The proverbial ‘they’ say that the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging you have one. I don’t even know if I’ve made that first step, because I can’t decide whether this thing is a problem or a gift. If I figure out a way to make it...
[Edit, 2020: I’m leaving this post here, as it was written, because no matter how my circumstances or learning have changed since its writing, it remains an accurate representation of what I had thought at the time—and to revise history according to current opinion only compromises the authenticity of...
I’m not irritated by much. Well, there’s the reasonable stuff. Indecisive people, overattentive people, clingy people, leechy people, snooty people, wishy-washy people, emotional people, fickle people, obtuse people, naive people, people who expect an answer to a rhetorical question, and Jodie Foster. And pleonasm. And other things. Maybe I...
Outside of the Romance genre, the publishing industry is kinder to male authors. That’s just objective and observable fact. Author Catherine Nichols even did an experiment to demonstrate it—she took the same manuscript and pitched to the same agents, but used a different name. The unsurprising result: the male...
My four-year-old was sketching some unidentifiable streaks on his Dry-Erase board. I couldn’t make out any particular shape, but he looked intent. “What’s that?” I asked. “What are you drawing?” “Um, I don’t know,” Timmy said, unperturbed. He continued to add another shape. “Are you finding out as you...
There’s something exciting in the secretive sound that a ghostwriter makes, when he’s ghosting around. A bookshelf he haunts, with no obvious trace— inaudible voice, incorporeal face. You want something written, but can’t write it yourself, or have no time to do so—you should hire someone else! That’s the...
Teaching a child to write is like nailing jelly to tree. It’s one of the first lessons of home schooling that I’m learning. Hot on the heels of that, is the realisation that this is going to be as big a growth exercise for me as for them. Maybe...
I’ve moved house 16 times. It seems I’m rather commitment-phobic regarding addresses, rarely staying in one place for more than two years. Not necessarily by design—things just happened, as things do. And I’m about to do it again. It’s commonly touted that moving house is one of life biggest...
I can make a high-stakes choice easily enough. Which country to live in. Which career track to pursue. Dramatic differences in variables make it simple calculation. But I’m terrified of ice cream parlours. I go into them in the first place because I’d like an ice cream. Then I...
Being told I have the rarest personality type among females is said like some sort of congratulations. As if I’m supposed to feel good about being more rare, more special, more whatever-distracting-adjective-they-use. Well, I’m not distracted. I know what they’re doing: trying to spin it so I won’t realise...
