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I’ve been talking with another indie publisher — someone whose efforts, results, and attitude I admire — about her appearing in an episode of my podcast.

In writing to her just now, I found myself spilling my guts about it all, and this made me realise that the brave face I put on about this stuff in the podcast doesn’t authentically reflect all of how I feel.

Yesterday I unsubscribed in exasperation from yet another indie publishing blog in which yet another person was calling out for gatekeepers to protect their precious work (using criteria for judgment that happens to favour their work) from the atrocious attempts by the leagues of amateurs and hopefuls. I just get so tired of all the babble out there by people, many of whom don’t actually write books themselves, and I have to cut off my exposure to it if I hope to ever create another novel.

Here’s what I wrote to my indie comrade:

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To be honest, I’m at that point when it’s been a long time since I’ve written a book, I’m looking at another one on the horizon, yet I’m equal parts hopeful and doubtful about the point of the whole thing. Not that I’d give up, but it makes me weary sometimes, swimming up Niagara Falls, and all that market-stuff messes with my sense of creative expression (“Be pleasing! Be acceptable! Be mainstream!”).

Some of the work is incredibly fun, and some of it I’m very proud of. Being a writer who’s written several books and learned to do all the production, too, is an incredible, exceptional feat. And on the other hand, it’s a kind of pointless thing to do and the world at large generally doesn’t give a crap about it. So how does one find the energy to start the process again? (Because it’s rewarding in so many ways and stopping is just not an option.)

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Then there’s the issue of time: The idea I have in mind involves doing some research. I’ve got a pile of books here to go through, but when? I work, I have a personal life I didn’t when I wrote the other books, and we’ve been having visitors and will continue to have more. Plus I’ve got the podcast, I’m trying to make books, and this week I’m going to be teaching two bookbinding classes.

Aaaargh!

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Here I am in my new home.

Buying stuff.

My wonderful, gifted, brilliant friend and co-worker Margaux updated our company’s website with a graphic to go with some copy I wrote about their new e-books.

She pointed out that, had she the photo-shoot to do again, she’d show a hand from the thumb-side a hand. It didn’t strike me as odd when I looked at it, but now I see her point.

Funny that we have an innate sense of “rightness” about some things. I guess it’s taste, or instinct, or craft, or something. I haven’t ever been able to articulate this for myself, why I like one phrase more than another, or why some things are just wrong in my estimation — for instance, that a media-form should never refer to that same media-form. (“Gosh, this is just like a horror movie. Bobby, that isn’t funny. Bobby…?”)

It’s like the reverse of Aspergers’, but for creativity: You know the social conventions about not doing this or that, or that such and such is expected (and then you have the opportunity to either satisfy or defeat that expectation).

Just like I know not to do some things that some of my countrymen do, like stick their hand down the front of their trackie-bottoms: no one told me not to do that, but… c’mon.

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I started a DIY book episode last week and another blog entry, but lost them today when my computer a) refused to boot after I installed an update, and b) would only restore itself to a backup from last week, even though the thing’s been doing back-ups the whole time.

Lost work is unusual, but I figured I’d give my non-Mac friends an opportunity to gloat if they needed to. Bad machine-things happen to us all from time to time.

Still, I’m up and running, and should be re-producing these lost things shortly. (Because I’m still enough of a backup freak that I could find all the bits.)

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I just wrote to a friend from work who asked how life was going up here. I figured I’d share that, ’cause folks are asking, and I’ve been writing about book-stuff here on the blog (when this is the one part of the site that doesn’t have to just be about that).

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Craig’s parents are coming to visit for a few days, so we were out shopping tonight. (I’m turning into the cook of the house — who knew?!)

First we went to the local Co-op, as I insist we do, but then we went to the giant, evil Tesco to get what the Co-op didn’t have. As we left Tesco, I looked out over the green farmland stretching out in the distance, the spindly wind-turbines turning on the horizon, then looked up at the sky, which was every imaginable pastel colour, from pale blue to pink to orangey-yellow where the sun was starting to set.

It’s small here. It’s different. And I don’t know quite how we fit into the picture. But it’s a beautiful and old and broken place that’s still surviving (its boom, because of the red herring, went a long time ago with the fish). I like it, and there’s something good about being here.

And living with this guy is a dream. He is my partner in so many ways. He’s kind and playful, good and fun.

I’ve got a great space to do my work in, and lots of hours for being creative.

This is a good time.

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I got a letter from someone in response to “DIY Book” — a young guy who’s making some really lovely little books. He’s talented, and right now the world isn’t exactly heaping rewards on his head, ’cause I gather he’s not so far into the game of “find out who’ll will pay me to be me”.

This reminded me of my early twenties in Toronto, which was a time full of earnestness and art and discovery and… difficulty. Here’s how I described to him the path from there to here:

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For a time in Toronto I sold greeting cards I’d made by hand. I’d left acting some time before and couldn’t stomach any more waitering.

I hand-made the paper for the cards with a blender in the kitchen (I lived with my best friend, who was tolerant of the splashes on the walls). Then I cut out a window and stuck in little cartoons I’d drawn. It was do that or go on welfare, and one visit to that spirit-crushing office with all their humiliating questions was enough to convince me to go it alone and live by my abilities.

That kept me going for a few months until the next thing presented itself — working with computers, since friends had chipped in to buy me one to help me reproduce my cartoons for the cards, and I discovered I had a knack for making computers do stuff.

That led to me doing graphic design, which led to me being able to design my first book and to the multimedia job that transformed into a job as a full-time copywriter.

And here I am, twelve years later, very happy, and making a good living.

So you never know.

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I used wood-wax on something this weekend, and the smell of it reminded me of my Dad.

When I was little, he would stand me on his work-bench on a Sunday morning, my little feet in his big shoes while he polished them for church.

These kinds of memories keep coming up for me lately, about my dad’s influence on me as I was growing up.

When my partner and I moved into this house a few weeks ago, we had to assemble a lot of furniture. Tightening screws, I was frequently reminded of his lessons about tightening them evenly, each a little bit, rather than screwing one down at a time.

Lots of things like that — tiny lessons that are so ingrained, and still useful.

I love my dad.

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I really do intend to stick to the plan I talked about… at some point. But not now, evidently.

The book-plough turned out to not work for paperbacks. The hot-glue on the spine dulled the plough’s blade after one book, and the distributor confirmed that it can definitely only work on paper. (I know this now, after I spent an hour this morning cutting through two sides of a single paperback, sweating over the thing like a Viking rowing in the bowels of a ship.)

So that’s… not good. It means I can’t produce my novels, which is kind of the point of this whole endeavour. So this morning, when it became apparent that this lovely-looking piece of romantic, historical bookbinding gear was not fit for my purposes, I went online and ordered a new guillotine — one that isn’t a Chinese knock-off like my previous one, but evidently has a laser indicator and… stuff.

Fingers crossed this will sort it. And the plough… I dunno. If I manage to sharpen the blade, it’ll be fine for the insides of blank hardcover books. Or it’ll just be a very big decoration.

Meanwhile, I got to play all afternoon yesterday and I’m almost finished my “keeping score” boardgame:

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I spend too much money online.

Okay, scratch that: I’ve spent what I’ve spent; it’s just time to stop for a while. Moving house was expensive, and I’d like to zero my debt again.

I struggle with consumerism, because on the one hand I know we in the West live an unsustainable lifestyle, and consuming is not creating. But, as a creative person I also know that it can be great and inspiring to have good tools. I like buying good tools (and I’d far rather buy something I can use to make an infinite amount of other things rather than buy a one-time enjoyment thing).

The challenge is that it’s too damned easy to get an idea* of something to buy, and seconds later be logged into a site and buying it. The money flows just as quickly away, and not always advisedly. (And it’s not “a treat” when you give them to yourself all the time!)

I have lots of other systems in place for dealing with my money. When my retainer comes in each month, it drops down a kind of Plinko board and gets divided into different accounts for different things (operations, income tax, insurance, savings, fun money, and pocket money).

The trouble with the internet stuff is that it lets me bypass all my systems and spend operations money or credit card money.

So here’s my strategy:

• I removed my payment information from iTunes. That’s a constant money-leak, so small you don’t notice it, but it adds up. I give myself £10 a day pocket money, and an album that costs £7.99 is a significant chunk of that daily allowance — but it comes from “nowhere”, so I don’t account for it, which creates a deficit.
• I took my credit card out of my wallet and sealed it up in a little envelope which is locked away in a box in my office.
• I reset my browser so it doesn’t “helpfully” fill in ordering information.
• Ah, but all my payment details are stored in a wallet application on my computer, as is all my login information for various websites. (As an aside, the recent Facebook security issues made me sit up and take action, and I’ve finally changed all my passwords to different, random strings.) A few sites are the big spending culprits or enable me to spend on other sites, so I deleted my login information from the wallet program and I made these little “credit cards” which I’m giving to my partner for safe-keeping. (There’s a good argument that we behave better when we think we’re being observed.)

Of course, you’d be right to ask, “Why don’t you just stop it?” Well, it would be nice if that worked, but cold turkey goes down a lot better in a tasty sandwich.

Speaking of which, I’m getting close to finishing the little game for keeping score of my productivity that I mentioned a while back. More on that soon.

*I recently stumbled upon a great acronym for this: WWILF — What Was I Looking For? This nicely sums up the endless hours of mental hopscotch one can play on the Internet.

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A video episode in which I demonstrate how you can make a hardcover book with basic materials.