Gareth Lewis's Blog

Parliament’s handling of Brexit has descended beyond farce into tragedy. It’s just embarrassing. And mystifying to the public, since all we hear from them are soundbite slogans, most of which don’t make much sense if you consider them for more than a few seconds.

News coverage doesn’t offer much help. It feels like it’s all surface, with any in-depth investigations considered too confusing for the public. Does anyone even know what’s in the deal they’re bickering over? To the best of my understanding, it’s establishing the separation and the foundation of how they’ll go on to negotiate new terms. It’s nowhere near the end of the process. And we can’t even agree whether to get on at this junction or circle the roundabout a few more times, before driving off the road and crashing into a ditch.

It’s embarrassing, showing parliament up even more obviously as an anachronistic institution. While there may be some good MPs, they seem to have trouble achieving anything over the mob that bay and jeer at each other in what passes for debate. I won’t say that they’re acting like schoolchildren, because any school whose kids acting like that would be suffering sanctions.

Why is Politics?

MPs seem to embrace, or be constricted by, the archaic culture of parliament, as though it offers a sense of stability. They stick to the ritual of way things have been done for centuries, even when updating them could make things more efficient. And they’re generally (lower case) conservative, preferring to stick to the way things always have been, and yearning for the glory days of empire.

That’s not what government is for. That’s not what politics is for. They’re there to make and change the laws that govern how individuals within the nation interact with one another. They’re there to guide society as it adapts to changes.

Society is not a static system, and there’ll always be change, so laws cannot remain static. Changes comes far faster these days than it did a century ago, yet how much has Parliament changed in that time?

Politics, and political systems, just don’t seem capable of keeping up with the rate of change in the modern world. Attempts to modernise are piecemeal, slapping technology on top of the existing way of doing things, rather than re-evaluating the existing systems.

What’s needed is a complete rethink of how politics works. But that’s unlikely to benefit those in power, so why would they want to do it? I hate the idea of revolution, which feels like a failure of reason, but I’ve started to wonder how far these idiots will go before it becomes the only reasonable course of action.

Slightly belated for an end-of-year review post, I know, but depression gets in the way when I look back at what’s primarily been a waste of a year (to be honest, the forty-fifth in a row). Depression doesn’t interfere as much with the proper writing, but with blog posts, where I’m writing as myself, I find it hard to maintain interest.

2018

Mostly this year was taken up by the submission grind. It’s been over a year of submitting to no success, so I’m moving on to the next submission book.

Writing-wise, I’ve done three novels, one novella, a number of short stories, and the fourth and final part of an epic fantasy. The only success from submissions is a short story being accepted into the Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion 2 anthology, out later this year.

Of the novels, two are books three and four of the Ghost Bullets series, and the other is a psychological thriller I used in place of actual therapy to help me understand my mental health issues. This is the one up for submission.

2019

Initial plans for 2019 are to work on the psychological thriller, Broken (or possibly The Myth of Normal) once it’s back from critique, and submit it (though I’m worried the critique will suggest cutting enough bits to make it too short to submit). I’m probably going to submit it to the full list of agents I’ve prepared at once, since submitting in stages has been bad for my mental health. The list isn’t that long anyway, since I write in a few genres.

I’ll then work on the other in progress novels rather than starting new stuff (hopefully). My epic fantasy is the only one of reasonable size for submission. It’s too long, but being in four parts is divisible into two novels of appropriate word counts.

I’ll need to consider abandoning the website in a couple of months, since it’s .EU, and with the Brexit nonsense continuing our national suicide, I’ll no longer be legally permitted to retain ownership of the domain. I’ll probably let it fade rather than move to an alternative, as I haven’t done much maintenance on it in a while. I’ll probably separate this blog, so ads will be appearing here soon.

I’m considering giving up on attending writing conferences, since I’m not sure they’re good for my mental health. I go to them wanting to have a conversation about writing, just to feel I’m part of some community, but I’m unable to engage in more than brief exchanges before panic sets in, and the experience leaves me in a bad place.

I’m also considering watching less news. I’m sure it exacerbates my depression, and I’m not really that into grimdark.

Mental Health

[Nothing else writing related to say, so stop now if you don’t want to read about mental health issues]

The last couple of years haven’t been good (for anyone but sociopaths), but they have let me realise my mental health problems, which I’d been unconsciously ignoring before.

My main problem is social anxiety. Fairly severe social anxiety, I think. It’s probably the reason I haven’t had a proper job in over a decade, and why I’m unable to maintain any form of connection with people. The more I consider my life, the more I realise how long I’ve been like this, and how much damage it’s caused me.

I also feel it’s too late to do anything about it. Because it’s become so much a part of who I am, and I can’t see any life I’d want to live to which I can try to change. So reaching out for help, even if I was capable of doing so, seems pointless.

This is probably the main contributor to my depression, and the two pretty much feed on each other from there. They often send me spiralling into a maelstrom of anxiety, which is only calmed by considering suicide (not in an immediate sense. Obligations prevent me living, or ending, my life as I’d like to). That it can all end is the only relief on offer.

I’m sure I haven’t always been this bad, though I wonder if lack of practice has eroded the mask of normality I’ve gotten used to wearing. I’m less able to engage in facile conversation, often saying something too honest since I’m out of practice at the lying required by everyday life.

I feel the urge to be honest with people. I want to be open with someone, anyone, but when people ask how you are, they rarely want honesty. They don’t want you to say the thought of suicide is the only thing that’s preventing you breaking down completely. Fine is the socially acceptable answer. (Is this post too honest? I dislike the social inclination to not discuss mental health topics, but I’m not sure I can tell whether this is going too far.)

Establishing any kind of a social connection feels like a young person’s activity anyway. At a certain age, social interactions atrophy into set patterns and groups, and I do feel old.

I’m not sure I’d understand how to establish any social connections now anyway. My anxieties convince me I’m unfamiliar with what would constitute appropriate social interaction, and that any attempt I make at such will be rude. Why would anyone want to talk to me anyway? (While I’m sure a lot of this is my tendency to overthink, my anxieties grasp any excuse to stop me acting.)

Any attempt at conversation becomes stressed as the opposing forces of a desperation to form a connection, and my social anxiety’s urgings to flee the potential social gaffes that inevitably lie in wait. These result in a panicked maelstrom of thoughts, and I often have no idea what I’m saying.

The really surprising thing is that, with all the stress this causes, and my near constant state of anxiety, I’ve yet to suffer a stroke or similar heart condition. Maybe I should eat more unhealthy stuff.

I have no conclusion to this ramble. I don’t see this state of mind changing much this year, certainly not in any good way. I’ll carry on not living life, and talking myself out of any thoughts of connecting with anyone.

So, y’know, Happy New Year.

When history records today’s events, it’s important that one fact be established beyond dispute: none of this was my fault.

It was the board who demanded experimental proof of concept of my theories, upon threat of withhold further funding.

A pair of the besuited bastards stand off to the side, observing. Waiting for my anticipated failure so they can have me escorted off the premises, then have my work picked apart for anything useful. Those who originally hired me are long gone, but after sinking so much into the project, management have been reluctant to cut it off, even with their lack of confidence that I can actually build a time machine.

Fortunately, I have enough confidence for all of us, and a determination to shove their faces in it.

I gesture to a tech flunky – I have more important things to do than memorise names, especially when they change so often – and he turns on the machine. I’m not so arrogant as to need to do the honours myself.

The machine – or at least the attention-grabbing ten-foot-tall hoop dominating the middle of the sparse, off-white, room – hums to life.

The flunky calls out the list of functions operating within parameters.

‘Will this take long?’ one suit asks.

I fix a polite smile in place, certain I’ve hidden my disdain. ‘The power flow requires strict regulating when it’s active. Any flux when it’s linked could fry the circuits and be fatal to passengers.’ Since they insisted it be my future version who travelled back here for the demonstration, this is not something I take lightly. I’d sooner have done a proof of concept by shoving a box through with tomorrows racing results. But no, the idiots need something splashy. Safety precautions will ensure it isn’t gorily splashy. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll know not to come back.

The checks passed – all of them, even the ones I’d normally have them simply scan and say if something’s wrong, but which I allow now to further irritate the suits – I turn to Miss Turner. She’s been around long enough that it felt impolite not to learn her name. Her surname, at least. ‘Initiate the second unit.’

She heads off to the other room, drawing an impatient sigh from the audience.

‘Do you really need to power both up?’ asks the suit. ‘You are aware of the power supply they require?’

Better than you. Did none of the idiots read the project precis I prepared? After all the effort I went to getting it under fifty pages. And limiting myself to words of no more than two syllables.

‘One unit cannot link to itself, even separated by time,’ I say in my best patient and benevolent tone. I’ve practiced it specifically for executive interactions. ‘And since the underlying theory holds that time travel is only possible as far back as the machine’s initial activation, we need both on in order to perform the test as you specified.’

The hard stare he gives me says he might see through my diplomatic pleasantness. Either that, or he didn’t think of stopping at the bathroom on the way here.

I politely ignore their tutting and impatience for the few minutes until Miss Turner returns. She nods, confirming the other unit has encountered no problems.

‘Good girl,’ I say.

It gets the expected tightening of the lips as I look away. Goading keeps her motivated, and she has to snap at me at some point. She’s far too mousy and timid to deal with suits, and it’s my duty to train her up properly.

‘Open it up,’ I tell the flunky at the console.

The machine’s hum rises, as it prepares to receive a signal.

Then we wait. And wait.

By the end of the first minute, I’m sure the suits are ready to call it. And I’m ready to lecture them on the difficulties of the technology, even if I know it’d do little good beyond buying me time.

Then the pitch of the hum deepens, and I think of nothing but the hoop. It’s connected to something. The hum is the only indicator, of course. Through the hoop we can see only the far wall. Even when the handsome figure steps out of thin air within the hoop, nothing else changes.

I look hardly any older, so probably from no more than a few days in the future, but I’m facing myself. And no doubt sharing the grin.

Do I really look that smug? I may need to do something about that. Though not for a few days, obviously.

The euphoria of success may be what makes me miss the hum altering. It powered down slightly after he appeared, before whirring up again. As though expecting more visitors, which isn’t the plan. The visits need scheduling to avoid overlap – since I have only vague hypotheses of what could occur in such circumstances, none of them good.

Three figures appear behind the other me. It takes a moment to recognise the middle one as an even older me. What have I let happen to myself? Way too much grey, and a face creased with age.

How far ahead is he from? These machines are only intended as prototypes, and shouldn’t last beyond five years, at the most. He has to be older than that. Please God, let him be older. Do I think of a way to link any machine to another, even one it wasn’t initially synchronised with? That would be interesting.

My curiosity is derailed as slightly older me turns to way older me, and way older me raises a gun I’ve only just noticed and shoots slightly older me in the head. He falls, vanishing before he hits the floor.

I’m sure you’ll forgive me my shock, but it isn’t every day you’re a witness to your own fractured suicide. ‘Secure the machines,’ older me tells his flunkies, who I realise are also armed.

‘What’s going on?’ asks one of the suits. He attempts to inject some command into his voice but fails to cover the panic.

Older me smiles at them, raises the gun, and shoots both of them dead. They’re over twenty feet away, and I haven’t used a gun since I was a kid. Obviously, I have practice.

‘I’ve been waiting a decade to do that,’ he says. ‘And to say this.’

Only a decade? Those must have been hard years.

One of his flunkies heads for the machine controls – vacated by my flunky, who’s cringing off to the side – while the other heads to the other room. And older me advances towards me.

A security guard appears at the door, presumably responding to the noise, but by the time he registers what’s happening the flunky going for the door shoots him. His barely-drawn gun goes skating across the floor.

‘You’re coming with me,’ says older me, ignoring the interruption.

Shock still exercising some control over me, I nevertheless manage to ask a relevant question. ‘Why did you kill us? And why did he vanish?’

The look he gives says it should be obvious, and he won’t make allowances for shock. ‘Once I shot him, his potential future vanished. Because we’re not so stupid as to travel back after seeing ourselves killed. Well, I’m not, and you’ll learn.’

‘Potential future?’ I say. ‘You mean the divergent realities model is true?’

‘In some manner.’

‘Do you know the reality vanishes, or are you assuming?’ asks Turner. She cowers near the console, but scientific curiosity seems to commendably overcome her panic. Until older me glares at her.

‘I’m not sure they do,’ he says. ‘But travellers from them do once they’re no longer possible, and I’m not anxious to test it on myself to see whether their world survives them once bereft of its parent reality. Now come on.’

He grabs my collar and drags me towards the hoop. Older me has been working out.

I’m still in enough shock that I don’t resist. He is me, after all, so must have my best interests in mind.

We don’t reach the hoop, as he flinches back from some kind of distortion of the air ahead of us, like a beam of compressed air. That he grabs me to use as a shield isn’t helpful – or particularly wise.

Three more armed idiots stand at the doorway, with guns of designs I’ve never seen. One of them has an entire robotic left arm, and what looks like it might be a cybernetic right eye.

Their presence may be what distracts me from recognising steampunk chic for a second as an even older version of me – who arrived by the other machine before the flunky could disable it. And I thought grey hairs and a creased face were bad. At least using me as a human shield no longer seems as stupid, and most of their shots are aimed at old but intact me’s flunky.

Shooting at them, old me drags me to cover behind a console. ‘Careful of the tech,’ he shouts. Presumably to everyone.

‘Our guns won’t damage it,’ says who I assume to be cyber-me. I sound old, my voice strained and crackly.

‘This is insane,’ I say. ‘You’re both me. Why are you trying to kill each other?’

‘I’m you,’ says wrinkly-faced me. Between taking careful shots at the others. ‘But I’m not him. And we’re not trying to kill each other. We’re trying to get you. Right now, we’re both from potential futures, and you haven’t reached the spilt point where which one you reach is determined. If I get you to my future, the act of you observing it and coming back will fix it as your future. It would have to be for your past to retain its integrity.’

I stare at him as I let the implications settle on me.

‘Did you test this?’ asks Turner, crouching nearby. ‘Or are you taking your crazy older self’s word for it?’

‘Silence, girl,’ says older me.

‘Don’t you order my assistant about,’ I say. Certain things can’t be allowed. ‘Keep your head down, Turner. Why’re you here at all then? Why not send people rather than risk ourselves in this madness?’

‘Would you entrust your future to others?’ wrinkly-faced me asks. That is a fair point. ‘And I remember multiple mes appearing, so can’t risk my future being lost by not being one of them.’

‘What happened to them?’ asks Turner.

‘Killed each other,’ he says. ‘But neither of us resembles them, and I don’t intend dying.’

I doubt they would’ve either, but don’t get the chance to comment as a burst of gunfire from my captor’s remaining flunky causes something to explode near the door. Not a big explosion, and the hoop’s still operational, but it’s distracting nonetheless. Especially when said flunky comes flying back past us, ragged and probably done for.

Both of us are distracted, and before wrinkly-faced me can rise to fire again, one of the enemy gunmen darts around the far end of the console and aims his weapon at wrinkly-face’s head.

‘Not my brain,’ I scream in ill-judged desperation. But I can’t help thinking of the loss to humanity.

It causes the gunman to pause a second too long, and wrinkly-faced me spins and shoots him. Then he grabs my collar again, shoves his gun close to my head and stands us up.

‘Stay where you are or I shoot him,’ says wrinkly-faced me.

Cyber-me rises slowly, gun pointed off to the side. He looks casual, but ready to react. ‘You won’t shoot him. That’d be suicidal.’

‘If it looks like I won’t get away with him, I’m dead anyway.’

‘Not necessarily,’ says cyber-me. He saunters towards us. ‘Go home. Maybe it will survive somewhere.’

I hear Turner muttering to herself, no doubt something derogatory aimed at the shoddy logic.

‘Would you?’ asks wrinkly-faced me.

Cyber-me grins, and things get worse. There’s maybe one natural tooth in sight, the others all metal. Who does that? You can get decent false teeth, so it’s a choice to get metal ones. He’s taking the whole cyborg thing a bit too far, and I think I’d rather go home with wrinkly-faced me if it’s all the same to everyone.

‘I’m not the one who’s outgunned,’ says cyber-me. ‘And if it comes down to it, don’t you think I’d sooner he dies than you win.’

‘Can we look for options that don’t involve my death?’ I ask. ‘I think we can all agree it’d be better for everyone.’

‘I’m certainly open to discussion,’ says cyber-me. He doesn’t even convince me, and I’m prone to self-delusion. He reaches the other side of the console and lays down his oddly smooth, portly gun.

Wrinkly-faced me glances at the remaining gunman, staying behind cover. ‘I don’t see how this can end peaceably.’

He shoves me up against the console, and I grab it to steady myself as he points the gun at cyber-me.

‘This is how it’ll go,’ says wrinkly-faced me. ‘Your man throws out his weapon. Then I escort the pair of you back to the other machine, where you’ll go home. Then maybe you’ll survive.’

‘Maybe,’ says cyber-me, still wearing that unsettling grin.

The gunman darts up, firing wide of us. Wrinkly-faced me aims at him, but the man ducks away before he can fire.

Taking advantage of the distraction, cyber-me lunges at us. A blade emerges from his left wrist before I can think, and I have no chance to move before it slices off my small left finger.

Any claim that I scream in a girlish manner is slanderous, but so would you if you’d just had your finger cut off, so shut up.

I’m released as wrinkly-faced me vanishes, his reality unwritten by my losing the finger. It’s only the start of things by the look of cyber-me. He only retains the top quarter of his arm. Did he cut the rest of it off himself too?

‘Stop whimpering,’ he says. ‘It’s only a finger.’ To be fair, my bedside manner probably hasn’t changed much.

I glance around, still in a daze. But it’s not as though there’s anyone here to help me. The guard’s gun is on the floor near the console, too far away for me to dive for it. Even if he should be reluctant to shoot me. Fatally, at least. He may see shooting bits off of me as an option.

The pain seems to subside, as shock slaps it into submission, and I realise the blade must have been hot as it’s seared the wound.

The suits are still dead, despite their attacker no longer existing. Because the point at which his future became invalidated occurred after he’d killed them, so he was still a potentially real person at the time.

Cyber-me puts his artificial arm around my shoulder to guide me towards the door, and the second hoop in the other room.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘A quick flit to my future, then I’ll have you back here to get the finger looked at.’

‘You don’t have miracle healing tech in this future, do you?’ I ask.

He glances at his mechanical arm, then back at me. ‘What do you think?’

Of course he doesn’t. And if he allowed me to use it the other me’s reality would still be a potential future.

The hum of the machine goes suddenly high-pitched, then there’s a bang as circuits in the hoop blow, and I go stumbling as the hand guiding me vanishes.

I spin, but they’re gone. I’m alone. Apart from Miss Turner, standing by the console looking understandably shaken. My mind whizzes through what just happened. ‘You overwhelmed the regulators? Blew the circuits?’

She nods, seeming too shaken to speak.

They’d have to be rebuilt from scratch rather than repaired, so these machines will never work again. And can therefore never be used in the future, negating cyber-me’s reality. Unfortunately, not before he took my finger.

‘Good girl,’ I say.

It gets me a glare, that I ignore.

My nameless flunky runs out the door, screaming in a panic for help. General help, rather than medical help for me, I notice.

‘Well, this has certainly been a learning experience,’ I say. ‘I need to start moisturising. Today.’

‘That’s the lesson you take from this?’ asks Miss Turner, finally showing some spine.

‘Not the only one. But getting up close to both of them, it’s obvious I need to take better care of myself.’ I glance at where my absent digit used to be. ‘What’s left of me, at least.’  I must be in shock, and the pain will be back soon. I need to get stuff done before it hits. ‘Get in the system and erase all records of my work. This is too dangerous to leave in the hands of these idiots.’ Who’ll no doubt unjustly lay the blame for this on me, so I’ll need take steps to get out in front of it.

Miss Turner nods and gets to work. ‘Time travel seems far too dangerous to use.’

‘Indeed.’ I yank the control circuit board out of the panel and grab a hammer. This will be the hardest part to replicate. ‘Travel back in time, and you could undo your own existence. Travel forward and you fix that future into being.’

‘Should we warn people?’ asks Miss Turner. ‘So that no one else tries to build such a device. So that no one ever time travels again.’

I turn to her with a patient look. ‘I never said there’d be no time travel. I simply don’t trust these idiots with it. No, I’ll build a smaller machine, that only allows messages to be passed through. I can send myself future technology, and patent it, bring about a golden age of wonders. Those guns looked far too advanced for my lifetime, so it’s likely I’d already done something of the kind. Maybe once we’ve thought through all the possibilities, we can use the machine carefully. Responsibly.’ I certainly wouldn’t trust anyone else with it. I’m the only one responsible enough to use it properly.

Only as I feel the barrel of the guard’s gun on the back of my head do I realise Miss Turner’s seen another option to avoid time travel technology being misused. Right now, it exists only in my head.

Clever little b…

THE END

I’m not ready to do so just yet (and possibly never will be), but considering what I can do to make the trilogy I’ve failed to find an agent for during the past year more attractive, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the elements in book three is probably more of a hook than anything else.

I think the main problem with the first book – and the series in general, but it’s the first one that I try to sell – is that the idea doesn’t compress down to a simple sales pitch. (The book I’m now submitting to agents is easier to express in a couple of lines, so I’m hoping for more luck with it.)

Considering whether any large-scale changes can make the book more saleable, I have considered whether this element from book three could be expanded, and brought forward. (I also have ideas for where the element could expand beyond the end of the story, but can’t really go there until I have a plan for the initial story.)

It’d mean large-scale structural changes to the story that I’m not sure would even work. Each of the parts it relatively stand-alone. The second has maybe more of a lead in to the third, but even so, I wouldn’t want to spread the revelations about this element over three books, and it’s used to resolve a problem in the third book.

I’ve considered trying to compress them into one larger novel, but apart from the problem that’d make it too long to sell, I don’t know that it’d work structurally. I like the current structure, and feel I’d just be losing good stuff for no real gain. If it’d make the story stronger, it may be worth considering. But purely to give it a stronger hook for marketing doesn’t feel like sufficient justification.

I’ve also started considering abandoning the series (at some point in the future, not yet) and just using this element elsewhere. It could even keep parts of the story attached to it, simply being approached from another viewpoint. Although on its own it’d be more of a horror story, or maybe a dark urban fantasy. Whereas the current story is far lighter and more upbeat (though my view of upbeat may differ slightly from the general consensus). The darker story could possibly be more attractive to current markets, but I don’t know that I have any interest in writing it right now.

I suppose the idea is there if I ever do give up on this story. I’m just not sure how to tell whether it’d be better to push ahead with it as it is (either continuing the trad pub grind or self-publishing it) or using the element for something that may be more commercial. Possibly I’ve just been listening to too much advice from mercenary/practical writers. Cannibalising the stories won’t destroy them for me. It’ll just mean they won’t have a wider audience, which they may never find anyway.

Or maybe I should just move on to the next project, and leave this a few years until my hopes for it have finally been suffocated in a cold bed, late at night.

Yes, I might be getting bleak over the issue. So, y’know, happy holidays.

It feels like the world is in turmoil, and most people just want the chaos to stop. To return to some kind of normal, so that they can get on with their lives, comfortable that they know how the world works, and what tomorrow will bring.

Which are, of course, lies. But lying to yourself that you know how the world works staves off a fear of the unknown that could otherwise paralyze you.

While another status quo will emerge, it can never be one we’ve known.

It’s natural to develop an idea of how society works, and how we want it to be. But we tend to see some static ideal, as though we can achieve it and then never change. Or even a static framework in which controlled changes can happen. Despite all evidence to the contrary that this isn’t how things work. Things change, and the past is gone.

Change is constant. And every status quo is temporary. But it’s human nature to cling to certainties, so we weave lies to convince ourselves life isn’t as chaotic and unfair as we know it to be. And we’re always surprised when it is.

We feel betrayed by life, and look for someone to explain why it’s so. Even if what they tell us is blatantly untrue. It’s certainty we crave, not the truth. But the only true certainty is that everything will change, and any idea of fixing things that means making them as they were before is doomed to failure. But that’s not a comfortable truth.

Brexit was sold with vague lies about why the European Union is the cause of all problems afflicting Britain. Lies vague enough to let the desperate create their own illusions of the new status quo they thought was being promised.

The movement seemed to be led (apart from the money men now profiting from the chaos, and those with dubious political motives) by men deluded that Britain is still an empire, or who want to return to an idealised view of life before the EU.

[Not that I think the EU is perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than any view of Brexit we’ve been given]

It’s easier to look back for some model of a status quo you like than to imagine a new one. But it’s pointless. Far too many factors play into a status quo, not least technology. And technology changes so quickly these days that the delusion of a status quo can be harder to maintain.

In uncertain times, fear drives us to look back for a status quo to cling to, while hope makes us look forward.

Every status quo is a lie. But it’s a useful lie that lets us establish a routine, to avoid the anxiety of dealing with constantly new situations. We just need to see it for what it is, and make wiser choices in guiding which one we adopt next. Because at the moment we’re having foisted upon us one that doesn’t have our anxieties at heart.

Amid revision passes for a synopsis (where it feels like I’m tinkering pointlessly as I prepare to replace my submission novel with a newer one) I’m thinking ahead to the next project: finishing off the epic fantasy I’ve had in progress for a few years now.

It’s been experimental in that I’ve done it in parts, with only a rough idea of where it’ll go after the current part is finished. I did the third part last year, and hopefully the fourth part will finish it.

[While I’ll get into vague details, I doubt anyone’ll read this, or the actual book, to have anything spoiled]

I feel it’s going to be a failure, since the big battle at the end of part three probably isn’t going to be topped. There may be a large battle in this one, but that’s mainly the remnants of the previous battle, and it’ll probably be halfway through.

There’s also not much in the way of an overarching plot the protagonists need to, or can, foil. The antagonist has basically done what he wanted, so they’re just hunting him for revenge or to stop him doing more. It’s mainly character arcs rather than a central story arc now. And I’m worried they won’t provide a satisfying resolution.

The basic story is of a fantasy civilisation where magic is a basis for their technologies. But the magic is starting to fade, helped along by the antagonist. It degenerates into civilisation falling apart, everyone fighting over resources and pointless ideologies, and everything disintegrating (including the story, I guess, though I’m not sure it works in that way).

One thing I’ve realised as I try to think it out is how much world-building is happening in part four, which isn’t right. The world-building is supposed to happen early on, so it doesn’t slow things down as you approach the end.

But while I tried planting what I could early on, the story for part four as it’s introducing itself to me seems to want to be about the protagonists experiencing the collapsed society.

It’s as much involved with the social disintegration as the technological one, though I’m trying to use some of the current real-world problems – such as agricultural ones – without drawing too many parallels. I’m trying to balance out the ideas against the plot, but convinced both will suffer.

It feels like the world-building can’t help but be more overt as I dismantle the world it’s actually built. I’m worried it’ll slow the story too much, and prove unsatisfying.

And yet, this seems to be what the story wants to do. Even if it feels lacking to me. I’m probably going to write it as it wants to be, just to see what that is. But I get the feeling it’ll be a mess, and I think that’s been slowing me down from getting on with it. I need to get it finished though, if only so it can stop irritating me.

First draft is for getting it written, revisions are for getting it right.

To get some kind of order to my workload, I compiled a list of my work in progress, and other live stuff awaiting responses. Here it is:

All Roads Lead to Hell (crime thriller) – Awaiting other stuff*

Broken (psychological thriller) – Submission

Dwimmerfall (epic fantasy) – First 3 parts done, need to do 4th

Border Guards trilogy (urban fantasy, or maybe contemporary fantasy):

The Border Guard – Undergoing agent submission

The Song Between Worlds – Early draft done

The Demon’s Prison –  Early draft done

Ghost Bullets series (urban fantasy):

The Ghost Gun – Need to review

The Redacted Man – Early draft done

The Abyssal Box – In progress

Fictionaut (sf) – Awaiting other stuff

The Entropy of Ideas (fantasy) – Awaiting other stuff

Mirrorman (urban fantasy) – Needs fixing or abandoning

Piracy by Any Means (steampunk) – Accepted to anthology pending edits

The Auction (fantasy) – No idea what to do with it

The Brains of the Operation (fantasy) – Submitted to anthology

The Runaway God (fantasy) – Submitted to anthology

The Sacrifice (urban fantasy) – In progress

The Tax Collector (fantasy) – Submitted to anthology

Time Bastards (sf) – Entered in competition

*Other Stuff in question generally being a clue as to what I’m doing with my career.

Mostly I’m holding off to see whether I can find an agent, and down to waiting on one rejection from the last batch of agents I submitted to. I’m wondering whether I’ve been too picky, looking for something in their interviews or twitter feeds that implies compatibility. Also, the number in the genres I write in limit my choices. It’s going on a year since I started submitting, which I know isn’t that long for the glacial speeds of traditional publishing, but it does drag on.

I suppose I should just accept it’s my work that isn’t right, and move on. In which case, do I return to self-publishing? This was the first thing in years that’s a valid wordcount for traditional markets, and I was kind of happy with the state of it (prior to the rejections – now I’m reluctant to look at it).

The main reason I want an agent is for someone to tell me what I’m doing wrong (in a directed, useful way, rather than just soliciting random twitter opinions). I’ve paid for edits a few times, but after a few follow up questions (which anxieties make hard for me) I’m never sure I’ve fixed the problems, and second edits aren’t something I can afford (I can’t afford many first edits, and none have yet earned out).

While I’m relatively happy with the central idea of the Ghost Bullets series, there’s something niggling me about the current drafts of the stories, and I just can’t decide what’s wrong with them. I’ll start the first draft of the third book soon though, because I’m not sure what else to do.

It feels like I’ve been spinning my wheels a lot during the trying to be traditionally published exercise. I’ve produced some stuff, but not as much as I think I could have if I knew where I was going.

So I guess the immediate future is waiting for the final agent rejection, then deciding if it’ll be the final agent rejection; finish the outline of The Abyssal Box, by which time I should hopefully have the enthusiasm built up enough to push me through the first draft; do the edits to Piracy by Any Means when they come through (I’ve actually had something accepted, and I’m still doubting I read that right – it feels unnatural for it not to be a rejection, and not the natural way of things); and The Sacrifice seems to keep changing on me, so that I doubt it’ll work for the anthology it was intended for, but it still feels worth tinkering with.

There’s also a short story idea that won’t leave me alone, so I’m making notes on that as it comes to me and hoping it’ll be no more than a niggle until I have some free time (or at least freer time).

It does kind of feel like I’m a hamster in a wheel though, fooling myself I’m moving forward without going anywhere, being ignored by the outside world until I die of dehydration or starvation. Hope you’re having a good day.

I’m currently working on some short stories to submit to anthologies (none of which I expect to be successful with, but it lets the back of my mind focus on the novel I’m outlining as I exercise). A few of them are going fine, but one just hasn’t felt right, and it’s taken me a couple of revisions to realise the blindingly obvious.

It’s a pulpy noir thing, with a hint of supernatural. First person present tense tends to be my inclination for this kind of thing. The lead character is disconnected from her feelings, and any real sense of fear, because reasons. And I was wondering why I wasn’t feeling any tension in certain scenes. Because I’m an idiot.

Of course it needs to be in the third person if the lead is disinclined to feel jeopardy (not that it’d be impossible in first person, it just feels inefficient in a short story). Admittedly, I haven’t been outlining these in as much detail as I maybe could (and maybe should) but I’d have thought by now I’d have learnt something about writing.

Yet every new project feels like my writing is getting worse. Or every new project my awareness of my faults is more pronounced, but I’m making no progress in developing my skills. Either way, it isn’t reassuring.

I’ll try rewriting it in third person and see if it’s any better, because I like the idea behind it. I’m not sure it’ll support more of a story, but it feels like it could be a useful IP.

Having gotten Amazon Prime for a month, I’ve been catching up with a number of series, including seasons 4-6 of Scandal. While binging it, it’s occurred to me that it may well be the most grimdark thing on TV. I can’t think of anything else anywhere near as morally bleak, for all its surface slickness.

The characters are all awful people, who blackmail, extort, torture, and murder to get what they want. And then they justify it away, and over time these things become normalised (for the characters and the audience). As though this is simply how Washington works. Sure, many of the characters are three-dimensional. But at least one of those dimensions is usually arsehole.

It’s not as though any of them achieve any happiness from their actions either, and any hopes they have of a happily ever after are so blatantly doomed. Everyone they come into contact with is left broken in their wake, innocents turned to monsters by the experience, and their pains forgotten as soon as they slip from the story.

[Example: Unless I missed something, Season 4 leaves an innocent mother – admittedly a bad mother, though also an alleged friend of Olivia – unjustly imprisoned for murdering her daughter. Because by the point they knew it wasn’t her the story had moved on too far to waste time exonerating her.]

Even The Walking Dead has moments of basically good people (albeit morally compromised by extreme conditions) working together to save one another. In Scandal, they’re usually working to avoid the consequences of their earlier sins. Its closest competitor (that comes to mind) may be House of Cards. Even there, it’s vaguely more grounded feel means the atrocious stuff is more shocking than normalised, so I’d argue Scandal is the bleaker.

[I should also consider Game of Thrones as most grimdark, I know, but having only seen the first season (I’ll wait till the complete box set is available and reduced) I lack the familiarity to make the comparison with the television version.]

None of which means it’s not enjoyable. Maybe engrossing would be the better term. Possibly because it throws interesting curveballs. It can’t purely be that though, as I actually feel invested in the characters, despite their general amorality (no matter how much self-delusion they practice) and poor choices (Olivia certainly has a type. That type is narccistic alphas with sociopathic tendencies). Or maybe I’m just a bad person too, which is entirely possible.

I have mental health issues, but nothing I’ve had professionally diagnosed. I’ve come to the conclusion my problems are social anxiety and suicidal depression. But I’m not sure they’d meet the clinical definitions, and find I’m wary of openly labelling myself in case it offends others with these conditions who’re worse off than me.

It shouldn’t matter in the confines of my own head. But I wrote a story as a cheap alternative to therapy, and I’m worried about putting it out there and potentially misleading people about these conditions. (As a 50,000 word psychological thriller, it’s unlikely to get out other than being self-published, as it’s in a traditional publishing dead zone, and I can’t see how to pad it out.)

I can function in society (kind of) so it’s likely these are more my neuroses, and others must have it far worse. What I consider social anxiety is basically my inability to initiate communication. I can respond to others relatively okay – though lack of practice makes it awkward – but attempts to initiate communications can leave me anxious for a while thereafter. Even trivial matter with family members can be difficult, and more often than not, I won’t bother.

I’ve gotten worse over the years, allowing myself to retreat from society. It’s left me increasingly isolated, and I’ve fallen out of touch with the few friends I had. It’s taken a while to realise what it is, as I’d always put it down to shyness. And maybe it is. Maybe my neuroses are simply exaggerating it. But others, even those with severe shyness, seem better than me at socialising.

The prospect of any kind of communication with others puts me in danger of a breakdown, but time to prepare and plan out what I need to say makes things easier. Or at least I feel less likely to get stuck not knowing what to say next, which is one of the worries.

This inability to reach out is part of the reason I haven’t sought help for my conditions. The greater part is that I just don’t see the point. I’ve gotten so far through life like this, and don’t see anything ahead, even if I overcome this problem. Why would it matter anyway? It’s not as though anyone wants to talk to me, and running through how attempts to talk to people would likely go makes me see there’s little point to trying.

This distance from society obviously feeds the depression. I can’t remember the last time I was happy. I start to wonder if I even know what it feels like, and simply assume I’d recognise the chemical release from it. I think of it as different from amusement, or the satisfaction of writing . But maybe that’s all it is, and I’m looking for something that doesn’t exist.

I always feel this general weariness, especially when I consider where I am, and where I’m going. The answer to both always seems to be nowhere. I have nothing in life, and never will. I don’t even really have a life. Just an existence. And no sense of agency to escape it. I only see the one, inevitable end to it, and remember considering it from as early as my teens.

The option of suicide has always been there, becoming more enticing over the years. But I’m possessed of sufficient self-delusion to partly fool myself with the lie that things will get better (spoilers: they won’t). That, and obligations to family, are the only reason I’m still here, and I’m certain that one day they won’t be enough.

Some days, often doing certain chores that I can’t escape repeating, the feeling washes over me more strongly and immediately, choking with the need for it to just be over, to be allowed to rest.

I recognise most of the symptoms for social anxiety listed on the NHS website, and many of those for depression. Yet I still feel that my problems don’t deserve those labels. That my suffering must be less than those actually diagnosed with the conditions. And that putting out a work of fiction using my experience of them is inviting abuse (more so than putting anything on the internet does, that is).

I realise these concerns are part of my condition, but that realisation does little to diminish the anxiety. I doubt it’d stop me putting the novel out anyway (the labels aren’t used clinically, so misuse of them is debatable). It’s not as though anyone reads my stuff (because social anxiety makes marketing difficult), so there’s probably nothing to worry about.

Given it’s unlikely to be read by anyone, let alone anyone who could be offended (and if their social anxiety is similar to mine they’d be unlikely to complain aloud anyway), this is probably pure neurosis. But while all labels are made up, the meanings we attribute to them have weight, and a common understanding of ideas is necessary to be able to properly relate to one another. I don’t want to contribute to a misunderstanding, and watering down, of the pain people suffer. I just wanted to clarify my own issues, and having written the story feel the need to release it. At some point.