This is me, revising:
Exciting, I know.
Growing Pains
So, as you might have read, my 2nd novel, RADIOLAND has been picked up by a publisher, and I’m very happy and excited about this. A lot of work went into it over a number of years and…
…and it’s a week later, and I’m reading over the manuscript (actually, “reading over” is not quite accurate, I’m squinting at it) and I’m experiencing a darkly familiar feeling as I had with the last book. With THE SOCIETY OF EXPERIENCE I was initially ecstatic to realize that it was going to be published. And then something inside tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around to hear it say: “You realize you wrote this years ago and that it doesn’t reflect you or your interests as a writer currently?”
And as I’m squinting over the current draft of RADIOLAND and going over the editor’s notes (five pages), I am finding part of myself wishing in the same familiar way that, if time, patience and energy were no object, whether I could just rewrite it from scratch.
Now, of course I’m not going to do that. I need to honour the work that I started. However: why the hell am I thinking this in the first place?
It’s complicated, but I’m going to try and break it down anyways. First, part of it is the sheer amount of work I set up for myself, having written a fairly ambitious piece of fiction that is trying to blend a number of genres and comment on a number of things, all while attempting to maintain a sense of rhythm while keeping the reader interested in the characters and where they are going. With any level of ambition comes the requirement to follow-through with what it is you’ve promised the reader or else you may not deliver the goods and the reader might feel ripped off. We can call this the weight of expectation. Second, and perhaps something only writers or other artists might identify with is that, while it’s healthy to have time away from your work for sake of perspective, there’s a part of me screaming out but I’m not the same person/writer now as I was when I wrote this, and so, as I squint at the manuscript with an eye to revision, I’m needing to find a way to re-approach the work so that I’m respecting what it was I was not only going for as a novel, but what I was going through and ruminating on at the time that I wrote it. I honestly don’t know if other novelists experience this, but I certainly do. Third is easy to explain but hard to do. It’s called: letting go.
In any case, I look at these as growing pains, and I’m privileged to be in a situation where these are my problems.
Radioland Update!
Hello all! I am extremely pleased to announce that RADIOLAND will be published in Fall 2022, with Wolsak & Wynn. It’s been a long haul with this one, and while I still have a fair amount of work ahead of me, it’s gratifying to know that not only will this book have a home, but that it will be with the same great team, including editor Paul Vermeersch, as THE SOCIETY OF EXPERIENCE.
(This wouldn’t have been possible without my agent, Kelvin Kong at K2 Literary.)
Here’s a summary of RADIOLAND (from my author site):
— RADIOLAND —
Kris is an alt-rock musician who abruptly drops out of his popular band to rake over an unprocessed trauma from his childhood; Jill is an outcast who operates in the shadows of the city, cursed with a dangerous type of magic that draws mysterious strangers to her. By chance, they start a correspondence with each other and a strange relationship begins – one that coils around their lives like a macabre spell. As they share their stories with one another, they each approach the source of their misery and risk losing themselves, even their lives, in a darkness that seems destined for them.
Everything Jill senses tells an intense story, so she numbs herself with alcohol to keep her head clear, hoping she’ll meet someone who can tell her how she came to be the way she is. Kris struggles to maintain his grip on reality as he pulls apart the threads that make up his identity. Working through fallen mentors, splintered identities, and substance dependency, the two of them try to help each other make sense of their lives, though it may ultimately reveal one of them as a serial murderer.
Radioland explores the absurdity of fame, the toxicity of trauma, and the morbid dangers unearthed as we seek a greater understanding of ourselves.
Radioland is Matt Cahill’s second novel, and steps further into the metaphysical social realism he has employed in his short fiction as well as in his debut novel, The Society of Experience, which Harper’s Bazaar magazine picked as one of the best of fall 2015.
December
There’s no way to summarize this year, so I won’t start.
Stripping things down to studs, I’m thankful for my health, no matter that I still sometimes push myself too hard because of stubborn habits; that said, 2020 was largely injury free, which I mostly attribute to taking core exercises seriously. My running times have markedly improved, as well as my ability to be patient with myself (e.g. anxiety about my ability to finish whatever running circuit I’ve chosen, no matter that I almost always finish them). I blame/thank guitar lessons, which have forced me to find patience with myself, that is if I was ever going to continue with them (with thanks to my instructor, Michael, who recognized this and talked me down from getting frustrated with myself on a couple of occasions). I wish the process of being patient was as simple as allowing myself to expect long-term as opposed to short-term results — easy, right? But, with me at least, it can also be a frustration with myself on a deeper level. So, with guitar, to find a way to come to terms with that in an intentional way that incorporates regular practice (which means good days, bad days, ugly days — all of which are ok and inevitable, right?) is a gift and a privilege as much as it is also, in every sense of the word, work. I don’t do gratitude posts, but I am grateful to have had, in this year of years, the ability to pay my bills and still have the time (and ability) to write and, less successfully (at least with fiction) read.
It can be weird to acknowledge one’s growth in a year during which there has been so much death and ignorance, and so much terrible news, while so many of our elected leaders are more focused on the next election rather than the human cost of the pandemic in front of them. I wrote earlier in the year about paying attention to the precedents that the pandemic ushers in, and I feel it’s still important, though increasingly the precedents seem retrograde rather than progressive or humanitarian. All I can do is stay informed and continue to support those who put the the general good before the economy.
2020 made me think closely about volunteering time and money, both of which I did widely, whereas in the past my efforts were typically cause-specific. It made me think about why in the past it’s been easier for me to donate to large, recognized charities which issue me a tax receipt at the end of the year than, say, the GoFundMe drive for something smaller yet no less important (like 1492 Landback Lane) which, because the latter is community driven, stays off the radar of those who would otherwise donate if the same tax relief applied. I understand there are many reasons for this, but 2020 made me want to support local initiatives (involved with food scarcity, shelter, etc), and the advantages of larger/mega charities who can hire PR teams to write altruistic ad copy suddenly seems a baked-in advantage, as the WE scandal showed. In other words, it’s not fair, morally speaking equitable.
I wrote a lot this year, and I managed to land at least two publication deals for short stories. My next novel, Radioland, looks to be finding a home shortly — look for an announcement in January. And yet nearly all of my writing this year has been related to my 3rd novel, which, owing to the pandemic and how it affected as much where as how I wrote, allowed me to get out of my areas of comfort. As a result I ended up writing more, substantially more, in each of my writing sessions (though I still give myself a break if I’m at an impasse and just need to freeform/sketch some stuff). I would love to have a complete(ish) first draft of novel #3 done before I go into heavy revisions on Radioland, but I’m thinking that’s a bit of a pipe dream. We’ll see.
My work as a psychotherapist was exhausting, and yet I probably did some of my best work with clients this year. This as my practice was indirectly affected by the economic effects of the initial lockdown and ensuing health measures. I lost (at least temporarily) a decent chunk of my business. That said, I’m grateful to be able to cover my expenses. Working virtually with clients became more necessary, and while my ability to engage virtually with clients for prolonged hours of the day improved as the weeks proceeded after lockdown, I still feel that in-person talk therapy is the gold standard, albeit one that many aren’t able to partake in at the moment, due to health concerns or financial disruption. And if I read one more Is The Future of Therapy Online? thinkpiece I will put my fist through a wall. In 2020 I increased my involvement in raising awareness of how white psychotherapy in Toronto is, and how it needs to (literally) make room for financially disadvantaged and racialized individuals, so that the BIPOC community may see themselves better reflected when they are seeking help. I wish to push that one harder in 2021.
Oh, and I turned 50. It’s the new 40, apparently. Yes, I would’ve preferred a 50th blow out party at a favourite bar with friends. I still had a grand, if isolated, time in PEC with my partner, Ingrid.
I don’t know who comes to this blog. What I write is diverse, sometimes niche, often somewhat politicized, so I imagine my readership reflects this. Though it may sound odd when applied to any other, I hope you had a steady year, and I hope 2021 gives us the opportunity to be with those we love once we’re all vaccinated.
Be well.
“Parlour” in The Quarantine Review
Hello all — as I mentioned earlier, I have a new short story coming out into the world, and today it was published in Issue #5 of The Quarantine Review, which is their special pulp fiction edition. My short story, Parlour, is included with a number of other great writers. You can purchase it here or here.
Book #3 update
The pandemic has had a deleterious effect on many writers. Whereas it’s affected my ability to hold my concentration on reading (for pleasure), it has certainly proved to be an obstacle on the creative process of others. I’m grateful that I have, somewhat contrarily, thrived.
I committed to starting my third book in earnest, seeing as I had plenty of time on my hands — business was (and is) down, leaving me with large swaths of time during the week. Add to this the lockdown, which has affected my ability to plant myself in my familiar café/bar haunts, given that they have either been forced to close or restricted to only outdoor seating, I found myself working from home. And I’m not used to this, seeing as I share it with my partner. A good pair of headphones have helped.
My writing process is different this time. Typically, in the past, I’ve written most of my first drafts by hand in a notebook, then transposed to laptop. But that style was very much based on walking about town with my notebook and stopping off somewhere to jot down the skeleton of a chapter. This time, I’m staring at a blank screen on my laptop because somehow writing a rough draft in a notebook just doesn’t seem necessary (or, if I am honest with myself, perhaps less efficient). And, as it’s turned out, staring at a blank page on my laptop has become an invigorating challenge. I’ll know in my head the rough outline of what it is I’m supposed to write (i.e. This is the chapter were Marcus and Alex need to connect with one another), but aside from my marching orders I don’t really know what it’s supposed to look like. The advantage of handwriting is that there’s an implicit casualness — if I want to doodle in the margins then it takes the piss out of whatever I end up writing being somehow sacred, if that makes sense. And so I begin filling in the blank laptop page with tidy New Times Roman text and there’s a kind of rush, not unlike pushing off from the lip of a snowy hill, poles in hand, skis firmly strapped to my boots.
I wrote earlier about how I was considering Book #3* as a comedy. This has changed. There is plenty of comedic absurdity, don’t get me wrong, but I think The Point of the book has changed and developed, and clarified. This is the magic of writing: watching something that only exists in your technicolor imagination take shape imperfectly in the real world of the formerly blank page, and the more you write the closer it is you get — not to the technicolor thing you imagined necessarily, but what you learn it should be, if that makes sense. A novel is in some respects an argument for its own existence, and what exists only in your imagination is but an impetus. Once you begin to manifest it you discover that, like a legal argument, characters will demand that you justify what happens to them, what they say in the form of dialogue, so that you are ultimately being fair to the spirit of the material.
I suppose what I’m saying is that my relationship with writing has undergone a substantial shift between Radioland and now, and I think part of it is being more practical with my time/labour, and the other is finding a new way of focusing as I write, which I may write about in another post.
*technically this isn’t Book #3 per se. I wrote a novel prior to The Society of Experience, which I proceeded to put aside (if you read the acknowledgements in SoE you’ll get the story around this). Then, while waiting for SoE to work its way through to publication I began work on a spiritual sequel to SoE, which I also proceeded to put aside (short version: I had a better, more dynamic idea for a novel, and I didn’t want to feel trapped in the same narrative universe as SoE). Thus, my forthcoming “Book #2”, Radioland, came into being. So, Book #3 is really Book #5, which is some crazy backwards Star Wars shit, I know. It’s also, as some might realize, a lot of pages of writing that no one will probably ever see, and if any neophyte authors are reading this and wondering how I feel about that, my answer is that it’s part of the process. Just as musicians practice their brains out before going into studio to record, there’s going to be a lot of effort that your audience is never going to see that ultimately (and quietly) benefits the parts they do see.
ANOTHER New Short Story Alert
When it rains it pours, the cliché goes. I found out over the weekend that I will have another short story published, this time in Fusion Fragment, a speculative fiction publisher based in Ottawa.
Two things about this announcement that are significant:
- It’s going to be for their all-Canadian edition, to be released on July 1st 2021.
- This will be the first of four interrelated short stories that I’ve been polishing for the last few years, so I’m quite happy that one will finally be released into the wild.
Once again, as we get closer, I’ll spill more about the story and the pub date.
New Short Story Alert
Just giving everyone a heads up that I will be having a short story included in the late-October / early-November issue of The Quarantine Review (more about them here). I’m very happy to have another piece available to the world, and once I get a confirmation of the publication date (it will be e-pub only, fyi) I will post here and on my author site. Cheers.
A Hard Week
Last week was hard. Overwhelmed by the end of it. Head full. No room to deal with the quotidian what do you thinks and what would you like to dos that approach us from friends and loved ones. These sorts of periods are not necessarily rare in my profession, as a psychotherapist. A common underlying cause, what makes it so overwhelming, is, naturally, holding the weight of my clients’ concerns, their varied life events, the precipices, and shadows.
But this past week especially, it felt like I was talking to myself in parallel to my clients. We were touching on things, incidentally, that seemed to resonate with me, my own past and present*. We talked about broken romantic relationships, we talked about unresolved dynamics with parents that likely may never be resolved, we talked about feelings of professionally lacking when up against our peers. We talked about death. We talked about heartache, complicity, and that fucking word “selfishness.”
So there was this sort-of doubling effect, like when you’re on a smartphone call and suddenly you can hear your own voice echoing because there’s a bad connection, and no matter how much you try to tune it out you can still hear every UM and YES echoing a second after you say it, in the shitty way your voice sounds like when you hear it played back to you.
One of those weeks. Material that, using its own logic, veers a little too close to mine. Most of the time this wouldn’t cause much in the way of distortion — that echoing voice. However, given the state of the world (remember when people used this as a figure of speech?) and where my mind happened to be, it was harder than it needed to be.
This week will be better.
* these are anonymized/defocused to protect both my clients’ and my own material
Anticipation
Like most people, I have been dealing with the lockdown in waves. Sometimes my mindset is functional — I can don my mask and walk to my office through empty streets, work with clients via videoconferencing, and come home. Repeat and rinse. Other times my mindset is quasi-functional — I find myself forgetting to follow the arrows taped to the floor of the grocery store, find myself asking myself how long I can go on with the current lockdown conditions. This isn’t helped that one of my parents had to go in for surgery to remove a tumour recently. Talk about helpless. Like anyone else, I’m not immune to situational depression and anxiety — and there are plenty of reasons for us to feel this way, given the unprecedented situation we are in.
One thing in particular I’ve noticed is how I’m getting hung up on correspondences, especially (though not exclusively) with retailers I’m purchasing items from. Over the course of the last 40+ days I’ve had to order various things by phone or email for delivery or curbside pickup: a new pair of jeans, DVD rentals, cans of cat food. And with each inquiry I find myself anticipating their response, going so far as to reserve space in my head for the response, looking forward to it when it comes. I’m not sure what this is about, however I think there’s something significant about the word anticipation in this context.
Anticipation as in looking forward to something sure, that tomorrow holds something firm for me, even if it’s a denim retailer in Vancouver confirming that, no, the jeans I ordered don’t require hemming because the inseam is an acceptable length. Quotidian things that, six thousand years ago, back in February, would’ve been quaint, if routine, correspondences.
The technicolor truth is that we are all living our lives without knowing what each subsequent week is going to look like — and I’m not even talking about geopolitical events, I’m talking about these quotidian things: when will the gardening centres be re-opened so we can pick up soil in order to plant basil seedlings, when will I be able to speak with people again without wearing a mask and standing 2m away? When will I be able to walk into a coffee shop and sit at a table, when will I be able to give a friend a hug. Receive a hug. Talking, touching, lingering. Unguarded.
So, when I get that email from the retailer in Vancouver, a little bit of normalcy has been temporarily restored, and I feel rejuvenated: we’re going to get through this shit, everyone. But then the opposite happens: a place I’ve done tonnes of business with is offering curbside pickup — just contact us on Facebook! And I do, and there is some preliminary back-and-forth…and then nothing. I nudge, reminding them that I’m waiting to hear back from them. Nothing. I nudge again. Nothing. Two weeks pass. I leave a message on their business phone…nothing. All the while, the Facebook group for the store is updated with thanks for all those people putting in orders. And I want to punch a hole in the wall, because this very simple, straight-forward thing that I was looking forward to has — for entirely unknown reasons — been thwarted. And on bad days the little paranoid voice in the back of my head is wondering whether I’m being snubbed for some reason, which — believe me — is the last thing you want to have nagging you during a global pandemic whose key feature is self-isolation, while you’re waiting to hear about your parent’s cancer surgery.
I think we all, to varying degrees, want or need to know what’s coming around the corner, and the current situation has made that opaque. Amidst the not-knowing we are party to a lot of speculation through ill-informed social media posts and the spectacular mismanagement happening across the border in the US, and to a slightly lesser degree in the UK. We look for signs of normalcy, of hope (though I am suspicious of how much weight Western society puts on hope) around us. But it’s a tremulous state of normalcy, and so no wonder part of me gets upset that the sole proprietor of a particular store, for whatever reason (mistake, coincidence, “new normal”), isn’t returning my inquiries — just as I feel rewarded from those who make their best attempts to get in touch so to does the opaqueness of silence reinforce the dark, seemingly interminable bullshit we are living through.
This isn’t normal, I remind myself. People are trying, I remind myself. Yet, still, there is this forward-looking part of me, wanting seemingly superficial reassurances which — if I’m honest — isn’t superficial, but practical (if only to help me get through to the next week).