Great podcast on publishing
Matthew Smith on Half Hour Mentor
It's about half an hour - maybe that's obvious?!
Best Small Fictions nomination
You can read it here: me and the foxes battle it out along the railway line.
I'm beginning to think about the Climate Writing workshop I'll be running at the Flash Fiction Festival in July in Bristol. Two topics spring to mind, both interesting and unusual.
I'm very much looking forward to the Festival, meeting wonderful writers, hearing new work, and being inspired by workshops and presenters. It's an absolute highlight of my year - and this year I won't be trying to get back from Cornwall in time for the start...
It's a fabulous weekend and I thoroughly recommend it!
Dry January
I've been going through a dry patch in writing. Before Christmas I had all sorts of plans about January -- a new year, getting back into the new novel, maybe being a little more organised, perhaps even a new routine.
But life has had other plans, and perhaps my unconscious has had other plans too. We had two separate bouts of Covid in our household, beginning on 29 December for 10 days or so, then a 2 week gap, beginning again on about 23 January until yesterday. Thankfully I escaped this time, although I don't take my escape for granted as I have had this unpleasant illness twice already, despite all my jabs and keeping as safe as I can, with masking on public transport and in crowded places. I have also had to write a good deal for other purposes, which takes energy and time.
My unconscious -- that's another matter. It laughs at my plans. It becomes shy and unavailable when I think I might want to write. It becomes critical, telling me that really I should be doing other things, that I can't write anyway, and who am I to think that anyone would want to read my writing? -- things I half feel may be half true. It's discouraging!
I rely on my unconscious mind to come up with ideas and people and plots. I don't know if it's the same for other writers. When I write, an amazing magic begins to shape my work, and it's mostly not planned. Sometimes it doesn't work too well, but other times it has a profound effect. I have an idea of where I want my book or story to go, a kind of loose framework, and then I just write and see what happens.
But -- it's been January, and dark, and cold and wet, and quite frankly I have just wanted to hide away. I've also been pretty busy with other things, and that shy and temperamental unconscious mind needs a bit of space, a bit of latitude, a bit of feeding with art and music and books and poetry, a bit of sunshine, a lessening of stress.
So -- February is here, at last! The days are drawing out, the shortest day nearly six weeks behind us, the longest day a mere 20 weeks ahead! And the days will be long and light many weeks before then.
I'm learning not to fret about the daily words on a page, but to allow a bit of space for creativity of all kinds, wherever it comes from. Today I cleared out the under sink cupboard. Creative? Maybe. It certainly feels helpful. There's something about physical clutter that clutters the mind too.
A world teeming with life
Cameron creates a world teeming with life, as ours was not so very long ago. It got me thinking about the millions-strong buffalo herds in North America, hunted almost to extinction by settlers from Europe, and the Newfoundland cod fisheries, which have never recovered since they were depleted by the early twentieth century. It was said at the time that a man could almost walk on the sea, such was the multitude of cod. Then there is the passenger pigeon, now extinct, when in the nineteenth century the sky would be dark from horizon to horizon as they migrated.
These are all examples of anthropogenic extinction, extinction caused by human activity.
And there are countless more. Since 1970 the world has lost about 70% of its wild animals. The UK is right at the bottom of international league tables in terms of our biodiversity - the variety and numbers of wildlife.
What an indictment of our status as the most influential species on the planet. Some will say it's because of the vast growth in human population over the last century. I was born when the global population was roughly 3.1 billion. On November 15 2022 it reached 8 billion. But population is only part of the story. As the old saying has it: "The world has enough for everyone's need, not for everyone's greed". That is certainly true of food, and clothing, and household goods, energy, and more. The problem is distribution, politics, and - yes - greed. We have a rapacious instinct, like locusts, but unlike locusts, we have a choice.
This is complex stuff, and worthy of more than a quick blog post. Many books have been written and many more will doubtless be.
The thing about influence - and the the thing about our status as sentient beings who can think about the past, the future, as well as the present - is that we can choose how to wield it.
Meanwhile, I have a kind of deep nostalgia for a world richly teeming with life. I'm sure I'm not alone. In 2023 I'll be looking for more opportunities to enhance the natural world.
I have a new website
This is my first blog post on my new website. In fact, it's my first website!
I live in the UK, and have been writing fiction about climate change for many years. I also write about relationships, particularly within families. I write short stories, novels and novellas. Occasionally I write articles.
So, welcome, reader. I hope you find something of interest on this site.
I am particularly interested in our relationship with the natural world. Humans are good at saying one thing and doing another - or we're good at sincerely meaning to do something - such as safeguarding nature - but often forget when other things seemingly take precedence. We're good at telling ourselves stories about why one thing should happen, over another thing. We're not good at living with tensions.
In my fiction I like to explore the stories we tell ourselves and each other, about nature and our place in it, and the many stories we tell about climate change and what we think it means.
Just so we're completely clear, the scientific consensus is that the current unprecedented heating of Earth is entirely due to human activity - the burning of fossil fuels. There is no dispute. Any apparent disagreement is due to an organised campaign of disinformation.
Helpful and scientific sources of information may be found at NASA and also The Met Office.
I'm a storyteller, interested in how we learn to live in a rapidly changing world. Please join me.