If not now, when?
With bereavement still fresh, this is surely no time to launch a Substack but a writer has to write, right?
THIS is a crazy time to be starting a new venture, but idleness and the devil's hands, as the saying goes; it's not as if I haven't got enough to wrestle with.
Still, what is an author if not a glutton for punishment?
At the end of January, I decided I needed a break so I stepped back from some of my 'extra-curricular' activities. Technically, I still feel I need that break, but recently my circumstances have shifted to a whole new reality.
For the last three years to March, I'd been looking after my dad as his unpaid carer. He had dementia. Sometimes, dealing with its surrealities, I felt like I was catching it myself. Despite the demands, I managed to keep writing. Hell, it kept me sane (more or less).
Towards the end of last year, though, the toll was beginning to tell. Articles that should have taken an hour or two to write were taking days. Copy that should have taken a couple of days was taking weeks to turn around.
So a decision was made to back off for a while. The vague plan was to pause my main author blog, and my experimental Substack, outHouse for a few months, and focus more on my next novel. So far, so good...
A fortnight or so later, my father went into hospital following a fall. The prognosis wasn't good and eventually we made the decision to bring him home to receive palliative care in familiar surroundings, kept company by his family.
Sadly he passed away in March. After three years, my watch has ended.
Naturally, since then there has been much to sort out and organise. No longer a carer, I must look to my future. I stand not so much at a crossroads, as a spaghetti junction, but whatever route I take, my livelihood is a prime concern.
One thing that remains, I am still a writer. Whether I stand on the verge of becoming a 'former journalist' is another matter. On that one, the situation remains to be seen. I have all my digits crossed, which makes typing interesting.
Things are a little chaotic then. There were the funeral arrangements; there were his affairs to sort out. Then there's the accumulated relics of my parents' lives to sift through and sort. Sometimes it feels like an archaeological dig. It's proving a poignant time.
Then there's my 'own house to get in order'. Untangle the threads of recent years; find a job; get my writing back on track; crack on with that novel; get back out into the world.
Honestly, there are times when I feel like Gollum blinking in the unfamiliar sunlight, having finally crawled out of his cave. Thanks first to covid lockdown, then the demands of dementia, I've been borderline housebound these last three years. It's been a strange period, but for all the emotional ups and downs, I wouldn't change it.
What with one thing and another, though, my writing has taken a backseat these last few months. Inevitably, I've found myself questioning my priorities, even the realities, of my endeavours. Am I, even, a writer at all, or just some word-doodling chancer?
Well, I have ever been a martyr to ill-confidence and imposter syndrome. Some things never change.
Anyway, I have no idea why I am writing this, or yet contemplating posting it on Tome of an Obscure Scribbler. I guess it gives some idea of the confused situation I'm coming from right now.
Besides, I have a new venture to feed, and little – as yet – nourishment to provide. I'm a writer. I'm a journalist. Maybe I was a journalist, we'll see. I have to retake my seat before the words fade and leave me a husk.
So, I throw myself back into the fray – into the deep end – with this Substack; no clue what I'm doing, making it all up as I go along, hoping it leads to some sense of purpose and direction. A few readers might be nice, but you can't have everything. At least, not all at once.
For now, I'm taking it easy. Posting as and when. Wondering whether to revive my dormant outHouse or let it rest in its yesterdays, contemplating my tomorrows, sliding back into the rhythm of my muse.
It'll all make sense, eventually. Maybe this Substack will help.
MC