Category: me

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Hands On

Hand update: I’ve got a pretty gnarly scar, but there’s progress. Two weeks ago they removed the stitches from my palm, and I would not wish that pain and discomfort on anyone (note: they can’t anaesthetize your hand for this).

Psychologically I’ve been up and down. I’ve had to work through a feeling of being violated, of having to re-familiarize myself with what my hand can do (via physio) while fighting the fear that I’m going to pull or tear something in the process of rehabbing it back to where it should be.

While this has all been going on the political world south of the border has erupted into a swirl of chaos and condemnation. It’s a type of deja vu, considering we went through four years of this already. In the end, one of the people running for the presidency represented change and the other chose stability; the problem of course is that stability is hard to defend (let alone promote) when the candidate in question is trying to be a celebrity-endorsed centrist while there are so many voices in the mainstream media complaining about a left-wing cabal sacrificing the sanctity of American values. Frankly, it’s only a matter of time before the same debate amps up on this side of the border (it’s basically already here), what with a thoroughly mediocre Prime Minister playing out his third term similar to a sitting duck Biden, with little regard for the public malaise around his party. Cooler heads prevail when there are reasons to stay the course and our current PM struggles to even sell his wins let alone address his weaknesses.

When I wrote my third novel, The Stars Align for Disco Santa, it was during the worst year of Trump (2020), and was certainly influenced by many of the things that have now come to fruition: authoritarian politicians abetted by corporatist tech companies running roughshod over and unveiling the frailty of democracy, exposing how much of the West is protected by evidently feeble gentlemen’s agreements and empty platitudes of decency. In other words, if Harris had won, my book–soon to be doing the rounds of publishers via my agent–would’ve still been relevant, but reflective of a dark time in society now past. Now? It seems more pertinent than ever, which is terribly sad (an understatement), but here I am.

You write the book you have to write. By the time it hits the market you have no say on how trends will have changed in the interim, how the landscape and zeitgeist will have shifted. When my first book was picked up by Wolsak & Wynn, I had to wait nearly three years before it was published; in that time the media landscape seemed inundated with time travel narratives, so that when The Society of Experience finally came out the conceit felt certainly less unique than during the years I’d spent writing and polishing the manuscript. In short, you really have no choice but to deal with it, and I can only hope that, by the time Disco Santa does the rounds, publishers will see it as rising to the occasion.

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Back, Kinda

So, as you may have noticed from last week’s post, I’m able to write again, and much sooner than I’d anticipated. My assumption was that I was going to be in a splint after my hand surgery, perhaps for upwards of months (thus my interest in voice dictation software). However, literally the day after surgery, I got a call from the hospital attempting to book me for physio two days later. Because I was in a cast I didn’t know what “physio” was to be done (see photo below).

(My hand in a cast, two days after surgery, on my first day back to the office)

When I arrived, the physiotherapist looked at my cast and then took a pair of scissors and said “So, let’s take a look at your hand…” which caught me by surprise. This is where I should probably go into the surgery itself, three days before. I was asked to show up for 8am that morning. It was cool and dark out (hello, late October) and I was dressed appropriately for the occasion, which basically was track pants, a loose pullover, a hoodie and wearing glasses. Normally I wear contact lenses but I knew this probably wouldn’t be a good idea given that I was going to be put under for the procedure. They’re an older pair of glasses and I don’t wear them out very often…and sure enough, just steps from the hospital, as I removed the hood from my hoodie, my glasses slipped down my nose and fell onto the sidewalk, breaking into two hinged monocles. And it might as well have been my spirit that broke. My prescription is strong, which suddenly rendered the world a smeared blur of strange shapes moving around me as I picked the pieces of my glasses up and entered the hospital in a state of despair. I held one half of them against my face, feeling terribly awkward…and terribly vulnerable being in this strange environment, on the verge of having major surgery.

Once the staff directed me to a pre-op area where I was required to change into a gown, to my frustration I realized–despite the nurses kindly providing me with tape–that the frame had broken at an awkward place on the bridge, which made re-attaching them nearly impossible without their collapsing soon after. I’m not too proud to say that I nearly had a fucking breakdown as I futilely tried to restore some semblance of my vision. And all of the pent-up anxiety I’d been holding around the surgery for months, around the potential outcome, around what my life was going to look like while in recovery came to the surface. I should say that the pre-op nurse who noticed my freak-out was very helpful and empathetic (she shared that her prescription was much worse than mine; she’d had laser surgery).

I can do pain. I’ve done pain. But the intimidation of the procedure–the not-knowing–was overwhelming as they wheeled me into surgery. When I woke up and saw the cast, and realized my arm was completely limp as a result of the anaesthetic, it was a lot to work with.

So, just days later, when the physiotherapist began cutting it off, revealing my stitched up palm and thumb, the blood that soaked the bandage she was removing, I was overcome with emotion. “Are you going to be sick?” she asked in a practised way as I stared at the absolutely gory Frankenstein result. I shook my head, instead looking at the box of facial tissue on the counter, holding back tears of a strange mix of shock and grief. Showing great care she proceeded to go through the exercises I was supposed to do, which involved stretching my fingers inward (which would also put stress on the ligaments and muscles, my palm held together with sutures), and told me that I had to do these every two hours. She encouraged me to use the hand regularly (or as regularly as I could manage), including things such as shampooing my hair, brushing my teeth, etc.

So, typing that last post was basically part of my physio. My hand is getting better and the stitches will be coming out in the next week, however I still struggle to look at my palm, the loose skin, and yes, I struggle to stretch and bend my hand for fear that I’m going to rupture something. It’s a body horror thing, basically.

(Me, holding up my Frankenstein hand in a mirror)

That said, I’ve got a new pair of glasses now.

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A note about the note

I recently added a note to the welcome message at the top of this here blog:

A small request: I don’t have a Patreon, and I’m not interested in placing ads here, so ultimately whatever time I spend posting here I do on my own time and dime. I would be so thankful if you could visit my Goodreads page and, if you like my work, please consider rating it. You don’t have to write a review if that’s not your thing (although that’s mighty appreciated).

Allow me to show a slice of publishing’s sausage factory. I don’t like corporate behemoths for many reasons, but for the purpose of this argument it comes down to anti-competitiveness. And yet, unquestionably, Goodreads equals traffic and visibility for authors. That’s the reality. When people provide positive ratings and/or leave comments, that boosts the odds of more people discovering my work. Goodreads is a nice way to say hey thanks (or whatever your version of that is) if anything here interests you. I’m not going to stop you from trying it out, however I’m also not going to slam you over the head with this sort of request.

There are other ways to get the word out, of course. I mean, while I’m here, there’s nothing more awesome than bumping into someone who’s read one of my books, so feel free to spread the word the ol’ fashioned way: word-of-mouth. 

I also accept that, despite being a bit of an introvert, I could do more to get the word out, like advertising this blog a little more on social media. The irony is that I feel self-conscious driving people toward my blog, this place on the internet where I post things for the general public to see. Anyhoo, that’s me.

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Yay Surgery

I have a genetic condition, called Dupuytren’s Contracture, or perhaps more cool, Viking Disease. Below, you see two photos. The first is my left hand, unaffected. The second is my right hand, very much affected.

Left hand (normal)
Right hand (bad)

A hallmark of the disease is a thickening of the tissue in the palm of one’s hand (though it also can affect the pads of your feet, which I also have, yet it’s not serious). Normally, as it gets more pronounced (it’s chronic), the thickening of the tissue ends up pulling the fourth and fifth fingers inward, making it eventually difficult to operate equipment (or shake hands!). What makes mine a little more odd is that it’s affecting my thumb, pulling it inward. In the above photo of my right hand, that’s literally as far as I can expand my hand, whereas my left can go much further (not exactly pictured).

And so, at the end of this month I have surgery booked. I trust the surgeon, who specializes in this type of procedure, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m going to be without effective use of my hand for upwards of three months. I have no clue when I’ll be able to comfortably type using my right hand, which means that — you guessed it — when it comes to writing it’s going to be difficult. I might try voice-to-type software (which comes with most laptops and phones), but I’ll be honest: I’m not looking forward to any of it.  I don’t like surgery, period, and I sure as hell don’t like invasive cut-open-your-hand-with-a-small-risk-of-nerve-damage surgery. However, my options are…bleak. The worse this gets, the higher the likelihood the skin around my thumb will contract given there’s less room for it to move, which means permanent contraction.

This all said, I’ve been lucky. The last time I had invasive surgery was the removal of all four of my wisdom teeth when I was at the tender age of eighteen. I’ve never broken any bones (but boy have I been close) and I haven’t had to have anything stitched in this time.

Anyhoo, I hope to keep posting here, but perhaps without the regularity…or perhaps more regularity if I find it keeps me sane. Wish me luck!

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Book Three Reveal

So, as I mentioned last month two months ago, I had delivered Book Three to my agent. He has since added it to his fall catalogue, in time for his yearly trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. So, in light of the fact that this is now real and legit, I thought I’d (finally) reveal what Book Three is.

The real title is The Stars Align for Disco Santa.

The synopsis I wrote for the catalogue is as follows:

“Marcus is living the dream. Quite literally, it turns out. One fateful day at his tech startup, he finds a sticky note on his desk containing a cryptic message about his ex-girlfriend that draws him into a labyrinthine quest through chaotic film sets, sailing the violent waves of Lake Ontario on a virus-infected author cruise, destined to land on Monster Island . . . only to discover he’s been working in a stupor as a bookstore employee all this time, under the effects of a powerful medical prototype that has created a life-like inner world for him to experience, a world drawn from his and others’ memories, including his ex-girlfriend, Marta, and his mysterious half-sister, Jocelyn, who happens to be the architect of the experiment.

Evoking the hit Apple TV+ series Severance and reminiscent of Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Stars Align for Disco Santa is a heartfelt satire of misplaced desire and the limits of our control, a fast-paced novel that is as much about family and grief as it is an offbeat joyride through the not-so-funhouse of the psyche, asking the question: What matters?”

The cat is out of the bag now, and I no longer have to use “Book Three” to describe this! I am released!

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Priorities

Being in-between projects, I’ve had some time to reflect on a number of what’s next ruminations. Such ruminations aren’t always healthy. There are a lot of people out there who don’t know how to kick back, and feel the compulsion to thrust themselves into the next thing, whether or not that’s what’s best for them.

I’m a fairly compulsive writer. When I don’t have a novel in the works (in whatever stage) I have a short story kicking around. That said, it’s also mid-August (so much for weekly blog entries — sorry, folks) which is historically, in my professional world as a psychotherapist, the time of year when people take stock. Summer is fading, vacations have been taken, the world of work is growing louder after a prolonged period of sunshine and chilling. For those with children, school is beginning. For those in corporate settings, the fourth quarter looms to the degree that there might as well be a target on December…even though it’s August. And because I’m human why shouldn’t I experience some of this?

Sure enough I’ve begun to give some thought to where my priorities should be. As a shrink, I’d like to advertise my Business Therapy side project more, as it’s steadily gaining traction and promises to keep me engaged (after twelve years I needed something to mix things up in my practice). As a writer, I’m weighing applying another grant due in September (and no, my previous attempts this year haven’t borne much fruit), but also looking for markets that offer a venue for satire (so far: not many explicitly are looking for humour, which kinda sucks). Personally, I want to find the right balance between staying active (because I’m half-cattle dog, basically) without over-committing to activities that I won’t be able to fulfill to my satisfaction. I like growth, but don’t want to find myself exhausted in its pursuit.

Balance, man. <- this is a line from the beginning of my recently-delivered novel (aka Book Three), which stands in contrast to what the protagonist, Marcus, ends up experiencing. I have to say that this book feels like the most honest thing I’ve ever written (outside of my short story from 2015, Second World). It’s ultimately about figuring out “what matters,” even if the answer is something that doesn’t get 150 likes on social media. As I wrote in my notes, it’s about being okay with what might end up only being “ok.”

On this note, I hope you’re holding up okay, and taking moments for yourself to take stock, even though that can be intimidating.

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Retreat

I had the pleasure of spending a week as a guest (and sort of alumni) of The Pouch Cove Foundation, an artists’ retreat located in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland. While only about twenty minutes outside of St. John’s, it might as well be in the middle of nowhere, in the best possible way.

I went there to work on final changes to Book Three, and it was very productive. So much so that I’m hoping to hand off the book to my agent at the end of the month (fingers crossed). I was also happy to be sharing the retreat with a handful of visual artists who were preparing for a showing of their water-themed paintings in-progress. Writers and painters are different kinds of artists, insofar as painters come across as regular people when they’re not painting and writers tend to remain mumbly introverts when they’re not writing, not that we weren’t able to get together for the occasional beer and a chat in the evening. The good news is that we were all there to work and the setting was ideal for our tasks. And when we weren’t working, it was easy to step away and go on a hike along the East Coast Trail (in the course of one hike I spotted a pod of whales nearby and found myself tracked by a fox), or simply go down to the shore and admire the many gorgeous views.

Pouch Cove is one of the most beautiful places I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and this marks a return for me after 20 years. Back then I was still working in film/TV but trying to get my act together as a budding author. A work colleague suggested I check out the retreat at Pouch Cove which, it turned out, her father operated. I was only able to get away for a long weekend at the time (because broke), but it was my first introduction to an artists’ retreat and I was able to develop some of the ideas that made it into my first novel, The Society of Experience.

James Baird, who runs the Pouch Cove Foundation, has been a tireless supporter of the arts community in Newfoundland for decades and is an extremely generous host to artists from all corners of the world. I’m very appreciative of his support and enthusiasm, and grateful to have had the opportunity to return.

It was hard to leave.

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Interview: The First Thirty, courtesy of Junction Reads

This is super last-minute, and I apologize for the late notice, however tomorrow (!) I’m going to be interviewed live (!) on Instagram. Junction Reads is an established (since 2014) Toronto reading series that brings attention to so many great authors. I’m going to take part in Junction Reads’ cool offshoot, The First Thirty, which is designed around speaking with authors about — you guessed it — how the first thirty pages of their published work came about.

From their website:

Writers know, and readers too, the first pages are the most important in any novel, memoir or story. And I want to talk about it.

The First Thirty is an Instagram Live series where I will meet authors for a quick chat (30 minutes) to talk about writing, and how they shape those first pages to be a warm welcome to the reader; to include the hook that makes a reader want to keep reading, and to give us the characters we either want to love or really hate.

You can hear me talk about my latest novel, Radioland, tomorrow (Monday, May 27th) night @ 7pm EST on Instagram by tuning-in to @junctionreads!

UPDATE: You can watch the interview here. I’m really impressed with the depth of Alison’s questions and if this is the last bit of promotion I do for Radioland then I’m happy to have it be this.

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Goodbye April

I haven’t had the opportunity to post here, however I hadn’t realized that it was over a month since posting something substantial. I wouldn’t say that there’s anything different going on in my life, so much as that, upon reflection, perhaps I’m spending a bit more time seeking comfort where I need it.

I got back into a martial art that I started before the pandemic, called baguazhang, or simply bagua (pron. bahg-wah). It’s a little idiosyncratic compared to more mainstream forms like karate, taekwondo or BJJ. I’d say it’s somewhere between what we in the West call “kung fu” (external) and tai chi (internal). Let’s just say there’s a lot of walking in circles. That said, I needed something that allowed me to move/train my body in a way that was different than going to the gym or distance running, which can feel static. Bagua is anything but static. Also, crucially, the very place that teaches it is literally across the street from my office in Chinatown. It centres me and its choreography is demanding enough without the more wild kung fu-style kicks etc. It’s also nice to do this with other people — something I was also sorely needing (ie a form of socializing that wasn’t chatting with someone at a pub)

I also started Book Four (I know, I know), which is coming along. I can’t really say much about it because it’s very early, however I’m liking its shape. What’s funny is that my previous long-form entry here was about not wanting to be stuck with Author/Psychotherapist in publicity material…and yet the protagonist of Book Four is exactly that. It’s also nice working on a book where the protagonist is a woman. Radioland had two protagonists — male and female — and The Society of Experience had an intermittent female narrative in the form of Seneca’s diaries, however I’m looking forward to keeping things female this time around. Book Three is in revision-mode now, for the last round I think.

I’m trying to keep myself informed of what’s going on in the world, but the world is too big and there’s too much. I think the curse of social media is that there are so many perspectives on so many things that it can be paralyzing to even log-in some days, so currently I’m not. I’m very thankful that I re-subscribed to the London Review of Books this past summer because their coverage of what’s happening in Gaza is extensive and authoritative, without the self-censorship or bad faith arguments that have poisoned coverage of this conflict in much of the mainstream media. I’m not a prolific magazine subscriber, however I can’t help but think of how lucky I felt when I happened to subscribe to Harper’s just prior to the towers falling on 9/11, the drums beating towards a disastrous war. Reading informed, well-written arguments isn’t going to stop the worst of humanity from manifesting, but at least I can form my opinion from a source that isn’t compromised by a fear of spooking advertisers or an editor casting a dark shadow over someone’s shoulder.

Yes, and reading. Lots of reading. Let’s see…Labyrinths (a collection of Jorge Luis Borges stories and essays), Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World (which is fabulous), The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton and Audit Culture: How Indicators and Rankings are Reshaping the World by Cris Shore and Susan Wright.

I hope this finds you well.

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What You Do vs What You Write

I had the occasion to be asked to do an interview with a Canadian podcaster recently, which I agreed to without hesitation. Firstly, their independently-produced program seemed perfectly legit, and secondly (more pragmatically) there are so many authors chasing interviews and fewer and fewer venues to provide exposure that — all combined — the decision was a no-brainer. That said, the week leading up to the interview my partner asked what I was going to be interviewed about. I had just assumed I’d been chosen based on my being a published author of two novels (etc), however she raised a good question: was it going to centre on my day job?

A backgrounder…

When I was preparing for the publication of Radioland in 2022 I felt more comfortable, perhaps because the book’s characters expressed behaviours of those who are traumatized, making mention of my day job in the lead-up promotional material. My day job, for those who don’t know, is as a Registered Psychotherapist in private practice. It didn’t seem to hurt to make mention of this, insofar as, personally and professionally, I was writing from a place of understanding. So, when the interview requests began to roll in — and believe me, as an author with an indie publisher, I’m grateful for every opportunity I get — I began to notice that, within the interest of Radioland and myself as its author, there was inevitably a tie-in question about my being a psychotherapist.

Some of the interest in my day job was matter-of-fact; there are few writers out there (who are not independently wealthy) who can get by doing this full-time. I had no issues with the professional curiosity. But, overall, a feeling began to grow that — in the way the questions were phrased — my existence as an author and the responsibilities of my day job seemed to be artificially stitched together. A particularly egregious suggestion — one I’ve had to field privately before, even from other writers in casual conversation — was whether I was ever tempted to use my clients’ material for my fiction. I’ve been able to handle this respectfully before, but I find this question offensive. First off, would they ask a lawyer or doctor this question? Well…some people still would, actually. However, most discouragingly, was the idea that I would wholesale take confidential client material and use it for my own creative purposes. Needless to say, this would be not only unethical but illegal.

“I’ve been able to handle this respectfully before […] but I find this question offensive. First off, would they ask a lawyer or doctor this question? Well…some people still would, actually. However, most discouragingly, was the idea that I would wholesale take confidential client material and use it for my own creative purposes.“

But there’s a more pernicious concern that developed in the way in which my day job was mentioned in the same breath as my work as an author. In the back of my head was this fear that my book was being portrayed as Good For You (because it’s written by a psychotherapist, right?), that it would thus contain Life Lessons based on Wellness Knowledge. In other words, that it was didactic and prescriptive. Radioland, in both form and intent, couldn’t be further from this, and the steady conflation I experienced between what I did for a living and what I wrote bothered the hell out of me as a result. I also didn’t want to be ghettoized, as some can be, where their non-medically-oriented books are quickly forgotten about.

I realize I bear some naive responsibility for providing this information initially, and yet I feel like it can’t be overstated: I am not my job. I am not my fiction. Of course there’s going to be a whole lot of Venn shared by my interests, my work and my writing output — I would probably be an anomaly if that wasn’t the case. But here’s the important part: what I write is not the product of a psychotherapist so much as that my choice to change careers 12+ years ago was the product of the same person who’s been writing since he was a kid. What I won’t allow myself to be is pigeon-holed, and so, coming back to the podcast interview I had scheduled, I prepared a brief statement which I planned to make if I felt that the same conflation was about to occur. To my relief, the interviewer focused almost solely on my writing with only a brief acknowledgement of my day job, with no attempt to draw the two together (note: I haven’t listened to the final, edited interview yet, which won’t be available for a few weeks). There is always hope.

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