Hai

Well hello. It’s been a little while.

The exciting bit first then, and really what I’ve been waiting to write for ages: the new book is out and finished – or, as much as it can be without me committing ritual seppuku. I won’t spoil the surprise, but hopefully it’s enough to say it’s a sort of mythological sci-fi, and there’s talking bears. It should be attached to this message in pdf, mobi, and epub form below as promised. I really hope you enjoy it, and as always, feel free to drop me a line if there’s something in there you dislike/hate/despise. (If you’re after another format, just let me know and I’ll try to make it happen. The paperback should be coming out soon also.)

To the second bit. Sorry about disappearing for a few months. I wish I could boast of climbing mountains or substance addiction or something, but the reality is pretty dull. Up until about December last year I still thought I could finish the book by maybe January. I’d work on it in spurts in the evenings and everything was going relatively all right. By the time January arrived, it was clear I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I realised with quiet horror that it was going to take months to finish, even at full steam, and making videos would have to go out the window for a while. And by then I was too far in to back out. So I just had to shut up and get on with it. I’m hardly going to lecture you on oh poor me, effort is so hard, etc, I’m sure you work and have your own trials – but that was the least pleasant period of my life in at least a decade. Most days I was convinced I could never fucking finish the thing, and went fairly mad. Luckily I have friends I don’t deserve, and they'd gently put me back on the road when things got wiggly.

But it’s done, and I’m not – biologically speaking, so that’s enough moaning then. Hi. Hello. How are you?

Wherever you are in the world, I hope the last 6 months have been treating you well. Bulgaria has sure been a trip. I was fairly amazed to find out I could walk about ten seconds from my apartment to the local hospital and say, “Hi, one vaccine please,” and get a vaccine. I’m not sure if it’s the relatively high rate of vaccine scepticism here, or decent medical negotiating or what, but I’m just really thankful that jabs are freely available. Obviously I hope you’ve got access to vaccination too – I know the UK is slowly getting around to the younger population at least, which is neat. (If you’re curious, I got the Pfizer version, and felt literally zero side-effects. Except for the tail. ((To be honest, I had covid a while back anyway, so who knows what the relationship with fewer side-effects is there.))

I hope you liked the Buddhism video, if you know what I’m talking about. I was sort of on the fence about making it for months. It seemed like a bit of a departure from the usual science is amazing blah blah to….pop-spirituality? But to be honest, it just turned into one of those scripts that wrote itself, and that almost never happens. So I was hardly going to say no. I also hope I haven’t pissed off the Buddhist community. Considering they’re generally the most chill of the religious bunch in my opinion, that’d be quite an achievement.

Righto, anyway, I’m alive, I hope you are too, and again – if you want to read it, you’ll find the book attached. You’ll also find cat photos attached because…does there really need to be an explanation? She’s been an extremely faithful helper throughout the editing process, and if she wasn’t the best feline that ever there was, and mine, I would certainly lend her out to you. But she is, so I can’t.

And lastly, recommendations then. (Yours would be much welcome also.) Here’s an anti-recommendation actually. Do not play Dyson Sphere Program. Do not even flirt with the idea of downloading Dyson Sphere Program. It will eat all of your time. It will create new time and eat that too. I got into a little habit of playing it at the end of the day and would regularly look up to notice that the fucking sun was rising. It’s too good and too satisfying (think Factorio but 3D and with DYSON SPHERES.) Do not play Dyson Sphere Program.

Oxygen on Netflix – that was a good one. I expected nothing and was really pleasantly surprised. There’s a twist you might see coming, but the payoff makes it all worth it. Big recommend.

I am Mother – also on Netflix, that was rather good too.

Above everything, what kept me sane the last few months was going walking in the evenings and listening to the Ricky Gervais Guide to – whatever. There’s a few of them, on philosophy, medicine, etc, and there were a number of occasions when I thought I was going to get a hernia laughing. The one on the arts is the best in my opinion.

Above all really, I hope you’re doing well, and I just wanted to say thank you for sticking around all this time. I’m more grateful than I can say. So, I’m not really sure what happens next. I’ll take a few days off and just try to enjoy not worrying about the book, then get back to work, promise. I’ll also try to get back to the Catastrotivity series (if you know what I’m on about), but the last few months were not exactly the time to be doing that. There’s a special irony to self-importantly lecturing the internet on how to solve writing problems, while you’re sitting in your pyjamas all day crying over the keyboard and failing to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this month’s digital offerings in any case.

Once again, thanks for sticking around, that’s enormously appreciated. Massive love, and I hope things are chilling out a bit covid-wise wherever you are in the world, and that you and your loved ones are well.

All the very very best,

Ex.