Projects

Podcast Guy

I need to inform you that by the time you read this I will be a podcast guy.

Ugh. One of those, huh?

My excuse is such: in early February I embraced a few big ideas that manifested as a spoken audio project, which very much looks and acts like a podcast at the moment.

Big ideas, you ask?

First, I have been playing with sound, music, recording, and an array of other tools and toys that are burning a hole in my soul looking for a purpose.

Second, I looked at the conformity of what I should be doing and making as a so-called commercially viable product and said to hell with that, I just want to make what I want to make.

Third, I realized, and you may have seen me write about this a few times already, that stepping away from posting and participating doesn’t make the terrible stuff go away, it just leaves a gap that is destined to be filled with political, vapid, or algorithmic slop.

In other words, I was motivated to step up and start making more, posting more, and participating, but in a way that suited me. The result so far has been me dabbling in a new podcast-like project, and likely one that will not sound like nor look like the hundred other podcasts in your feed.

…or, so I hope.

Big ideas, small project, and a vast shift towards a new perspective… and if nothing else, you can listen to me now, too.

March 2, 2026

Resolved to Plot

Almost two years ago now I was deep into writing a novel.

It was not my first.

It would not be my last.

But yet here I sit not having finished writing it.

Sure, I made a plan. I sketched out the plot. And I got it about ninety percent of the way to completion, but then…?

Then I hit a wall.

Every morning, literally every morning, I wake up and feel guilty that I didn’t write another chapter in that novel the day before. Every morning, literally every morning, I wake up and part of me ponders if today will be the day that fact changes.

So far, no.

At the start of 2026 I resolved that just pining about standing in front of a metaphorical brick wall, a wall that I didn’t know how to climb over, or around or through was not the right approach either.

Instead, I started a new novel.

No. I haven’t quit the other one, rather I just need some more time to stare at that original brick wall and figure it out. But just staring at it wasn’t helping anything either.

Each day I get another day further from my last effort on that story, but it is not forgotten.

And one day I’ll wake up, ponder if today, that day, will be the day… and I will be right.

February 18, 2026

Smouldering Plots

It’s difficult to start a story, and it’s difficult to end a story… but somehow worse than both of those parts there is a hump I have found that occurs somewhere in the middle.

I have been writing a new novel and I am at the point where I need to move from the start, the inciting action where all the characters are introduced and dive into the middle, the guts of the story where all the action and the bulk of the story is going to happen.

I did all this work on planning out a plot.

I did all this work creating characters.

I did all this work lighting the fire to make it all start.

And whilst I did think a lot about how the flames were meant to keep smouldering for the next couple hundred pages of real story, getting over that hump between the start and the middle, and putting it down into actual words on an actual page is turning out to be a bigger chore than I anticipated.

If you have been reading my meandering thoughts you know that I generally keep smouldering. I just push through and write my five hundred words each day, and (practically speaking) that’s how it goes down.

But the effort, the mental churn, the fight to keep going is different now that I’ve moved into middle where the real plot and real works takes more than just a big idea.

February 17, 2026

Baby Steps

I have a piece of advice that I’m writing mostly for myself here: stop thinking so big.

Start small.

Start with the achievable and work your way up.

I have been planning this novel-length audio production, writing words, making scripts, composing music, mixing sounds, and—nothing firm has been done yet.

The big project is simply too overwhelming.

Oh sure, I see the forest, but I can’t seem to plant the trees. It all feels like I’m jumping into a new plan, a new skill, a new concept without knowing if any of it will even work—and more importantly if something critical will fail. And the result is paralysis incarnate.

Something smaller has to come first.

In my case, maybe instead of trying to make a novel, I record some audio blogs first. Then maybe after I do that, I work on making a few one-pager short stories into encapsulated one-off samples of what I’m hoping to create on a larger scale. And then, maybe something else, and something else after that, and maybe… eventually, the real thing will fall into place.

I’m sure many great people have achieved great things in one fell swoop… but the rest of us may need to build up our stamina first.

February 16, 2026

Loop and Loop

Perhaps if you have been reading along, sensing that something is building here in my labs and behind the scenes, you will be wondering wherein all this creative energy is distilling.

I am far from a breakthrough, but after two full evenings of creative musical play following the so-called completion of my musical set up, I have learned the rawest of basics about my tools.

A looper pedal, an effects pedal, a synth, and a recorder.

Creative play is never meant to be shared, but as with many of my other creative endeavours in art, fiction, photography, and beyond, I enjoy the act of documenting progress no matter how unpolished.

The final step of creativity after all is performance and exhibition of the effort, and to fear such things is not a failing, no, but it is a shame.

Here is what I created on my first two nights of kitted synth exploration. It is a mess, but it is interesting.