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When I was nineteen, I moved from country Victoria to the city of Melbourne. While I was no stranger to Melbourne – growing up we regularly visited members of our extended family who were scattered across it – I still found it intimidating. This was thanks in part to where I lived. A forgotten suburb, not on any train line, inner city but not yet having grown any real personality or amenities. I also didn’t venture out that far beyond its borders, didn’t yet know to explore, and I didn’t drive at that time and so even when I did I was reliant on the confusing and often delayed maze of Melbourne’s public transport.
Mostly, I stuck to my street. It is a good enough street, with a couple of parks off of it, but it did have some derelict commission housing (now thankfully torn down and replaced) and with that a few neighbours who were hopped up and erratic.
And, there was the bridge. The smashed face bridge.
The bridge extends across six lanes of traffic under which a sea of vehicles run. It is an all concrete bridge, sturdy and thick, its sides slightly angled outwards. Adhered to these sides, running the whole inner length of the bridge, are the faces. Concrete faces. Bald. Expressions blank. Looking out at passers by with unseeing eyes. Who put them there or why, I have no idea, but they were present when I first moved in and looked to have been for some time. I say this because all their noses had been smashed off and in their place was a burst of red spray paint, which dribbled down their cheeks and chins.
I was scared of the bridge. It was everything I had feared about moving here. That the city was dark and broken, harsh and confronting. Whenever I had to cross it, I tried not to look at those smashed faces, but inevitably my eyes would be drawn to them, horrified.
Let’s put a pin in the bridge for a minute and instead change tracks for something a little more positive. 2024. For me, it was a year of joy.
As I write this, I am in the same house on the same street, in my study/studio, a room that is the closest thing to a man cave that I will ever have or would ever want. Across this year, I have festooned its walls with various visual additions. From gifts given by friends finally finding their place, to postcards from exotic locations visited this very year, a gorgeous illustration sent in by a listener, and some colour found off the internet.
One side of this man cave is the study side. Here you will find my desk, side table, and a lamp that gives off the perfect warm orange glow, as well as my beloved artificial fireplace, and a couple of guitars that mostly go unplayed these days.
The opposite side of the dude room is the studio side, where you will discover a very comfortable couch that in reality gets more writing use than the desk, a coffee table, and some side tables off of which sprout a number of microphones for recording. In between the two sides is a large storage cupboard full of life’s little overflows.
In the morning, which is now, the sun rises beyond the street facing windows, passing through the leaves of the tree just outside them, giving the room a soft dappled illumination. It is quiet and calm and my favourite time of the day.
My study is a comfortable space. It is also where I have probably spent most of 2024. Before this year, for my waking hours at least, that honorific would have gone to various workplaces. I have worked in a writing studio, universities, offices, and laboratories, a year at a McDonalds doing maintenance starting at three in the morning, and before that at a variety of homes in my brief stint as a painter. My study is undoubtedly the best of all those workplaces, not least because my work uniform is very often pyjamas or tracksuit pants, but also because it is a space cultivated not just for creative work but also cultivated just for me. How lucky I am to have a space like that.
It brings me no end of joy to think of all the words written here. There have been many this year. Words that came easy, words that came hard, all of them tapped away one letter at a time as some music plays in the background. Joy also comes from thinking of all the words spoken in this same space thanks to its dual use as a podcast studio. The many chats I’ve had with my two friends, talking not just about horror movies but through them about each other and our views on life. Some of these chats were silly, others serious, but all of them were enriching and fun, and best of all, I got to send them out and share them with listeners from all corners of the globe; likewise done from this very study.
Of course, not all the words written in this joyous year were done within these four walls. I like to roam when I write and have set up camp in just about every room of my house and the backyard as well. Similarly, I have headed out, used this incredible opportunity to work and write however I like, to finally explore, to pack a bag, jump on my bike, and ride to a cafe or library or pub; often all three in a single day. I now have a list in my google maps of libraries I have visited and want to visit again. There are nine so far. Next year, I want to increase that number.
And then there was the ultimate writing and roaming, my European writing retreat. There are now words and stories that are tied to the locations I visited there, meaning when I reread them they incite memories with the same vigour as certain smells.
It was a good year. A year of learning how to do this thing I want to do. Not so much the writing, but the self-management in getting myself to write.
So a lot of words were written. How many? I’m so glad you asked. I’ve done some rough maths across all the projects I worked on last year and here are my findings based on only the words that are mostly in their final forms.
For my novel, Severed Thumb, I wrote around fifty eight thousand words. It’s around two thirds done and my first goal for 2025 is to finish it.
I also wrote the manuscript for book two of my kids graphic novel series, which came in at around twenty one thousand words. The colours are currently being done for book one, which will come out in 2026, and they look absolutely gorgeous. I wrote a short story for an anthology book which was around six and a half thousand words. It’s called Socially Amphibious and is about the appearance of a ginormous frog. For The Bowling Alley Detectives, I wrote around twenty four thousand words before realising it was going to be a novel and pressed pause. For the story I wrote in my writing marathon, presently called Hospital Fire, I wrote thirty one and a half thousand words. For Stray Thoughts, I wrote forty five thousand words. Then for some other little bits of paid work and social videos and the like, I equate it to roughly fifteen thousand words.
So, not including the many many words written for outlining and brainstorming as well as a number of smaller projects I’m sure I’m forgetting, I wrote around two hundred and two thousand words for the year.
Not bad. My goal for this year, 2025, is to try and blow that out of the water. I will have the benefit of two extra months this year, as my first two months of last year was spent on non-writing work, but aside from that I mostly want to take all the lessons I learned during my writing marathon and put them into action. To solidify my routine a bit more, get the most from a day, and work towards mastering don’t-look-back writing.
I want this year to be one of discipline.
Discipline, I think, has a negative connotation, and rightly so as it’s usually attributed to punishment. But the true definition, at least according to Wikipedia is, “the self-control that is gained by requiring that rules or orders be obeyed, and the ability to keep working at something that is difficult.”
There are two parts of that I like. Gaining self-control is the first of those two. Self-control, or self-discipline, sounds a lot less harsh than straight up discipline, and I like the idea of gaining a greater mastery of that. I’m not someone who’s undisciplined by any measure, but there’s still a big difference between getting some work from yourself, and actively gaining self-discipline in order to constantly and consistently get work from yourself.
The other part I like is, to keep working at something that is difficult. That’s really the crux of the whole thing. Writing, sometimes, can be easy. You can get in the flow and out of your head and the words are just there. Other times, it’s really difficult and when that happens, it’s very easy to stop, to allow distraction in, to say that you’ll try again later. My real goal with being more disciplined this year is to keep working. That doesn’t mean I’ll be self-flagellating or chain myself to my desk or anything like that, but instead to recognise what any given situation needs in order for me to keep working, whether that be to knuckle down, go for a thinking walk, or switch to a different project.
So, if I have any resolution for the year that’s it. That and to read more and scroll less. Standard stuff.
So, back to the bridge, and more importantly how it ties in to this year, because my year started on that bridge. The smashed face bridge.
In previous years, I have visited people on new years. It’s never been a planned thing. Usually, in the lead up to the end of the year, someone will throw out an invitation to a gathering or an event and we’ll go. This year, no invitation came. Seeing that as a blessing, Holly and I decided to, for the first time ever, just have a new year’s at home, just the two of us. And so we did. We ate and drank and watched a movie, managing to keep ourselves awake as midnight approached. For the actual changing of the year, we did have a brief thought of going on our roof to spot the fireworks from the city but then when that failed we instead decided to go to the bridge.
With the highway running under and away from it, it makes a clear line of sight down to the docklands and the city next to them. So, in lieu of a roof, the bridge was a good spot to be. Turns out, we weren’t the only ones to think so. A number of our neighbours likewise decided to start their year on the smashed face bridge. We wandered over, found a spot amongst the groups of people, and looked out toward the city.
As the clock counted down, we took sips of whiskey from a flask we had purchased in the Dolomites earlier in the year, and more and more people began to show up; including one guy who had thought to shove a small speaker in his back pocket that was playing old pop songs.
And so, we saw in the new year standing with our unknown neighbours watching small fireworks explode in a distant sky as Rhythm of the Night played in a tinny speaker from the back of some guys pocket. All of it taking place on a bridge that still had smashed faces looking out of it but which no longer scared me.
The red spray paint has been washed or worn away, and truthfully, I barely notice the faces anymore. They are part of the landscape, part of the texture of my strange and forgotten suburb. I look forward to spending another year here. I look forward to sitting in my study and writing, or to go out and explore, find some new libraries or cafes to work from. I look forward to working, to learning, to becoming more disciplined, or at least trying to.
I look forward to 2025, and I hope you do too.
Thank you so much for reading these Stray Thoughts and until next time why not pop on Rhythm of the Night by Corona and take some time to think about the year that was and the year that will be.