Changes

First of all, thank you for your nice comments in my previous post.

In my day life, I have been trying to find somewhere new to work. I hate my job, it drains my brain, has no hope for the future and I work in close quarters with some awful people. I am now travelling into Central London for interviews, because currently I work semi-locally. This means dealing with the toxic environment of public transport in the winter. And as much as I love London in the summer, most of it gets undone in the winter.

Those packed carriages and everyone has the sniffles, cold or full blown flu? It's like walking through the disease. People with runny noses who are sniffing it up or just wiping it with their hands. And then they touch the handrails? It's disgusting. It is a result of that stupid attitude that some people have that a cold is not a reason enough to stay at home. You should stay at home. At 5foot1 I have an ant's eye view of whats going on in their upper-respiratory regions. It's vile. And by travelling in the rush hour, or a compact space where diseases can spread easily, you are making it worse because then it gets passed on to everyone else. My immune system is bad enough as it is without having to catch your infections. Then they go to work and use their diseased hands on their computer where it festers underneath the keyboard. It doesn't help anyone.

And those jobs I interviewed for? Nothing, which makes my horrible job even worse. I was even shortlisted for a job but then lost it because I couldn't get the day off to go for the interview. Very annoying.

Anyway, I have now been given a deadline for book two. I have a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. Don't worry reader, this deadline is pretty cool and has nothing to do with the following:
1) An impending arranged marriage
2) Disease

So now, I have to tolerate everything on the work front and use the next few months to write until my hands fall off. I was up at 5:30 this morning writing. I need to remember the advice given by so many other authors: just write and the rest will follow - it will get better after the editing process. I should just ignore all of those voices in my head that ask me 'who will read this?'.

On a completely different note, when we haven't been stuck indoors trying to avoid those awful storms (really scary that a building collapsed in High Holborn this weekend), I was out and about in Covent Garden about two weeks ago because I really needed the day out. And what do I come across? A street performer being sandwiched in between two beds of nails.

Happy January

I hope all of you had a great end of 2013 and beginning of 2014.

Yes I do understand that we are almost into February but since this is my first post in such a long time, the greeting sounded better in my head.

It's been a long time since I wrote on this blog, and with people asking (not always nicely) about book 2, I thought it would be best to provide you with an explanation. I'll keep it short. There was a passing in my family of someone who was very important to me; the person who made me want to write in the first place. I don't want to go into too much detail. My publisher has been really understanding this whole time.

Now, I feel a lot better. I remembered that I have been given this wonderful opportunity, and I should use it. It may not be my day job, and I can't afford to move away for a few months to focus on my writing, but it's not all bad writing part time. I just have a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it.

This is belated but ... I wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous new year.