Some of you already know this from my pinned posts on Facebook and Instagram, but I wanted to write a quick piece for anyone not on social media, who might be wondering why I haven’t posted for a while.
The shortest version of the story is that I fell apart from exhaustion sometime in early June, right after I finished and handed in a major project (one that I love, love, love and cannot wait to reveal to the world). I had been planning to take a break for a few days before plunging into the next one (also a work I love, love, love) and to finish up and post several essays I’ve got in the docket on this site. The aforementioned major project is one that has been in the works for a while, and I decided I needed to get it done and out (there will still be edits, of course) and postponed shorter works in the meantime. The plan was to have one major work done and hold off on newer works for a few weeks till that happened, and then plunge back into writing my weekly essays while also finishing up the next big project. I did not get a chance to rest because I had to deal with a new project that came up, unexpectedly, one that did not eventually pan out but took a lot out of me. Long story short: I’m mostly fine but the past fortnight has been draining, and I’ve had to pause and just catch up on the rest I wasn’t able to get for a while. (I have not had even a staycation in over twenty-five years, so this is the longest I’ve gone without working.)
I’m slowly coming out of the physical slump, while my mind has been busily working all the while. With the help of generous friends and supporters, I’ve been able to live like a fat little kitten: mostly waking up to eat, watching a lot of shows and movies, and resting (returning to slumber).
Rest is a luxury for too many of us these days, and writers in particular — especially unaffiliated rat bastards like me — rarely get the chance to indulge in it. In many ways, it has been an advantage for me to have to stop the churn, as it were, and to disengage from the daily grind. Among my new forthcoming works is an essay titled “Starting Over,” where I re-introduce myself to my readers, old and new, and many other essays that look at matters like like identity, sea horses, AI-generated short stories, platiarism, Graham Platner, the left, and a mysterious pie case that went missing.
As I’ve always said, my output will average out to a new essay a week (I may take an actual break from writing in November-December).
An important announcement, to be fleshed out more in the coming weeks, is that my friend and long-time supporter Steve Dew, a Massachusetts-based lawyer who specialises in intellectual property, is kindly donating hours to collaborate with me on the issue of plagiarism. This will not only mean helping me to fight back against specific writers (and their outlets) who have plagiarised my work, but formulating a series of explanatory essays and strategies that writers everywhere can use as they fight against an increasing tide of plagiarism everywere. As my regular readers know, plagiarism is a topic I take very seriously, not just because of what has often happened to me, and my goal has always been to compel the publishing world — academic and trade — to change its scavenging ways and protect writers everywhere. Most writers are not aware of the intricacies of plagiarism (it turns out that copyright is a very complicated matter), or what resources they might have to fight back against thieves (there are more than we imagine), and we hope to play some part in helping people gain more clarity, at the very least.
I’ll stop here. I should start up again in the next two weeks, if not earlier — today is only the second day where I’ve felt my mind and body begin to align once again.
If you’re on social media: I don’t yet have the energy to keep up my Daily Posts from the archive, but I’m still retweeting or reposting on Twitter and Instagram, and I post occasionally on Facebook. I’ll be back on my normal schedule soon.
If you’d like to support me in any way — colouring books have been more helpful than I thought possible! — you can find different ways to do so here. My wishlist is here. Times are hard and precarious all around, and we’re not all able to chip in as our budgets get tighter: even just posting or discussing my works anywhere is a massive help.
Thank you.
Image: Walter Bayes, (1832-1909), Woman Reclining on Couch, undated.
