I’m travelling back home today, mulling over the weekend and trying to sort out my reaction to the book fair.

If you got here because of picking up one of my cards there, sorry for dropping you right into a patch of angst and a possible sense of ingratitude for the good conversations and interest we shared. In fact, I enjoyed meeting everyone, I have no regrets about my indie-book life so far and would still heartily recommend that path to anyone who feels so inclined, and I really respect the great folks at the poetry library for all they do. I’m just at a crossroads in my creative career.

That said, I’m looking at the next big event in my calendar, and it’s my trip to Canada, which reminded me that, hey, you know, I happen to work as a writer, which was just a dream at one point in my life. Yes, it’s business writing, but that works best when it has the qualities of good, connected, imaginative writing. Plus I have some projects going with my client where I even get to draw. I have great a relationship with my client company and all the people there, and I believe in what they do. Plus they appreciate my abilities and steadily reward me for using them. What more could I want?

So for the meantime, I’m going to give extra focus to that and use it as my creative outlet.

Since my days are already devoted to that, this opens up some spare time, so I can do other things… like learn how to drive.

Lessons begin on November 5th. You may want to stay indoors.

“I quit.” That’s how I felt by the end of the book fair I attended yesterday.

For the past few weeks I’ve been scrambling to make books for the Scottish Poetry Library’s small press fair. I printed and bound stacks of novels, because that’s what sold the most at the last one of these, and after all, publicising those is supposed to be why I’m doing these shows in the first place. And I made various sizes of blank journals. I came up with a few of these I was really happy with; these were more than just nice found paper. Two featured my cartoons for a change, and one was a creative kitchen sink of pages and pockets and slips of paper travel ephemera. So it was a rush, but everything came together. Doing the show would be the payoff for all that work.

I made all my train connections and managed to get myself and my rolly-bag of goods all the way down to Edinburgh, where my old pal Patrick met me at the station. I’ve really enjoyed having a few days to hang out with him, and he’s been showing me around my Scottish home-town, where, aside from the mess of the tram-tastrophe some surprisingly beautiful architectural projects have gone up.

It’s been odd to visit here: the nostalgia of revisiting this city feels less like going back to where I used to live and more like stepping into the pages of my novel about the place. It’d be very easy to slip into a line of thinking like “Oh, what am I doing in Wick? I should be back here.” But I’m not — not out of denial, but because it isn’t true. I could happily live here again, and maybe I will. But our time in Wick isn’t over, and it doesn’t feel like it should be yet. I trust that we’ll know when it is.

So yesterday morning I woke up early and took a taxi to the poetry library, stopping in at a grocery story nearby to pick up provisions so I could sit at my table all day and be with the people. I wasn’t doing any workshops, so I could just chat and meet the like-minded folk who were there, either as presenters or attendees.

The other book-folk with tables were, once again, a talented and friendly group. There’s no competition at all at these fairs, partly because the books we produce are so different, and because these people know from long, hard experience that art is not a competition — despite the public, the media, and the publishing industry being unable to conceive of it outside of a template of contests, sales lists, and royalty figures.

Hundreds of people walked past my table, picking up the books and putting them down, some quietly, some talking to me about my process. Despite what I’m about to say, I did feel honoured to meet these folks, to have the opportunity to share my work with them, perhaps inspire a few, to give them tools for creating their own work or just a book to use. The paper wallets were, as always, a particular favourite.

But as the day wore on, I grew tired — tired of being the guy enthusiastically giving away help and ideas, tired of selling lots of the wallets, the one thing on the table I cared least about. Oh, it’s fun to have figured out how to make them, and I like interacting daily with an unusual thing I’ve made myself. But there’s really none of me in them, nothing I add to them that anyone else couldn’t.

A cute little girl kept coming back to my table, lamenting that she didn’t have the money to buy a wallet. I ended up giving her a spare notebook I’d made as an experiment and wasn’t intending to sell, but had to be firm with myself about not giving away my work for free. But I tried to show her that she could do it herself, which I figured would be much more valuable and fun.

Meanwhile, folks passed by the table, and I sat or stood, trying to measure how much communication was enough to be warm and interesting, yet not so much as to be overbearing or make them feel trapped or obliged. So many people picked up the novels, but nobody bought one. Not one.

My table-neighbour was Joanna Gibbs, who was there with her artist’s books and her own version of the loss-leader: tiny leather books on thongs — which, it turns out, were the ones I’d seen online that had inspired me to make my own. I’d brought a few of mine, but when I was setting up and saw hers out, I quietly put them back into my bag — partly because hers were so much nicer and so much more carefully made, and partly to not appear to be trying to undercut her reasonably higher price.

She and I had been talking earlier, and I quickly got the impression that she was a kindred spirit. Her work is a real exploration, both on the page and in the process she uses to make it, and as we talked I found doors and windows opening in my head, like she was somehow giving me permission and the ability to think differently about this book work.

At one point I turned and said to her out of the blue, “Why am I doing this?”

It wasn’t asking just because I hadn’t sold any novels, though from a practical business perspective the question is appropriate enough. I asked because I felt tired and a bit sad. I still do.

What’s that about?

I made about ninety quid from the day, which really doesn’t justify all the hours of work and travel I put in — though I do appreciate that it’s not nothing; it isn’t an awful result. Last Christmas in Toronto I did much, much better, so that kind of figure was in my head. Yet it isn’t about making money.

Sitting with myself just now, I poked about inside and asked what this was about. It’s that I’m a creative person who happens to be able to do certain things, but I don’t feel like this is expressing anything I’m about right now. I don’t feel like making stuff in an attempt to appeal to strangers — especially when that stuff isn’t even really committed creative work. It’s more like craft, and I have no real investment in being a craftsperson.

The really troubling bit is that I don’t know what my art is. There’s this book I’m busy not-writing, partly because I was occupied with preparing a bookbinding workshop then making books for this fair, which has crowded out any non-copywriting work. I also don’t know what I would express: I live in a place I’m not from, and I spend my days there working in an anonymous bubble. There’s nothing really for me to react to.

Joanna suggested that I’m in transition (and wondered aloud about what she was doing there, too, which was reassuring, like she might be going through a similar period). Getting her permission to just let that be, to go with it and let myself go slow and quiet while I figure out what I should be creating, that was a real help.

So… I quit. No more book fairs. Not for now. If I was going because I felt that was what was required of an indie author/publisher to stay relevant and sell books — well, that argument is blown. I’m just further and further establishing myself as the guy who gives away helpful information for free, and, creatively, there’s really nothing more in that for me. I’ve done it, I’m hugely gratified that it’s been helpful to some folk, and I’m finished. I retire from that.

It’s not enough for me to just live and have a job, though. Maybe it should be enough to just be a good husband to Craig, and that’s certainly a big priority for me. But I also need to be processing and reflecting on my passage through this world and doing it creatively. That’s vital, and seems to just happen as a function of who I am.

The challenge is living in a world where we’re defined by our output, and it feels like we have to keep repeating what I’ve done before. I can allow myself to stop doing that. I don’t need to be “an author” and I don’t need to keep showing face at book fairs, trying to flog may handicrafts. But there’s still that creative urge, and it’s disconcerting to have neither a form for it nor the content to fill a form.

In an infinite universe, I know that I’m no one and nothing, and I’m fine with that. But inside the sphere of my consciousness, I’m the mechanism by which the universe understands itself. And I’m not quite getting it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

It’s a bit like Dachau (I’ve been getting a perverse pleasure from the comic effect of dropping “Dachau” into sentences lately): I’m having these experiences and wanting them to change me so profoundly that they dictate what I have to do next. But if I’m honest, I’m not getting that message.

So yesterday I packed up the books that hadn’t sold into my rolly-bag (most of what I’d brought, including all the novels), and trundled out of the poetry library, over the shining wet cobbles where an Edinburgh Saturday night was just starting to gear up (groups of lads bumping together like icebergs and young women tottering on stick-thin heels). I was finished with book shows, but it was nothing so dramatic as “I’m finished with books”.

“What’s next?” That’s my question. I don’t feel any strong enough pull to be able to provide an answer from myself. I feel like a goose whose magnetic beak thingy isn’t working, so he keeps circling and circling the earth.

For today, I’m just going to land here in my pal’s flat and watch movies.

Hello, friend.

I’m here at the pub, ploughing through my e-mail, fiercely trying to get to “inbox zero,” and there’s one to-do I’m stumped by: when should I start my driving lessons?

After months of putting it off and genuinely not knowing how to choose, I finally picked a driving instructor. We’d exchanged a few e-mails, so I found out how this works and how much it costs (cue sharp intake of breath at the cost). I’d promised myself, Craig, and the lady who runs the local bulk food shop (we chat when I’m in) that I’d commit to lessons by September””so by contacting the instructor I just squeaked in on that deadline, technically.

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room, typing away, when I saw the instructor sitting in his car outside my window. After a moment of confusion (had he arrived to pick me up? what?), I saw that he’d just stopped there to send a text message””like a good driver””so I took the opportunity to go out and tap on his window. Then it was his turn to be surprised, but I told him who I was and we chatted about my options. His only concern was that I have my provisional licence. (Oh yes, I’ve had that for a year.)

He was really friendly, and that was the little bit of reassurance I needed. Thank you for that, Universe.

Now my conundrum: I’m really busy this month, going away to Germany for a week, then going to Edinburgh at the end of the month for the Scottish Poetry Library’s small press fair, By Leaves We Live. I need to make a lot of books for my table at that event, so it wouldn’t be fair to myself to stack driving lessons and studying for the theory test on top of that and my regular work (which is busy lately).

But that means starting in November. Then I go to Canada for December, and I don’t see myself getting comfortable and ready for my test in a single month. If I put it off until the new year, though, I’d really have to put it off until the spring, ’cause learning to drive in the middle of winter seems crazy.

(If you’re still reading this back-and-forth mental chatter, thank you.)

So what do you think? Is it worth starting””even if that means starting-and-stopping””just to get going? Or should I wait and do it all in a stretch?

I’m gone back to planning on paper. Again. Since getting the iPad, I moved my projects into a program called Things, which is very good. (And I’ve tried a lot of planning/time management programs through the years). But something about the process wasn’t sitting right.

The one obvious drawback I can point to is that this setup meant having to turn the computer on first thing in the morning to start my day. “Oh, I’ll just check my e-mail to see if there’s anything that urgently needs my attention. Oh, and look on Twitter. Might as well catch up with my news-feeds…” And before I know it, I’ve slid into my day with no plan. I need a plan.

Yesterday I drew up a new daily planner and a project planner page, then scanned, printed, and bound them into pads. This iteration of the daily page doesn’t have as many spaces on it as the last one because I found the tendency was to put an overwhelming amount of stuff on it. Really, if I achieve three things a day, I should be happy with myself. (Okay, my happiness-with-myself shouldn’t be conditional at all.)

Best of all, this system is mine. For some reason, that’s important.

Last night my friend Donald and I went to the Whaligoe Steps Café for an oatcake class with the café’s chef and co-owner, Karen. I guess enough of us raved about her oatcakes and asked for the recipe that she decided to share her secrets with us. Plus she’s always trying to come up with inventive new themed evenings and events for her patrons.

I’ve also added oats back into my diet over the last couple of months, and without getting into gastrointestinal details, I’ll just say that I’m convinced they do me good. So being able to make tasty oatcakes like Karen’s instead of buying the blah store-bought ones was an appealing prospect””particularly when they’re made of something that’s so cheap it’s practically free.

So here I’m going to shake my head and try to empty out what I remember, half so I won’t forget, half in case you’d like to try making them, and half because I haven’t blogged in a long time. *(Yes, my blog is a corner of the universe where it’s possible to have three halves.)

Ingredients & instructions

100 grams of oats, in the following proportion:

• 50% medium oats
  
• 20% jumbo oats
  
• 20% pinhead oats
  
• 10% finely milled oats (this acts as one kind of binder)

To this, add about 10 grams of brown rice flour to act as a binder (corn flour also works). I’m not keen on eating too much starch, but my experiments in low-carb cooking have proven to me that anything cracker-y or bread-y without a ‘real’ binder tends to turn into a mess that falls apart.

We experimented with adding all sorts of different dry seasonings, spices, and seeds””fennel, chilli flakes, sesame seeds, Maldon salt, black pepper, orange zest””and just about everything worked! (Black pepper was my favourite.)

Mix this up with your hands, then stir in one tablespoon of olive oil (optional, but it adds a better “mouth feel”, Karen said), and finally add a small splash of hot water. Now mix it all again.

It’s important that the mix clumps together but is not wet: if it’s wet, it’ll have to bake for longer, which changes the consistency and makes it more likely to burn.

Roll this out as flat and thin as you can between two sheets of baking paper (the silicone kind, not parchment, which will stick, apparently), then peel the top layer off. If the paper left heavy wrinkles in the surface, the oatcakes will be a bit ugly, so you can put the parchment back on and flatten them out. Then remove the parchment again for baking.

Why not cut out cookie-cutter circles like the oatcakes you get in stores? Because, Karen said, that means you end up working with about 1/3 of the dough while the rest gets put aside to set into a “glumpy” mass that’s much more difficult to roll and might as well be thrown out. Instead, Karen’s oatcakes are big, primitive looking sheets of crispy deliciousness that look like something Romans would eat.

And you know what? Karen informed us that Romans did eat oatcakes: They carried around oats, added some of the salt they got with their pay, and cooked up cakes on their shields! So much for oatcakes being a Caithness speciality.

Now put your rolled-out oatcake into the oven at 170°C for 12 minutes.

Partway through, though, take the oatcake out and flip it over, peeling off the parchment, and put it back into the oven so they other side can dry out evenly.

P.S. What about the bookbinding class I taught, or the relay race Craig and I ran, or having my Scottish family all visit at once? Well, that all happened, but I’m still a bit tired (though each of these was fun) and haven’t anything particularly enlightening to say. So instead you get a recipe.

I just saw this on the telly in the pub: a tandem bicycle event from the Paralympics. One of the people on the bike””presumably just one of them””is visually impaired.

My childhood best friend was in a wheelchair, and in the course of our friendship I developed a real distaste for the condescending way people speak about the disabled as “brave”, or use them as a reminder to feel better about their own situation. The Paralympics drive up all those feelings again.

That said, there is something awfully damned inspiring and moving about their achievements.

How have I not discovered Markdown before?

I’ve been writing marketing e-mails and website copy for over a decade, and text formatting has been a constant hassle. (I’ve got a database of old articles that are borked because all of their bolds, italics, and line-returns got stripped by the system my client was using at the time.)

Markdown is a way of coding text so you can get special formatting, like the above-mentioned bolding, italics, and links, but, unlike HTML, it’s very simple and is still readable by humans””in fact, it looks a lot like things we’re accustomed to doing when we want to use formatted text but it isn’t available, like:

"I *really, really* want to make a **point** here!!!"

…Which would render as “I really, really want to make a point here!”

So I’ve asked my project manager if I can start submitting work in this format, because I think it’s going to save our web team a lot of hassle. I know when I was doing web design I hated having to work with Word files””stripping out all the jumbled, awful code that program added, yet having to do a side-by-side, line-by-line comparison with the original to make sure I didn’t lose anything important from the original text.

If you write for the web, you should be using Markdown!

Before I get into that, my books are now available on Kobo devices!

So, the other day I was searching for a good gay novel, thinking I’d like to see what’s out there. Surely I’m not the only person writing fiction which features incidentally gay characters in the middle of a plot that isn’t about that.

Nope.

Here’s what I found (which I hesitate to even post here because it ventures so close to p*rn):

This makes me feel I have a duty to put something better out there. If that sounds snobby, so be it. I don’t care, because all that stuff above is not fiction, is not literature, it’s verbal pornography for wanking over. Sex-fantasy stories, the same coming-out story told over and over by people who are too old to be lingering over those images and should have something more to say by now, ‘forbidden love’ wish-fulfillment”¦

I’m not saying it should be censored, but if that’s the best we can imagine for ourselves, that breaks my heart.

Surely there’s better work out there, but you can’t find it for the vast sea of naked torsos.

I’ve pre-ordered Mike Rohde’s upcoming The Sketchnote Handbook, because I’m intrigued by this new form of communication””which I’ve been doing for years without having a name for it. But Rohde and others have made a business practice out of, essentially, doodling along to condense the ideas of a talk. I love it!

Could I add this to the things I do professionally? Would I want to? I don’t know, but I would like to cultivate the ability.

I’ve been making lots of notes on paper lately, and I want to collect these in one place””partly because it’s good to look back over these flashes of insight, and partly, I admit, because they look kind of pretty and I always wince a little when I crumple up one of these pages and throw it in the recycling.

So between last night and this morning I made myself a sketchbook:

I gave it ‘deckle’ edges, but I cheated and used a vintage photo trimmer that gives the paper a ragged look, yet is a lot quicker and a lot less effort than tearing each page. I guess I wanted it to look a bit rough, because a book that looks perfect is intimidating, and intimidating books stay on the shelf, unused.

I think I’m finally getting the spacing right between the book-block and the covers, so the resulting hinge works and doesn’t pull the insides away from the spine. (Sorry for the book-nerdiness there, but I’ve been struggling for a while to get this right.)

Testing the book out this morning, I discovered that the paper’s a bit bleedy for my fine markers. That’s sort of a shame, but then, it’s also an invitation to freely use up the pages and surrender that notion of having to produce “art”.

So I got started right away, thinking aloud on paper:

This is one of the best things about using shorthand: I can write any crazy stuff I like without an inkling of self-consciousness, ’cause only a handful of people in the world could read it””not that anyone would be bothered. (Though I do carry around a cheat-sheet of the principles in my back pocket.)

Some of the squares on my time-management boardgame pose a question or ask me to reflect in certain ways, so these pages were me getting around to answering those questions.

Gosh, it’s a good idea to talk to oneself! It’s amazing how much barely conscious material floats around in my noggin””which I can actually work with once I look directly at it.

Now it’s time to write an article, and this afternoon’s challenge is to work on an info-graphic for my client’s blog. This is something new! I’m fine with the ghostwriting being anonymous””that’s how that works””but I think I should push for credit for the graphics, if they work out.