Unmasking

Unmasking - 2 images side by side. A version of me with a soft white bear's head in a flat cap and coat, and a version of me where I raise my head to reveal the human face beneath.

There is no manual for life but a significant amount of people grow up feeling, not only that there is one (there must be!) but that every other bastard out there knows it by rote. A sickening, creeping certainty takes hold that this secret manual cannot be borrowed from a library nor purchased anywhere, and …

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Stepping back

Stepping back. A man sits on the edge of a cliff, his head in his hands. Far below him, the world stretches out, shrouded in mist.

Editing has been the beating heart of my life since 2015, bringing me a sense of drive and purpose that no other career previously offered me. I gave myself 5 years to build The Fine-toothed Comb up from paying hobby to a self-sustaining business, gathering clients, experience, and testimonials along the way. The COVID-19 pandemic …

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Treading water

Treading water - waters are deep and getting higher. Careful now...

If you’ve been following my business journey, you’ll know that I’ve gone from hobbyist to full time freelance editor through some tricky times. I kept my chin up and paddled – quietly confident and determined. Neither my skill nor my will has diminished, but savage waves have left my financial lifejacket somewhat deflated since I …

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The end, and after

Li'l Pete and Lucy-pie

It’s been a difficult time. Those of you who follow me on social media will know that our beloved puss has been ill for a long while. On Wednesday 23rd Feb, my wife gently suggested that I spend a bit of quiet time with Lucy while I still could. We snuggled up together on a …

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Letting go

Letting go

Fear freezes us, very often. We tighten our fingers, clinging on to the known and the settled, but that instinct can be counter-productive. Ask any parent. I’ve got *three kids, and two of them are filling me with fear at the moment. I want to protect them, desperately, but I also know that if I …

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Stuff is nonsense

Stuff is nonsense

‘What do you want for Christmas?’ I used to have a million answers to that one; these days I’m more likely to say, ‘I don’t need anything.’ Hah! It always drove me mad when my parents said it, but I’ve started to come around to their way of thinking. Perhaps it’s age-related. Perspectives change over …

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Re: Con-nection

Kelly White, Pippa Bailey, Myk Pilgrim, Joe McMahon, Nick Parkinson, Dion Winton-Polak

First up, I have to confess that I attended very few actual panels, no readings, and I avoided the karaoke bar like the very-literal plague. Well, here’s the Dion’s-eye view, anyway… The first day of FantasyCon was a wobbly affair, full of awkward moments and anxiety, calibrating and recalibrating as we came together for the …

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Little Nightmares – game review

Little Nightmares - game review

It’s always awesome when a friend recommends something new, but there’s a special joy to be had when a: you’d never heard of it before, b: it’s not the kind of thing you’d usually buy, and c: it turns out you frigging *love it. So it was for me and Little Nightmares, a cute yet terrifying game from Tarsier Studios.

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Geek families (Finding Me, part 3)

Geek families (Finding Me, pt3)

I threw myself into fatherhood with great enthusiasm. We didn’t know what we were doing – who the heck does? – but Clo and I supported each other and figured things out as a team. One of the things we figured out early on was that children are adaptable. So long as she was loved and cared for, Summer-Rose would be perfectly able deal with whatever world she grew up in—and if that happened to include weekends camping in ruined castles while Clover and I got our medieval groove on, then all the better. It provided a change of scene and gave her some childhood magic.

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The Minotaur (Finding Me, part 2)

Minotaur in the labyrinth

It’s a funny old business, life. Some people seem set up, right from the start. They know who they are, what they are, and how to get along. Some folk even seem to know what the future holds for them – or at least they have firm plans. I was a late starter; blinking, dazed, and unsure of myself. University gave me independence and self-confidence, my girlfriend gave me love and companionship, and I thought that was all I’d need. It was stability, but I still hadn’t found ‘me’. Not yet.

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Seeking Resolution

I recently discussed ways in which we can avoid conflict when editing (or being edited) in a blog post called ‘It ain’t what we say’. You might think of today’s post as something of a follow-up, though it has applications in the real world too.

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Reinvention (Finding Me, part 1)

Student party

I’m happier now than I have even been – personally, socially, and professionally. If that sounds like a boast, I beg forgiveness, but when I look back along my footsteps, it feels nothing short of miraculous. I’ve been through bad times and mad times. These days, life feels pretty sweet. The secret? It came down to finally finding ‘me’.

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Breaking through (Cracking Isolation, part 3)

A helping hand

Welcome back all, and thanks for bearing with me. In part 1, I spoke of my childhood experience of loneliness and some of the ways in which I began to break free. Part 2 had me thinking about the different behaviours I’ve seen in other people that revealed their own isolation, either overtly or covertly. As I said at the time, I’m not a qualified expert on the matter, so please keep that caveat in mind as I now consider what we might actually do about it in this, the final part of the series.

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Horrified: Universal Monsters – board game review

Horrified Box Art - Universal Monsters

Here’s a good one for folks out there looking for something new and engaging to play. You don’t need to be a board-game geek or master of strategy to have fun with this family game, nor do you need to worry about the fear factor for youngsters. This is what I like to think of as creaky horror: lumbering along, arms outstretched, eyes wide – but very much with a twinkle and a grin. Let’s take a closer look.

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Spotting the signs (Cracking Isolation, part 2)

Statue of a fairy, desperately clutching on to a windblown dandelion, almost carried away by it.

It doesn’t take a pandemic to keep an introvert or an agoraphobe locked away. We like small, controllable environments. Plenty of people have found themselves isolated by virtue of their career, whilst others are minimising human contact out of a sense of social responsibility. Isolation is not always a bad thing. However when isolation is combined with feelings of loneliness and helplessness, it can feel like the cruellest affliction.

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The Bewilder-boy (Cracking Isolation, part 1)

In the stocks

In these times of Covid, more and more people are coming forward to report mental health issues. Some people see this as a weakness, a crisis in and of itself, just as pernicious as the pandemic. Others see it as a process of destigmatisation: an open sharing of vulnerability and pain that unites and enables us to heal through support, empathy, and encouragement.

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Getting serious

Vale of Rheidol Steam Railway

I’ve been running my Fine-toothed Comb through your manuscripts for a few years now, building a client base and a reputation to be proud of. Gotta say, it’s been pretty sweet. And if there were a few stretches without a gig? Well, the day-job covered my bills. I could afford to treat this as pocket money. A paying hobby. A Saturday Job. Fffff. That seems like a world away now.

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Top 10 Digital Board Games

A selection of 'Table game' apps

One of the ways I’ve coped with the terror and tedium of the covid lockdowns is with board games. Not with my family sadly, as neither my wife or daughter are that interested, and not with my gaming group either. (The last thing that we played together was Pandemic Legacy throughout 2019 and no, it’s not our fault. We won.) Instead, I’ve been forced to get my fix on digital platforms. Read on for a whistle-stop tour of my Top 5 quick games and my Top 5 trickier ones.

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Presence of mind

A bench in bright sunshine, next to a forestry track.

…and learning to cope

I saw any number of retrospectives in January, summing up the shared tragedy and meagre glints of joy amid the long months of 2020, yet I have found myself…reluctant to join in. Certainly I’ve been changed by my experiences, deeply, and in ways I’ve yet to fully plumb. I can feel it. Yet I spent so much of that year absent, it might almost have happened to somebody else.

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It ain’t what you say

Evocative image: waves break over a rocky wall as the sun sets over the sea.

Reflections in a time of grief.

From my university days onwards, the distance between us meant I’d only see my parents three or four times a year, and then for just a few days at a time. That was usually enough because we tended to slip into old patterns of behaviour: the picky, argumentative parents and the touchy, truculent child. We loved each other best in small doses.

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