Final Fridays

Posted on January 6, 2024 by Lexifab

I’m not one for resolutions around the start of a new year. Commitments made while basking in the glow of holidays and indulgence are neither credible nor binding, if past experience is anything to go by.

Man in silhouette doing warmup stretches next to a park bench in front of a sunrise

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Life’s starting to catch up with me though. Health-wise, I’ve been given some firm directions. Get my weight down and my fitness up, get my blood pressure under control, and knock the cholesterol back a few points. That means more exercise and a more watchful diet. That in turn means reimposing a bit of discipline on myself, or risk having an Event f some description.

Okay then. While I’m at it, let’s throw a bit of writing into the mix.

It’s been more than 18 months since my last blog entry. It’s been much, much longer than that since I’ve completed any fiction writing, especially if you don’t count song lyrics [1]. And I can’t even remember the last time I sent out a newsletter, but it will have been at least three years ago.

It’s what you might call a fallow period. I’ve spent a lot of that time trying to get my head straight, being increasingly anxious about not getting my head straight, and failing to adequately deal with that anxiety. Also the previously mentioned high blood pressure, a couple of surgeries, and constant nagging fatigue. Oh, and finally, after a couple of years of working at it, at last getting a diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder. Dealing with all of this using tried and true methods like stress eating, freaking out at the simplest problems, staying up too late and playing video games for hours at a time. You know, the way our prehistoric forebears did.

All of which is to say, I haven’t spent a lot of time writing.

I haven’t stopped thinking about it though, and it might just be the vacation-based relaxation talking, but I think I’m ready to get back into it now. I have a few plans for the year, including producing another collection of short fiction to accompany Mnemo’s Memory and Other Fantastic Tales. That came out more than five years ago. (I’ll just take a deep breath as I contemplate that). In my mind, at least, I’m well overdue.

The trouble with that plan is I don’t really have enough material available to justify a collection at this point. There’s a decent selection of flash fiction to pick and choose from, but I’d prefer to marry those up with longer pieces. Which means I have to write some. Which means I have to rebuild some good writing habits.

My Friday Flash Fiction project was an attempt to maintain those habits, but I don’t think a story-every-week goal is sustainable just now. (Possibly not ever – the run-up to the 100th straight week of FFF undoubtedly contributed to burnout, though on reflection it probably wasn’t the worst offender on that score).

Rather than just straight back into the deep end, I’ve settled on a compromise I’m calling Final Friday Fiction. I’ll post a new story on the site on the last Friday of every month. I’m aiming for flash length to keep my ambitions in check, but unlike the old flash fiction project, I won’t necessarily restrict myself to the thousand-word limit if a story needs a bit more breathing space. (Certainly some of the old Friday flash stories suffered a little from the artificiality of the 1K restriction). Once a month feels a lot more doable than once a week,certainly.

I have a couple of other projects underway, but I’ll talk about them as I go. And I might see about resurrecting the newsletter at some point, though I’ll revisit what I’m doing there and keep it primarily to writing news or shoutouts for other good things I’ve been reading.

What will the first story be about? Dunno, haven’t thought that far ahead yet. It’ll be a nice surprise for all of us. So, follow the friday-flash tag or just check back in at the end of the month to see if I can hold myself to account even once.

If you haven’t heard from me by March, don’t send out any search parties.

 

[1] I do actually count song lyrics, but I treat them more as a fun side project than part of my writing practice. That way, they stay fun. If and when my musical friends and I ever get around to recording them, I’ll let you know.

 

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Slump and Recovery

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Lexifab

I know that sounds like the world’s worst superhero team-up – He’s a washed-up private eye who can only see the darkest future timelines! She’s a hyper-efficient android with a million projects! Together they fight crime! – but it’s pretty much just my life these days.

A sleeping dog

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay


Over the past year or so, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with myself. I’m not writing, I procrastinate on simple tasks for weeks rather than minutes. I’m not able to stay focused on my day job, I’m getting more and more forgetful about things, and I’m making stupid, obvious and easily avoidable mistakes. The slightest disruption to my daily routine – the slightest disruption – will mess up my entire day.Instead of doing things, I get stressed about not doing things.

I spend more time recriminating myself than I do taking positive action. Or any action, in a lot of cases. And the more ineffective I feel, the more stressed I get about it (in a way that the anxiety meds are barely staving off), until I get to the point of having a panic attack. Or freakout, depending on your preferred medical terminology. I fall into hole, silently screaming the whole way down. Sweats, shaking hands, the lot.

And then what invariably happens is that I scare the shit out of myself so badly that I immediately flip a switch. I become a productivity machine. I Get Shit Done. I make lists, I power through them, I make more lists. I operate at a level of focus and efficiency I don’t even recognise.

Trouble is, it doesn’t last. At best, I sustain the burst of energy for a few days in a row. Most of the time it lasts a day, then I crash so hard I get home from work and need a nap. By the next day the slide has started again.

It’s becoming somewhat obvious to me that I have some sort of attention deficit condition. The good news is that my spouse finally pushed me hard enough to get the ball rolling on an ADHD assessment. The less good news is that it turns out, psychiatric services specialising in this extremely common complaint are rarer than a sunburned sirloin. It took weeks to get the appointment, and it’ll probably take a number of followup appointments to arrive at a diagnosis. I’m looking at potentially months of this internal psychodrama going on before I can start on effective treatment, and that’s only assuming that my half-arsed amateur self-diagnosis has any validity.

My first session was scheduled for yesterday morning.

Funny story: I’m currently in lockdown after testing positive to COVID on Wednesday morning. (I’m physically fine. I’ve been lucky enough and vaccinated enough to score one of those “It’s no worse than a bad head cold” doses.)

Because I couldn’t attend in person, and because apparently the initial consultation needs to be face to face, I had to defer my appointment to the next available slot – in late August. Agh.

The horizon stretches on, I guess. Hopefully it’s closer than I think, but I’m not all that optimistic at the moment.

PS: Don’t get me wrong – I’m not in any danger of causing harm to myself or anyone else. I’m just stressed (sometimes) and exhausted (usually). It’s possible a week of enforced best rest might be the best thing that could happen to me. Not likely,  but possible.

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Post-Aurealis non-COVID hangover

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Lexifab

The Aurealis Awards weekend has drawn to a close, and I’m done. Luckily for me, today is a public holiday in Canberra (for Reconciliation Day) so I don’t have to immediately switch back to my day job brain.

T R Napper in conversation with Cat Sparks at the launch of Tim's novel 36 Streets

At the launch of 36 Streets by T R Napper.

The weekend was by and large a smashing success: friends old and new gathered, winners were feted and runners-up commiserated, there was laughing, earnest and enthusiastic chit chat, and not a few tears were shed. After the ceremony was done, quite a lot of joyful teamwork was dedicated towards generating Sunday morning hangovers.

And, of course, there was at least one report (so far) of a positive COVID test. Ah. It was always a risk, of course, and hopefully one that in retrospect will feel more calculated than reckless. So far my tests have come back negative, and my exhaustion and slight cough have adequate alternative explanations. Fingers crossed that we didn’t just stage a super-spreader event.

The winners of the awards are all listed on the Aurealis website, and about the categories for which I had an opinion I certainly have no complaints. It was lovely to see several first time winners among some more familiar faces on the podium. In particular I have to give it up for Alan Baxter, whose win for his delightfully weird and creepy novella collection The Gulp broke a ten-year drought of Aurealis nominations without a win.

image shows a darkened clifftop with a bright light flaring through a pin tree

The Gulp by Alan Baxter

The bittersweet highlight of the night was undoubtedly the Best Anthology win for Aiki Flinthart’s Relics, Wrecks & Ruins, which she pulled together in the months leading up to her death from cancer in early 2021. Not only did Aiki bravely and shamelessly invite a cadre of some of the best writers in the genre to contribute, but she also turned out to be an excellent anthology editor. RWR is a terrific read, and just one of the many reasons Aiki will be fondly remembered and dearly missed. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when her friends and co-editors Pamela Jeffs and Geneve Flynn accepted the award on her behalf.

a painted book cover depicting a man looking at a crashed vehicle of indeterminate size and function

Relics, Wrecks & Ruins, edited by Aiki Flinthart.

As usual I completely forgot to get my phone out to take any photos, but luckily the indomitable Cat Sparks was there with her camera and did a great job of capturing the atmosphere of the afternoon and evening. Check out her extensive Flickr gallery to see all the glamour and joy of the affair (which I am startled to note includes several instances of me looking a lot more like my dad than I ever thought I did).

On Sunday my good mate and former day-job colleague Tim Napper got to hold a slightly belated launch for his debut novel 36 Streets, a near-future noir cyberpunk set in Chinese-occupied Hanoi. Tim chatted with Cat Sparks about some of the influences on his writing, including Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, the books of Richard K Morgan, and more than a decade working as an aid worker in south-east Asia (Hanoi in particular). The result is a hard-boiled, brutal futuristic thriller that grapples with some of Tim’s favourite themes – memory, identity, and the future of geopolitics. And vicious knife fights, if I had to guess (I’m only a few pages in so far, but I feel pretty safe to recommend it, if you like the sound of what I’ve described. Tim’s a reliably exciting writer and I’m incredibly pleased he’s finally got a novel out in the world).

a woman in a red jacket stands before a dark, neon-lit Hanoi street

36 Streets by T R Napper

As for me, I’m glad the weekend went without too many hitches, and pleased I got to see some old friends and make several new acquaintances for the first time in I guess maybe 40 years? I dunno, time seems to be broken so my counting may be a bit off. Could have been 50 years.

As often happens when the speculative fiction tribe gathers, I’m feeling more invigorated to do some writing. We’ll see after the exhausted relief of several months of accelerating stress and anxiety wear off in a week or two. In the meantime I’ll see what I can do about catching up on my sleep.

 

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Celebrating the community

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Lexifab

The Aurealis Awards are coming up soon.

The icon of the Aurealis Awards

Aurealis Awards 2022

I don’t bring that up just to immodestly mention the fact that I am a three-time nominee for Australia’s premiere awards for speculative fiction, nominated by the wider community of writers, readers and fans, and selected by a judging panel of heroic and dedicated volunteers who winnow sometimes hundreds of entries down to a shortlist of the finest examples of the cutting edge of the art, engaging in agonising and sometimes bruising debates until finally a winner emerges.

(Why would I? I’ve never won!)

No, in this case I bring it up because for my sins, I’m helping to organise the award ceremony this year. The awards move around from one community organisation to the next, and for the next few years the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild will be playing host. So save the date – Saturday 28 May – because the awards will be streamed out from a live event in Canberra where, we hope, luminaries from across the Oz spec fic scene will gather for the first time in…well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Depending on how things go in the Federal election the weekend before, people may be feeling understandably reticent to come to the national capital, so to entice visitors, we’ll be putting on a bit of a show. In addition to the ceremony, the Aurealis committee are hosting a writers’ development afternoon. There’ll be a few panels, some workshops, and the first opportunity after a long break for people to get together with friends and colleagues to network (by which I obviously mean eat, chat and be merry).

The details are still to be worked out, but it’s definitely happening. So if you have the means and the will to travel to Canberra and be in a big room with actual live people, make your plans accordingly. The end of May fast approaches.

(It approaches too fast, now that I think about it. I’ve no idea what I’ll wear).

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A statement from the management

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Lexifab

Yeah, I’m not dead, just resting. Ineffectually.

Image by athree23 from Pixabay

I’ve had “Update the blog” on my to-do list pretty much every week since the last post in (checks notes, faints in embarrassment)  August last year. And every week I’ve not gotten around to it, and then felt bad, and put it back on the to-do list for the next week. And so on.

It’s a self-defeating cycle of shame and despair, tending inexorably to entropy and collapse. But hey, that’s pretty true of everything in these days of the slow-but-accelerating apocalypse. The constant exhausting state of the world – with pandemics, wars and gross political negligence – has flattened stronger-willed people than me. In my social circles, barely anyone seems to operating at the same energy levels they were a couple of years ago.

I should probably stop beating myself up about it.

You might imagine that with all this time off from writing blog posts that I would have plenty of time to get some writing done. And you’d be right, but that doesn’t mean I’ve actually done any writing.

Reader, I have not. Oh, the ideas still flow regularly enough, and once in a while I am seized with the impulse to scratch out the odd paragraph here and there. So far, that creative spark hasn’t expanded into the compulsion to finish an actual story.

It’s not that the well is dry so much as I just can’t find the enthusiasm to crank the bucket up to take a drink.

But if I can’t quite there with the fiction writing yet, I think I can still summon the energy for blog writing. Reportage takes a different energy to fiction, at least for me. So for the near future, I’ll be reviving my blogging habit. Not daily, but hopefully not once every six to eight months either.

There’s a fair bit going on, after all. I’m reading again, for one thing, and there’s always good stuff to recommend. And I’m involved with the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild again, and the organising committee for the Aurealis Awards, and I’m gearing up to support the next CSFG anthology. Plates are spinning, is what I’m saying here.

I’ll try not to let them fall where anyone will step on the pieces.

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