JoUrnAl

  A memoir chapter THE BARNS The injury as hinge I used to play in the barns as a kid. Childhood memories. Formative experiences. If anyone asks what turned me to the goth subculture, it is probably this, imprinted. Crumbling whitewash on top of ancient stone, the surface coming away to dust a centimetre deep. Cobwebs. Ancient cobwebs holding whitewash and stone dust in their nets. The spiders had abandoned the place. I hunted them and found some. Overcoming the fear of them. You never really do. It is hardwired into us from a time in evolution when we were tiny rodent-monkeys and spiders were bigger than they are now. That is probably a factor in my love of the Alien films, and of AvP. There were four barns. One was modern: corrugated sheet metal and plastic walls on a light metal frame. The others were like castles, but not as old. Dark. Disused. Full of interesting stuff. Old farm machines, some made of wood from the late nineteenth century, some made of metal from the early twe...

The hidden cost of Crisis The impact it has on other people when our internal processing is so backlogged and intense we have to throw other people at arms length without fully justifying at the time what’s going on within us.  Because I am a writer, who uses writing as a trauma processing device, there is evidence of my internal mechanic which serves as happens also to be a justification to those others of why my behaviour may appear erratic when compared with their preconception of how people are socially acceptably supposed to be behave.  We all of us have to accept that, which means making allowances for that we are not all robots. Nor are we all identical. This is what it is to live in the Neurodiverse community.  The universe of neurodiversity is also the new university of neurodiversity.  The Neuroversity is all about neuroversatility.  An actually autistic analytical Virgo has spoken. 

  Journal 2026/7/31 They hoped I had the same morality as them. Buy their goods and stay quiet about it. Provide entertainment along the way. A level of social trust with hard lines, insider outsider. Need to know basis. Very Cancerian. I care for the in group. Tribalism. A family. People who are supportive.  I was picking up a lot of strangeness from them. Testing, comments which were seeking to watch by my reaction what I knew and how much could I be trusted. Even after years as their paranoia grew in line with their reputation and the dark experiences they’d had to swallow and were keeping us from, and the dark experiences we had been through together. Some of the stuff they were into was a lot harder than I was ready to know about. No wonder people turn to drugs as escapism and an attempt at healing by going sideways from themselves. Religious people do that too. It’s the opposite to Jungian philosophy, confront and assimilate the shadow self through acceptance forgiveness...

Journal 2025.3.20 today I was woken at 7.15 am by the school welfare officer asking if I’m available today so she can do a welfare spot check on my autism/pda son whose attendance is next to zero.  I could not get back to sleep so I had a hot salt bath to relax my muscles, which hurt constantly especially my legs and my back. I woke with more mucus and worse breath than usual. It is pleurisy from long-covid. I coughed up half an egg cup of it.  Why I ache is because not enough oxygen is getting to where it needs to go.  I contemplated phoning the doctors about it, had an attack of imposter syndrome, low self-esteem anxiety disorder and decided not to, simply because I do not have the energy to cope with talking with anybody. This is a recognised diagnostic symptom of Autism.  There is no pulling myself together. What energy I have is burned up very very quickly attempting tasks like making a cup of tea which causes me to need to go back to bed because my body can’t h...

What you want from me: sex What I want from you: sex This is hook-up culture.  I have explained:  Transactional and conditional relationships fail.  Agreements must be made so everyone is on the same page.  We agreed we want to meet for sex.  Now you have asked that before we meet for sex, requiring one of us to travel to the other, that we must both travel to meet not for sex but for you to decide if you want to meet for sex.  You have gone back a step.  You are expecting me to go out of my way and pay extra expenses which there will be no guarantee of sex for.  I have explained to you this is exactly why I split up with my ex.  I have explained to you this is what is meant by transactional and conditional relationships.  I have explained to you that is not what I am looking for.  It is a control game.  You have changed the conditions.  You have changed the goalposts.  I can not spell it out ...

EDITING & BETA-READING  1 - spacing  Editors and proof-readers have to read a lot, more than most normal people. We need it double-spaced. It makes it easier to read than a barrage of condensed words. Please double-space it. Make your work easy for people to read. 2 - alignment  Likewise alignment, justification. If your word processor cannot justify it to have the text straight down along both the left and the right margins, it is a bad word processor. Stop using it and get one which can do this function.  For example: SL notecards do not have this desirable feature. Newspapers always use the format.  While it looks pretty with words lapping like waves at the sea-shore along the right margin, this is improperly aligned. It is no longer the industry standard practice because it makes it more difficult to read.  3 - typeface It is not publicly advertised which fonts to use for the industry standard or it will become more confusing for professionals to si...

WRITING AND SUCCESS Have you decided to be a writer?  Behave that way. Write.  Have you decided to be a struggling writer?  Behave that way. Struggle.  Have you decided to be a successful writer?  Behave that way. Be successful.  How?  What is success to you?  What is a successful writer to you?  “I complete the manuscript.”  Good. One point.  “My books sell.”  That is a successful capitalist. It is a whole different thing to being a writer. One point.  “Everyone knows my pen name.”  That is fame. You can get that by blowing up parliament. Not so much to do with writing. One point.  “My printed books are influential, cherished and preserved for many generations yet to come.”  Excellent. That is a successful writer. One point.  Which of those four points is a successful writer?  They all are. That is how we should behave.  We now have goals and structure.  “How do we achieve all that?”...