November was a great month, perhaps having the associated mental anguish of the USofA’s elections done and dusted (and the local State Elections here which, through a very nasty trick of fate, are now forever doomed to be held every four years exactly in synch with those in the aforesaid country of the red, white and blue underwear) has helped lift the general sense of malaise. That and the near-toxic levels of advertising that’s triggered the hermit-response in me. Whatever, upshot is that I’ve cobbled together another 21,000 words which puts me at 103,000 in total into draft 1 of Descent: Diaspora or just a bit short of 40% through. End of 2025 perhaps, then the sprint to the last, we’ll see.

As well as bringing back the hermit, the onset of the so-called festive season has unleashed the curmudgeon in me. A late evening chat at a writers’ group (and my current fatal aversion to which may be the subject of a latter post) produced the more recent “interaction” where an acquaintance of mine, after reading through a section of another piece I’m trying to hammer out, made a statement to the effect that I’d written a very convincing, and sensitive, blossoming of gay love.

After I’d dragged myself from the floor and had the defibrillator work over my heart, I informed him in the gentlest possible way (150 decibels, sneeringly offended) that what I’d written was nothing of the sort, but merely mate-ship the way it should be. Needless to say an interesting “frank and fearless exchange of views” was had and this, by providing a full evening’s entertainment for the rest of the group, put a stop to anything productive (not to mention my future welcome at that particular library).

Honestly, it’s abhorrent in the extreme that in our rush to be inclusive, friendly, non-judgemental and unbiased (all of which are marvelous goals) we’ve driven ourselves the other way into a predefined nomenclature of stereotypical non-stereotypes. In which universe (note the sarcasm and rhetorical question here) do two men talking about what really matters to them – rather than the bullshit inanity of football that we use to shield our real selves from each other – mean they’re gay? Or not? Or even (and god forgive me for bringing up the hackneyed old term) metrosexual? Isn’t the whole point of the last fifty or a hundred years that we’ve thrown labels away in favour of people being just bloody people? I guess not, and I suppose that my naive hope that sex, gender and love would finally become decoupled – so we could all just get on with it and enjoy all three as they should be – is the pipe-dream of an old idiot.

Deep sigh, mogadon, relaxing music.

Which just added to the hate-filled venomous pit social media’s turned out to be this month. X (or Twitter or Musk’s Folly or whatever) is now, for me, a constant battle to de-tangle my account from bots, pickups, DMs trying to separate me from my ill-gotten gains, and the bile of division. BlueSky, the lifeboat – supposedly – of X refugees is rapidly turning into the same, and Facebook is now so full of ads, morons and video-reels of kids who think sex was only invented in 2010 and they have a duty to share the invention with the world that it’s barely tolerable. And TikTok? Don’t even mention it, if I wanted to die by watching Taylor Swift wannabes I’d sign up for The Voice or Idol or some such garbage.

I’m told, by reputable people, that as an author a social media presence – good or bad, I’ve never been told – is an absolute must although, to my publisher’s eternal credit (who is a reputable person even if he’s from another dimension and threatens to overrun the world) he seems to have a slightly divergent view on things. So I’m keeping my social media stuff for the meantime, for the small cadre of authors there who’re looking for more than just a chance to plug their latest blockbuster no-one’s heard about.

But if there’s ever a chance of my getting my hands on a cold, Antarctic island without internet coverage, people or broadcast media, you won’t see me for dust.