It’s World Book Day. At least, I hope it is, or I should probably expect a concerned phone call from my kids’ school after they went in dressed as Alice in Wonderland and a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings.

It’s also high time I wrote an update to my own book-writing endeavours. I’m proud to say that my first draft is complete. It’s two months behind schedule thanks to another bout of the world’s most popular respiratory virus (and all the long covid complications that means for me), but I got it over the line nonetheless.

Well, over the first line, at least. It turns out that there’s quite a bit more work to do. Last week, after six jubilant hours of (premature?) celebration, I started to re-read my draft manuscript and my bubble burst a bit. I became increasingly despondent with every passing paragraph as I choked on my overindulgent prose filled with laboured sentences, heavy-handed dialogue and a host of other ‘amateur hour’ mistakes, as well as some glaring narrative inconsistencies that demand rewrites. 

Thankfully, those habits seem to thin out as the book goes on, so perhaps I’m seeing my writing style develop over the 85,000 words. I’ve still got faith in the overall story, and I’m very proud of some chapters, but I’ve certainly got some literary paramedic-ing to do.

I have been reassured by various guides, articles, podcasts and videos by authors and editors (and of course directly by Drew and Tim, whose experience, insight and support as published authors continue to be invaluable) that this is entirely normal. At least I hope so, because my imposter syndrome is trying to set up its own office.

So what next? 

Well, before I dare let another human cast eyes over what I’ve written, I need to get my editor hat on. My first step will be to write a new synopsis which will help me to reassemble the overall plot in my head. I’m still quite surprised how much the planned story has evolved and deviated from what I originally set out to write. I’ve also started to flatter myself by looking into literary agents. But therein lies the primary cause of my imposter syndrome, so not too much of that. Then I’ve got to roll up my sleeves and start cutting, changing and improving the text itself before sending it to beta readers.

My alpha ‘readers’ have been uncompromising in their feedback. I’ve been reading it to my children at bedtime, which has been an interesting challenge, but it certainly helps to expose elements that don’t work. Although those are the very parts that seem to get them to sleep quicker, so there’s a fringe benefit to bad writing.

My expectations remain realistic. I hope to be able to produce a finished novel that will be worthy of publication, but there are no guarantees. In any case,  I realise now that it won’t be in time for Michael’s 18th birthday on 15 April this year. I will have to be content with the fact that the story exists, albeit in draft form. 

It’s been an emotional ride so far, and I’m pleased to have got this far. The return of my migraines and fatigue (thanks Omicron) has definitely slowed my progress, but I shrugged it off before, and will do it again. Pass me the aspirin.

Onward.

It’s hard to know what to say on a day like today.

My nephew Michael would have been 18.

After spending the last year writing about him in a fictional sense, it’s difficult to come back to the reality of his absence. I prefer to imagine.

I imagine I’d probably have been taking him out for his first legal pint (which he’d almost certainly hate) and talking to him about what it means to be an adult; I mean, one of us would hopefully figure it out. Especially with beer.

Then I’d take ownership of the pint that he’d abandoned, try to say something meaningful to mark the occasion, quoting Kipling or something, mess it up and give him the car keys in resignation.

Designated drivers! That would be the meaningful lesson of the day.

After all, Michael liked driving and would have had his licence by now, given the opportunity. And I suspect that would become the theme of our conversation: opportunity.

I wonder what he’d have made of the past three years he missed, if he’d had the opportunity?

If he’d survived, he’d have probably have barely noticed COVID-19 lockdowns – having effectively been in personal lockdown since the age of nine due to chemotherapy, immuno-suppression et al. It would have been business as normal. Or perhaps he would have raged at yet another reason he couldn’t go swimming. I also suspect he would have been disappointed at the lack of zombies. Nonetheless, now he would have his whole life ahead of him, and we could have talked about what he was planning to do with it.

He had ambitions to be a HGV driver, which makes me wonder what he’d have made of the Brexit/Dover fiasco. Unlike his grumbling remoaner uncle, I think he would have seen opportunity. Plenty of lorry driving jobs now, after all. I’d probably have muttered something about hoping he enjoyed sitting in queues and shitting in bushes. Because swearing is okay now too, okay? He wouldn’t have approved.

But I shouldn’t discourage him from becoming a noble knight of the road (as Mum used to describe old-school lorry drivers). Because Michael also liked tanks, and I’d worry he’d somehow see an opportunity in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He’d be following the coverage I’m sure, if only to identify all the vehicles he recognised from the war games he enjoyed playing. I’d try to talk sagely about the horrors of war and he’d tune me out and change the subject. I don’t know how I’d deal with that one. I know we shouldn’t look away, but at the same time I wouldn’t want to encourage the fetishisation of war.

But ultimately, he would be an adult. Entitled to make his own mind up, and he would have upheld the long-standing family tradition of ignoring everything the older windbags have to say.

I would have respected that, and been proud (and okay, a bit annoyed). But mostly, I’d have been glad that he had the opportunity.

But he didn’t. So we can only think of him and wonder what might have been, and make the best of our opportunities while we can.

Cheers Michael, happy birthday fella. See you in the next room.

It’s been several months since I finished my novel. It feels like a lifetime, but I have little to show for it aside from the satisfaction of having written a whole 85,000-word metaphysical fantasy story that almost no one has read.

By finished, I mean a third draft including feedback from beta readers (thanks folks). It felt like I’d reached the point where I was rearranging sentences that I’d previously pondered and arranged. I took that as a sign that it was done.

Naively, I thought the hard bit was over, but it turns out that finding a literary agent to help me along the road to publication is a Sisyphean task. I’m starting to suspect J.K. Rowling was trying to warn us through the metaphor of quidditch and its frustratingly elusive golden snitch.

Back in May, having used up the last of my leave fretting over which literary agents to submit my work to, I went back to my grown-up job having only found two potentially suitable agents who were accepting submissions from debut authors (these two criteria really narrow the field). Bills needed paying and life goes on. After all, the ‘write novel’ bucket list entry had been ticked. Technically.

Sadly, the ‘if you don’t hear from us in twelve weeks’ calendar lines have long since been crossed. I’ve been routinely scouring my inbox and spam folder for a response, but I’ve not seen anything among the false positives generated by well-meaning messages from Jericho Writers, Reedsy et al.

To address this, now I’ve booked some time off work to once again focus on finding a literary ally to champion my work, but I’m left wondering what mistakes I’m destined to repeat that led to previous submissions being filed in the ‘circular file’. What should I change in future submissions? What am I getting right? Oh the anxiety! It seems like you need an agent to represent yourself to agents. I’ve now read and watched so many guides to finding a literary agent, I’m considering creating a Jonathan Pie/Alan Partridge alter-ego literary agent to create my own spoof guide (‘Ten things you shouldn’t not do if you’d like to not have an agent who won’t represent your book’).

To be fair to literary agents, my use of my time off so far has probably not been optimal for seeking out my perfect representative. I’m fairly sure they’d be quick to point out that laying a new kitchen floor, entertaining the kids in half-term, and conducting a thorough hour-by-hour heat distribution survey of my house isn’t really going to get that manuscript onto their desk (but we still haven’t turned the heating on – take that Putin!). But, you know, I’ve got to channel this writerly angst somewhere.

In any case, that work begins in earnest again now. Once again I’ll scour the guide sites and my copy of the Writers & Artists Yearbook 2022 in the hope of finding someone who is prepared to show me how to do this author thing.

Just as soon as I’ve procrastinated a little more and updated my Twitter profile. Oh crap, I’m back to work on Monday.

————–

Previous related ramblings:

It all began with this short story: Michael’s Next Adventure (April 2020)

#1: Distraction, Discipline and Writing in Wagars (September 2021)

#2: Long Covid vs Writing (September 2021)

#3: Milestones, Millstones, the Spectre of Uncertainty and the Destruction of Reality (December 2021)

#4: It’s World Book Day and I’ve Finished* Mine! (March 2022)

#5: Unicorns, Wild Geese, Golden Snitches (or The Hunt for a Literary Agent)

When I started blogging about healthcare issues over a decade ago, my motivation was to shine a light on the failings I had witnessed in over a decade working for an NHS ambulance trust. I managed that and was grateful for the opportunities it gave me to raise the alarm in print, radio and TV.

The mobility and versatility of paramedic work gave access and insight to many aspects of the NHS, from A&E departments and hospital wards, to community services and general practice. Even then, the cracks were beginning to show.

When I stopped wearing the green shirt in 2012, I became free to speak out without fear of consequences from an employer. Any healthcare professional social media activity was feared and discouraged back then, but the freedom my early retirement granted me allowed me to voice concerns shared by many of my former frontline colleagues. Interviewers would ask questions describing the NHS as ‘being on its knees’ and would raise fears that ‘patients could die’.

That was a decade ago.

And patients have died. Avoidably.

Depressingly, that’s not even news any more, is it? Even before the mishandling of the Covid pandemic from the care home tragedies onward, ‘avoidable deaths’ had been normalised in the UK by cruel austerity measures that impacted social care with tragic consequences. That we are now at a point where the healthcare safety net is so threadbare that it cannot be relied upon is something we have been encouraged to accept as unavoidable. It’s just the culture.

The scope of the failures, ranging from near misses to avoidable deaths, is absorbed and obfuscated by the system and accepted with an institutional complacency that comes from a decade of public healthcare being forced onto its knees and crawling just to keep providing any level of service.

That may sound like hyperbole to the layman, but it is the truth.

Across healthcare in the post-pandemic era, healthcare colleagues are routinely having to make decisions they shouldn’t have to make, searching for a way to avoid failure with utter futility. Ambulance dispatch staff must choose which patients are critical enough to receive an ambulance, abandoning others for more hours than might be safe or ethical, hoping they will survive until more resources magically appear. Operational directors have had to make impossible choices about what age of child might make it through the night with a possible strep-A infection without access to a doctor.

UK healthcare is no longer about best practice, optimal patient journeys, and golden hours. Everyone still at their post is just trying to get through the next shift with as little blood as possible on their hands.

Of course every single healthcare colleague is doing their best, even with the knowledge that their best is rarely enough. Frontline staff continue to do all they can for the patients they do encounter, utilising the dwindling resources available, but what of the many patients left to fend for themselves with little more than some advice and best wishes?

It is no wonder that nurses and ambulance staff have resorted to strike action. It is the final, desperate act of a workforce that has been working on its knees for too long, just trying to make the least worst decisions.