New Year's Message

So 2015

• 2015 was the year I was officially told I don't have cancer anymore but they'll keep on checking every 6 months like forever, just in case.  That's good.
• 2015 was the year my psychiatrist discharged me and said I'd survived half a century with schizophrenia and there was nothing he could do about that until the epilepsy had successfully been treated.  That is, in retrospect, not as bad as I thought.
• 2015 was the year in which I self published "Ghost Army" (writing as Quinn Agathoni) albeit only on kindle. Several people have told me the book is 'haunting' so that is marvellous.
• 2015 was the year I stood beside Father Thames and gathering energy from life and love, from concrete and liquid, from river to sea to river and sent Bastet to accompany Kashyapa on her journey to the Summerlands.  That was what it was.
• 2015 was the year e-Cog Zero met Andy Cavendish at Power Lunches as well as WI and Silver Stags and Imaginary Dreamers.  We have had many reasons since to be grateful for that moment.
• 2015 was the year I went to Jamaica.  That was good.
• 2015 was the year I took my wife to Skegness to meet my mother. That was extremely bad, especially as that was the time when Ingrid Andrew died.
• 2015 was the year I failed to find another job that will support me and my family. That was bad
• 2015 was the year in which the General election gave a result I found impossible to understand.  That was the worst election result since 1983.
• 2015 was the year I started working with Professor Kirstein Rummery on her policy paper on social policy and gender equality. That was wonderful.

And what of 2016?  What do I resolve?

As Quinn Agathoni, I will write as often as I can.  

• I will finish Good People.
• I will write Ghost Army as a screenplay and try to interest a filmmaker in it.
• I will attempt to build a novel based on my poetry cycle 'Concerto for Mosquitos and Sunshine',
• I will enter every writing competition I can.

e-Cog Zero will build up the momentum for a future

• We will finish recording our album, "What We Wanted..."
• We will work with Djamel and Kyle and Dafydd and the rest at T-Chances to help Andy Cavendish make it a name to conjure with.
• We will develop a brilliant website
• We will produce professional videos.
• We will attract a following no matter what it takes.

I will do what I can to be happy.  I hope that means

• Find a job where it's okay to be neurodivergent
• Achieve something in work and get recognised for it
• Get the Hell out of London
• Earn enough money so I can buy novels and go to see bands

Okay, that's as many resolutions as last year, so I hope I can keep more than six in 2016. 

So how did I do.

This blog has now been going ten years with an audience in single figures.  I feel like the bloke with Aspergers who stands in the corner at parties because nobody wants to listen to him going on about his special subject while he finds it difficult to make smalltalk about the other subjects that seem to interest everyone else.  I'm a lot like that myself but apparently not on the autistic spectrum (I'm on the schizophrenia spectrum instead).  Nevertheless, nobody's reading.

Last year, I made twelve or possibly thirteen New Year's resolutions and I have the breathing space to look back.  Let's see how I did.

1) find a way to deal with this mind-sapping depression before it kills me. I'll give myself half a point for this.  It's become irrelevant as I am not depressed.  I am in fact schizophrenic

2) find some way if it is even humanly possible to get another job this year: one that pays double my current salary and doesn't make me wish I was dead. This is an abject failure, nul points! I still don't know how to game the system.  I still haven't reached the second rung of the corporate ladder in 27 years. I even failed to get on a programme that helps the failures like me.

3) Research the possibilities of doing a higher degree. A technical point here.  I've looked into it, even found possibilities.  One point.

4) Do whatever I can to help Nathalie Bennett become Prime Minister. Another technical point on the grounds that there was less I could do than I thought,  I honestly believed she could become PM, the green party didn't, the media didn't, nobody did but I did cause I'm schizophrenic. Despite the overwhelming disappointment, I'll give myself One point!

5) Finish Ghost Army, making it the best it can possibly be by March and find an agent and or a publisher before July. Okay, I slef-published in July.  I didn't find a publisher.  It IS good and people are haunted by it but I believe I could have made it better.  Half a point!

6) Write at least two more novels in 2015. Abject failure! Nul Points!

7) Produce more poetry and, in December, produce a major collection of at least 100 poems. I've written around sixty poems this year but I don't think I'll be publishing a major collection so only half a point.

8) Learn 'Lingua de Planeta'. Failed completely to even begin. Nul points! Caballero.

9) Perform with e-Cog Zero live at least ten times. Yep! Done this. ONE POINT my friends, one shiny solid, unadulterated, untechnical point!

10) Put together a New Year's Eve gig for 31 December 2015 where I will present, compere and perform. Half a point, for why, because there is a possibility of a New Year's Eve gig but Cam Ringel is doing the work not me.

11) Perform at least twelve times as poet/spoken word artist. Four, count 'em four performances Nul Points! Ladies and gentlemen, not good enough.

12) work toward putting together a show for the Edinburgh festival in 2016. Nul Points once again mes amis.!

13) That's twelve, averaging one a month. More would be greedy, but I have an overarching resolution for 2015 and that is this.LIVE! I'm still alive and from where I sit now, that's half a point, but from where I sat in January, it's ONE POINT my friends.  I've been to Jamaica.  I've worked with Kirstein and Katrina and Rhiannon and Joe London and Andy Cavendish.  The future is bright for e-Cog Zero.  I even changed medication from the suicide-inducing Kepra to the liver destroying Carbamazepine.

Add them all up and that comes to SIX out of Thirteen  which is better than I expected.