 01.04 THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
• 03.04 BARTON FINK
• 09.04 KING COHEN: THE WILD WORLD OF FILMMAKER LARRY COHEN
• 10.04 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (C)
• 11.04 A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle (23.03)
• 12.04 LA NOTTE
• 15.04 SAINT JACK
• 16.04 RENFIELD (C)
• 17.04 MOONAGE DAYDREAM
• 18.04 PIECES
• 29.04 STUTZ; TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS
• 01.05 JURASSIC PARK
• 06.05 EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS
• 07.05 DUNE (2021)
• 12.05 BATMAN
• 13.05 BATMAN RETURNS
• 16.05 THE RELIC
• 17.05 Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion (15.05)
• 19.05 THE EQUALIZER
• 20.05 THE EQUALIZER 2
• 21.05 HEAT (C)
• 28.05 FIGHT CLUB (C)
• 29.05 LETHAL WEAPON; Dreams of Sleep, Josephine Humphreys (23.05)
• 02.06 SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (C)
• 03.06 HAYWIRE
• 04.06 DÉJÀ VU
• 10.06 CONFESS, FLETCH; PLUNGING ON ALONE: MONTE HELLMAN'S LIFE IN A DAY; The Bloater, Rosemary Tonks (07.06)
• 11.06 THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (C)
• 12.06 THE OUTFIT
• 15.06 No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood (14.06)
• 17.06 CLUE
• 17.06 THE FLASH (C)
• 23.06 Scent of a City, Aki Gibbons (18.06)
• 24.06 ASTEROID CITY (C); The Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham (21.06)
• 25.06 THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT (C)
• 30.06 EXTRACTION
• 01.07 EXTRACTION 2
• 06.07 ASTEROID CITY (C)
• 08.07 ELEMENTAL (C)
• 09.07 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (C)
• 11.07 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE (C)
• 15.07 THE FUGITIVE
• 16.07 THE BIG LEBOWSKI (C)
• 20.07 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE (C)
• 22.07 BARBIE (C)
• 23.07 BERGMAN ISLAND; What About Men, Caitlin Moran (23.07)
• 24.07 LA DOLCE VITA
• 30.07 SOME LIKE IT HOT (C)
• 04.08 JAWS
• 06.08 MEG 2: THE TRENCH (C)
• 12.08 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES
• 14.08 ONE FINE MORNING
• 15.08 DEEP BLUE SEA 3
• 16.08 FATHER OF MY CHILDREN; SHARKSPLOITATION
• 18.08 AFTER YANG
• 19.08 [REC] 3: GENESIS; OPPENHEIMER (C); Eastmouth and Other Stories, Alison Moore (02.08)
• 21.08 [REC] 4: APOCALYPSE
• 25.08 GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES; THEATER CAMP (C)
• 27.08 Losing Track, Imogen Reid (25.08)
• 03.09 THE EQUALIZER 3 (C)
• 04.09 Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
• 05.09 SMILE
• 09.09 PAST LIVES (C)
• 10.09 INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (C)
• 11.09 The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa
• 13.09 AN IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT
• 16.09 A HAUNTING IN VENICE (C)
• 17.09 THE CURSED
• 18.09 THE BROKEN
• 19.09 DIARY OF THE DEAD
• 20.09 SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD
• 23.09 EYE IN THE LABYRINTH; STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER
• 24.09 THE EXORCIST III; THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (C)
• 25.09 THE PALE BLUE EYE
• 30.09 65
• 02.10 RE-ANIMATOR
• 04.10 THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE
• 06.10 CASTLE FREAK
• 07.10 SCREAM
• 07.10 SCREAM VI
• 08.10 THE CREATOR (C)
• 09.10 DEATH SHIP
• 10.10 SLUGS
• 11.10 THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
• 12.10 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
• 14.10 DON'T LOOK NOW (C)
• 15.10 MESSIAH OF EVIL
• 17.10 INFINITY POOL
• 18.10 LIFEFORCE
• 18.10 THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
• 20.10 DUEL
• 20.10 EVIL DEAD II
• 21.10 INVADERS FROM MARS
• 22.10 YOU'RE NEXT
• 24.10 CLOVERFIELD
• 27.09 Sea State, Tabitha Lasley (23.09)
• 28.10 THE KILLER (C)
• 29.10 ENEMY
• 31.10 HALLOWEEN; Brother of the More Famous Jack, Barbara Trapido (27.09)
• 04.11 THE SOUVENIR: PART II
• 11.11 THE MARVELS (C)
• 12.11 DREAM SCENARIO (C)
• 17.11 SALTBURN (C)
• 19.11 THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES (C)
• 27.11 THE KILLER
• 28.11 6 UNDERGROUND
• 29.11 LAKE PLACID
• 30.11 MICHAEL CLAYTON
• 03.12 LOVE ACTUALLY (C)
• 09.12 SIBERIA
• 10.12 THE HOLIDAY (C)
• 11.12 SHOWING UP
• 15.12 WONKA (C)
• 16.12 Children of Paradise, Camilla Grudova (15.12)
• 24.12 PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH
• 25.12 SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009)
• 26.12 FERRARI (C)
• 29.12 My Phantoms, Gwendoline Riley (27.12)
• 31.12 RETURN TO SEOUL

December 30 2023, 21:06

Best film discoveries and fiction of 2023

Using my Letterboxd stats, I have an excellent view of every film I’ve watched this year, as well as a score for each. (In hindsight, I disagree with some scores, but that’s the risk when you give a rating in the heat of the moment.)

I watched 148 films, three of them twice (Asteroid City, The Killer, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1). I gave thirty films 5 stars and only two films 1 star (Deep Blue Sea 3, The Haunting of Margam Castle). I skew high because I choose films I’m probably going to like. I also gave 30 films a heart, some of which were not 5-star films (Bergman Island, An Impossible Project, Lake Placid, The Lair of the White Worm, Pieces, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, The Game)

Anyway, here are my ten favourite film discoveries of 2023:

1. Asteroid City
2. The Killer
3. The Souvenir: Part 2
4. The Menu
5. Aftersun
6. Enemy
7. The Relic
8. Last Year at Marianbad
9. Moonage Daydream
10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

I’m surprised how many of those are films that came out in 2023, considering the range of films I’ve seen this year.

And with less sexy stats available, my ten favourite books (in order of reading, not preference):

• The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
• Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion
• Dreams of Sleep, Josephine Humphreys
• The Bloater, Rosemary Tonks
• Scent of a City, Aki Gibbons
• Eastmouth and Other Stories, Alison Moore
• Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
• Brother of the More Famous Jack, Barbara Trapido
• Children of Paradise, Camilla Grudova
• My Phantoms, Gwendoline Riley

December 24 2023, 12:07

Reflections

Somehow the year has tightened all the bolts on my rickety life, and I’m hitting the Christmas holidays in a good place. Dad is home from hospital with home care support — that didn’t look likely a week ago. My new job is going well. All the usual Christmas tasks are done or planned. It’s Christmas Eve. The kids are home and happy.

We won’t have my father-in-law at the table for dinner tomorrow, which is still difficult to fathom, and will only hit fully when we sit to eat. It’s been a difficult year all round, but that’s the biggest blow by far. And yet we are all okay, fundamentally. We are coping and looking after each other. This is part of life.

I haven’t written any new fiction this year, so my Patreon account has lost its way. The idea was to create a channel for publishing short stories, blog posts and photos to a smaller audience. I’m no longer sure I want to write stories. I’ll always write, I just need to think about what I want to write. I’ve had to step back from it this year, so it makes sense to look at the bigger picture and decide what I want to put my creative energy into in 2024. I posted a thank you and farewell, and I’ll delete the account before the next subscription payments are taken on January 1st.

I’m going to publish a 'Seen, Read' list for 2023 next week, and also some lists of my favourite films and books. There’s a week of 2023 to go, so there could still be some surprises. These lists help me tie the year off and look ahead. I hope you have some time to do whatever you need to do to feel good about the end of the year, or at least good enough. Happy Christmas. 🎄🕯️🕊️

November 25 2023, 12:07

Keep the ghosts happy

The year keeps passing me surprises. Last week I was celebrating a new job back at my old employer, and I was looking forward to an unexpected week’s holiday before starting, then my father fell at home and went into hospital, and now I’m going to be living with him for a week to (fingers crossed) get him back on his feet. It’s like the universe lined my free week up for this task.

The transition between jobs, and sectors, from consultancy back to higher education, is an opportunity to reflect. I want to light a fire under my writing projects, and while I can’t say consultancy was bad for my writing, because I wasn’t writing before that either, getting that job did prioritise my tech career. Work consumed my attention in ways I didn’t expect. The pace, complexity and cultural differences filled my brain with unprocessed material that I had to diligently chug through during evenings and weekends.

In the strange weeks after handing my notice in, I found myself (once again) casting a net over all my creative interests. Guitar! Piano! German! Cooking! Coding! Reading! Writing! Yoga! I picked up Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It, by Oliver Burkeman, which I’d read before, and Zen Guitar, by Philip Toshio Sudo, a book that I’ve owned for twenty-five years and never read from cover to cover.

Zen Guitar is slim and conversational, but has a faintly formal tone that suits the subject matter. It applies principles of zen to learning guitar — doing things with the right spirit, from the inside out. Burkeman is funnier, taking apart the modern cult of time management and railing against the endless distractions we take up to avoid the work we want to do. We can imagine infinite possibilities for ourselves, but we have limited time, and we can only walk one path in the unknowable amount of it we have left to live.

Back in 2000, on telling my grandfather I was moving to London for a new job, he told me that he didn’t care what I did, as long as I did it well. I didn’t know then that he was in the final weeks of his life. That advice was sound, and moving coming from him then, but it bothered me, and I didn’t know why. I’ve come to know that doing things well is important, yes, but doing the right thing is more important. He gave me one piece of a two-piece puzzle.

After a rough year (which isn’t over yet), I’m setting myself up to do more of the right things in 2024. And why not try to do them well? It’s getting late. I want to make my ghosts happy.

November 11 2023, 09:51

Brief bliss

I was caught in a work storm for a few months over the summer. Things settled enough for me to take a small risk, which paid off, and this, along with a tremendous lucky break, means I am finally able to tack for calmer waters. I’m being deliberately opaque. I’m sitting in relief’s front pocket like a joey in his mother’s pouch. Brief bliss.

That’s one part of my life. In another my father-in-law died. My wife went to live with her mother in his final weeks to help tend to him. Another storm, separate but overlapping, that eventually blew itself out. The hole where he was is stark, but he’s no longer suffering. It went from a small lump in June, to radiotherapy in August, to palliative care in September, to gone. The nurses had never seen anything like the wound on his neck that grew big enough to swallow him. Nature can be brutal.

He lived a full life and fought for it to his last breath. His death brought a different flavour of relief. I have my life partner back. We haven’t lived apart that long in the twenty-three years we’ve been together.

When you’re fighting to keep your ship afloat, you’re not thinking much beyond the next hour, the next day. Calmer waters means time to look after yourself. I’ve been limping around with a ridiculous injury that I’ve carried for over a year that I made worse with golf lessons. Golf! The least taxing of all outdoor sports! (I was wrong.) Deep gluteal syndrome. Too much sitting down, a lack of glute strength in general, and one side weaker than the other equals excruciating cramp in my right buttock. It’s funny when it’s not hurting. I found a physio and I’m doing the exercises. This was the third storm.

The final quadrant of my life, writing, is becalmed. (Work, family, health, writing - yes, four.) How could it not be with every other part in flames? Instead of writing, or even reading, I chose to lose myself in horror films instead. This worked well. It was soothing. Unreal.

This is what I wish for in 2024. I want to be fit and healthy again. I want my family to be well. I want work to be stimulating, but not overwhelming, which will allow time to stir the embers of my writing. The novel hasn’t gone away. I can feel energy for it. I want the words to flow. It’s sad that it feels like a luxury, or even a privilege, to be excited about life. I do appreciate it. I’m excited again!