A lot of people now have said to me that this Substack should become a book. This is clearly a compliment, and I take it as such. But I'm pretty sure it won't happen.
First, there is the fact that few publishers will likely be interested. There are already plenty of memoirs available in which people recount a sudden, catastrophic, disabling life change. And for obvious enough reasons, they don't tend to sell that well with the general public. Hence publishers are wary. It might be different if I had pre-existing name recognition – like Times columnist Melanie Reid, or author and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi – but I don’t. I am just some bloke that a bad thing happened to. And yes, maybe I can write about it in an unusual, eye-catching because brutally honest, way. But that likely won’t be enough to cut the mustard in terms of contracts.
Friends of mine have published books in the trade press before, and I know from watching them that getting manuscripts accepted tends to be a laborious and long-winded process. It would be no different for me, and indeed probably harder. If I really felt passionate about getting this out as a book, then I would happily undertake the work and give it the required shot. But I just don’t think that I do.
For a start, Reid’s The World I Fell Out Of already does a really good job of conveying (insofar as it is possible) the unimaginable horror of high level spinal injury. So no book version of my posts would add much that is new in that regard. Sure, I offer a bit more philosophical pondering than your average catastrophe narrative, but if anything, that narrows my market appeal; makes it even less appropriate for this to be a book.
Of course, I appreciate that a small but dedicated following has arisen for my posts – many people that I have never met have communicated with me to say that they find my writing in some way helpful, or worthwhile. And that is great. But it also pushes me in the direction of thinking that I have already found the natural home for what I'm doing. After all, it is far easier to share web links than books, and people are far more likely to chance a blog recommendation than they are to spend hard cash on yet another misery memoir. Insofar as my blog fills a niche for certain kinds of readers, it is surely best kept online.
If my writings have meant something to others, or helped other people, that is wonderful. But the motivations for writing this have always been much more focused on myself. When I started this, it was for two broad sets of reasons. The first was largely due to the fact that when I was lying in hospital unable to even put food in my own mouth, I was profoundly terrified that I had lost literally everything – not just my body, but my mental faculties as well. Starting this Substack reassured me that my mind was not completely gone. It also gave me something to focus on: I could plan posts in my head, and kill hours at a time laboriously dictating them into an iPhone (upgraded to a laptop when I finally left hospital for a care home). Furthermore, writing posts was a good way of feeding one of my long-standing pathologies: an always nagging fear of being useless. Indeed, the irony is that when I started this, I told myself that this would become a book one day. I reached for my familiar psychological safety blanket of having a “project”; told myself that the year I spent recovering from my accident would not be “wasted” because I would “have a book to show for it” (so I would have “justified” my university letting me keep my job). Whilst probably not the healthiest attitude I could have taken too my situation, in the medium term it did help to get me through.
The other broad reason why I started the blog was simply as a way of communicating with other people. Friends and family could check in – as unpleasant as it probably was, most of the time – and get a sense of where I was at. Similarly, it started to have the useful function of being shared with people whom I hadn’t yet broken the news to, with more than a couple of people that I still consider friends, but hadn’t seen for a long while, stumbling across it. This actually saved hell of a lot of awkward conversations, and I think helped others as much as me.
Over the long months, however, it seems pretty clear that my writing evolved into something else: a very public form of autobiographical psychotherapy. Trying to sort out my thoughts, organise them coherently, and present them in a way made intelligible to others, not only allowed me to bring my analytic faculties more fully online (after eight months in hospital, I could literally feel myself becoming stupider), it had a therapeutic effect. There is no doubt that my consciousness remains a swirling mass of despair, fleeting optimism, resignation, self-loathing, bitterness, and a pessimism that is only ever one step away from blind panic. But without this Substack, I think it would be even worse.
Along the way, the early fixation on “making this into a book” has faded for me. That turns out not to be what I was doing it for, week in week out. Indeed, it seems significant that in the past few weeks, writing these posts increasingly feels like a chore. I start imagining that I “have” to write a post because my audience “expects” me to update them. Yet when psychotherapy becomes obligation, it’s not going to be very good as therapy. (And yes, I do recognise that this sense of obligation is entirely emanating from inside my own head – but then, that is the problem.)
I wonder if perhaps this Substack’s role – its proper time and place – corresponds precisely to that year when I was forced to live as an institutionalised inpatient. Now that I have been released, now that I must try and find a new way to live on the outside, it may be that I have said what I had to say in this format. The natural conclusion may already have dawned.
At the very least I will leave my writings here, where they may be stumbled upon by those who find them somehow helpful, or worthwhile. How much more I continue to write in this venue, in this format, however, remains to be seen. After a year of torturous limbo, my new life has finally begun, and I do not yet know what shape it will take, what it will contain.
There was a YouTuber I used to follow who specialised in horror movie reviews. Her videos were well made. There was a friendly, non-threatening air of a Sunday school teacher about her presentation which amused me, given the subject matter. However, what really interested me was that, prior to making videos, she had dabbled in music and had put some of it up on Soundcloud. She was doing interesting things with song structure; she could deviate into abstraction without it being jarring. There was a sense of someone going their own way creatively. Added to that, elements of a personality that she was consciously burying in her videos came through in her lyrics. While the mixing of the songs was muddy (although for me that was part of the charm) there was a definite spark.
Sparks have a short-lived existence and they are often stamped out before they can kindle. A few years ago, after announcing that she felt overwhelmed, she vanished from the Internet, never to heard from again. Assuming that nothing dire happened to her, I admired her decision to let go of something that worked for her once, but that wasn't working any more. It is easy to reconcile with the nagging dissatisfaction that arises from hunkering down in the rut that you've made for yourself. A lot of people spend their entire lives doing just that.
The entry to which this comment is attached is is the most optimistic I have read since arriving on your Substack. While you might convincingly argue that's a low bar to hurdle, you no longer come across as someone who is clinging desperately to whatever flotsam happens to drift within arm's reach. You write like a man who recognises he has options and a future. The impulse to critically examine something that held utility in the past, and to consider whether it still holds utility, is a sign of someone moving forward in their life.
I assume that if you do write a book, then it will either be the kind of serious academic work whose premise flies over my head after the first few sentences, or something in the vein of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that blends experience and philosophy. The latter might be the more interesting option, though probably also the more painful to write.
Thoughts that consciously dwell on matching or subverting the expectations of an audience are a sign that you either no longer believe in what you are doing, or that you've outgrown it. A few years ago I was having moderate success as a writer. Publishers weren't banging on my door but I was getting short stories in journals. Pieces of my writing were being performed at home and abroad. I was even making a little money, but something felt off. I felt like I was stuck in orbit - one that was not of my choosing - circling but never going anywhere.
I reflected on some other writers I knew who were in a similar position. It was obvious that they were on a treadmill and it followed that I was too. That troubled me, because I want my creative endeavours to be a progression, not necessarily in terms of career or anything tangible, but certainly in terms of intent.
I stopped writing for a couple of months while I pondered the question: 'What the hell am I doing?' - a phrase that I think I might enshrine as a personal motto, in Latin for the sake of tradition and authenticity. The accompanying crest will incorporate a confused unicorn that evidently hasn't been instructed on where to stand or what pose to assume.
The conclusion I arrived at is that I am happier when I am writing. I am more engaged in the world and more appreciative of my surroundings. Writing fiction allows me to address experiences that I will never discuss with anyone, and will take with me to my grave, in a way that is transformative. The process of writing holds more value for me than the finished product.
I thought about how I could continue to write in a way that was meaningful. The first thing I did was detach myself from my past. I stopped writing under my real name and switched to my present alias which is an anagram of my Christian name and my surname. I reduced the number of short stories I churned out and instead turned my focus on novels which I find I prefer. I resolved to write what I wanted to write, rather than pandering to gatekeepers, which is a miserable and dishonest way to live.
The genuine reason why you do something often takes time to reveal itself. What you originally identified as the purpose, was only the larval stage of your understanding. It turns out that it was something completely different; usually something more personal.
Well, whether or not you write here are again I’ll look forward to hopefully seeing you IRL at some point. And yes, writing here mustn’t become an obligation. I like Jane’s comment though, about a more philosophy-focussed book, that could be the core of a longer-term idea if it appeals.
I have this abiding memory of you hovering at some point outside my office, probably pre-Covid, and I said what’s up, and you said, “I think I just told a Dean in the [another department] to fuck off”, so I invited elaboration, and it proved that yes you had in fact done that.
Come back. We have more people we need you to tell to fuck off.