Funny old world, isn't it?
Four score and seven years ago... well, I wasn't even a twinkle in my great-grandfather's eye. I just thought it's worth you getting curious about the intro and reading the Gettysburg Address. Education and the like.
The last time I spoke to you five years ago I had nothing figured out. I was in my first job in the City of London, I was navigating the world of cohabiting with people you didn't know from Adam. I didn't know them from Adam. I was single, I wouldn't cook, I was struggling to be recognized as a serious writer with powerful and relevant things to say. Incisive and witty commentary on what it means to be young-ish in one of the world's foremost cities.
Oh how things have changed!
"Come on you wee pink bastard - I can't add the ginger paste and soy sauce until you're salmonella-free..."
Welcome to my world five years in. And I have wonderful news for you. I have found the love of my life. I am earning a few more bucks than I was. And I cook like Gordon Ramsay on steroids. At least for myself.
What I haven't done is found any more success in the whole realization of the life long dream of being a paid-for serious writer. Or how to get that silvery little ring out from around the plughole of the bath. It's like a little halo of deposit-eating wear and tear.
I have tried my hardest. Not scrubbing the bathtub, I mean the writing! In the years since last we spoke, I have written a whole book. 70,000 marvelous words, each painstakingly chosen and lovingly woven into my oeuvre, a five year work of an eternity when you're pushing 30.
Nobody wanted it. I won't name and shame, because when you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you. But I did drown my sorrows in a fierce amount of chardonnay and merlot and whisky....
The funny thing is, I always thought being rejected from publishers would be an utterly horrible pillory experience. It was not. In fact, it was exactly the same as those 175 rejections from the job search way way way back in my last year of university. You remember? I have spent many gainful years of being able to afford the shelf above where they keep the Sainsbury Basic Table Wine trying to forget. The memory lingers... much like the aftertaste of a night on Sainsbury's Basic Rosé.
35 submissions and counting, each wanting a different aspect. First 30 pages and a 500 word synopsis. 30 word synopsis, chapters 3, 5 & 8 and a description of you as an author. First 10,000 words and a cover letter. I fulfilled every single one.
It was the long and drawn out soul-destroying ennui of the automated response that did it. "We are sorry but..." "We receive hundreds of admirable submissions" "it is our deepest regret we cannot represent..."
Every single one of them automatically generated and devoid of human personality.
So what's a girl/boy/gender non-binary person to do? Just to be inclusive, like...
I'll tell you what they're to do - they're to keep going. They are to keep producing content, they are to keep speaking, and above all they are to keep their chin up and keep positive.
There is a very old and ancient Chinese curse. It admonishes, "may you live in interesting times." We certainly are and a half. Brexit, Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un. And don't get me started on this nonsense that is living in a world without Stephen Hawking.
The first thing to do was change my profile picture. The one where I'm clutching the largest jar of Nutella I'd ever seen and incidentally weigh a good three and half stones more than I do now. Not that I am embarrassed by the more voluptuous Aileen, good Lord no. But this lady spent a good two years running the roads and doing every sit up Jillian Michaels ever screamed at her to complete because "pain is fear leaving the body." Bollocks by the way Jillian.
Forgive me, and in the words of Jay Z, allow me to reintroduce myself.
What will we be talking about? Readers, I have decided to write on the subjects which mean the very most to me in life. Literature, learning and lots and lots of good news.
Which means occasionally I will be telling you about fascinating words from my Merriam Webster Word a Day calendar. About anything I have actually managed to read from my 1001 Books to Read before You Die. War & Peace and Austen type works. That's the Novel for you. And I will always try and find a wonderful and positive story from the world's News. Because we've had enough. Any extra terrestrial being restricted to reading anything in news outlets and the darker areas of social media platforms would conclude that we're all unpleasant, pugilistic narcissists who can't stand change, difference or analytics.
That's not true. We love each other and we are generally good craic. Let's prove it to E.T.
And in response to that, my first good news story. Which I shall embellish with a personal journey.
In September 2017, while watching a marketing presentation, I noticed a spot in my vision. You will know exactly what I mean if you have ever, accidentally or otherwise, looked into the sun. That coruscating dot which lingers. Flashes in and out when you blink. Gradually fades.
This wasn't gradually fading. This had been bothering me for hours and a Power Point presentation proved the optimal control. White background, uniform font. Close and open affected eye to try and figure out how bad it is. Close right eye. Can't read slide. Open. Visions blurs and swims together. Close again. Spot back. Have I looked at the sun? Open. But why would I with just one eye? Close again to check right vision.
I must at this stage point out that my director is making this presentation and has been looking at me very strangely throughout. I smile and nod encouragingly to project my interest in European/Asian business development strategy through Quarter 1 2018 . What I haven't realized that my exercise in self-diagnosis has come across as winking lasciviously at her throughout her entire slide deck. I thought she'd been oddly quiet at dinner...
The upside is, I live in London - by Moorfields Hospital, who have been unquestionably bright and brilliant. The downside is that PIC and it's complication CNV, is not preventable and not curable. Punctate Inner Chroidopathy and Chroidal NeoVascularization. What has basically happened is that bits of my macula - the pigmented area near the center of the retina - have been flaring and dying for years. Cell death. Which oddly, produces absolutely NO visual symptoms.
Unfortunately, my system has noticed this cell death and charged to the inept rescue, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. My eye is trying to grow new blood vessels to provide the dead areas with oxygen. The new blood vessel growth is clouding my vision, like thunderstorms on a summer's day.
In my old job, I worked with some of the best people around - I still drink with them, which tells you what amazing chaps and chapettes they are. Unfortunately, I also worked with the law firm's directories submissions, which led me to declare "I would rather stick pins in my eyes than continue." Oh how are the mighty fallen.
Moorfields do stick pins in my eyes. Well, eye. They inject me with Lucentis, a drug to reduce inflammation. And they put me on steroids - which makes me gain weight and toss and turn by night. But, thank science and the NHS, they are preserving what little close vision I have left in my left eye. Think Daniel Day Lewis. My Left Eye...
And so I would like to share with you How Moorfields Hospital Changed the World.
Just to let you know, when you reach 60/70 odds are very likely your macula will degenerate as well. All the people in the waiting room with me are fifty years my senior. And Moorfields are pioneering research which seeks to eliminate wet macular degeneration in our lifetimes. Millennials that is.
And I would like to say thank you to Moorfields. When they thought I had what is known as a chroidal melanoma. Eye cancer. A two year survival rate. I Dr Googled everything and scared myself witless/ And they sat with me. They saw me clutch LG's hand (LG shall hencefoth be my fabulous, wonderful other half - I know, I know, I'm one of those but True Love hit me like a tonne of goddamn bricks) and they held mine through the tests. They made me laugh and brought me Lucozade when a bad reaction to fluoroscein dye in my angiocardiogram fucking floored me. It felt like someone pressed a copper penny down hard enough on my tongue to stop my heart. Then I passed out.
They talked me though every procedure. They celebrated when the news was good. And they stayed in good humour and polite and courteous even though I have seen the general public treat them the way you wouldn't treat your Auntie Katherine when she asks for the third time have you thought about hurrying up the whole 'kids' thing because time's ticking. They handle everything with grace and good will and eternal patience.
We've read about Gosport and I would urge you to read Francis, Keogh & Berwick because let us not mistake positivity as white washing. Even the most beloved institutions have problems and failings, which is why we remain analytical. But after we analyse, let us also act positively.
And let's give a rather bloody large hand to our NHS and staff. From consultants to porters. And something else for free. Let me take you to another September night, a shortly after his 70th birthday for which I was flown home and for which I hid in a cupboard and emerged with the lighted birthday cake. Ye all who joked about giving my Daddy a heart attack, Bejaysus...
Well I tell you, not a word of a lie, when my wee lovely Daddy was holding his fist to his chest and insisting it was nothing a Rennie's couldn't cure - a paramedic I'll never be able to thank enough insisted he be rushed to the Royal. Seven stents in a major artery later, we've had another 9 months with my Daddy. I was on a Ryanair flight home at the exact moment he managed to get back to the house after checking on the sheep. A good shepherd as always. Not a word of a lie or an exaggeration. To need help, to dial 999 and help arrive. What on Earth could be finer than first responders?
To the individuals in the NHS. To its improvement and betterment. To understanding its flaws and shortcomings and working to provide more than chucking cash at it. To everyone who goes above and beyond when someone has gotten a 3 am call with the worst news you can hear. Thank you.
And to you dear readers, a final note. One day I will be looking cock-eyed at another Power Point. I will probably be wearing a bejeweled eye-patch. I will imagine that I look like a rakish pirate, a modern day Jack Sparrow. And I will blink. And there will be another sunspot in my vision. But I won't have looked skyward. It might happen tomorrow. Maybe in ten years. Hopefully forty.
So that might explain the renewed energy and investment in blogging and writing and living and loving life. One day my right eye will fail me as well. But until then, and by Gods even after then - I will keep doing as much of what I love as I can.
And I love writing for you. And I love travelling. And I love words. And I love optimism.
So prepare yourselves... for a very Devlin view of The Novel & The New.
Devlin xo
