Journal

On the 14th of December this year, Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were found in their home, murdered. I first heard about his passing from a friend in a group chat. The four of us in the chat were devastated by the news and my mind went straight to a specific film. I've seen a number of Reiner's films, but I didn't think of having my spine tapped, that time Harry met Sally, or every writer's greatest fear, Kathy Bates. I thought of The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride is

On the 10th of December, Australia will implement a world first social media ban for children under the age of 16. I like it, at least at a surface level. Are there parts I don't like? Yes. Are there changes which should be made? Yes. Do I think more needs to be done? Yes.

It does lead to the question, though. How can trans athletes compete safely, and ensure equity and/or safety for biologically female competitors? In some sports, weight divisions may solve the issue. In some sports, three divisions may be needed. In some other sports, it may be that there are already open divisions.

Or, homogeneity and Flanderisation. We're back with ranticles baby! This is not a new idea, it's not an original idea, it's just a series of opinions (which as a white dude approaching his early middle years, I am sure the world wants...). Cast your mind back, it's the years following the release of Lord of the Rings. The world is feeling it. One ring has bound them all, and in the wake of this fantasy behemoth "everyone" is writing Tolkien pastiches, ripoffs, or whatever oth

One of the most frequent questions which crops up anywhere discussions of writing occur, is "how did you go about ______________?" In this post I am going to try to lay out the entire process of creating and launching my debut novel: Mettle and Ice. I'll talk about the initial concept, what drafting looked like, free and paid beta-readers, my first dealings with a developmental editor, working with a copy editor and proof-reader, and then finally all of the fun of making a bo

Trigger warning:  This blog post includes reference to Mental Illness ,   Depression , and Suicidal Ideation . If you are struggling with mental health there are a list of numbers and resources at the bottom of this article. It's ok to not be ok. Support is available, and you are worth it. When we left our black dogs at the end of the last episode, Freya had just had an operation on her front legs and I had survived college after a breakdown in my freshman year saw me walk aw

Image from literary hub's article about Meta's data theft. AI are trained on stolen material, it's a tale as old as... itself. Recently, Meta have been found to have stolen millions of books to train its late to the party AI. Chances are, your favourite author had their book stolen (I guess to balance things out, your least favourite author did too). Why is theft on this scale not causing more outrage? We’ve been trained not to care… we’ve spent years, decades even, telling s

This article contains reference to sexual violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and a few more troubling topics, reader discretion is advised. Terry Gene Bollea died last week. You, like many, may be wondering who that is and why you should care. He was a racist, proudly self proclaimed, as well as a right winger and overall nutter. More importantly for this ranticle, he was Hulk Hogan, wrestling icon and one time portrayer of Thunderlips in Rocky I. The passing of Terry th

The R**e of Proserpina , by Gianlorenzo Bernini, c. 1618–25 This piece includes references to SV. Readers who may find the below content triggering are advised not to read further. The depiction of SV is a discussion which comes up from time to time in the realm of media and specifically SFF books, which is the realm in which I exist creatively. Advocates for depictions of SV say that it grounds stories, it adds historical realism, or that it is part of character development

Why I think reading to boys, and expressions of love could be what the world needs right now. A ranticle. Depending on where in the world you live, but assuming you are in a western society, somewhere WASPish, and or anywhere else in which this shit is pervading the world, you may have noticed men being awful. (Awfulness is not only afflicting the abovementioned places, it's just that as a white western dude, I don't feel it's my place to speak on what the rest of the world s

Trigger warning: This blog post includes reference to Mental Illness , Depression , and Suicidal Ideation . If you are struggling with mental health there are a list of numbers and resources at the bottom of this article. It's ok to not be ok. Support is available, and you are worth it. In episode 1 of this however many episode long saga, I talked about a dog named Freya, and an illness called depression. In episode 2, Freya gets more expensive, and depression continues to

I've been coaching women's sport for a bit over a decade (namely lacrosse) and in that time I have made the leap from someone who watched almost exclusively men's sport, to some one who watches a whole lot of women's sport too. While I wanted to call this piece "Why Marty Sheargold needs to remember his arse isn't a hat and should pull his head out of it" I decided on the above because I feel it is to the point, concise and is friendly enough that men won't become overly emot

Myself (left) and Clive (right) in 2016 at the under 19 Lacrosse World Championship in BC, Canada. My younger brother was representing Australia in this tournament. I’ve been fortunate through my life in that I’ve not experienced the loss of many relatives or friends so far. I was lucky enough to have three grandparents when I was born and I kept them into adulthood. My maternal grandmother made it to eighty-nine and my paternal grandfather made it to ninety-seven (his aim to

Freya arrived at my house, her home, on the 17th of June in 2022. She was the runt of her litter (now 50kg/110lbs) and had needed surgery on her eyes to correct a condition called entropion. She was the sweetest little thing... for about a week. Freya, you see, had horrendous separation anxiety. Crate training failed, trainer visits and work with specialist vets did little to ease her suffering. I was heartbroken. But we persisted, I wasn't raising a quitter. Months of her ru

I'm one of those people who needs a deadline. I know that doesn't make me special and as a teacher I am constantly reminded that a lot of us are like gasses. We will expand to fit the container we are in. When a container doesn't have boundaries or a task doesn't have deadlines, I find myself expanding and making no progress toward anything being finished. A few months ago I found the post Travis Baldree made about the process he underwent in publishing Legends and Lattes. I