I have never made a song before, but a melody came to me this month and I got it down — without using A.I.!
Before I play it for you, I want to use this space to explain what I am doing. Last month I revealed how this newsletter has changed, but what creative work is going to fill it?
This is the closest I can come to a mission statement and I’m going to hit you with the highest most expansive vision of it, without caveats, without apologies.
For as long as I can remember, I have been creating — or attempting to create — from my ego. My ego wants order, it wants control and it wants certainty: it wants to know what I am making and why, it wants a plan, and most of all it wants me to be good, ideally better than everybody else, at what I do.
As far as my ego is concerned, aptitude = love.
And then, a year ago, another part of me stopped me in my tracks and, a provocative wink in her eye, invited me to explore Mystery. You know now the journey that followed: the home left behind, the thresholds crossed, the supernatural gifts received, the dragons confronted.
At the deep end, in this winter of self-imposed solitude, I faced down the final boss and discovered it was making the same invitation as my Anima: embrace the Mystery.
The Mystery is the part of all of us that is timeless and formless. To give any more shape to it than that, is to lose it. It is energy, source, soul or, if you prefer, God. This Mystery does not show up on schedule; it does not speak English or, indeed, use words. It speaks somatically: in feelings, intuition, in image symbols and, occasionally, synchronicity.
In other words, completely unreliably: No order, no plan, no control.
Certainty and Mystery cannot coexist.
My ego did battle.
And in winter’s silence, my ego gave in.
So I come back to you now, with a declaration of artistic intent:
A commitment to surrender myself completely to this creative mystery; to engage with it enthusiastically, prolifically and with full abandon; I will create whatever I am directed to create without doubt, hesitation or procrastination; and publish and promote it proudly — without permission or perfection.
Every month I will start anew and ask: ‘what am I being guided to make today?’ I am centering my life around this commitment, foregoing the safety of career progression and other comforts.
This work requires a direct confrontation of my deepest fears: fears of my own ordinariness, of rejection, judgment, failure, abandonment. These wounds go deep. But I’m wise enough to know the point is not to defeat my fears, or to outrun them — it’s to sit with and survive them, again and again.
This declaration goes against internet common sense. I have no ‘thing’; I am not ‘The [insert topic] Guy’. My niche is me. And as much as it would make sense to pick a lane — as much as my ego desperately wants me to! — the only thing that excites me deeply is to create a little bit of everything, all the time.
You have an extremely important role to play in this work: to bear witness.
Not just to the art that I make, but to the process, the uncomfortable unknowing. I am asking you watch me, in a very real sense naked, and to support me. I can’t promise you’ll like half of what I make — or even understand it for that matter; if I do this right, I won’t understand it either!
What I make will be always unique, it will be sometimes beautiful and it will be often deeply flawed. But you are going to witness complete abandonment to creative providence, a man living on the edge of uncertainty.
That is my promise to you, it’s the only one I know I can keep.
My hope is that the art, coming directly from my soul, will speak directly to yours, in the language of big things like love, beauty, joy, truth and freedom.
A life spent dancing with this Mystery feels unbelievably exciting to me. I cannot for a second guess how the rest of my days will play out and that feels like a good way to live them.
I’m locking in! Your support really means everything to me.
New work: February 2026
I have three things I have made this month, that I am thrilled and nervous to show you.
Yes, I wrote a song!
It’s called ’Naturally Dear, Naturally’ and it is the most perfect example of this dance with Mystery, I cannot think of a better way to declare my artistic intent. I did not begin February thinking I was going to make my first-ever piece of music; the melody came to me suddenly and easily like manna from heaven; I trusted the Magic even though it made little sense, and I present it to you now as it was born, a little Miracle.
And of course it needs repeating in 2026: I did not use A.I. to create this! Here is the story of how it came together.
Another new-ish comic
I have published another comic short story on my website. It’s called ’Pearls of Wisdom’ and it originally appeared in Issue #2 of ’Biteguard Fever Dreams‘. It’s the most personal and intimate short story I’ve drawn, about a moment of revelation in conversation with my own mortality. I have tried to recreate the experience of reading the story in print on a web browser and it has come out great. Read it here!
I’m now selling both issues of Biteguard Fever Dreams for the price of one. I only have 33 pairs left and once they are gone they are gone, I won’t reprint. Snap ‘em up quick, I ship worldwide!
Happy New Year!
No, that’s not a typo. For the second year running, I am choosing to begin the year today, March 1st. I don’t make resolutions in December or try to change my life in the worst month of the year. I think I make a compelling argument, see what you think:
“Let’s make no bones about this, January is the worst month of the year — in the northern hemisphere anyway. The days are cruelly short, the weather is awful. The month contains Blue Monday and posts the highest number of suicides in almost every country on earth. The Law of Association is a thing: what subconscious message do we all absorb about the year ahead when this is how it starts?”
If you feel that your resolutions have already fallen by the wayside, then please accept this gift: the chance to start the year again.
Expect the next email from me on or around March 29th!
Until another Sunday soon,
