Writing Update: 01-09-25

(Written on the 1st, posted on the 2nd.)

Apologies for the overdue update.

Every summer, I travel home to catch up with family and a few friends. Canadian by birth, I now live in the UK. Returning home is always a complex time for me. On the one hand, it makes me very happy. Of course it does: I'm on holiday. There's family and old friends and August in Canada is always gorgeous (albeit getting a little too hot these days). The skies always seem brighter than back in England, the spaces more open and the trees, greener. Invariably, there's lots of driving (a solid thousand kilometers this time, I reckon, if not more). There's a lot of food. I always return to the UK a couple kilograms heavier than I left it. For a short time, the constant guilt I feel as an only child living abroad distant from ageing parents abates.

Invariably, I imagine how a different life may have played out, had I decided to not travel and try out London for a few years. Life in Canada seems better in many ways. I'm always struck by the beautiful weather, friendly people, the absurd size of grocery stores and the lavish displays of produce. Corn on the cob for fifty cents! Then I remember the winters, the months of ice and snow , waking to -30 Celcius and scraping ice off the car, ears burning with cold.

Trips home are family trips, now. Summer holidays, and there's very little downtime from taking care of children. This, obviously, impacts on writing. When in Canada, I stay at my parents. They live in a small home in the countryside and there isn't much in the immediate area. Fortunately, a few years ago a small bistro opened up not too distant, a ten-minute drive down the highway, a forty-minute cycle down country lanes. For the past few years, this has been my summer escape for getting a little writing done. It's at this bistro that Chad was born, two years ago, as I worked my way through what would become Book 3.

This year, I managed a few visits but my writing, in general, suffered. I wrote when I could but occasions were far too few. A couple hundred words on odd days, and I've maintained some progress but it's well behind where I wanted to be by this point. Back in January, I had high hopes of surpassing last year's record of 214k words. Currently 20k behind where I was this time last year, this now feels unlikely though perhaps I'll rally in the weeks to come.

The summer's over. After a few days of rain, the skies are blue over London, too. The kids are heading back to school, and I'm heading back to work. 5.30am wakeup, morning commute, eight to ten hour work days; and there's something perverse in the fact that I seem to find it easier to write against the backdrop of this soul-grinding routine.

Despite the slow progress, chapter 11, the penultimate of Book 5, is coming along nicely. Hopefully, it'll be ready to post next week. Again, apologies for the delay, and thank you for bearing with me.