A couple of weeks ago I had a dream which, since it refuses to fade away as all good dreams should, has precipitated this blog. I won’t bother with the details of the dream – the logic of dreams seldom flows true – except to say it involved stepladders and artistic success.

The more common metaphor is the ladder to success, which one climbs to reach the top of one’s field. However, a ladder, by its nature, requires a wall to lean against. In this case, since I am talking about artistic achievement, the wall represents the culture you are immersed in, a wall, built brick by brick by your predecessors. Sadly, some people seem to feel their achievements are sui generis, without precedent or reference to all that has gone before. Since none of those people are likely to recognize success if it fell on their heads, this blog is not for them.

Or, perhaps it is. After all a stepladder is self supporting, that is the wonder of its engineering. Still, it needs a foundation to rest upon and the wall has now transmogrified into a floor. Alas, there is no escaping the past.

Back to our stepladder and the artist who seeks to clamber up it. Why do we need to climb the damn thing anyway, you might ask, I’m not painting the Sistine Chapel? Well, metaphorically, you are. That is to say, you are grasping at a level of achievement not available to your current reach. If you are satisfied with what you can presently reach, well, I’m sure there is a place for you in hack heaven. The step ladder is a way up to a higher level.

But what is this metaphorical stepladder, what does it consist of, what does it represent? Knowledge, of course, though not simply facts and figures. You need knowledge of that foundation you are standing on. If you are a writer, you need to read, not just anything and, certainly, not just things that entertain you. The books that will build sturdy steps are made of sturdy things—hard ideas, difficult characters, perplexing and powerful plots and language you can cut your mind on (if you’re not careful). Similarly, a painter must study painting, a dancer must understand music and movement and, yes, choreography.  And so on.

Knowledge is not enough. You need experience, you need effort, you need to occasionally fall (which is only one letter removed from fail).

That experience has to be transformed into thought, deep, perplexing thought and powerful, often painful, emotions. Art is an attempt, more than else, to understand and try to solve the problems the world presents to you. And that is at the heart of it too – this is your stepladder to climb, no one else’s, and the problems that you see and experience are the ones that you have to delve into. It may be that in solving your own problems with the world, you might solve those of people who surround you. It may not be a universal truth (man with an income in want of a wife, sort of thing) but it might resonate in a wider field than your friends and family.

Nothing happens, of course, unless you want to climb the steps. The first few are easy; you are not far from where you started so the fall (fail) will be small, likely not too painful at all. But with each step higher, the giddiness of your position will start to fill you with both excitement and fear. As you climb higher, as the work you can do becomes ever more difficult, you begin to wonder if you have climbed enough or maybe even too high. I certainly wonder that every time I try to do something more challenging than what I did before. I think: I’ve done enough, I’m better than ever, why do I need to climb higher?

Why indeed? Yet, the higher we climb, the more we can see. Our vision widens to encompass more distant parts of our own culture, or more remotely still, the vast beauty of other people’s art, from far and wide. Moreover, we can also see higher, we can perceive, maybe begin to understand, those profundities others have already expressed, achievements that might now be within our grasp. Those last few steps are the most frightful as first, our thighs and then, our knees are pressed against the highest step. There is nothing to hold onto here, no stability but the ladder we have built and, perhaps, those people who encourage us and promise to hold us up (but what if one of them, and there are people like that, who would be happy to push us down, see us fall/fail).

Finally, we gather our courage and make that final step, that lies parallel to the platform we began on but so much higher, like standing on nothing but air, and we reach as high as we can. We stand on tip toes and stretch out our fingers. And just beyond our grasp is the pinnacle of success. For art is not a destination, it is an aspiration. Like Hemingway trying to write that one perfect sentence, what we want from our art is ultimately unattainable; it is the reaching not the grasping that matters.
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Well, that was fun. For me anyway. These days, I sometimes feel shaky on my own stepladder, not wanting to take the next step up, wondering who would notice if I did. But then I take a breath, lift my foot, extend my hand and…

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Happy New Year!
It’s bad enough I seem to only write these blogs once a year but now I’m over a week late getting it done. Put it down to information overload or the general fatigue of the years piling on, but better late than not at all (depending on how you view these essays.)

Well, 2023 was, for me at least, a significant upgrade on the year before and the year before that and, I guess, the year before that, too. It was certainly a year filled with travel and a degree of success in my writing career. There were some low points but they hardly took the thrill out of the high ones. I know that lots of people found the year hard—between inflation and the state of the world or their personal losses—and my heart frequently has and continues to go out to you.

However, having said that, this is my blog and I’ll cheer if I want to.

Travel came in three big batches (a several small ones, too).

The first big trip was to Mexico, one of my favorite countries, for the first time since 2019. We spent five days in late February in Oaxaca City, sampling some of the best cuisine Mexico has to offer, interspersed with long walks and a little sight-seeing, then it was off to Puerto Escondido for two weeks on the beach. The town had changed a bit in the four years since we were last there, a bit noisier, a bit busier but there was plenty of good seafood, lots of surf, sand and sun, and the trip to the lagoon was, as ever, an oasis of calm and beauty. We divided our time between an apartment farther down the beach, which was nice if a little shabby and with too many stairs to the front door, and one of our favorite little hotels, Hotelito Swiss Oasis, right on the main beach.

The second big trip was a western swing. First stop was Winnipeg to attend NASFic, (North American Science Fiction convention, held in the years World Con is held outside North America). It was not the best organized convention I’d ever been to, in fact, probably the worst, but it was my first out of Ottawa since the before times and it was great to see so many old friends. It was especially nice because I got to launch my new science fiction novel, The Passion of Ivan Rodriguez, published by Tyche Books. The book had plenty of advance praise from fellow writers and received a very positive review in Publishers Weekly, that you can read here.

After Winnipeg (and a three-day sojourn back in Ottawa) it was off to Vancouver Island to visit old friends and then on to Calgary to see family, friends and attend the 10th annual When Words Collide writing convention, where a second launch was staged. We had been back west once during COVID but this was the most ambitious trip. Of course, I wound up getting the virus though I barely had any symptoms and they lasted only 2 days.

When we returned home, one of the first things we did was to decide to sell our condo and become renters again. This was part of a long-term plan though circumstances forced us to move it up a little. There were some health issues that may prove serious in the medium term as well as some financial considerations because of upcoming major repairs to the building. In any case, it didn’t really look like things were going to happen for us, as there was little interest shown in the first two months it was on the market. We even thought of taking it off MLS in mid-October but our agent persuaded us to hang in there despite a planned trip to Europe which started with a quick jaunt to Spain on October 18th.

We arrived in Madrid during one of the biggest rainstorms in years, with floods along the coast and in low-lying cities. It had abated by evening and we had a pleasant evening out in Barajas, a nice little enclave near the airport. The next morning, we flew off to Granada to spend several days with our good friends, Violet Malan and Paul Musselman. We stayed at their place and toured the plazas and tapas bars of the city and, as well, took an exciting for me, harrowing for Liz, drive up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. We were just in time to see the first dusting of snow on the heights and had a lovely time, climbing through the villages, shopping and enjoying a fabulous lunch. On our own time, we toured the Alhambra, much more pleasant in the cool of October than during the heat of early August when we visited a few years ago.

From there, we flew off to London via Barcelona. We didn’t stay over but our luggage did for 48 hours, requiring a significant shopping trip in London as we replaced clothing and toiletries before our bags finally arrived. Vueling even covered about a third of our expenses. It is a cheap airline but hardly a bargain in our case.

Regardless, we spent a pleasant five days in South Kensington, visiting parks and museums and taking in a show, the ever-hilarious Noises Off. We were supposed to go to another show but had worn ourselves out and gave it a miss. At least we had bought tickets so we made a contribution to the arts, without actually having to get ourselves off the sofa. The next day we headed off to Deal, the town on the Channel coast where we lived for 2 months in 2017. We had a marvelous time dining and, yes, dancing, with our friends, Carol and Geoff Stickler, before Liz returned to London to visit her daughter Susan and her partner, Hugh, while I headed to Paris to research my next two Max Anderson mystery novels.

Imagine our shock, when the next day, we received an offer on our condo. It was a little low but we countered and within a couple of days we had a deal we could all live with. Everything was done on-line or by email with Liz in London and me in Paris. Having sold our condo with a closing date in early December, we had to find a place to live, rent it, arrange a move, massively downsize and all that jazz, all while still in London (I had returned to spend the final fabulous days with Susan, Hugh and their family of four children).

Back to Canada on November 8th, taking possession of the apartment on the 15th and moving the following week was pretty hectic – so much so that we went off the first weekend of December to a writing retreat at the home of Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink. We signed all the papers before we left and wrapped up the final details after we returned with 36 hours to spare before closing.

December was spent settling in, further downsizing and preparing for Christmas which we spent in Hamilton with Steve, Diana and the three boys, James, Alex and Finn. A pleasant end to a hectic year.

I mentioned the publication of my SF novel in July but I also released the third Max Anderson mystery, The Glare of Truth, in August as an indie publication. I’ve already got a good start on the fourth, tentatively titled, The Risen Sun, which I hope to have out in mid-summer. I also sold a novella, Carter’s Refugio, to Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, one of the leading SF markets in the USA. I finished a couple of other short stories as well, though they are still seeking a good home.

What is a writer if not a reader as well. During 2023, I finished 71 books, ranging in length from 71 (poetry) to 608 (science fiction) pages. Mysteries were a mainstay with 30 completed books, while science fiction and non-fiction each tallied 13 (a big increase from the 4 the previous year). Eight mainstream fiction and 7 books of poetry rounded out my reading. As for what stood out for me in each category:

Mystery – Pilot that Knows the Waters by N.L. Holmes
Science Fiction – The House of Saints by Derek Kunsken and Africa Risen (a short story anthology)
Non-Fiction – Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and Ways of Meaning by Jeremy Lent (it was a particularly rich year here)
Mainstream Fiction – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Poetry – The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus

I’m happy to say that another of my big accomplishments of the year was reconnecting to some old friends, many of whom I haven’t seen or even talked to in over a decade. That was nice and I count those moments of renewed friendship among the best of the past year. I look forward to many more in the coming year (which will include lots of travel to both coasts of Canada, plus The Philippines and Thailand) and lots and lots of writing and reading.

That’s it until next time. Here is a picture to say good-bye to 2023 and hello to catching the wave to new adventures.