Entry tags:

advice for vijay, work, writing

Notes from a mammal politician

Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid.

The Fly, written and directed by David Cronenberg

Whenever I get stressed out over working in MVK, trying to make everybody happy, viewing every glitch as a personal failure, I try to remember the words of poor, doomed Seth Brundle. Politics is, I think, a mammalian trait. If you have politics with someone, you aren't brutalizing them. The interpersonal friction is all part of the job, like filling in time sheets and dealing with an office with no kettle to boil water for tea. The upside of this, and one of the main reasons MVK is a society and not a society organization, is that the institution is more capable and more robust than the sum of the individuals who comprise it. (Take note, Vijay.)

Now that the one-two hit of the January party and the Taboo trade show is over, I wanted to think more about what I'm going to do this year. One thing I could do is focus more on Beauty In Darkness: finish a draft of it, get it critiqued by people I trust, solicit a few recommendations and self-publish it, as one option. That means working on my own publicity, doing my own book tours, micro-targeting marketing. The upside is I keep whatever pennies I earn and I don't have to deal with the publishing industry.

Another option is to think about is leaving Vancouver, in favor of Toronto, the UK or New York or San Francisco, in order to get more writing work. That would mean abandoning MVK, which is really my strongest reason to stay in this city.