Journaling

Being in between books recently I decided to reread William Boyd’s Any Human Heart again (I’ve banged on about this novel loads of times, still as joyous and evocative and tinged with sadness as ever) and it got me thinking about the art of diary writing, and how this blog is perceived by it’s readers.

I used to have a journal in my late teens, and I wrote something every day for going on 8 years I think. Sometimes I would pick up my pen and not have much to say at all. Other times events in my life flowed onto the page. Looking back now I don’t know if it was cathartic. Indeed the reason I gave it up was because of the pain it caused me. Writing the truth about stuff when in emotional turmoil was too much. I was having a great deal of relationship angst at the time, drinking more than I should, and seeing a shrink to work through some past issues, and I just couldn’t do it any more. It was strange going from writing every day to not doing it at all. And after a few months I decided to get rid of them. 8 years of diaries, hundreds of thousands of words, all in the bin. I can hardly remember any of what I wrote now, and the confused and unhappy young man I was at the time I would struggle to recognise.

So what is this blog, if not a diary of sorts? Well over the years I’ve not talked about my personal life too much. I wanted this to be a place for book reviews and to talk about the pleasures and travails of writing novels and trying to get my heart and soul out onto the page. And I’ve pretty much stuck to that. Of course it is inevitable that life events will be discussed at times, as my state of mind is reflected in my work. I wonder how people will think of me after I’m gone, based on my fiction and this blog. Probably as a self-indulgent writer with a drinking problem. Which I guess isn’t that far wide of the mark. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll be dead, so who cares?

I guess we’re talking about legacy, really. I’m single and childless and I suspect it will stay that way for the rest of my life. My spirit won’t live on in my children or any of that stuff. So what will I have to show for it? What will people have to get a flavour of my life and my personality? This blog, in it’s own little way, is one of the few things I have. Maybe I should write more about my life, to give a more well-rounded picture. Or probably the best idea would be not to worry so much, and let the evolution of this blog progress in a natural manner.

Same Old, Same Old

This is going to be a short post, as I’m basically in a very similar mindset as this post from last year. I usually try to write something on here at least once a month, and it was only this morning that I realised April had come and gone with nothing to show for it. Such is my frame of mind. Everything of a creative bent feels likes a struggle. I’ve worked the novel almost to a standstill, and I can’t see where it’s going to go from now. The end seems beyond reach, an impossible mountain to climb, and it weighs heavily on my mind and exerts a pressure that I find harder to handle with every passing year.

I’m in a massive reading rut as well. I vowed to make Ulysses my one really challenging read of the year, but totally against rhyme or reason I have broken that rule twice in succession. Once with Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, basically because I wanted to see what all the controversy was about it, with the fatwa and the death threats made against him. Like all Rushdie it’s a mix of magic realism, fable, religious allegory and whilst I get the importance and the artistry of it, it felt like a battle all the way through to really tackle the themes. Then from there I moved to the Booker winner The Sellout, which I was curious about because it’s the first U.S winner of the prize and is regarded as an excellent satire. I haven’t quite finished it yet, and I’m sure its praise is warranted, but a lot of the jokes are beyond my station, riffing on African-American culture and history, some of which went straight over my head due to ignorance on my part. I’ve struggled to read more than 10 pages in a session, so these two books have probably taken 2 months to complete. Which for someone who likes to read a book a week, is glacial.

So the writing and reading is a drag, and the alcohol travails continue, my intake is still much too high, and it consumes my life more than I would like. I hate being weak, but when it comes to the booze, I’m hopelessly in thrall. Which is pathetic to write, and even worse to admit. So everything feels like a huge weight on the shoulders at the minute. Finishing the novel and then having a holiday and a couple of clean months sounds like heaven, really. But I might as well wish for the moon.

Bad Habits

I really didn’t want to write another post about drinking. The tribulations I went through in 2019 were some of the worst of my life, and I swore to myself that if I was going to drink again I had to be sensible. And I’m sure I did, at least to start with. But my fear that old bad habits would start to creep in has been proven right.

Much like to the catalyst to my period of abstention in 2019, a drinking session got wildly out of hand in exactly the same manner and produced the same gnawing anxiety and vicious hangover. My recollections of the back end of the day start as flashes and become non-existent. No idea of how I got home. A vague memory of having an argument with some strangers outside a pub, which is something completely out of character. Making a general fool of myself on the train home with loud talk and obnoxious behaviour. I cringe just thinking about it.

What’s worse of course are the effects. The hangover is bad enough (and always worse the older you get) but the mental symptoms are what destroy me. Trying to piece it together and failing. The accompanying guilt. The people I have to apologise to (all of whom I haven’t seen since). The general self-loathing. And so on. I’ve basically hidden at home ever since (other than working). It leaves me unable to write as well, as my mind can’t focus on the task at hand. Which increases my hatred of myself, and the wheel keeps on turning.

Last time I managed to put together a longish period of sobriety, but this time around I haven’t even done that. Played poker with some friends last night and had a couple, always cautious, clock-watching to make sure I didn’t drink too quickly. I’m a grown man acting like a child. It’s pathetic. But I really don’t know if I can give up. I’m too weak. Theoretically it shouldn’t be too difficult – I only drink a couple of days a week anyway. But after a while the craving is so strong, and sometimes I can’t stop until I’m hopelessly drunk.

I know there are a few practical things I can and will do. No alcohol in the house. No pre-loading before socialising. Drinking lower ABV beer. But it all feels like re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. I fucking hate feeling like this, and I hate thinking about it. It would be nice to focus on something else. Where all this goes from here, I’ve not got a clue.

My Corona

I guess it was almost inevitable considering the spread of the Omicron variant, but earlier this month I finally succumbed to Covid. I must say it is slightly surreal when that red line finally shows up on a lateral flow test, a hint of panic but some relief as well, that it’s here and I’ve got to get it over with. I knew it was coming as a lot of work colleagues and people I know from sporting events were falling foul of it, and I was mildly symptomatic (nothing more than a sore throat and runny nose though). It wasn’t enough to keep me from working (at home, obviously) but I did have to go the full 10 days before consecutive negative tests. Self-isolating for that period is not fun. My house only has a small garden, so walking up and down there for exercise is nothing short of tedium, especially when I started to feel better. I had a couple of social events that I had to cancel as well, which was frustrating. But all in all it could have been a lot worse. I was glad I got my booster jab before Christmas, as I’m sure that limited the symptoms. It does feel good knowing I’ve had it and now have gained extra immunity. It does, touch wood, feel like we’re in the endgame of the pandemic now anyway, with restrictions all but lifted, so catching it in the tail end from the minor variant should hopefully mean that’s my only brush with Covid.

So how did all that affect my writing, I hear you ask? Well not much, really. During those self-isolation days my routine was pretty much identical day-to-day, and I factored in a window to write on each of those days. And I’ve pretty much carried on in that vein since, so my work ethic has improved as a result. I’m up around 50,000 words now, and my feeling is the novel is about halfway, so I’m well into it. I’m certain that I’m going over similar themes that I explored in Gaslight, and probably in a more mediocre way, but I’m content with the daily sessions, which I wasn’t a few months ago, when everything was a grind.

How I’ll feel about it in a weeks time, let alone 6 months, is a mystery. I’m sure I’ll finish it now, probably in the summer, but other than a sense of accomplishment, I suspect I won’t have any great feelings of joy about it. It’ll join my ever-growing collection of novels and that will be it.

Excuses

Every post feels like Groundhog Day at the moment. Yes, the novel is still in progress. Yes, I’m struggling with the narrative still. I’m over 30,000 words in now, which is too much to wipe my hands of it, tempting how that sounds. And yes, I’m having trouble getting motivated to write. This has been going on for a few months now, the longest period of lethargy I can remember. I’ve accepted that my output is not what it was five years ago, but even accounting for that, I can barely get myself to the screen every day. Happiness isn’t really part of it. I wrote Momentum when I was heartbroken, and that grief and hurt got me fired up and pounding the keys every night. Gaslight too, that will probably be the longest novel I ever write, and through most of that I suffered from loneliness and a mild depression. So state of mind is not necessarily the reason for it, although being in a good mental health place definitely helps.

Unfortunately drinking is starting to form too much of my life again, which isn’t helping. That period of sobriety seems a long time ago now, and the lessons I learnt have well and truly fallen by the wayside. Because I’m conscious of it I have been keeping a note of my weekly alcohol intake for years, and actually this year could turn out to be my most sober since I started keeping a record. I feel like this last month has been incredibly boozy, so it just shows how much I used to put away a decade ago.

None of this feels like an improvement, as consumption probably decreases with age, and the hangovers certainly get worse. My typical weekend start with drinks Friday night (either at home or the pub), a mild hangover Saturday until I start drinking again in the afternoon, then a lazy Sunday feeling sorry for myself. Probably with a semblance of headache and nausea for literally the entire time, which can sometimes run on into Monday. Then a few sober days before it all starts again.

And it needs to fucking stop, as I know the pitfalls. It’s bad for my mental and physical health, it feels like it’s having an effect on my memory, it doesn’t do anything for the bank balance, and it definitely hits my creative output. Too many days I decide to sack off the writing because I know I’m going to be drinking or have a hangover. And I hate those days, where self-loathing is at its highest. Part of it is knowing I’ve been in a similar position hundreds of times before. I just don’t learn. I found out the hard way what it cost me, and yet still I carry on.

And now we’re coming into Christmas season, with the parties and family coming over, and the temptation to drink is a lot higher. It’s going to be hard. In one way I’m dreading it. Got to try and make more of an effort. Stop making excuses. String a few days together and drink less when I do. That’s all I have the strength for at the moment.

Year End Musings

It’s Christmas Eve, and last night I received a notification from the NHS Covid-19 app telling me that I had to self-isolate for 6 days as I had been in recent contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus. I knew this was coming to be fair – a work colleague had let me know yesterday that they had developed symptoms. But it brings all the year’s turmoil into sharp focus as we near its conclusion. It will be all 2020 is remembered for.

On the face of it, my period of isolation will be fine. I’m asymptomatic at the moment, and with a Tier 4 lockdown 2 days away, I wouldn’t have been going out much anyway. A family dinner out has had to be cancelled, which I was looking forward to. But the fridge is well-stocked and I have been refunded in full, so no harm done there either really. The extra time at home will hopefully give me the impetus for a final reading and writing push before 2021 is upon us.

I wrote earlier on this year about how I feared creativity would be hampered by the virus, despite the extra time at home that furlough and lockdown has brought. But I’ve done OK this year. State Line has been completed and published, which is something I’m very proud of. The first draft was completed before all this madness started, but I’ve done two re-writes to get the manuscript into shape and it’s been out there for purchase for nearly a month now. I got Gaslight finished too, which is my magnum opus. Trying to find a home for it will no doubt prove impossible, but I’ll always be amazed and a little intimidated by that novel, that something so epic in scope came from my imagination.

And I’m 20,000 words into a new story. It’s progressing well, and we’re coming into the closing stages now. My word count is still quite slow (it’s taken 3 months to get this far) but I like how it has turned out different to my expectations. There is an air of sorrow about the narrative that I like very much. The same worries about length and theme remain, but I’d feel uncomfortable if they didn’t!

I think what this year has taught me is that you have to recognise what is important, make that front and centre of your life, and discard the things that waste time and hold you back. The importance of family and friends has been reinforced through the lockdowns and distancing, and I hold those bonds closer and dearer than I ever have. But I know that writing must play a central part. For too long I’ve allowed my day-to-day work to intrude on my creative life. There’s no time for that anymore. They are tales that need to be told, and I have to try and dig out as many as I can. So that’s my resolution going into 2021. Merry Christmas one and all.

Coronavirus and Creativity

For those of us who write, being in isolation isn’t too much of a problem. You shut yourself away, call up the Muse, and by hook or by crook, get your 500 words done or whatever your target is. Sometimes the words come tough, but you push on through. You’ve made your voluntary commitment to be alone and work.

Now that Covid-19 has struck us, isolation feels like a whole different thing. On the face of it (and I hope I’m not sounding flippant by saying this) those who work in solitary creative fields should be able to carry on despite living in what is a once in a generation pandemic, the sort of thing historians will be evaluating years from now. It’s an extraordinary situation – bars and restaurants closed, people advised to stay indoors, and working from home is the new norm. Public gatherings are not recommended, people should stay 6 feet away from each other when outdoors, and those over 70 or with underlying health conditions shouldn’t be going out at all. All of which is a huge hit to the economy, and the likelihood of a full-scale lockdown isn’t too far away.

So, unprecedented stuff. With millions now isolated at home, talk turns to how to stay occupied, and writing is near the top of the list of activities to get through the days. I’ve seen many say they are starting a diary to record the times we are living in for posterity. Others talk of learning a new skill or reacquainting with an old one – letter writing, poetry, and drawing are popular ones I have seen.

But I fear these well-founded ambitions are likely to remain unfulfilled. On the face of it, spending hours at home frees up time to get loads of writing done, but for me, this is the first work I’ve done since the outbreak. I think this is because the whole situation is pretty terrifying. I live with my elderly father, who is in the high-risk group of catching the virus. He’s fine, and has pretty much been indoors the last week, but I’m anxious about him nonetheless. And the everyday tasks are proving more difficult. I’ve spent two fruitless shopping trips trying to buy toilet paper thanks to the stockpiling idiots, and these setbacks play on the mind. I’m very conscious of not coming into close contact with others on these trips, and on the whole outings are somewhat nerve-wracking. My sister lives abroad and I worry about her too. So when I’m at home I want to escape with a Netflix show to take my mind off things rather than try and write, which feels like a huge task at the moment. This is without turning on the news and getting a daily dose of worry as the worldwide case and death numbers continue to spiral. Low-level anxiety is not conducive to anything, let alone good writing.

I appreciate this comes across as a first-world problem when our heroic NHS workers are putting themselves on the line every day. I wanted to take a break after the first draft of State Line, and I am having one. Maybe I will settle into a better mindset as the weeks pass, and I can at least do some editing of previous drafts to keep ticking over. I guess we all have to bear in mind that this global pandemic is something none of us have ever experienced before, with its inherent dangers and restrictions. We’re all feeling our way forward, trying to do our best. It will still be there in the morning.

Nearing the Fifth

So my 40th birthday is fast approaching, and its seen as one of the most momentous of a lifetime.  ‘Life begins at 40’ is a well-worn cliche that crops up every time this milestone is reached, and personally I think it’s a load of crap.  At least I hope it is, otherwise the preceding years have been a bit of a waste of time! But it does offer opportunity to reflect, and I’ve been mulling over my reading and writing life to date, and trying to get a handle on what I think about it all.

I believe that the greatest gift I got from childhood was a love of reading, and as I went through college and university, of literature. Everyone knows someone who says they don’t have time to read, and I’m grateful that I’m not one of them.  When I think of all the thousands of life-changing books that people are missing out on it makes me shudder. I appreciate I probably do have more time as I am single and childless, but there’s always time if you try.  I carry a book with me everywhere I go, and read whenever I have a spare moment. It’s a constant source of pleasure and I get great satisfaction from it.

Say I’ve been reading since the age of 10, that’s 30 years, probably a book a week on average since the age of 15, well, it’s got to be close to 1500 books so far in my lifetime.  Millions and millions of words, and I feel I’ve hardly scratched the surface.  There’s genres I rarely read, great classics to get through, and all the brilliant books that haven’t even been thought up yet.  Hopefully I’m not halfway through my life yet, so I figure I’ve got at least the same amount of books left to read, if I can.  What an amazing thing to look forward to.

On writing, I’ve said before that creating fiction is when I’m at my happiest, and I believe it’s pretty much saved my life on occasion.  It’s where I’m most expressive, more thoughtful, and hopefully dynamic and challenging as well. It’s also one of the few things I’m really proud of, being a novelist. I knew from an early age I wanted to write a novel, and probably made my first naive attempts at around 16. Many get to that stage and give up, through fear or lack of time or real life getting in the way. I did too, to start with. But I didn’t let it beat me.  I forget how old I was when I finally got a novel written.  I think 23 or so. That seems impossible to me now, that I had the drive and focus to do it.  I was such a young man in so many ways.  There’s still aspects of that novel I like, too.

But you can always be accused of being a one-hit wonder, so I set out to see if it was a fluke.  And it wasn’t. The genesis of Playing with Fire and the effort it took are well-documented on this blog, and that feeling when the last word was written is one I’ve never forgotten. Almost like tapping into another world and being privy to something so extraordinary it makes the process seem like it was enchanted.  If nothing else, I’ll always have that moment.

And since the words have stagnated at times but on the whole kept flowing. Another novel is under my belt, some short stories and a novella, which is not a bad output of work. I’ve got content available for purchase in various places, and I’ve been published.  Whilst I’m proud of that achievement, I’ve come to realise that it’s not the be all and end all. It’s the craft that matters, the response from the people closest.  Having my novella Momentum discussed at my old book club was one of the kindest appreciations of my work, and that’s what keeps me going, not being published necessarily. Learning to appreciate that has given me a nice sense of calm, and has made me more immune to the midlife crisis, I hope. Besides, I write because I can’t not.  It’s a fundamental part of who I am. So I’m going into my fifth decade with less trepidation than I might. For there is so much more left to read, and many more words to write. I can’t wait to get started.

Sharing the Love

There is a brillant bit in Nick Hornby’s classic novel High Fidelity where our hero Rob has just broken up with his girlfriend Laura, and the first album he listens to at home after is Yellow Submarine by The Beatles.  The reason? Because it’s the only album he owns that doesn’t remind him of anything. Not of his lost love, of any good or bad times, nada. Just a piece of music that he can listen to, enjoy on its own merits, wallow in the nostalgia, and package up for the next time, untainted by the vagaries of the human heart.

Now Rob is more than a music aficionado, he is something of a snob.  Which is fine, if you’re passionate about something, it’s almost inevitable.  And I have definitely become the same about books, that’s for certain.  But the reason I haven’t gone full snob is for the same reason as Rob above. I’m terrified of having my favourite books remind me of anything other than my love for them. So I tend to keep my all-time favourites to myself, to wax lyrical about them but encourage others to seek them out themselves if they so wish (which doesn’t tend to happen very often as no-one is a more avid reader than me in my social group) and move the discussion on to other books. Be protective, secretive and precious about them, basically.  To avoid an all-time great being tarnished by a bad memory.

High Fidelity is a good case in point, as it happens. I have currently lent that to somebody (who already loved the film so it wasn’t too much of a punt), and if I’m honest, there is a small part of me that regrets it.  Because I’m running the risk that the book will always remind me of her, and if something bad happens between us, I won’t be able to read the book without thinking about her.  And I would be genuinely upset if that happened.  I think it will probably be OK, mostly because we have a shared appreciation for the novel which has actually enhanced the book for me a bit.  Also I have a long history with the novel and it has infuenced my life in countless ways which are deeply entrenched and for which I will remain forever grateful. I don’t think the biggest emotional heartache could completely rid me of that feeling.

But you have to be so careful, with music or literature, anything creative that is special to you, really.  It’s the great balancing act; spreading your love of something that changed your life, in the hope that it inspires others too, against the great worry that that action will fundamentally effect your appreciation of the work.

Higher States of Confidence

An affliction that I think affects many creative types is being slightly embarrassed or even unwilling to talk about their work and sell themselves.  I’ve had a couple of conversations with a friend recently (an artist who designed the front cover for my novella Momentum) about what to say when asked the age-old question, ‘So, what do you do for a living?’ by somebody you meet for the first time. And we agreed that we would both mention in the first instance what we did for the day job, rather than what defines us as human beings.

But why? In my opinion, the question is loaded from the start. There are thousands of people like us whose number one passion is not something they can make a living from. That’s a simple fact. Even published, established authors make money on the side. So for some, how they make money is not actually that important in the grand scheme of things. But yet I would still say I work in ecommerce if somebody asked me the question.

A better way to express it would be to say ‘what do you do?’ which takes the financial aspect out and gives the opportunity to say, ‘Well, I write.’ But even then I’d be reluctant to do so. The main reason for that is a lack of confidence, I think. Which is stupid, and my friend agreed. Why not big up the fact? Writing novels is not something many can say. People have paid to read my work, which means I am an author and that is no word of a lie. My friend does stencilling and art all the time for people and charges a fee for it, and he’s incredibly talented. This creativity is not an impulse, it’s at the heart of everything I do. How I pay the bills is not.

So we’ve decided to be more honest with everyone we meet about who we are. Not only is it the truth, it’s far more interesting than the 9 to 5 job. And being more open about it can provide opportunities, it’s good networking, to use that horrible business speak, and you never know, I might get a few more sales out of it. And being an author is cool, right?! That’s what I’ve always thought. So it’s a win-win all round.