• This Writing Journey

    The Big Goodbye

    It wasn’t long after I finished my typewritten novel that I started experiencing panic attacks. The first one woke me in the middle of the night, terrifying me, and leaving me seething with anxiety. I was sure something had broken inside my head. I thought the anxiety would run it’s course, the way a cold would, but it remained omnipresent. The nights became a horror; I dreaded the quiet, where the anxiety could just spill out into the emptiness. But, conversely, sleep brought the only refuge. Finally, I decided I needed to see a GP – just not my GP, who knew my parents well. I didn’t want to risk…

  • The Story Behind the Book

    “This” Announcement

    I haven’t blogged since my dearest friend Blaise passed away. Outside of my tribute to her, writing – as a practice – just seemed meaningless. It took a couple of months before that internal narrative began to chug again, however sporadically. It hasn’t genuinely sparked my imagination yet. There were things I was working on, and things I wanted to begin, but I’ve (since) found trouble getting into them. The best I’ve managed is some rants about football and one Star Wars review. I’ve focused on revision – the last redraft of a new novel (which Blaise, always my primary alpha reader, was halfway through reading), and then various scripts.…