Because, apparently, I crave punishment, my new year’s resolution is to post once a week. It’s been more than six months since I updated this blog. So, I think we can tell how likely it is I’ll be able to do this. Place your bets as to whether I make it out of January or not.
I do kind of hate the idea of resolutions because I never feel as if anything in real-life gets resolved. But hey, everyone else is doing them, so why not?
So, what have I been up to?
Well, I have been something of a hermit at my little place by the lake, to the point where I realised it was getting in the way of my writing – turns out spending time with other humans is quite important to the writing process.
And I pretty much learned that, after my best writing time of 2022 came with the Verb Wellington residency at Katherine Mansfield House in Wellington. I sat for three weeks in a little cupboard in a heritage building in Thorndon, and got so much done it was amazing. Like someone productive took over my life for a little while.
Because there’s only so long one man can live off his savings, I then went straight into doing freelance web copy. That sucked out a lot of my creative energies. But a job is something I am certainly going to need, since I’ve yet to find a sugar daddy.
One reason I haven’t been posting much is because I didn’t get a whole lot published last year. That can be very discouraging, and I didn’t really feel like sharing my discouragement with the whole world. If this blog is supposed to be a little bit of an advertisement, then it felt pretty pointless to advertise me when I wasn’t selling anything.
On the definite upside, I was very fortunate to be commissioned by Overcommunicate magazine to contribute to their “Celebrate” series – which is a whole load of poems and flash celebrating significant days in Aotearoa’s queer calendar. I was allowed to pick the day I wanted to write for, and I chose the 18th Anniversary of the passing of the Civil Union Bill. You can read it here An incomplete list of the things I no longer celebrate. (Yes, I realise this is the exact opposite of the brief, but the Overcomm crew really liked it, so that’s the important bit.)
And then even later in the year, I had the chance to submit to Turbine | Kapohau for their 2022 issue. They chose one of my weird unsettling SF pieces. You can head here and read Honeymoon Child. That title was heavily influenced by a song from the 90’s and I am not sorry.
So, that’s six months in fewer than 500 words. And if anyone is still reading this, I will see you next Friday. Maybe. If I don’t, please assume I have already failed at my 2023 resolution.