Book Four Archives - imaginary magnitude

August 20, 2025August 20, 2025

August

I don’t know about you, but it’s been an active summer over here. Getting out, making the most of the weather, even when it’s been ungodly hot. This is partly due to summer traditionally being a slower time of year for psychotherapists, so let’s just say that I’ve been putting in more reps at the gym and visiting my favourite local places more often.

The only thing I haven’t been doing actively is writing fiction (or writing of any kind, other than texts to myself). Part of it, though it wasn’t intentional, is perhaps to take a breather. It’s a bit hard to communicate how writing has taken up a lot of emotional, mental and psychic energy, this year in particular.

I handed off Book Three to my agent in February, with all the angst that comes with this. The not-knowing, now in its seventh month, the having to work with the unknown around whether it will find a home, not to mention how this would inevitably affect me and my confidence as a writer.*

On top of this, I pushed to make some major revisions to a very personal essay, dealing with my uncle’s murder/guitar, and inevitably my childhood. I’ve never really worked on something like this, as raw as this, and I’ve found myself struggling to find my voice within the piece, discovering that I’m possibly holding myself at arm’s length away from it, no matter what progress I feel I’m making otherwise.

There’s also a fourth novel that I’m about 100 pages into, and I like it, but I’m struggling to fall back into it, and I can’t help but feel that the unresolved nature of Book Three’s future is adding some distortion to the proceedings. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m afraid of writing, but there’s a wariness. It feels as if I need to work to sort out my relationship with writing: why do I want to do this? What do I want out of this?

It’s funny to read the above, because I started it with saying that I was having a really active summer sans writing, and proceeded to list a series of writing-related issues; clearly my mind is still carrying on the business in some automatic or unconscious way. Ugh. In any case, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to take a breather, for some perspective. God knows I wish more writers would do this.

* there have been a few rejections but all have contained personalized feedback…which is rare. Everyone seems to generally like it, which I didn’t encounter when either of my two last books were being submitted around, so I’ll take what I can get.

December 28, 2024December 28, 2024

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.

April 30, 2024April 30, 2024

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.

November 21, 2021November 21, 2021

Writing Life Update, Late-November Edition

I’ve been putting some of the final touches on Radioland, and while I’m still convinced it’s going to be one of those books that is ultimately ripped out of my hands by my publisher, I’m happy with how this second round of revisions is coming along. Part of me just wants to walk away from it. It’s been five years, and that is a long time to work on something that is as dark and introspective as Radioland is. I’m confident that I’ve pulled it off, but there’s another part of me that wants to make sure that every. single. section. works. Ugh.

Book Three is looking to be sent out to publishers in early 2022, and at that point I will publicly reveal the title, and spill a little bit about what it’s about. Keeping the title and details secret is just a bit of prudence on my part; I think it’s natural for any writer to want to protect their works-in-progress from the possibility of someone else riffing on their material before it’s released, and I realize that this is probably a little bit of paranoia on my part.

And there’s a Book Four, folks. Yes. I’ve barely sketched it out, but I can tell you that it has good bones. I look forward to falling into its hole come December.