I had written some fiction books and a poetry compilation a while ago. I remember my first couple of books were more like pamphlets on art and graffiti. They were never in physical form but on Apple iBooks and I loved the technology and still do, they are free too. I outputted PDF’s so I could publish them if I wanted but they only made sense as something a gallery or curator could see on an iPad and they were a fast read. A lot of pictures to be honest and a kind of supporting text. I remember how exhausted I was after publishing them.

Every time I published a book I felt like I had been beaten within an inch of my life. I always avoided the writing part as much as possible. I read in a funny book about writing that a lot of writers do that. I understand why, it is kind of torturous. In high school I entered a writing competition and was highly commended. I loved reading so much and I still do. I don’t read as much as I should but I do read a lot in a haphazard way at least. I will have at least six books on the go at once, visiting them here and there.

I eventually finish one book only for another one to join the line up. At university in the 90s I did an elective in creative writing and wrote some beautiful work. It was a revelation for me. My writing these days pales in comparison. Also I had years where I couldn’t write at all because of my mental illness. As I recovered I read a lot of books and some books on writing as well. I read widely and even revisited key art theory essays. I managed to find my writer’s voice again.

For many years my writing voice was replaced by a kind of strange aggressive character which I couldn’t switch out of. It meant I had to avoid writing until I could recover. There are never any guarantees you will recover and I just took it a day at a time. I feel to some extent my writing never really returned to my old form in my 20s but it was a lot more flexible and I was more together years later in that I could actually publish and manage my life in a cohesive way.

When I was young I had three gifts: writing, visual art and a beautiful singing voice. I tried them all but stuck to art. Writing came back later and for a period I felt tired of visual art. For a few years I found art depressing and I felt like a failure at it. Writing and words suddenly became beautiful again. I was writing computer scripts and orchestrating digital text files. Exhibiting text to speech works and this led to writing books.

What led me back to visual art was the constant dreams of painting and drawing. Night after night and either I wanted to paint in the dream and something was stopping me. Then in another dream I was painting and it was flowing and it felt so natural and wonderful. I have had the desire to write a book as a social commentary over the past few years and I started it only to shelve it. In a way I can see why I am avoiding it.

Writing is not particularly fun at times and I need to write more articles to clarify key concepts. Normally the writing itself leads to some kind of cohesive point but I need a catalyst. I feel like I need to spend more time pondering and just sitting quietly with ideas. A lot of the ideas that keep turning over in my washing machine brain have been concepts tied to Chinese agricultural calendars.

They are kind of open ended in that they are multi-layered. Or at least philosophical ideas can be gleaned or even superimposed on top of this ‘grid’ which is based on ‘natural’ cycles. I read this book on philosophy a few years back and there was an introduction that regaled idiocy in philosophy and I am no philosopher but more of an idiot. I am in no way trying to write a book on philosophy so we can ditch that idea.

I guess it could just be some mouthpiece for socialism or some fluff. A few years back a few of my old mates were messaging me and they were returning to juvenile stuff that I just shut down in the hope we could all just grow up. I met other friends for example through new people in my life and they would offload their viewpoint which was cool to me but as soon as I presented an idea it was ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and I was like, no it is about being happy with who and where you are in life.

So I have been on this thing about the King and Pauper both being allowed to have a good life. It is socialism in essence but it is really about not allowing suffering for the sake of ‘the have and have nots’. It is also not about allowing people who aren’t trying to inherit whatever and I was on this mission to see people respect themselves wherever they are and whoever they are. There will always be some discrepancies and breaks in logic.

But what gets me in my dealings with people in reality as soon as I introduce this logic, I never forced it. I just added it to the conversation. These people put me in the too hard basket and rather than being direct they just avoid me. The messages stop, the lunch invites disappear. So writing a whole book on this kind of logic seems like a suicide mission in todays world especially. Also can I be bothered making more of an idiot of myself than I already have? Time will tell.