Life
If it’s not reading, writing or films,
it’s the rest of my life
Worth and work
I’ve been reading more this month. I decided to read a novel for thirty minutes uninterrupted at least once every day. I had to dig around to find the motivation to do that because I’d fallen out of love with reading (again).
The Complex
Michael Walters
My debut novel, The Complex, available direct from Salt Publishing, from Amazon in the UK, and of course BOOKSHOPS.
Duality
I’m deep into my summer break, which has not gone to plan. We’ve cancelled our holiday to care for a sick parent. Ironically, I’m feeling better than I have in a while. Life can be both.
Open roads and blue skies
I’ve arrived at an approach to posting online that I’ve been resisting for years, but has become inevitable with the slow death of Twitter: one place for my stuff, that I control.
Go gently
I hit an emotional wall a couple of weeks ago. Looking back, it’s been coming for months, but when you’re in a storm for long enough it begins to feel normal.
Angles, curves and spin
I’ve always loved the curve of a golf ball through a landscape. Tennis gave me a similar thrill. Angles, curves, spin, and the laws of physics.
Walking with ghosts
An elegantly dressed woman is with me and a man on a balcony in a nightclub. The man is very drunk. She whispers to him that they should go on somewhere else.
Puzzles
At the start of the day a deployment of code went awry and at the end I was a go-between over my still-hospitalised father’s boxer shorts. Life can be ridiculous.
Hospitals
My father is in hospital again. Both his legs are swollen, symptoms of heart failure, but one of his arms has also swelled up, and he’s out of breath doing the slightest things.
Content apocalypse
This is the tipping point. I’m fifty in two weeks. I’ve watched fifty percent of the 800 films I own, and even less of the books. I'm not solving the time-activity equation.
Emotional weather
I’m staying with Dad for the weekend, and because he’s having some new health problems, it’s quite hard work. My mother was always the anxious one. Now it's me.
Website updates
I’ve made some tweaks to the styles and layout of this website. I’m thinking about the future.
Kardomah
When I visit my father, I always love to walk around Swansea and get an early morning coffee. We used to come as a family when I was growing up, so with my existing morning coffee and writing habit, it’s a double comfort.
ChillerCon UK 2022
I didn’t know if I wanted to go to ChillerCon because I’d lost some in-person social muscles and Covid was still around. After getting the virus in April I felt like the risks were much lower, and Scarborough was only 90 minutes away, so...
Farewell, 2021
As 2022 comes into view upriver, the final days of 2021 flow past, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to reflect on what I’ve read, watched and written this year. (Okay, reflect is a strong word, but it’s been a difficult Christmas, and I’m very tired.)
Website as digital garden
I’m doing okay in my little lockdown bubble. We live in a relatively rural spot, we have a garden, and we are working remotely pretty successfully. The days are going really fast — they all feel very similar, whether work days or weekends or holidays.
