Why I don’t contact people I haven’t seen for a while. Logically, being transgender should have no bearing on my friendships. Like yeah, it’s probably annoying that I changed my pronouns a couple of times and I have a new name for people to remember, but overall I’m the same person. In reality though, I’ve… View more
I know everyone gets sick of me talking about how much I love my doctor, but I love my doctor. He always asks how my current book is going. Which it’s not. Not really. At first that wasn’t my fault. I was just getting into the swing of the new school year when we started… View more
Not looking for advice, just ranting. I returned to work this week (after six weeks off) expecting the usual struggles: Extended time in front of a screen tends to give me headaches, eye strain, and muscle soreness. Difficulties staying focused. Feeling like I’ve been at my desk forever when in reality it’s been about 90… View more
Just a short blog today, but I had to share because I reached a new milestone! There are things in a writer’s journey worth celebrating, even though on the surface they look like failures. Things like personalised rejection letters from agents or publishers. Killing your darlings. Your first hate mail. Today I had one of… View more
At the beginning of 2022, I set my goals for the year differently: All my goals were time-based. Instead of “publish a book and lose five kilos” I went with “Spend x number of hours a week on <each activity>”. Whilst I still think this is great in theory, it didn’t work for me. I… View more
I’ve seen this a million times, so I’m just going to come out and say it: Stop pretending your alien, celestial, or divine beings are “non-binary representation”. They’re not. While we’re at it, non-binary is an umbrella term. Whilst agender people are non-binary, not all non-binary people are agender. The divine unknowable route probably seems… View more
I don’t talk about this much, but sometimes I want to stop writing. Days like today. I don’t think people realise how much goes into an author’s small business. Not just the money, though there’s a butt-load of that. Money I didn’t earn and don’t deserve, of course. Money that, if wasn’t being wasted on… View more
This year was the 30th anniversary of Surrey international Writer’s Conference. Just a minute ago I was attending their 25th anniversary and being impressed with that, time sped by. 2022 was a first for me though. My first year attending as an openly trans person. Heck, my first event of any kind as an openly… View more
In Dan Brown’s Masterclass he says, “trust your process.” The idea being that if you focus on the day-to-day and work consistently, the goal achieves itself. I’m paraphrasing. But this is very much the way I work. I show up and show up and show up and cry and inevitably there will be a finished… View more
It’s finally come, my month in book club! Usually, the person who picked the book both facilitates discussion and brings the food to the host’s house, but I imagine I dodged that second bullet because of Covid-19. If it’s safe to gather and I do have to bring snacks, I guess I’ll be making sushi… View more
