I started writing Eat My Shadow in 2013 as part of a Professional Writing Degree through Curtin University. Just a couple of chapters. In 2018 I stumbled across the chapters, re-read them and knew I had to write the book. But I was no less short on time. It haunted me. I’d go to bed, close my eyes, and pop! there were Father and Finn, demanding their story be written. But I was tired. They weren’t patient. I’ve never had a book insist it’s written before. So much so I unwittingly taught myself to lucid dream. Or perhaps they taught me, sometimes I wondered if I was writing the book, or it was writing me.
It took a couple of years to become proficient in a technique I didn’t know the name of. I’d fall into a kin of doze. I was mentally alert, but physically asleep. They presented as movies with voice overs. They’d prattle on for 5-10 minutes at a time. For years I thought I could teach myself to remember it in the morning. But I rarely did, mnemonics, repetition, none of it worked. Then I learnt, or again, perhaps they taught me, how to force myself out of the state, scribble it down, usually illegibly, starting from the last thought and working in reverse, close to verbatim, then I’d go back into the same state – and repeat. Lucid dreaming is a great place to drop your ego and crawl inside your characters. A spontaneous idea generating space in your head. I love that place.
It did, however, mean I had a stack of journals that I had to transcribe, and my handwriting looks like drunk spiders holding hands. Voice recognition works 90% of the time, but seems to replace useful nouns with weird shit, like the time I spent a lot longer than I’d like working out that a priest, meant oppressed.
It’s not ideal.
On October 2, 2021. I found out how I’ll die.
Death, we all know, is inevitable, but we do our best to avoid it as long as possible, to not talk or think about it overly, for fear of being morbid. But we do regardless. I struggled with it. I have plans, plans that exceed the five years allotted to me by a cardiologist. But then I found a curious relief in knowing. I can face death better knowing how it is likely to come. 30% of people make it ten years, and I’m relatively young. But either way I have a timeline to live to that focusses me. (update, I’ve worked hard to increase my heart function, and 10 year is looking like a good bet!)
I’ve spoken to my doctor, who’s reassured me that when the time comes he will support me in my decision to end my life rather than drag a reluctant body through months, if not years of physical deterioration. It’s my biggest fear. Bigger than dying.
Thankfully the state of Tasmania recently legalised euthanasia. Without it I’d have to terminate my life alone, as so many have, rather than place the legal burden on my family.
I plan to spend my time writing. What a privilege. I sent Eat My Shadow to literary agents and publishers, whose timeframes are between 3-6 months for a yes or no. With the exit sign flashing five years at me I decided to go the publishing journey alone. I’m glad I have. I’ve loved the whole creative process, not just the words, but the physical book. I’ve put more love into it than anyone else would or could. Though I’m not a natural when it comes to marketing and I have little patience with getting my head around it when I’d rather be writing.
I’m at peace with ending, and whether or not there is or is not something beyond. Either I find out, or I’m permanently gone, in which case I’m not going to be in a situation to care.
I don’t want to be shoved in an oven and pumped into the atmosphere as yet another planetary burden. Nor do I want to be pumped with chemicals and shoved in a wooden box. I want to be dropped in a vertical hole in the ground, covered over and be reabsorbed into the earth from which I came. A small token of my gratitude for having had a loan of the minerals. I want to be eaten!
