August 29 2023, 12:44

Duality

I’m deep into my summer break, which has not gone to plan. Instead of being in an AirBnB near Lake Geneva, we had to stay home to take my father-in-law to daily radiation therapy for a fast-growing lump on his neck. The speed of his decline is hard to absorb.

He noticed it in June, got an urgent referral in July, and started radiation treatment mid-August. He was driving a week ago, even as we wondered if he should be. His energy was fading with his appetite. Last week we drove him every day to his appointments, and each day he found it harder to get in and out of the car and walk through the hospital. On Friday he agreed to use a wheelchair. At the weekend, he became delirious and fell at home. An ambulance came. It doesn't look as if he’s strong enough for the necessary treatment. There’s a rough month ahead.

Against this backdrop, as awful as it is, I’ve been able to recover my mojo after a torrid year with my own father and a tough work environment. Dad’s okay and managing at home well enough, which is a relief. I’ve written a lot more in my notebook about films, books, writing, technology, my desires, and all the good things my creative practice needs. Being able to help other people energises me, and I’m excited for September and October, my favourite months. Bring on the leaves, cooler winds, patterned jumpers and the rejuvenation I experience every autumn. It hasn’t been much of a summer in the UK, but autumn can’t disappoint.

(A grim duality. There’s loss coming, it’s in the air, like the sound of the steam train in Something Wicked This Way Comes.)

August 12 2023, 10:21

Eastmouth and other stories

Author: Alison Moore

First published: 2022

Beautifully crafted, easy to read stories by Alison Moore that are intricate studies in helplessness and despair. The characters find themselves enmeshed in situations that keep getting worse until often they are crushed. The environment shackles them. Language holds them. Revenge arrives, soporifics are deployed, the decay is in all things. They are drawn to that which will damage and destroy them.

The stories are ruthless shadows. They span a decade, most published in magazines, a few published in this book for the first time. Her last collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories (2013), contained stories written before The Lighthouse (2012), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She’s written four novels since then: He Wants (2014), Death and the Seaside (2016), Missing (2018), and The Retreat (2021). It’s an impressive run. I wonder how the Eastmouth stories fed the novels, and vice versa? I like the pattern of writing short pieces alongside longer ones, then releasing a collection when there are naturally enough stories to fill one. Pretty poison pills. It seems natural. Healthy, even.

August 11 2023, 11:52

Pick something

In the bookshop I let my eyes drift over bright modern covers and serious-looking classics. I didn't buy a book. I have books. My problem is I can't choose one to read. Fiction. Buying a novel is a cheat—it gives the dopamine hit of a decision without requiring the commitment of following it through. I could have bought five books from five different genres that together represented something vital in me, and I would have felt excited, validated, alive even, and they all would have gone on my ever-expanding shelf at home where I wouldn't read them. This time next week my butterfly soul would have landed somewhere else.

I met my friend Tim for dinner last week. He's a writer, and I don't see him enough, even though he's nearby. As he walked with me back to the train station, I blurted out that we should start a book club, and meet up more regularly to talk about books. The next day I posted a photo of my to-read shelves on social media and tagged him in. He suggested one of three that he'd ordered. I let him choose. The final choice is, at the time of typing, undecided.

It's a cliché to express the despair and overwhelm at the reality of all culture available all the time. I've said it enough myself, but I still haven't come up with a strategy that works to get me to consistently fucking pick something. Asking Tim to choose a book is another cheat, albeit a lesser one, because at least I will read the book.

Tim said something that hit home. When he feels overwhelmed with family life, say in the summer holidays with his two young children, and he finds a sliver of free time, he gets back to the book he's reading. That way he can, in his words, maintain a vivid inner life when his external world is at the mercy of others.

When I have ten or twenty minutes spare, I play the golf video game, or browse news online, or open social media apps on my phone, or review my film watchlist, or eat something when I'm not hungry, or make a cup of tea when I'm not thirsty. I NEVER read a book. Those other activities might help me relax, but none of them serve my soul.

The irony is, reading is the ultimate pick up and put down pastime. I see my daughter listen (listen!) to television shows while she makes lunch or does homework. I've never been able to multi-task like that. Words don't go in unless I am giving them my full attention. When I've given myself a film challenge, I've watched films in thirty minute segments, because that was all the time I had, and it wasn't as satisfying as watching them in one go. It's one of the reasons I don't like television drama series. I need to watch a story in one go if possible, but I can read a book happily in several sittings.

My summer holiday is at the end of August. I've been planning on reading more then, when I will have more time, but that's another cheat. Holidays are not everyday life, and if I'm not reading every week, I'm not suddenly going to start in that week.

I'm currently reading Eastmouth and Other Stories, by Alison Moore. Short stories are perfect for those fifteen minute gaps in the day, and that's how I'm reading them. After all that reflection, I'd forgotten that I've already started moving towards a fresh reading habit. It's funny what you forget.

August 07 2023, 19:41

Meg 2: The Trench

The first Meg was fine, but I admit to being more excited this time around because Ben Wheatley was at the helm. His filmography is a string of pearls: Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England, High Rise, Free Fire, Happy New Year Colin Burstead, Rebecca, and In the Earth. They’re not all brilliant, but he’s always interesting. His best films are made with his partner, Amy Jump. Her name is not in the writing credits of Meg 2.

Monsters escape the deepest recesses of the ocean when greedy humans breach the protecting boundary. Teeth and tentacles chomp, devour, squeeze and rip through submarines, boats, research stations, and eventually a holiday resort. People die. Lots of people having fun die. I found myself laughing because the creatures are ridiculous, partly because it’s clear they are CGI, but also in their relentless, pounding rage at all living things. It’s a relief to see that part of me expressed on screen. Who doesn’t sometimes want to grind the world up, swallow it all down and pass out in a carb coma?

Anyway, I’m not recommending Meg 2: The Trench. It’s a stupid film with terrible dialogue, clichéd story-telling, annoying characters, and a clear eye on the money, but I went with my son, and he enjoyed it, and I enjoyed seeing it with him. That’s the sort of film it is.

August 05 2023, 13:15

Open roads and blue skies

This is my new website design. It’s a bit like a newspaper, which wasn’t the original intention, but I’ve come to really like it. So, farewell to the old website! Welcome to the new!

I’ve arrived at an approach to posting online that I’ve been resisting for years, but has become inevitable with the slow death of Twitter: one place for my stuff, that I control, with cross-posts to the social media platforms as appropriate. I’m a writer, and readers are scattered ever more widely — Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Twitter/X (hopefully not for much longer), Substack, Tumblr... I want to spend more time writing new material and less time on social media. Going all in on one place doesn’t make sense anymore. Farewell Twitter. I wouldn’t be here without you.

And hello to my website. I could have switched to Wordpress, but I wanted to build my own thing, in this case using Jekyll, a static site generator. That means all of my posts come from Markdown files in Github and are mixed together whenever the site is built and released. There is an RSS feed, which is from the past but also part of the future now that social media is fragmenting.

Websites are coming back. I might even create a category for tech/coding. We’ll see. I’m planning on interacting with people on socialz, posting ‘notes‘ to my website, and putting fiction and behind-the-scenes stuff on Patreon. It’s all new from here.

July 16 2023, 08:33

Go gently

I hit an emotional wall a couple of weeks ago. Looking back, it’s been coming for months, but when you’re in a storm for long enough it begins to feel normal. This is mainly a day job thing, and I don’t talk about that here, but emotionally everything is connected, so of course there are knock-on effects. Anxiety got into every nook and cranny of my life, including family, walks around the block, meal times, evenings, weekends, and dreams.

Some part of me pulled the panic cord. For days afterwards I woke at night with memories of real conversations blended with imagined responses, alternative choices I might have made, alliances I could have struck, things I could have done differently. As a partially-reformed people pleaser, I’m wary of my tendency to always wonder what I could have done better. Asking for what I need doesn’t come easily. Boundaries are hard-won. Part of me was wise enough to jump out of this hot pot before I was boiled alive. I’m grateful for that.

It’s been ten days and I still feel shaky. Before this, I would have said I was an above-averagely anxious person who managed it well enough through tools learned in several years of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I think that is still true. I suspect those tools, along with strong support at home, have prevented me from having a more seriously damaging experience. When I am not thinking about my job, I’m okay—more lethargic than usual, a bit down—but when I find my thoughts drifting to work conversations, and the fast-paced interactions, the big personalities, adrenaline floods into my body, my heart rate accelerates, my stomach churns, and I’m overwhelmed again.

Dad went into hospital just before I started this project. (My last project went so well!) His vulnerability, three hundred miles away, and his reasonable requests for help at random times, have taken a serious toll on me. So much driving. So much sleeping in a ghost house, away from my family. I feel blasted, roasted, blank and exhausted.

What’s the route forward from here? Keep letting the anxiety go, listen to intuition, ask for help, be patient, be kind to myself. Go gently.

June 30 2023, 17:10

Angles, curves and spin

The year barrels on and tomorrow we hit July. It’s the halfway point. The summer solstice has passed and the hottest months are ahead. Time doesn’t take a break, even when I ask politely.

Dad gave me some of his old golf clubs. He took me to the Steelworks golf club when I was twelve and taught me to play, but then when I was fourteen I chose tennis over golf, and I haven’t played since. I still play golf video games though, because I’ve always loved the curve of a ball through a landscape. Tennis gave me a similar thrill. Angles, curves, spin, and the laws of physics.

I booked a beginners course at my local golf club. The club has always been there, but I’ve never wanted to visit. Five Saturdays, nine am, one hour, all equipment provided. I know I’m going to be sucked back in. That’s why I’m doing it. Perhaps it’s part of the process of letting my father go.

May 29 2023, 20:24

Everyman

Got a nice little string of blog posts going here. Here are the May headlines:

• my father is out of hospital (eight weeks!)
• the cinema finally opened

Dad’s bounced back well. He looks his eight-eight years, and he’s anxious about his heart, but he’s happy to be home, able to make meals and potter around the house, and he’s back to sending me the occasional wry message. I’m starting to relax and let in some joy and relief. I just want him to enjoy whatever time he has left.

The new cinema was announced in 2019, and I’ve been boring everyone around me about it ever since. A monthly membership lets me-plus-one watch unlimited films, but in the opening week I was faced with Fast X (shit), The Little Mermaid (not for me), Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (possibly fun, but IP-driven nonsense) and Super Mario Bros (um). This was not how it was supposed to go.

There are throwback showings on Sunday evenings. Last week it was Heat. During the final chase, I could feel the rumble of planes in my stomach, and my wife now has the hots for nineties Pacino. He’s a very sloppy kisser on a big screen. It was all unexpectedly intimate. I’ve become used to television-sized screens for films. Last night it was Fight Club, and they gave out free wine and popcorn. What a film, but, you know, we all know the first rule.

May 28 2023, 09:11

Bluesky

I have a Bluesky account. A fellow writer on Twitter sent me an invite — it’s still in a pretty combustible beta — and I immediately feel much more at home there than on Mastodon, which has an awkward user interface and an established culture I don’t chime with. Mastodon is very... conversational. I don’t want to talk with strangers particularly, but I do want smart voices saying interesting things in as few words as possible. Bluesky is like Twitter used to be in that way. It also allows me to control who I read and, with a 300 word limit, encourages me to edit before I post and take pride in what I write.

I’ve been writing software in various guises for over twenty years. I started posting to websites, blogs and social media as soon as I started learning how to code. Sharing thoughts online, as inconsequential, personal, and abstract as they may be, still thrills me, and must be connected to the still-simmering desire I have to see my fiction published.

“To see my fiction published” is a passive statement. I didn’t write ”publish my fiction”. It matters to me that I don’t self-publish. Part of me still wants validation, but I recognise the positives of having a book come out through a publisher, as well as the downsides.

I’m concentrating on my technology career, which pays the bills. I am not passive in that part of my life. I wasn’t passive when I finished The Complex and put it out into the world. This is the phase I am in. The next novel is still in my mind’s eye. It requires a degree of focussed attention that I just don’t have available yet. Anxiety doesn’t help. I am not independently wealthy. This is where I am. The writing phase will come around again. In the meantime I will keep posting here. And now possibly Bluesky.

May 27 2023, 09:17

Author speculation

I’m reading Cinema Speculation, Quentin Tarentino’s non-fiction celebration of key American films of the seventies, from Bullitt and Dirty Harry, to Escape From Alcatraz and The Funhouse. I heard about it through the Pure Cinema podcast, which is connected to Tarentino’s Los Angeles cinema, the New Beverly. The prose voice is exactly how Tarentino sounds in interviews and podcasts. I’m sceptical of his writing ability, and I admit to being cynical about his novel, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, published after the film came out.

Obviously, I’m jealous. I don’t doubt his intelligence or capacity to speak fluently about the stories in his head. It’s easy to imagine him walking around his plush L.A. mansion, talking into his phone, then emailing the recordings to a ghost writer who edits them into shape. And why not? Writing clearly happens in many ways.

It feels like cheating because I have fixed ideas on how writers should write. There has to be suffering, each sentence sweated over, whole chapters thrown away, the entire thing rewritten multiple times. There has to be a crisis of confidence and real risk of the whole thing, perhaps even the writer’s life, collapsing into a meaningless void. That’s real writing.

Yes, that’s fucked up. I don’t know anything about Tarentino’s writing process. He’s an impressive artist and this is all in my head. I’m being a dick, and not to Quentin Tarentino, who couldn’t care less. I’m being a dick to myself. This is how I keep me in my place.