Self-promotion

Hate it. Hate. I hate it. *spits poison from wound*

Promoting myself sometimes/always feels like putting on a clown suit and yodelling “Hey everybody, something I wrote that I think is good was published,” while squeezing a bulb horn and yuk-yuking my way until falling through a manhole.

I think it — this notion that self-promotion is a kind of fool’s errand — can come down to two things: a socially internalized idea of “selfishness,” and social anxiety.

A big part of it is the visibility. I have social anxiety, though some people who know me may not clue into this, and while it’s way better than when I was younger (thank you, therapy and age) it’s not non-existent, especially on days when I’m feeling conflicted about whatever personal or work-related conflict is afoot. But this is just part of it, a facet of a more complex whole.

Promoting oneself shares some Venn with “networking,” a word which can cause some people to feel the urge to vomit, largely owing to prolonged exposure to those who are just a little too slick and creepy — and sometimes strangely successful — in social situations. How can one be oneself-with-others in a way that is flexible — reasonably invested and and curious — which also makes room for our strangeness; our quirks and idiosyncrasies? I’m not convinced it needs to be the exclusive domain of the neurodivergent or the anxiety-having, who are more attuned to this idea owing to their need to otherwise “blend” in social environments. I think, for many people in the general population, being ourselves-with-others can sometimes feel like a series of situational disguises. Just how coherent are our identities? Is “identity” just an ever-shifting amalgam of self-adjustments to our social environment?

Anyhoo, self-promotion is a similar sort of pain. I don’t want to be that guy (insert image of shameless author plugging their wares to an annoying, kinda desperate degree and taking little interest in, you know, community). And yet it’s kinda naive to think that people will just find your work through a random series of adventures (though that can happen in real life, albeit often on an infinitesimal level).

Look, I will admit I’m luckier than 99% of writers out there: I’ve had the opportunity to visit several cities across the country promoting my books*. I was interviewed by Gil Deacon on CBC Radio*. However, not unlike crowd-surfing (IYKYK), in no time the glow fades out, your ass is on the floor and before you know it you’re abruptly just another chicken scratching at the same yard. (* thanks in large part to my publisher’s travel and publicity grants)

So, I suppose, a thesis: I promote my work because I think it’s good and I would like to encourage people to seek it out if it appeals to them. That sounds pretty straight-forward, right? This isn’t a particularly revolutionary or provocative statement.

This is where “selfishness” comes in, at least for those prone to this idea. I’m not talking about healthily putting one’s interests to the front burner, but rather the idea of self-promotion as an egotistical pursuit, an unchecked desire to put ourselves first in a gross, narcissistic, oxygen-depleting way. There are many reasons for having this play in our thoughts, particularly if you’ve been raised in environments that use guilt and shame as a means of “correcting” behaviour that strides to stand out (let alone celebrate personal accomplishment).

So, yes, doing something perfectly acceptable such as promoting the short story or essay or novel we wrote, the beast that took untold (unpaid) hours of our time to craft, can come across as craven and attention-seeking if we’re feeling less than confident, or struggling with self-worth issues…which, while acceptable within the purview of human complexity, is also kind of silly.

Writers, put your work out there. Shout about it from the rooftops. I might also suggest that, working in the same principle, you put forward the works of your peers along the way. We all deserve to have our works appreciated, and there’s no way of doing this without sticking our necks out in public — it is, I think, part of being an artist, whether or not we are comfortable with it.

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The End of 2024

It’s been an eventful year, insofar as there seemed to be a lot going on and yet seems to have passed by quite quickly.

I’m happy to have completed revisions to my next novel, The Stars Align for Disco Santa, and passed it on to my agent (who I hope reads it soon, but he’s a busy man). Fingers crossed that in 2025 it does the rounds of publishers and finds a suitable home. Otherwise, as writing goes, it’s been liberating. As well as the novel, I’ve been seriously working on an essay about my uncle’s guitar and the sordid personal story surrounding that. As I might’ve mentioned previously, it’s the sort of personal essay that requires much more contemplation (not to mention exploring my own blind spots) than even a novel. There’s nowhere to hide with something like this, not when you’re writing about yourself. I’ve had essays published before — one of them made 2017 Best Canadian Essays — but it wasn’t nearly as vulnerable as this piece; there’s so much woodshedding (to use a guitar term) involved, and yet I’m happy with how it’s coming, even if it hurts to reach into the places it needs to go.

I also began in earnest on a fourth novel, which is coming along well. It takes place just a little bit in the future and seems to be drawing out a lot of my more philosophical thoughts about society and the erosion of democracy. The main character is a psychotherapist who finds herself immersed in an unspooling drama while attending a professional conference. It has a title, though I’m too superstitious to reveal that before it’s been vetted by my agent.

I had hand surgery in October, which was an emotional experience for me (speaking of unspooling), combined with the pressures of my work. The good news is that I’ve given myself a couple of weeks away from the office to let things coalesce. The trick, as I’ve touched on over at my professional blog, is not to overwork myself. In short, there’s no winner if I’m dead at the finish line.

For the new year, I see myself being a little more public-facing as a writer. I’ve been toying with the idea of facilitating a seminar for authors, focused on how to read for an audience. This is a long-brewing idea that I’ve kicking around for a few years now, inspired (if that’s the right word) by the fact that so few authors seem to know what to do when they’re reading their work for an audience, which ends up doing themselves and their work a disservice. If I can swing it I’d like to aim for the spring. It’s a way for me to give back to the community (I plan to make it pay-what-you-can just to cover costs, with whatever proceeds remaining going to a local charity).

Of course, politically and socially, there appears a storm approaching, and I don’t know what to do about that except to direct my powers as an artist toward addressing it in whatever way I can that might (if I can make a wish) allow people to understand how we got here, or at least put the spotlight on those who have done a better job of describing this better than I can.

I wish you, dear reader, the best for the new year. You have more power than you think you have, and I hope you find a way to channel it in such a way as to cut through the divisiveness of our time. I think community is important, and ultimately this concept is more powerful the more local and intimate its location.

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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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Voice Control Issues

I’m posting this as a service to the wider community, based on my recent experiences attempting to use Voice Control on Mac as a result of losing the use of my hand due to surgery. For reference, it’s in response to this acknowledged problem with Mac OS systems where, often after an upgrade a bug is introduced that renders Voice Control unusable owing to an error involving the downloading of language files. Having tried all of the prescribed fixes (which no one seems to have found entirely effective), I came across a solution, and one reason I’m posting it here is that the forum thread is closed to responses.

I came across the fix when someone, hearing I had hand surgery, inadvertently suggested I use Siri (which I’ve never used and frankly don’t have use for). However, under the impression that perhaps I could use Siri as a backdoor solution, I happened across a rather magic “fix” which isn’t a fix but rather pointed me in the direction of the Dictation feature in Mac, which I found on this page. Basically: Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences and click on the Keyboard icon and choose the Dictation option (as opposed to the Voice Control option in the Accessibility section)…and sure enough, I could finally activate the option of having voice-to-text successfully. The best part? You don’t even need Siri for this feature (thank god).

It took me many (many) hours to find this fix, so I thought I’d post this so that anyone else having a similar issue will be able to (hopefully) have a way to enable this.

On this note, I have to say that doing client notes with voice-to-text is rather a godsend; not only for my temporary one-handedness, but I actually found dictating my notes verbally was both easier and faster than typing from memory. It could just be a me-thing, but somehow typing my notes from memory requires more effort (mentally) than just openly talking about them via a microphone. I may very well switch to this in the future, semi-permanently, however I’m just happy that I managed to find a solution to this annoying bug.

As someone who has been part of the online tech community since the 90s (Microsoft, Linux, and now Mac), I believe in the value of giving back to the community and I hope that by posting this I can relieve someone of the burden of Apple’s inability to render a fix for this, especially given the circumstances under which someone might need to access this sort of tool.

P.S. The cast was removed from my hand and I’m in the process of doing some intense physiotherapy (literally every two hours I’m supposed to do this), which has allowed me to type two-handedly once more. I’m very thankful for the care I’ve received at St. Michael’s Hospital over the last week. It’s been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, which I imagine I will write about here sometime soon.

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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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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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Notes on a Film

I suppose this is a gratitude post, but my friend Marcos, whom I went to film school with, recently received a Canada Council grant to make an independent film, which is super-exciting. Not only because of his getting the grant but because he was able to make an hour-long project that he’s been sitting on for quite a while, which (at least I think) spoke to both his interests speaking from the perspective of someone who for a several years worked as a journalist in Peru in the volatile 80s and 90s, as well as someone who regularly can be seen around the neighbourhood we share, setting up a tripod with a Bolex, shooting whatever shorts he manages to make on his own time. In other words, it’s nice to see people who “put in the work” be rewarded.

The reason I write about this is that he recently sent me a cut of the film in question, looking for feedback. And it wasn’t until I watched it and began to think critically about it that I was transported back to my time at Rhombus Media (2002-2007). While I was there I would regularly be handed VHS tapes (and subsequently DVDs) of whatever documentaries, TV shows and feature films were being worked on at the time. I may not have been paid particularly well (we won’t go there) but I was exposed to so much and — importantly, I think — treated as someone whose opinion people there respected. This combination can in some circumstances be exploitative, but — at least about the feedback notes — I had no doubt they appreciated the perspective.

As I sat down to write my reflections and recommendations on my friend’s film, I began thinking about sound design, colour correction, and picture editing in ways — functional, aesthetic, creative — I honestly haven’t tapped into that deeply for the better part of seventeen years. It was a great exercise for me (not to mention helpful for Marcos, I hope). I say this because it’s one thing to sit and watch a random movie and Have Thoughts about it, but another altogether to have to put into words, clearly and constructively, how someone might go about making improvements: things that slow the pacing too much, cutaways that don’t necessary make visual sense, establishing shots that seem orphaned from what it is they’re attempting to establish. It’s a skill that, with surprisingly little effort, I was able to tap into, and I felt very gratified to have been offered the opportunity to do so, and to be reminded that the twenty odd years I spent in the industry, starting at the bottom of the ladder in TV commercials as an assistant editor/gofer and walking away after working on the SAW series as a post supervisor, wasn’t for nothing (or at least only collecting stories to tell at parties).

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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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First Drafts

When I wrote my first novel — not the published one, but the one that came before that — owing to the fact that this was literally my first time tackling such a thing, I adopted a rather brutal style of writing the first draft. Like I said, I didn’t really know what I was doing, nor did I understand how difficult I was making things for myself in writing in the way I did.

My style, if it could be called that, was edit-as-you-go. Doesn’t sound that bad, right? And, to be honest, there are many writers out there who take this approach. I say this because I would be wrong if I said that this was a “bad” way to go about things. However, what it did was front-load a lot of analysis during a part of the work that really (really) should’ve been purely creative, in the playing-in-the-sandbox sense of the word. Editing as you write requires a writer to switch between two hats within the same writing session, which is (among other things) strenuous.

That book, it should be known, no longer exists in any form except for some files I have backed up. It simply wasn’t worth the amount of work that I realized, as I began to take submitting it to publishers/agents seriously, it would need. Like, a lot of work. And I’d just spent a number of years already on it, and its imperfections (and various forms of writerly immaturity) became harder and harder to ignore. So, into the figurative fireplace it went. A few years back my sister-in-law sent me a photo of the manuscript I’d sent her to read, asking if I wanted it (they were moving house and had to ditch things). I told her to burn it.

From the point where I started what ended up being The Society of Experience (originally titled The Improv Class), I chose a much more practical style of getting the first draft down, and that was simply getting it down. Didn’t need to be perfect. Didn’t need to necessarily match whatever chapters came before or after stylistically. The rule of a first draft, as I saw it, and mostly continue to see it, is to get it on paper (or on a laptop) as quickly and painlessly as possible. Then, and really only then, though there are points in the process where this might have to come sooner, will I get the editor’s hat out.

Revising is drudgery. I was at a retreat a few years ago, and was asked by a couple of painters what I was up to process-wise. I attempted to describe what revising was, and inquired what a painter’s version of this might be. They looked at each other and back at me and said: “Backgrounds.” That said, the important thing is that revising is where the magic really happens. The first draft is really just a proof of concept. It could be solid. It could be 70% of the way “there” (wherever “there” is), but it’s just not done yet until you revise. And revise. And revise.

The only problem I encounter with this style of writing is that the prose in my first drafts can end up being very (very) compressed — in the process of getting everything down I will often elect to not elaborate or flesh things out unnecessarily, feeling that this can be done on the next pass. I sometimes describe my first draft style as being “dehydrated prose,” as in “add water and it will expand.” Sounds good, but sometimes I’ll read something I quickly jotted down, and I’ll end up sitting there and asking myself what exactly it was that I was thinking about when I wrote it — sometimes the subtext gets lost when you’re writing in a fast and compressed style, especially when I’m coming back to it weeks later.

I must regretfully admit I notice this a lot with this blog. I don’t have a lot of time to blog, so my style here tends to be of that compressed first draft style, which can lead to comprehension issues in retrospect. I’ve had several incidents where I’ll go back the next day and read something I’ve posted and freak out, namely because what’s there isn’t really clear. Or worse, it’s open to misinterpretation (especially if I’m getting more explicitly political, where I need to add lots of context for rather forward opinions), which can be embarrassing. I once submitted a short story to a publisher, and when I went back and looked at it I went pale it was in sooo much need of revision. Lesson learned.

Writing is work, which is fine because I like writing. I’m good at it. But, creativity aside, it’s also a skill which requires a necessary amount of tradecraft in the process of making your workflow, well, work for you.

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Grants

It took someone on social media posting a reminder of an upcoming deadline for me to realize that I haven’t applied for a writer’s grant in the better part of three years. For anyone outside of publishing reading this, while there’s no obligation to do this (unless of course you’re depending upon writing for a living, in which case it pretty much would be an obligation), it can make life a lot less burdensome for those who want to be able to take time off work so that we might devote ourselves more thoroughly to our writing projects. Most of us secretly bend time and space to be able to spend a few hours here and there each week.

This strikes me whenever I’m researching residencies for writers. A lot of the ones I’ve been interested in have a time stipulation of something grand, like “at least three weeks”, and that’s a deal-breaker for me. I pay for residencies out of my own pocket, and typically 5-7 days is the max I can allot. This is where grants come in. The big ones, from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Arts Council, have the capacity to provide wide financial support (in other words, scalable to the needs of the applicant, depending upon their professional and personal circumstances). The catch is that you have to go through the application process, which necessitates answering a lot of very detailed questions, not only about your project but about things like your budget (which in itself requires a breakdown of living expenses, etc). You have to essentially provide a compelling argument for the arts council awarding your project, as well as providing a reasonably accurate idea that you (the artist) understand what it is that you’re talking about from a financial perspective.

One of the reasons I’m writing this post is that I think it might be easy for outsiders to think that Arts Council grants are easily awarded, as if it were a question of simply hacking an algorithm. Let me assure you: they are not. If such were the case, there wouldn’t be professional grant writers marketing themselves (and paying their bills assumedly with something other than magic beans). Most artists might be able to summarize their projected finances, or describe their motivation for being an artist, or provide a captivating enticement for their current work-in-progress. Not many can do all three. And, just to add a dose of reality, even if you manage to ace all three, you’re still at the mercy of whomever is reading your application and whatever inevitable cognitive biases and preferences they have.

I’ve never received a big grant, though I’ve certainly applied. I supposed I stopped applying for the same reason I begin walking when I realize the streetcar isn’t coming any time soon; I’d rather try to achieve something on my own than be let down by something out of my control. That said, I run a small business. If I take time off, I don’t have any income. So yes, when I see a TWO MONTH MINIMUM on a writer’s retreat, I can get punchy. Truth is, there’s something strangely out-of-date about a framework whose parameters so clearly prohibit those who don’t have careers which allow such long absences.

The grant I mentioned at the beginning of this post is the Recommender Grants for Writers (via the Ontario Arts Council). It’s not nearly as big (or as arduous to complete) as others. I was lucky enough to have been awarded once before, which helped me book a flight out west to the Banff Centre for the Arts for a self-directed residency, so I pushed myself to submit a sample of Book Three to one of the indie publishers who are participating in the program this year, hopefully before their internal deadline (with this grant in particular, which runs from September to January, the deadline for submissions is set internally by the publishers).

One of the benefits of grant writing, and a reason for my writing this post, is that it can motivate (aka force) you to polish/revise/clarify your work for an actual (aka real) audience, even if you never see them or know exactly what they liked or didn’t. It can be a good prod to work on your bio (which a lot of writers freak out about), or the synopsis of your piece. I’d like to think there’s no downside, other than going through a bit of stress.

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