As a rule, I avoid making New Year’s resolutions. They’re usually impossible o keep and I get sick of people going on endlessly about how they’re going to go the gym or whatever, only to moan six weeks later that their plans went out the window before they’d even started. Me, if I’m going to do something, I’ll do it when I’m read and when the time is right. New Year is a bad time to start anything, on a number of levels. Moreover, if I’m going to do something, rather than making a big song and dance about it, I just shut up and get on with it. Then, if I don’t achieve my objective, no-one’s any the wiser and I save myself shame and embarrassment.
Next month sees the publication of issue 2 of I’m Afraid of Everyone, a cool, no-budget old-school zine. The brainchild of a collective who go under the banner of King Ink, Issue 1 was dark, yet also darkly comical, a proper photocopy and staple job that goes against the tide of the slick digital publications and all the better for it. Issue 2 will feature a new piece of mine, entitled ‘Blaming Bukowski.’ Alongside this, I was asked for a few words abut what I’m afraid of. After some thought, I realised that my biggest fear is of failure. And yet I have failed. I fail often, an this year has been one endless failure for me.
Back in January, I vowed to publish less, even to blog less, and concentrate on longer pieces. As it’s nigh on impossible to write something substantial and maintain a level of output in the public domain at the same time, the plan was to sacrifice the latter in favour of the former. After I’d done the Clinical, Brutal thing, that was.
So January saw the publication of Clinical, Brutal… An Anthology of Writing With Guts, which has been doing pretty well. To promote the book, I conducted interviews with a number of the contributing authors. It was time-consuming but immensely rewarding. It also meant that articles with my name on kept appearing for the next two months.
While I may have continued into the summer without much by way of new fiction, I was kicking out music reviews like it was my day-job, and have now written and published some 325 of the things, while also blogging on MySpace most weeks and throwing the occasional article out in various other directions on-line. Some of those pieces have been requoted elsewhere, and done my profile no harm whatsoever, other than further spoil my plan to disappear for a while
In the last couple of months, after I stepped down from working for them for the foreseeable future, Clinicality Press have seen fit to publish my novella, From Destinations Set and a new collection of short stories, The Gimp. Ok, so they’ve emerged and remained under the radar for most so far, but that’s fine. I’m just happy they’re out there.
However, in a final self-defeating twist, I have recently begun to assail open mic nights and other such events with my presence and brief performances. Turns out I’m not terrible at it, but given my objective to operate as an ‘invisible’ author, I’m painfully aware that I’m breaking all of my own rules by doing this. I’ll be doing it again on December 10th. I’m Afraid of Everyone will be holding a launch night event for issue 2 at the Python Gallery in Middlesborough, and reading a selection of my latest writing. It’s good for business, and perhaps the heaviest promotion I’ve ever done, but given my aims for 2010, the price of any perceived success this may equate to is without doubt absolute failure.
I’m Afraid of Everyone’s on-line base is here: http://imafraidofeveryonemh.blogspot.com/
And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christphernosnibor.co.uk.
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