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Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

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Anxiety

Understanding war

March 1, 2022 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Support in the time of war

My mind is overwhelmed. I didn’t think it would happen. I was always proud of an ability to compartmentalise. But the news of war on Ukraine has me overwhelmed. Images of violence, refugees, death…

I try to focus on writing, but my thoughts keep straying. I should be working on my next novel, but all I can think about is the conflict. My mind won’t let me be.

My mind overflows with pictures. Torn-up earth, blood, children crying. My heart swells with anger. How could this happen? Why? I don’t understand. I want to do something. But what? I am powerless.

Information overload

I sit, head in my hands, trying to let torrents of new information sink in. All the time, trying, and failing, to make sense of it all. I just can’t seem to put it into any kind of context, because it’s too overwhelming, too big.

I don’t understand the war, and I don’t know if anyone does. Why did it really start? What is the cause? Why are so many young men fighting to support the greed of one despicable rich man? How did it get to this point? What will happen now? Why is it so hard to understand?

I have tried and tried to understand this war, but it is too big. It is all over the news, but I still don’t understand. I’m overloaded with stories trying to find a human angle or something with which I can identify.

When the simple fact is, I can’t identify with this war, because it makes no sense.

How you can help in this war

PEN Ukraine together with PEN Belarus, Polish PEN Club and Open Culture Foundation is organising a public fundraiser to support the creative community of Ukraine.

The funds will go to help Ukrainian writers, journalists, scholars, translators, and artists who have found themselves under threat as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine.

The funds will be used to alleviate the urgent needs of Ukrainian creatives, whose lives are now in direct danger:

Culture is one of the chief bastions of Ukrainian freedom and we must ensure that members of the Ukrainian cultural community can continue to speak out loudly and without hindrance.

Support now: https://penbelarus.org/en/2022…

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Modern life is heck, Stress

My top five don’t read list for 2021

December 9, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

No reading

While the world and his wife/partner/best friend with benefits is busy telling you which (non-romantic fiction) books you absolutely must read, I thought I’d look back on 2021 as the year I reduced my reading materials and write instead about things you might also like to consider no longer reading.

Emails

Reading spamWay back when, email was going to be the game changer. No longer would you need pen and paper, an envelope, a postage stamp and the services of the Post Office (other mail delivery services are available) to tell someone what you had for your lunch. Email was going to do it all for you. And faster. Often using fewer words. In 2021, I stopped reading almost every email sent my way. The only exception being my business email inbox, and even then, I stayed selective. 95% of emails addressed to me were deleted unread. We’ve got smart home security Every time it detects movement I get an email. Recently, I had sixty-seven emails about a spider.

In my (non-writing) day job, I’ve made it clear I regard emails as ‘for information only’ and if anyone needs me to do something, they should pick up the phone and call (or connect through one of the now many chat applications I’m forced to maintain). I suggest you do the same. Unsubscribe from any and every mailing list – there’s not one that ever matters (except for my lovely and increasingly rare newsletters), set up an auto-reply that lays down the law about how you won’t be doing a darn thing based on an email, so speak to me if it matters and delete every other message you get. It may help to know I have cultured the reputation of a crotchety so-and-so in the workplace, but it means I get to do actual work and make a difference.

Leaflets and junk mail

Each time I buy a magazine, I find an in-store bin and shake free all the inserts. It’s the same when one arrives through the post. 4 out of 5 dentists agree. What does the fifth one think? Brush your teeth with a lollipop. I have the most awful impulse buying habit and I realise I am the precise target of these special offers and dubious claims. It’s best I don’t see them. The same goes for any junk mail – and indeed any mail that isn’t a bill or statement or the offer to buy film rights to Rebuilding Alexandra Small. Rid yourself of the meaningless words and wasted paper. Recycle them. Save trees. And don’t get me started on petitions. They never work. I might start one: Rewrite Hamlet so his dad doesn’t die. And everyone gets two hours of their life back.

The news

Disaster headlineOne of my other dreadful habits is that I over-consume the news. I can’t sleep at night until I’ve checked at least three or four major news outlet websites. Twice. I have two settings: worried for the world and craving cheese. I realise this sort of reading means I’m setting myself up for a bad night with so much screen time exposure, but something inside me remains convinced that if I don’t keep an eye on the world, it’ll blow itself up. Putting Boris Johnson in charge of the country is a bit like employing Prince Andrew as a babysitter. Every few months, I’ve managed to swear myself off and take what I call a news blackout. I refuse to listen to, read or talk about the news for two whole weeks. These are the good weeks where writing happens, the house gets a spring clean and I sleep like an overfed baby. I also realise I should do this more often or ration my intake. I could give it up tomorrow. It’s no big deal. Honest.

Warning labels on medicines

I am a hypochondriac. There, I admitted it. I am the sort of person who’d take a broad spectrum antibiotic as his desert island disc luxury item. There’s little more beloved of my sort of people than reading those little folded up sheets of paper written by lawyers that come with every pill or potion you buy or collect from a pharmacy. It’s not the ‘may cause death’ thing that bothers me. So can eating pizza. It’s the rare side effects that I home in on and within days convince myself I have at least half. COVID-19 has been huge in my head. Even bigger than in the real world. With each new variant, there’s a list of revised symptoms and I get them all. I’ve worked my way through many a box of self tests. The inside of my nose must be squeaky clean from regular use of cotton buds. This needs to end. Now.

BTL

Daily Mail BTL typicalBelow-the-line comments. Often found on newspaper websites, but also the same sort of content makes up 99.9% of Twitter. It’s like glimpsing the soiled underwear of a nation. These are people who lost their teeth to Mountain Dew. The Daily Mail website is like someone put Mein Kampf on shuffle. It’s the home of the stupid.

Under recipes, you find gems like: “This was NOT GOOD. I didn’t have eggs, so I substituted jalepeños and the batter wouldn’t hold. Also, I was out of white sugar so I substituted anthrax. Hubby died! But so did my stepson, who I hated. 2 stars.”. Before memes there were bumper stickers. Before that was the renaissance or some shit. I posted, ‘Hey everyone what’s your favourite doughnut?‘ It took just under a minute for superwowgirl77 to reply ‘I can only dream of them as unfortunately I am a celiac.‘ People weighed in, some to argue she was missing out, some to call her a killjoy, then the tide turned I became the evil one. I was cancelled.

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Modern life is heck, Reading, Stress Tagged With: COVID-19, Diary, Reading, stress

Moving stress

November 2, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Curtain twitching neighbour

Moving house is supposedly one of the more stressful things we put ourselves through. Add in one of those awful weekends life likes to chuck your way from time to time, and you have the recipe for Xanax.

As weekends go, the one that just ended was rubbish – even by my low standards. My husband broke down in a torrential downpour on a major motorway with no hard shoulder. One of these new fangled smart motorways that killed 38 people in the few years. My dog picked up a skin infection that is now costing an arm and a leg in mature cheese to disguise the crushed up pound-coin-sized antibiotics a sadistic (and now extremely well-off) vet prescribed. I dropped and broke three highly pressurised glass bottles of traditional lemonade (living the high life). You wouldn’t believe just how much mess that causes. And just how far the shards of glass will travel. And just how sharp they are when you sit on one. And how hard it is to administer a plaster to your rear that stays put.

To top it all, our soon-to-be ex-neighbour from hell decided to have one last go at sending me over the edge.

Neighbour from hell

When people talk neighbours from hell, they usually mean some antisocial creep who plays loud music, smokes way-too-much weed and/or smears windows with excrement. Or variations on those basic three themes. My appalling neighbour does none of this. He’s of the ‘nice to your face, vile behind your back’ sort. The kind of person who used to dominate the 90s gay scene.

Over eight years, he’s policed a dim, barnacled, smelly area of no-man’s-land between each flat in our ancient under-maintained building. The kind of place you could keep a prisoner of conscience secure in the knowledge they’d crack within hours and spill every secret. Our neighbour spends each and every waking hour making sure nobody dare set foot in this precious scrap of hell.

We wanted to make sure the space didn’t put off flat buyers. We came to an agreement with the people who own it to clean it up and fill it with plants.

Neighbour wasn’t pleased.

Usually, I’d be able to tell such a man to shove his displeasure firmly up his hoop. Sadly, he gets to say whether we can extend the years on our lease as we sell and get moving. I have to lap it all up. And rather than tell me to my face, how did he choose to announce his irritation? That’s right. By email. Through his solicitor.

Moving shame

Dear reader, I’m ashamed to say I threw myself on his mercy. I rammed my tongue so far up his rear end it came out of his mouth.

So far, the matter looks to be resolved, and it’s only cost an extra £1700 in legal fees to send a letter to five or six different people. Still, if it means we get on with moving house and away from this awful man …

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to set down what life in Britain is like in 2021. The NIMBY (Not in my back yard) culture that expects everything should run only for the benefit of those in power slides down even to my lowly level on the ladder. That and I want to make sure I don’t forget the details and the rage so I can use it in my next book.

And use it I will.

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Stress Tagged With: Brighton, Diary, Moving House, Neighbours, stress

Beating an addiction helped process growing up an outsider

July 21, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Drinking alone

Any recovery programe starts in the same way. You admit you have a problem and it consumes you. In my case, it was drink. It could easily have been any of my other self-destructive behaviour patterns, but as a starter for ten, my body decided to tackle an unfettered love of jar.

For every success story, there’s at least a thousand people ready to stick up their hands and say giving up didn’t work for them. The failure rate is depressing. Those who fail are happy to speak out. Like when you watch reality casting shows and whoever happens to be this month’s Simon Cowell-alike tells a room full of eager faces how most of them won’t have the X-factor.

So what does it feel like to be four years sober and consider yourself a success? I should add, the four-year part doesn’t matter. There’s strength in white-knuckling a single sober day.

There’s one thing of which I am sure. The decision to stop drinking saved my life.

Hangovers

For years, I refused to own my problem. I would drink. A lot. I’d have hangovers and dread facing people the next day. As a functioning alcoholic, my career highlights include: finding myself with no wallet in the middle of nowhere looking for a phone box to call my sleeping parents 200 miles away and ask if they can prepay a cab to get a 25-year-old me home. I’ve woken with two cracked ribs and a broken TV. I’ve found myself thrown from a cab in a foreign city covered in sick that might have been mine.

I stopped drinking much like I stopped smoking. One day it didn’t happen

Towards the end, my evenings always started the same. With the intention to limit myself to what was in the kitchen. Once I took the first sip, I couldn’t stop and wanted to keep going to that place where I got sociable and fun and brave enough to not hide away. I wanted to think nothing. Half way through any evening, I’d stumble to the nearest shop selling wine and slur my orders.

I stopped drinking much like I stopped smoking. One day it didn’t happen. The next day was the same.

It took a year of not taking a drink to deal with the dark cloud that had followed me around. Until I could do that, I was simply a guy who drank too much.

Bit by bit, I asked why I let myself get literally legless, lifting the lid of a box marked PRIVATE. I came face-to-face with the hurt of growing up an only child, with industrial grade acne, no friends, no self-confidence, a weight problem … and a preference for men. In each and every respect, I felt alone. Add them together and the feeling manifested as alcohol abuse in my adult life. I was singled out by the school playground bullies because I didn’t know how to fight back. I stood alone in bars and clubs on account of zero social skills. People didn’t bother getting to know me, because I hid away in shadows.

Drink corrected everything.

Numb

As I identified each cause, the effect lifted. A little each day … until I no longer was consumed by the desire to drink. I no longer needed to be numb.

I don’t call myself sober. I prefer to say I’m not drinking today. Mostly because it saves on the embarrassed silences when ‘fessing up to being a reformed booze bag – or the people who implore me to have just the one glass when I stay quiet.

I let myself have a drink. Because I trust that I know when and how to stop. And why. Drinking was no longer fun. The pain and anxiety that drove my love of the bottle added bubbles to my beer.

Of course, I’m not unique in this. Millions of us only drink once in a while. I have a penchant for an espresso Martini. But drinking is no longer a defined part of my life; something I do every day from 5pm until sleep takes over.

I’ve long been reluctant to write about this part of my life, even though I’ve published stories about recovery and made it the central theme of ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’. The thing is, I realise there are lots of drinkers like me. People who don’t accept their relationship with alcohol might be a problem. They’ll keep tumbling and hit new lows.

One of the best things I ever read is that you don’t have to hit rock-bottom to step out of the lift. You can stop self-sabotaging at any floor.

I was lucky. One day, drinking didn’t happen. I’m grateful it did. I’m grateful to Mark for making it so.


Moderation management
Moderation Management™ is a lay-led non-profit dedicated to reducing the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol. MM provides support through face-to-face meetings, video and phone meetings, chats, and private online support communities.

 

Low cost ebooks

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Modern life is heck, Rebuilding Alexandra Small, Stress Tagged With: Alcoholism, Depression, Diary, Health, Mental Health, Recovery

Finding your pandemic flow

April 21, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Flow
Flow – or being in the Zone

I keep hearing how life is looking up. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Freedom is on the way. So why do I feel more burdened than ever. Why can I complete no project? Why would I rather lie in bed scrolling through the news and social media than settle to something constructive.

Mr Fanning has used lockdown to learn how to plaster walls, move electrical sockets, and plumb in a sink. I’ve organised my spice cupboard.

Even when furlough landed in my lap, giving me twelve unadulterated weeks to write, I spent the days chatting online about how I should be writing. It was only when furlough ended that ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ saw progress.

Pandemic procrastination

At first, I blamed my Olympian level procrastination, but everyone I talk to says much the same. We’re in a collective state of bleurgh. We’re not burnt out or depressed. The notion that sits on my shoulder each day is one of “what’s the point in doing this today? Tomorrow won’t be any different.” And it’s not that I lack hope. I know this will also pass. It’s just much as the government tells us we’re ‘winning the fight’ I lack direction.

The cautious habits of last year – masks at dawn, rinsing innocent groceries, washing my hands to the tune of Deutschland über alles after opening the post – have fallen by the way. I hardly get to leave my house and mix with people these days, unless they’re also walking a dog. I try to strike up conversations with delivery men. I’m even toying with being nice to my hateful new neighbours whose sole contribution to the street seems to be six billion solar bulbs trailed through viciously pruned trees and across the once green lawns now home to grey slate.

I figure I’m sitting somewhere in between being positive about the future – my book comes out in just over a month and I’m halfway through writing another. Comedy clubs will open again and I’ve written so much new material, I could easily fill an hour (don’t worry, I won’t). I’m signing off on chapters of my fabulous new audiobook and translations of ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ ready for a summer of banging on about the book to anyone who will listen.

Moving on

I have no reason to feel down. Soon we should sell our Brighton flat and the inherited house in the Midlands and move to somewhere with no neighbours and a large abandoned garden. I might even get to slide into reduced work hours when free of a crippling mortgage, property management fees, and two stinging council tax bills.

And yet, I know my mental health isn’t great today. I’m not about to risk a drink, don’t worry. I’ve agreed that door is firmly shut. But the lack of motivation worries me. I’m no longer able to find delight when things go well or be bothered when they don’t.

I can’t be alone. This sense of being unable to produce anything of value or move on with things within my reach. Others must have this too.

Flow

I recently learned about ‘flow’. Also known as ‘being in the zone’ – a state of being where we become so absorbed that time flies by, and we forget we’re not at our best. It’s been around since the mid-seventies.

The only way to achieve ‘flow’ is to grant yourself the time and space and find that something to occupy your every available thought.

It doesn’t need to be building an extension or hanging more solar lights around a garden that can be seen from outer space. It can be as simple as an hour listening to an album you haven’t plays in five years or watching a show on YouTube, or catching up on the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest (my parties are legendary).

Taking time from our days (and guarding it) lets flow train your mind to let go of the fog. When someone interrupts (be they husband or dog), bat them away. Turn off email, turn off your phone, lock a door, turn off lights if need be. Drive to Barnard Castle for an eye test. Alone.

How are you coping with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ days?

What’s your favourite flow?

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Modern life is heck, Stress Tagged With: COVID-19, Diary, Health, Rebuilding Alexandra Small

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About Mo Fanning

Mo Fanning

Mo Fanning (@mofanning) tells jokes on a stage and writes contemporary fiction. He’s the bestselling author of The Armchair Bride and Rebuilding Alexandra Small. Mo makes fabulous tea – milk in last – and is a Society of Authors member and cancer bore.

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