Kevin McGeary

It is almost the end of the decade and people are reflecting on how their own world and the wider world has changed over this time. I happen to have been thinking a lot about what life was like a decade ago because a colleague of mine from that time died in November.

My biggest concern at the time was balancing paid work with passion projects. It still is.

Activities

Teaching Mandarin and creative writing over the Tutorful website is coming along nicely. You can sign up with me here for lessons in Mandarin, the guitar, essay writing, creative writing, and more.

I have also started working again on the novel (working title The Watcher), having had another round of professional feedback, this time from Fish Publishing. It is a millennia-spanning epistolary whodunit that has just passed the 40,000-word mark.

Output

Ahead of a double album launch at The Lion’s Den in Manchester on April 18, 2020, I am writing and recording both English songs and Chinese songs that will make the final cut. Among the newly recorded Chinese songs is this one:

Wider World

This month, the UK is in the middle of an election campaign. At the time of writing, the Conservative Party is leading the polls, despite the unpopularity of their approach to Brexit. I will be voting Labour (without much enthusiasm) in a key marginal.

If elected, they will hold a second referendum (which I hope will avert Brexit), and massively increase public spending, which could help save the National Health Service and tackle my pet issue, homelessness.

This  month has involved making baby-steps toward monetising some passion projects and big steps toward getting established professionally.  I also finished the second draft of a novel and will return to it  in November.

Activities

I have started teaching Mandarin on a freelance basis. I am available to teach anywhere in Greater Manchester or online. More details can be found here.

I have also been translating  for a Russian gaming company and, once more bureaucratic hoops have been jumped through, can hopefully start interpreting on a freelance basis soon. Lastly, I have written a stand-up comedy set that I will  unleash in a live performance in November.

Output

Much of my music is now available for purchase on Bandcamp. This  month,  I re-recorded some Chinese-language songs that  I have particular affection for:

I also self-published a short story on Kindle that wasn’t quite right for any publication. It has already been well-reviewed.

Wider World

Within 24 hours of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi being killed, Donald Trump was booed at the World Series. There are myriad reasons for  booing Donald Trump but this was not the time to do it, and only serves to make his opponents look irrational and boosts his chances at reelection.

The impeachment is building up steam, but just as important is what will happen afterwards. Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard is one of the few to have taken a principled and sensible position on opposing radical Islamism, but her chances of being accepted by the establishment seem slim.

A new song recording

If you don’t understand it you can run the lyrics through Google Translate.

出生于一九八一年
你成了伟大的演员
你甚至征服了好莱坞
你可真是个 优秀的人

有人曝光你所做的事情让你显得很坏
可是范冰冰我还是想跟你做爱

作为你的微博粉丝
我看了你的道歉信
你已经被罚款了
所以我能原谅你

人生是一件难以了解的事情
将来有一天我还是想跟你有一夜情

有一天
有一天
有一天
有一天

My latest short story is now available on Kindle 

This has been a month of endings and beginnings.

Activities

This month I left Beetham Tower, whose north-facing view provided the backdrop to over a year’s worth of music videos. I have moved to a place where it seems to be easier to get silence for recording.

Other big things to have come to and this month include my. MBA. I defended the thesis successfully in Barcelona on September 23^rd. I also finished the first draft of a novel (working title “The Watcher”) and began the second draft largely based on the excellent professional feedback from The Darling Axe.

Output

The last recording in front of the Manchester skyline was a guitar adaptation of “The Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly”.

I also intend to revive my use of Soundcloud to promote my music. I re-recorded a song I wrote in 2012 titled “TV Talent Shows”.

And I recorded a song I have often played at open mic nights.

Wider World

An impeachment of Donald Trump is now a real possibility but there is a long and rocky road to making it happen, or even denying him a second term. To quote Bill Maher, Republicans are the party of rednecks, but Democrats are the party of blueballs, so it would be foolish to get one’s hopes up.

As Greta Thunberg has so memorably pointed out, Trump and Brexit are only a small part of the reason why the future is so scary.

This month I have written and recorded more new music than at any time since 2013. I have also completed my MBA thesis, which leaves just one more hoop to jump through until the thing is finished and all that’s needed is to figure out what to do with my life. 

Activities

This will hopefully be the last month of being underemployed, having now submitted my thesis, pending a defence in Barcelona in a month or so.

I have also been frequenting open mic nights, with a view toward a double-LP launch, one of Chinese-language songs and the other of English ones. A full-time job will slow down the process, but only slightly.

In the past month, I have done nothing with prose fiction, but this precedes a massive rush in which I will complete a second draft of my novel, and begin a six-month short story-writing course.

Output

New English-language MVs include “One Question”, a song about God:

New Chinese ones include “Sick Man of Europe”, which is about English teachers in China

And a re-recording of “Migrant Workers”, a song about the unsung heroes of China’s economic miracle.

Wider World

This month has seen the United Nations’ biodiversity chief Cristiana Paşca Palmer state that countries need to get together fast to protect the world’s forests and ecosystems and the road on which I live has been closed by Extinction Rebellion protests. The chances of the world working together do not look good since the unelected British prime minister has called on the monarch to prorogue parliament to push through an act of xenophobic self-destruction, and Donald Trump has displayed behaviour even more insane than during the 2016 election campaign.

All the frivolous activities mentioned above might well be described as fiddling while the world burns. Yet our aggressive, territorial species has been causing mass extinctions since we were walking upright, and we have tended to muddle through. Or at least the more fortunate among us have.

This has been a month of completed drafts. I completed the first draft of my novel, a continent and millennia-spanning epistolary thriller, and have sent it off for its first beta reading. I also completed the first draft of my MBA thesis, which asks the question “Are diversity drives proving productive for UK publishing?”

Activities

The first draft of the MBA has been a struggle. It has involved a lot of reading and quantitative research. “Diversify” by June Sarpong proved massively helpful when it came to accruing data.

There have also been more live music performances, a side-project that continues to grow. I am building up to giving a full-length set that will hopefully materialise this year.

Output

There have been new MVs, including a higher-quality version of “Self-Doubt”, that has proved popular on Manchester’s open mic scene.

There is also “The War of 1812” (I underestimated how difficult it would be to sing), and another version of “The Happy Birthday Song”.

My review of “Life” by Lu Yao, translated by Chloe Estep, was also published by The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing.

Wider World

When writing my MBA thesis, my main goal is to try to ensure that its conclusions are somewhat less weaselly and evasive than those of The Mueller Report. The left’s worst nightmare has come true, with Trump in the White House and well on course to win a second term, and Boris Johnson in 10 Downing Street and committed to delivering Brexit, deal or no deal.

There are reasons for optimism though. Boris Johnson does not believe in Brexit with any conviction. Trump continues to show himself to be an ignorant fool with every utterance, which means the Democrats have a reasonable chance of inflicting the first real defeat on an incumbent since 1980 (1992 barely counts because the late Ross Perot split the centre-right vote).

With the situation in Hong Kong, it is more important than ever for liberal democracy to show that it is the superior form of government.