Beneath The Floor

Almost one year ago, I visited family in Canada. They were so accommodating and took me on a grand tour of all the local delights - Niagara Falls, Blue Jays games, the CN Tower, the lakes, little towns, local ice hockey and even Toronto Comic-con (Technically it was Fan-Expo, but not many people know what that is). When they flew over to England this year, I wanted to return the favour and take them on a tour of Nottingham.

Hard to believe that it’s been a year since my last published blog post. Twelve entire months have slipped through my fingers one by one, and repeated attempts to ‘get back on the horse’ have resulted in me falling off the saddle every time. But I can’t seem to stop trying either, so here I go again - one foot through the stirrup. Giddy up…

In 2016, things started going wrong. I’m talking, of course, about ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’. Even the title makes me gag. It was supposed to be the movie event of the decade, and I’m not sure I’ve ever looked forward to any film - or hyped up any film - as much as I did Batman V Superman before its release. But then early reactions started leaking. And they were… bad. Then the critic’s reviews came out. And they were worse.

Growing up, a lot of my friends were in bands. I had no musical talent whatsoever, but I’d often be around during that initial process of discovery - the guitarist had a new riff that would eventually form the bones of a song, or someone had found a new technique that they wanted to play around with. Most of the time, these little moments would evolve into performances I’d later watch with a beer in hand, but every now and then there was a roadblock - the music already existed.

Well, it happened. Almost two years of successfully dodging the modern day plague, ruined.

I have Covid.

On the 21st of December, I tested positive. I was double jabbed, and had just received my booster. But a few days afterwards, I started getting flu-like symptoms, so figured I’d test myself. I’m still waiting to hear the results from the PCR test, but I think it’s a given. Which means no Christmas eve drinks with friends, no Christmas day festivities with family, no boxing day drinks with friends, no secret santa gathering with friends and potentially no New Years eve party.

What a bummer.

There are hundreds of horrors on Floor Fifty-Four. Curiosities too strange and dangerous to exist in our world. Before they were locked away though, these monsters, miscreants and malfunctions roamed free on the surface. Waiting for some poor soul to devour.

TALES FROM FLOOR FIFTY-FOUR explores six such ‘Items of Interest’, first the stories of those who stumbled upon them, then a glimpse at their new life, in this terrifying prison-for-things.

But that is not all. A seventh ‘Item of Interest’ will join you on your journey. In fact, they can’t wait to meet you.

As the clock marches ever closer to the release date for my first book - 31st October 2021, if you want to put it in your diary - I’ve been forced to pop on my marketing hat. Now, us writers are a curious bunch, and I would say we almost unanimously see marketing for what it truly is. The devil’s work! Trickery! Poppycock!

After all my waffling last month over the unscalable mountain of self-doubt, it turns out I was pretty close to the summit. Once I’d rediscovered my momentum, the words flowed easily and each day I chipped away at the book until one particular Tuesday I typed the final words, almost in a state of disbelief.

“The End.”

I suppose, on reflection, last year was quite productive for me. From May 2020 to May 2021, I managed to write a short story every month, as well as an ‘Item report’. Then I made the images I needed, and slapped it all into a newsletter, followed by a VIP newsletter with sneak peaks. All whilst writing the two books that were the original focus. And (hopefully) without tooting my own horn too much, this was on top of a full time job and the rest of the chaos that life dumps at our feet.

April and May have a disproportionate amount of birthdays in my calendar. My father, brother, sister-in-law, 3 of my best friends, my dog, and myself all have birthdays between the fourth of one month and the fourth of the next. Unfortunately my annual ‘casino night’ birthday shindig is once again TOTALLY ILLEGAL and will have to be postponed.

Lately I’m starting to feel old. Friends are having babies. We’re getting quotes for windows. This week, me and my wife were on a walk through the street and both said without a hint of irony “that’s a nice door…”. Perhaps most crippling of all, I’m starting to become an old fart with technology. I easily get grumpy when things don’t work like they used to “in the good ol’ days”.

I could get used to this. Two weeks off work over Christmas has provided a much needed break. Sure, it’s been crammed full of Christmas logistics, and finishing up some DIY, but it’s been amazing just to take my foot off the gas a bit and just enjoy myself. I don’t think I realised how much I’d been throwing myself into my job, stuck in a feedback loop of project after project after project.

After giving up alcohol last month, I decided that I liked having a horrendous challenge to burden myself with, so plunged into National Novel Writing Month. Well, I say plunged. It was more like I sat on the edge of the swimming pool and dipped my ankles in until I could get used to the cold water. But then I never was a strong swimmer.

There was a time when I used to think drinking alone was a strange practise that I would never have a part of. What a young and doe-eyed fool I was. Slowly, but surely, as life has gone on and small stresses of the day add up, I’ve slowly taught my brain a persistent little trick - “That deserves a beer!”

Ask your average person what they think of social media and it will doubtless be negative. It’s polarising us, getting us addicted to dopamine, making us feel crummy about our bodies and our lives, increasing anxiety, increasing depression and turning us all into zombies. But those same people, myself included, still use it most days and have accounts on at least several of them. I guess funny dog videos outweigh the CRUSHING existential angst that modern life dumps on our poor little monkey brains. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit are my big ones. But it’s fair to say I’ve dabbled in them all.

Stop the press.

It’s only on my fifth newsletter I noticed a little box has been unticked all this time. A small, insignificant tickbox, timidly asking:

“...avoid spam filters?”

I feel like this box should be louder. Or just tick itself. But no, here I am, month number 5, leaving that shiny little box abandoned and unticked since I started. Brilliant. I was even sending my newsletter to my own junkbox. I just figured that was just the way it went... And that wasn’t my only snafu I became aware of this month.

I’m not going to lie, sometimes I pick these titles just to make myself laugh. But last month was a vast spectrum for my ego that ranged from male modelling (yes, really) to no longer owning a toilet. Originally, this month’s blog post was going to be about hazard warning labels and branding, but screw that, let’s talk about taking a dump in the garden and my fake marriage to an underage instagram model.

This month I talk about good books and how they can absolutely cripple me as a writer.

We all make them. Sometimes we need to.

This month I talk about progress, in all its many shapes and sizes.

"It is just me, or is it getting crazier out there?"

Starting something is often the hardest part. Even something as simple as this blog post had four different openers that I started, stopped, deleted. For a moment, the laptop almost got closed. But as nice as quitting feels - and let’s be honest, it does feel sort of lovely - it doesn’t achieve anything. And now look - once we’ve started, that momentum flows and carries us through all the way to the next paragraph.

It’s strange writing for a blog that doesn’t even exist yet. I haven’t even completely decided on the name, nor do I have the website to host it on. But, baby steps are significant, and since I’ve bought the domain (FloorFiftyFour.co.uk), I might as well get into a routine of a monthly blog post. And I have plenty to talk about at the moment, after all.