Month: January 2026

I’m in my second semester at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, ostensibly to study Creative Writing and maybe get better at novels. Mainly it’s to drink coffee and get student discounts. So far, I have to say, it’s been great. University is so much easier when you’re not eighteen and a complete fucking mess. Showing up to class regularly got me on the Dean’s list. I got a slice of cake to celebrate and a pin to prove it.

I’ve completed two English courses – us Irish don’t meet the minimum requirements for Canadians, we don’t say eh enough – so I did an introduction to English.

That one had a lot of interesting reading on AI and I got to write a paper playing devil’s advocate to show the pros of AI. But does the devil need an advocate here?

There was also a genre course where we did a lot of Black and feminist readings which was something new. I’ve gone from reading almost exclusively fantasy to mainly junk-leave-brain-at-door adventure books, so this was new to me. Hey, look at me all woke and shit. But it was very interesting too and now I need book recommendations. Where should I go next?

Next up was Introduction to Sociology which I loved, loved, loved. It was so interesting while being depressing as all hell. When your course focuses on genocide it’s pretty fucking depressing. Humans, as a race and probably as individuals suck. But so very interesting. It’s got me listening to Howard Zinn on audiobook, which as Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting “it will blow your mind.”

Now I am doing introduction to Creative Writing which I might post some of later, and New Media which produced, with the help of Christian, this great meme.

Where have I been and where’s the next book?

We moved in August from Los Angeles to Surrey, near Vancouver in Canada. It was a fucking huge move, it turns out you collect a lot more crap when you get older and the piles of boxes grow exponentially with two kids. So we spent months packing and a month moving and lived in AirBnB’s and hotels for a while and are now in our house. Of course two days after Christmas, because who wants a nice and easy life, we had our kitchen ripped out to prepare for a new one.

So that’s where I’ve been. And where is the next book? Well I did write a sequel to After the Fall and after a year or more of edits and rewrites I found it was all shit so am starting from scratch. Currently seven-ish thousand words in on my fourth attempt.

And I went back to school. I enrolled part time at Kwantlen Polytechnic University to do some creative writing courses. Second semester starts back on Thursday and who knows, it may make this fourth attempt the one that works.

So am I back blogging? I would like to be, but who knows. Like any resolution this time of year, it will last until about Tuesday.