The metal whale dies slowly under the light of a mercurius moon, spilling git’s burdens into the liquid horizon above. The sea is the only one who stays until the end, hypnotised, intoxicated, by the orchestra of ripples that drift down to the deep.

She is the silent sentinel, the ghostly celebrant, that welcomes the whale’s veiled descent. Bubbles part, fizz, trail behind the carcass, a cacophony, a symphony colouring a monochrome world.

With many groans and dissatisfied sighs, the whale finds its final rest on the dark floor. And still, the ripples rain down from above. There is something wordlessly sad about the little bodies in their colourful seaweed wraps, polished oyster shells gleaming around necks and fingers. The shoeless child. The handfasted friends. A single, unbroken violin. And still, it rains.

In fits and starts, echoes and phantom notes, the opus comes to a whispering end. When the sun rises into the liquid horizon above, silence is dawn’s only companion.

The world swims on.
 
---
Prompt: Write a creative piece of Titanic's sinking. 20 minutes of writing.
 

What if it wasn't a crime? Or of the act was justified? Humans are so strange with their words. Meanings twisted and reworked. Lines blurred and redrawn, again and again. Crows too, but we are stranger.

The time is now, the wind is with me, rare within turbulent walls. I swoop. Snatch. Drunk on the power of one victorious moment. Interrupting the silence of my own success is my own lurid cawing. Ha! Ha! To gloat is my nature, and also my demise. 

I am fast, but the human is faster, aided by the unnatural advantage of his metal machinations. BAM. BAM BAM. The shots reverberate through my hollow bones, more shocking than the bullets themselves that shoot past. 

The fickle wind abandon me, curse this ever unreliable friend. I spin and plummet, gracelessness shakes me by the wings, and I, a master of it's force, wrangling it for altitude, the kind of distance that humans can't close. My prize wears me down. Curse it's illustrious weight. Damn these gleaming stones and the mesmerizing gold that binds them. Ruby and sapphire. Emerald and amethyst. Mine! Mine! 

Almost.

BAM.

The last shot proves me false. The blinding pain grounds me, obliterates my victory. Still, I refuse to let go. I land, postering tall, and while the human towers over me, he can not out-glower this crow.  My glare gives him a moment's pause. Good. Know your place, human. 

"Hand it over and no one gets hurt." The human's meat-beak is squawking inconsequentially.

With a shift of my wings, I signal my brethren. As reliable as the wind, a fury of black wings descends upon the human raucously.  I join their obnoxious cries as I limp away with our prize.

​---

Prompt: high stakes, fear of being caught, injustice, desperate need to prove innocence.  Elements of suspension, tension, and drama, outwit pursuers, clear name. 20 minutes.

I've emerged briefly from speed nanowrimo (50k in 5 days) to share the story's play list.  Blue Balls is the sixth story in a series that I've been revisiting the last few years, specifically for nanowrimo, because the characters are such fun to write.  Next year will likely be the last time.  Like DND. Once your characters level up to 9+, it's really hard to find realistic challenges for them.  A competent dungeon master, I am not. 

I think that I will continue to cringe, which could be a good thing. Hear me out.

When I first wrote Death March, I thought it postable. Good enough at least for half a morning's work motivated by some friendly competition. And the idea behind it is still cute. I can see it as an The Office/ Fight of the Conchords style TV series.

It's not so much of a turd that I can't polish it.  So I've done a bit more of a proof read, tweaked some lines, and now it's part of my website. 

Here it is: Death March.  

Am I procrastinating on addressing some examiner comments for my thesis revisions?  Yes. Yes I am.

Reading through the last few blog entries feels like groundhog day.  Still having kids, still shackled to the PhD (though I'm up to revisions now!!!), still mired in work.  In the brief window while Child 1 is with the grannies for school holidays, I'm knocking off at 5pm to read and write - ah, bliss.

I'm reading through the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik again after the 3rd book came out on Tuesday, and I binge read through it in a night.  Unwise when you have a 5 week old Child 2, but so right.  There's nothing I can say about it that won't give the twists and turns away, other than I thoroughly enjoy these unexpected themes.  

Google Docs reminds me that I've edited my Goats Island/ Vert Glace story re-write in the past week.  Each time I dive into that world, I can taste the air, the endless expanse of glittering sky, and I can see the verdant world, even with my eyes open.  It's like taking my senses on holiday from this beachside town which I inhabit as it grows with alarming pace into a city.

The Tessa onramp is already on fictionpress, but I've tweaked it since then, and I am thinking of moving my stories just onto my website (I know, less foot traffic, but I use this website more like a writing shed anyway). 

Here it is: The Final Exam.

I have five new habits I want to cultivate this year, and one of them is to engage in some creative endeavour every day.   Yesterday, I did not.  But typing these words now and re-establishing my connection with creative writing will count for today, I think. 

It's crunch time for my PhD.  Writing the last chapter, making edits to my chapters, has been particularly gruelling.  The hardest part is getting over myself. I noticed that I have the largest "I'm not smart, and I have to work doubly hard compared to everyone else"  chip on my shoulder, which is not how I want to approach life.

2020's nano saw the 4th book in the Ally series, and I actually did finish a very rough first draft this time!  It's called Tokyoto, excerpt below.  The name 100% represents the crazy Japanese vibe I rode for six days to finish this story.

Beside me, the husband finished his awesome Australian outback fantasy story, King's Quokka, and then started his own very first sequel, Queen's Quokka.  Warning - there was a scene in King's Quokka that was so funny that I laughed until I vomited.  So I'm not sure if his books are entirely safe to read...

Not sure when I will resurface again. Hopefully soon, given the habit I want to form this year.  And I should be free from the shackles of study soon.

----
Except from Tokyoto
----
There is a fate worse than death, and that is the cold.  It steals my screams, forbids my tears, and still I am denied my death.  Snow swirls around me, a dazzling gateway to the world beyond that has claimed my betters. To them, death was not denied.

Inside me, the terrible voice.  MY WILL THAT SHALL BE DONE.

Ahead of me, the terrible task.

She sits on the lip of the brimming well. It's the only thing not frozen.  She wears a pained, confused expression.  Her black hair drips in wet strands, trailing down to the water, choking the well.  She looks up to see me, and shows me her wet hands.  In one world, it's just water.  In another world, it's blood.  In this world, it is a bruised wine, the colour of the irremediable.

"It's not working," she say, lost. 

My grip is tight, so tight that, despite the numbing cold, I can feel the unravelling braid on the grip of my sword digs into my palms.

I don't reply.  Can't reply.  In the place where my breaking heart should be, that terrible voice, the unyielding compulsion.  IT SHALL BE DONE.

The sword feels weightless in my hand as I lift it above my head.  My body executes a pure arch of steel. 

Her body falls forward, pieces onto the snow. 

I fall too. IT IS DONE.  The compulsion leaves me.

The next breath I take is mine. Finally mine.  It is bitterly cold and my lungs squeeze it back out in a choking sob.

My free hand reaches for her, though it suddenly feels impossible to move.  Without the terrible force within me I am just a man. A mortal.  Still, sometimes that is enough.  My fingertips brush hers. 

I close my eyes and wait for my promised demise.

​

I've never written a 3rd book in a series before, but there's no time like nano!  Husband and I are on the tail end of a few days holiday given that a conference I had planned to attend was cancelled.  What do a married couple do when they have a few days booked in a luxury hotel sans child? 

They write 50 000 words each, of course.

Secret Past and More Nuns is the third book in the St Sabina series. It's not finished by a long shot, but there's a good 50 000 fevered words that would otherwise not be there. 

I've enjoyed this experience immensely and I look forward to 5 days 50k becoming a family tradition. 

Oh man, how having a kid changes the centre of the universe. But it's never just one thing because my mouth likes to write cheques my body can't cash. So 2018 passed in a blur of my PhD, having a kid, and starting a clinic. I thought I could put writing on the back-burner until I finished the PhD, but it keeps creeping back in my life, and I still love it. Sending husband and child to the grandmother for feeding up during the pandemic has allowed me to work crazy hours and regain some of the energy I didn't realise I'd been bleeding away these last 2 years. 

I sat down two weeks ago with a bit of a plan to finish editing the St Sabina story I wrote for nano many moons ago. I did make some progress with line edits before procrastinating on the unfinished Book 2. 

This morning, I finished Book 2! Productive procrastination. Productination?

I have my broke back to thank for this down time. If I wasn't confined to bed for most of the past 4 days, I wouldn't have vomited out the last 5-6k words Book 2 needed. 

To be honest, I'm thinking of f-ing off the PhD to write more. Not sure if I have the guts though.
​

I have resurfaced briefly to write about a pair of workshops I attended today by Kathleen Jennings.  Kathleen is a talented, Brisbane based artist whose works grace the pages and covers of numerous books.  If you did nothing else but visit her website, that would be enough to realise how incredible it is that she would travel up to the small heritage town of Maryborough.  Maryborough, the town known amongst certain circles as having the most pubs per capita in all of Australia.

Describing Kathleen as an illustrator would do her a disservice.  A more fitting term would be storyteller. A bard who sings with a pen. 

Her first workshop, Marvellous Birds, opened my eyes to the power of whimsy and reinforced the importance of putting something down on paper.  We drew circle birds, beaky birds, fancy birds.  We drew birds from books, from figurines, from each other’s drawings.  Lots and lots and lots of birds started filling up the pages.  It was truly marvellous.

In the second workshop, Narrative Art Masterclass, Kathleen’s treatment of the craft is a combination of how a vet is with a cat, a philosopher is with a Rubik’s Cube, and with some pop-rock candy sprinkled in between.  She found a way to inject fun and richness into storytelling, combining familiar senses and familiar stories in unfamiliar ways.  From Three Little Pigs and A Knight’s Tale I wrote one magical line:  The wind and the wolf conspired to change the stars. 

I really like the fresh perspective that Kathleen brings to storytelling.  It’s a bonus that she’s as generous as she is ingenious, and she has an encyclopaedic knowledge of fiction.  Today was the most fun I’d had in months.  

It’s the middle of the night and I can not sleep.  Only recently have I developed this not-sleeping problem, a problem that I have not had before in my life.  Still not quite sure how to deal with it.  Tonight, I sat down at my laptop and opened a blank document, thinking that I’d write something.  Words came to mind pretty quickly, but theory rather than fiction.  Nevertheless, I’ve decided to post it here for now because these are just my clinical musings and not technically empirically based.  Insight into Augie the psychologist rather than Augie the writer. 

Thoughts on Verbal Operants in Treatment of Anxiety
Without a stable base of self from which to reason and soothe, it is very difficult to use exposure to reduce distress because in these cases, exposure does not lead to inhibitory responses; there is just no cognitive ability for an individual to trust their own reasoning.  Therefore, it may be necessary to develop statements of specific qualities first to try and build some stability in the way of thinking. 

In my mind, these statements might incorporate the following qualities: generalised, flexible, accepting, and believable.

These sorts of statements are different to those found, let’s say, in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is a type of anxiety disorder.  OCD thoughts are often ridged, avoidant of complexity, and sometimes nonsensical.  The purpose they serve is to reduce short term distress, which is fair, however, they bypass any meaningful problem solving which creates more distress in the long term.

Generalised Statements:
Statements that are generalised are applicable over a number of contexts and thus more likely to generate wide-spread behaviour change.  An example of a general statement that may produce stability is, “While not all factors are within my control (and that’s ok), I can still try my best.”

Flexible Statements:
The quality of flexibility in statements adds sensitivity to specific contexts.  It makes a statement less of a rule and more of a guide.  Using a guide rather than a rule helps us experiment in new environments.  If we are rigidly bound to any statement, including, “I always try my best”, we are closing ourselves off to possibilities, for example, when we are not our best or when we don’t want to be our best.  An example of a flexible statement that may assist in stability in specific contexts is, “Even though I like to try by best, there are times when I am not my best (and that’s ok)”.  Even more specific may be a statement such as, “I messed up there. I can’t change that.  I can only try and do differently next time (and that’s ok).”

Accepting Statements:
The bracketed additive of ‘and that’s ok’ in each of the example is implied.  It is intended as an acceptance of potential limitations.  The reason acceptance is important is that it helps us focus on what matters.  Even when there are certain issues in the world that are definitely not ok, the energy used and distress created thinking about the extra problems takes precious resources away from the current issue.  It’s like trying to multitask; we might be able to do a few things at once, but each extra task we have to attend to means spreading our resources, and there’s no end to the tasks we could be doing.  Acceptance of other problems (if only temporary) helps us focus on the problem at hand and increases our ability to tackle it.

Believable Statements:
Last, but not least, believable statements are ones that are perceived to predict reality.  The believability of statements will depend on an individual’s past experience.  Believable statements incorporate our existing systems of problem solving into our stable base from which new reasoning may occur; they provide a continuation of self through change.  It's hard to provide a believable statement because they are subject to such personal bias.  I suppose a believable statement for me would be, "Even if I tried my best every day, I will still have bad days".  I know this might sound depressing, and when I first came to this realisation sunlight dimmed a bit, but now it is a source of relief for me - it helps me focus on doing what is meaningful rather than doing for the purpose of avoiding distress.

Note: The reason I am tentative about the examples proposes is that we are all wired a bit differently and what a statement means to me can have a different meaning to others.  Furthermore, when the mind is resistant to change, it can easily dispose of any concrete example.  Openness to new experience is a crucial component of behaviour change, and ‘small wins’ in the beginning are important in facilitating openness… but that’s another topic.

Another Note: Again, another topic, but the word ‘self’ that I use a number of times is something not clearly defined in this piece of writing, and perhaps not clearly defined in my mind.  I suppose it could mean the accumulation of learning from an individual’s past experiences, organised by language.  To explore this concept further, I have to touch on a wonderful idea called Relational Frame Theory.  It goes like this:  humans accumulate different ways to associate stimulus over the course of their development, acquiring increasingly complex ways of connecting their experiences using language.  For example, we might learn frames of co-ordination, linking a sound to an object.  We might learn frames of opposition that helps us distinguish different objects (e.g. distinguishing a cat from a dog).  We might learn temporal frames which helps us sequence time.  We might learn deictic relationships that help us distinguish different perspectives based on location of observation.  All these connections work together to provide a sense of self; strings to form a web as it were.  In other words, the self exists as the network rather than any one string.  Stability is in the sense of connection rather than any particular connection itself.  Depending on the making and atrophy of certain connections, the shape of the web may change over time, but we can get a sense of overall web or ‘self’ nonetheless.