Good morning, Readers!

I woke up this morning, late because the cat was comfortable with my legs as his pillow, to a fair amount of news stuff. Well, what passes for news when I'm not doing anything really in life right now.

The biggest news happened last, and it's this:

My silly little YouTube video podcast channel Silver Stag has just reached 100 subscribers. After seven years of doing thing on the channel, I never thought I had a chance in high hell of ever even reaching that number ever. It was so many years at just sitting at around 54, and it wasn't going anywhere. I stopped paying attention to the subscriber number and kinda gave up on the channel going anywhere. It became just a reason to get together with friends and talk about geeky books and films with them for a little while.

It will forever be that, for me, but it's kinda nice to know that at least a hundred people like what we have to say enough to subscribe to it.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, 100 subscribers is nothing. But it's something to me, and it's made me stupid happy.

Good morning, Readers!

I'm over on Black Gate Magazine today, talking about one of my favourite character trends.

First, let me preface this by noting that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, where the concept of masculine heroism was, let’s be perfectly honest, pretty damned toxic and one-dimensional, two at most. With the the depictions of male characters from that era falling into two main tropes; the skirt-chasing misogynistic jock hero type; the hyper violent, suffers no consequence for the terrible shite they’ve experienced, whose writers conflated arrogance and misogyny for charm and charisma, or the “nice” nerd (with often the exact same shortcomings as the jock hero type), depending on the story being told, I find myself so often struck by the change I’ve seen in male characters in recent times.

Also, I am wildly aware that the above tropes were not completely universal in the 80s and 90s, but it was prevalent enough that now, when I see how male characters are written now, the difference is absolutely striking.

And I’m here for it.

There are several characters who’ve made it plain that this outdated, toxic perception of masculinity is changing, and I’d like to take the time to celebrate them. I’m drawing a lot from film and video games, as those are the mediums which often lack the time and space to explore characters as fully as they do in books.

​Anyway, here I go.

Good morning, Readers!

A late start today. I was 'trapped' in bed by a very content kitty, and given the crazy snow that was happening outside, and how warm and comforting being in bed with a content kitty is, I struggled to get out of bed at my usual time this morning. I elected to let myself lie in for an hour. It was nice.

I does, of course, mean that I an a hour behind schedule.What schedule, you ask? Why the utterly arbitrary schedule I consistently keep trying to impose upon myself and failing. The trying counts, right?

​Yesterday was not the worst day, productivity-wise. I wrote the fortnightly blog post for Black Gate magazine, and I got restarted on an editing project that I had put aside for weeks. I have a lot of work to do there, so I'll be doing that every day I can.

In the evening, I played some couch co-op with the Amazing Flatmate. We played Overcooked, and between the two of us, we did really well. I almost died from laughter as w burnt down the entire kitchen in one level. That was great.  I needed that laugh, and went to bed feeling much better about life in general.

I didn't get any writing done, and I won't for the next week or two. I have a lot of work I've let slip that I desperately need to catch up on, and I mean to.

Happily, I have several writing projects to keep me busy, and I'm happy that the ideas are still coming. That's nice.

Right, I'm late, and I've spent too much time on this already. I have to go. I hope your day goes well.

Sending you many hugs in these trying times.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers.

I had a difficult time this weekend.

This is neither surprising, given my mental health history, nor particularly unique, given the state of the world. My difficulties were rather selfish. I was... am... struggling with the whole writer thing. I have been working for so long, and have, I feel, not gotten to where I had hoped to be at this stage of my life.

Like, nothing is the way I imagined it.

Nothing.

And while I have a great deal more than others, I find myself sitting in a pool of dissatisfaction and self-loathing.

My thoughts are vicious at the moment, berating everything from my appearance to my abilities. Work out more. Eat less. You're a sow in lipstick. You're unloveable, or you'd be married by now (never mind that I don't particularly want marriage. Logic has nothing to do with this). The one that actually smarts most at the moment, however, is what my horrible inner-voice is saying about my writing.

I have many books published. I have people who've read my stories and loved them - they've told me so themselves. And still... and still I feel like I am failing at the one thing in my life I want most of all. It is my dream that one day, my writing will provide enough financial support that I can live off it alone. Any other work I do will be just for the enjoyment of it (martial arts instruction, for example).

But I've been writing now for almost a decade, and I'm restless. I'm not where I feel I should be. Surely, if I was half as good a writer as I thought, I should be further in my career. I should be able to at least make more than forty bucks a year from it.

Much of it is, of course, my shortfalls as a marketer. I cannot market my work for the life of me. It's no wonder I'm not doing well.

And still, I find myself angry at myself for all that I don't have. I feel like I will never succeed.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know why I'm angry and upset over it all. I am a published author. That's success for a good many people.  Shouldn't that be enough? I don't understand why it isn't, and I hate myself for that, too.  I should be content.

I am not.

The voice that usually whispers what a terrible writer I am was not whispering this weekend. It was screaming so loud I was in bed all yesterday with a headache.

Anyway, all this to say that I'm not in the best of moods going into this week, and I'll probably be out of sorts for a little while. I'm not particularly searching for pity or compliments, either. They'd probably annoy me while I'm in this mood, in any case. I just really needed to get this all off my chest.

Perhaps things will be looking up. Maybe something wonderful is just around the corner.

Maybe this is the best I can ever hope for.

In the end, it doesn't really matter all that much. I will write regardless because I am compelled to. Because I'd go mad if I didn't. Because the voices shouting their stories at me often drown out that insidious little voice that tells me there's no point, that I'm not up for the task, that I was and always will be a failure.

Yeah, I'm in a mood.

I hope you're all in a better place than i at the moment, and that I didn't drag you down with this post. Don't worry for me. This mood will pass, and I'll be back to worrying about things that actually matter in the world.

Keep safe. I'm sending you all love and kindness in this, the fifth week of pandemic-induced self--isolation.

​Ciao.

Good morning, Readers!

My schedule is all over the place. I've been really tying to get into gear, but I'm struggling. I have managed to workout once so far this week, and I've practiced some guitar. I've written a little bit. None of it is on schedule or as regular as it ought to be.

Still, a little is better than none at all (I must continually remind myself). And I've been doing a pretty good job of writing these blog posts, so there's that. Not that I feel too many people are all that concerned with my everyday thoughts. I'm really quite boring.

Speaking of boring, I hurt today. I really pushed yesterday's workout.

Also, there is plenty of coffee, and it's great.

Um... yeah.

That's my life. I think today I will not do any live streams or anything, even If I'm practicing my guitar. I'm all burnt out on live streaming at the moment. Is it weird that during this time when most folks are going mad for want of human connection, I just want to bury myself under a blanket fort and shut everyone else out?

I think for the rest of this week, I'll be hiding from the world a bit. For some reason, even though we're going through an enforced break from the world, I need even more of a break from the world. I'm just really, really tired.

Right, I'm off to spend some time lying in the sunshine that's pouring into the living room right now.

Have yourselves a good weekend and we'll see you soon.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

So, because the world is topsy turvy, I've decided to alleviate my anxiety by turning to stories, as I've always done. This time, though, I'm sharing them, live, on YouTube. There isn't a proper schedule, but I'll be popping on every so often to read stuff I've written. There are two live streams thus far.

I'm currently making my way through The Dying God & Other Stories. I'm not sure what to move on to when I finish that anthology. I'm contemplating reading the first chapters of my most recent published works, and then bouncing back to something else I've written, but I don't know.

I'll figure it out. In the meantime, feel free to have a watch of the first live stream in which I read the poem Do You Believe?​

Well, I should get back to work. I hope you're all well, as well as could be at any rate.

Sending you much love.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

For those of you who did not know, I ran a video podcast called Nights at the Round Table in which we discuss geeky books and film. We stream the panels once a month, and then I go and edit it into four separate episodes. Yesterday, I uploaded the last of those episodes filmed before all hell broke loose.

I'm looking forward to getting back to stream, hopefully soonish, but for now, we're on hiatus. So, here is that final episode for the next little bit.

Alright, that's it from me.

Have yourselves a lovely Tuesday.

​Ciao!