Who am I?
A loaded question if ever there was one. I am a full time “professional” software engineer, a part-time, mentally healthy adult male and a zero-hours contract writer. I live in Edinburgh. I enjoy punk rock, horror movies and comic books.
Outside of autism and depression, I also suffer from a mild Peter Pan complex.
What would I like to do?
My initial response was to answer “Write”, but that isn’t true. I want to be noticed, and I want to have some measure of control over my own daily life. I want to wake up in the morning and not think about what someone else wants me to do but what I would like to do. I want to get paid to dream and imagine. I want other people to enjoy the things I create and to take something away from them, good or bad. In truth I just want to feel like I mattered and that I was good for something more than lining someone else’s pockets.
What have I done?
I used to keep a detailed count of all the pages of comics I have had published over the years. Somewhere along the way, I realized all it added up to was a small pile of complimentary comics in an office storage carton.
I have written for numerous fanzines, small press comics and a now-defunct web-comic. I have two published horror short story, a self-published novella and an ever-growing pile of rejection letters.
What I actually do?
I am paid, quite well I might add, to write code. More accurately, I am paid a percentage of what someone else will charge for my solution to their problems. I am usually required to attend meetings and pay lip service to overpaid, under-productive middle management people. Most of whom spend their entire lives “Needing clarity” and helping deal with “blockers”. While I enjoy the process of programming, I find that working in such environments is counterproductive to my mental health and only serves to exacerbate my anxiety.
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