Who'd Have Thunk it?

 Well, it's that time of year when I usually post a review of my year in books and films. Trouble is, I've hardly read or seen any. 2016 has been a bit full of other things.

 Mostly that's involved two house moves, from Barnstaple to Yeovil and then back to Bideford. Also there's the wee matter of the birth of my daughter, and the total upheaval that caused in my life. It's been fantastic, the best time of my life, but it does mean that I haven't been to the cinema even once. The last film I saw at a theatre was The Force Awakens, which surprised me - a Star Wars film which was actually pretty good! Who'd have thunk it, eh?

 I have managed to read one book series which if not new to me, at least hadn't been read for so many decades that I rediscovered it. That was the Narnia books, by C S Lewis. Yes, children's literature, but if Harry Potter, Divergent et al have shown us anything, it's that the genre contains gems. The Narnia series is brilliantly done, from Diggory trying to save his mother to Caspian's rediscovery of Old Narnia, and to Puddleglum and the Silver Chair. It was my gateway into Fantasy. From Narnia I went on to Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, and beyond that the whole broad, uneven genre. Most Fantasy is honestly not very good - much of it is bloody rubbish. But as Robert A Heinlein once said, 95% of everything is rubbish. What matters is finding the wheat in the chaff, and Fantasy has always had (just) enough wheat for me.

 So that's my year. Now it's 2017 which concerns me, a year in which I'll become a dad again and also launch Black Lord of Eagles, my new novel, due in April. I've almost completed the edit, I've got a Kickstarter project completed and video filmed, and I'm sorting out where to hold the launch and what advertising I can do. This year was very big for me. Next might be even better.

 Meanwhile I hope you all end 2016 with a wonderful Christmas, and may New Year bring you joy. Take care and be safe.

Ch-ch-changes

 OK, so the cover for Black Lord of Eagles is done. It's a wowser too, really good, I like it a lot.

 Not much else is done. I haven't had time. Either I'm in work until 9.30 pm or, on my day off, I have to sort out a dozen things that have been waiting for ages, and I still don't catch up. Only my mornings are free and they're taken up with caring for little Bella. I need a better routine and more time. Right now.

 The good news is, I have an interview for a job in Sidmouth in which I have a very good chance of getting the job. It's for Cancer Research UK, as manager, a job I fulfilled on a relief basis during much of 2015, before I joined Barnardo's. I even went for the Sidmouth job but didn't get it. Instead I ran my Barnardo's store in Yeovil, while Sidmouth went through three different managers in less than two years. They need stability and I can give it to  them.

 What it would give to me is a better routine, more time (natch), a job I enjoy, and a fantastic little seaside town in which to raise my daughter. My wife could quit work or go part time, It would be fantastic, and I so badly want it. Not least, all the above means I would be able to write properly again. Finding the time is so hard now that I can never generate momentum, never delve deep enough into the mood of the story.

 So, changes are afoot. I only hope they come soon.

God hates a Coward

 OK. Decision made; I will rededicate myself to writing.

 This is hard. Bella is 9 months old and takes a lot of my time. Also an orange-faced buffoon is about to become US President, and a labrador-haired buffoon is UK Foreign Minister. The possibilities for hilarity are huge. Yes, there may be a slight drawback with wars all over the place, but at least it will be entertaining.

 But still, rededication. I've reached agreement with Olli Tooley to publish my next two books through his company, Blue Poppy publishing. Provisional launch date is April 7th 2017, which means I have to finish the edit/rewrite by mid December. One month from now. With nearly 60,000 words still to do.

 Oh dear.

 But God hates a coward, so here we go. Actually I've completed a lot of words already, so I'm on target. But I also need to speak with Mark Watts about redesigning my cover to include the Blue Poppy logo, and a barcode on the back. I have to arrange a launch event, hopefully at Sol Books in Barnstaple, if not then at the library. I need to work out publicity, radio appearances and maybe newspaper articles, flyers, competitions and giveaways, and I've never done some of those things before.

 I'm starting to think I might have been a beardy-faced buffoon about this. Still... God hates a coward, right?

O Jerusalem

 The Chinese have a curse; "May you live in interesting times." They mean that an age of excitement, of drama, might sound romantic and thrilling but is actually too dangerous to be worth it.

 Well, we live in interesting times.

 US power is in decline. It's creating a power vacuum and history tells us that's always a time of danger, as old powers struggle to hold on to dominance and new rivals emerge to challenge them. The rising powers now are China, which everyone knows, and I think Germany - dominant in the EU since reunification, set to become more so now Britain is leaving, and fast building a captive export market in eastern Europe. The EU dances to a German drum now, and already that's caused resentment in places like Greece and Italy. Again, potential for future conflict.

 Bear in mind as well that the US Federal Reserve said recently it expects a recession to hit during 2017. A US economic crisis would quickly spread to the Eurozone, stagnant since the 2008 crash. Even a small blip could easily break the Italian banking system, which is massively indebted and weak. Break that and the single currency collapses.

 These are only examples from a longer list. And yes, there are always such examples; and yes, someone will always be around to cry "Woe to thee, O Jerusalem." But I'm not prone to panic. As a youth in the 80's I didn't worry about nuclear war, because the Cold War enemies knew each other too well, they were known quantities. There was stability, and thus a good degree of safety. Now that stability is gone, and the survivors of the 20th Century's wars (hot and cold alike) are slipping slowly from their pedestals. What follows from that?

 I do not know... but it will be interesting.

Twitchy Fingers

 I hardly ever have time to write these days. It's the first time that's ever happened to me, and it feels weird. I swear my typing fingers twitch in my sleep. Come to that, they twitch when I'm awake, now and then.

 The worst part is that my mind is still involved. I come up with story ideas, ways to rewrite a chapter or novel, intriguing little characters, and all the rest. I still watch a stranger doing this or that and think "Nice, I can use that in the book that's seventh on my To Do list." And then I can't find time to sit and write. I have all these thoughts and can't write them out of me. It's enough to make my head explode.

 Last week I was off work on annual leave. Time to write! All my family promptly went down with flu so hideous we were vomiting, and poor Bella ended up in hospital til midnight, being drip-fed nutrients through a syringe. So, no time to write. At all.

 Bella's fine, by the way. As long as that's true I'll cope with not writing... sorta.

 But I've got to write, at least some of the time. I feel like a fish that isn't allowed to swim; what's the point of being a fish at all, if that's true? Something needs to change. A new job with different hours, maybe, to free up more time. But you know, I'm starting to suspect that when you have an 8-month old daughter, you just don't have time for anything else.

 I am finding this hard,

Bad Times

 Horrible times at work.

 I expected to lose my job yesterday. A few days ago the manager wrote a 3-month performance review for me that was just so flawed and contradictory that I felt I couldn't accept it, so yesterday I told him I won't sign it. I've also made a formal complaint over his behaviour, which I find boorish at best and verbally abusive at worst.

 This is not how to have fun at your job.

 I'm trying to get out, but at this time of year there aren't many good permanent jobs around, it's all seasonal work. I do have an interview on Tuesday, so hopefully this will change soon... and I really do need it to. Whether it's selling a book or working with gribbly diseases, I've got to get out of that place.

 Meantime, I've had a real cracker of a new story idea, about a disparate bunch of social misfits who are thrown together to bring a cure to an ailing queen. Trouble is, the cure is found in only one place, an abandoned mine now inhabited by something dark and unknown and very, very hungry.

 Shame I have so little time to write these days really.

Erro!

 My little Isabella has spoken her first words. "Erro!" came first, then "Mama" and "Yeah", and now today "Dada." It's all incredibly thrilling. I expect her to be reading her own bedtime stories by the time she's two, and writing novels before she turns seven. Seems reasonable.

 People keep telling us that Bella is open, warm-hearted and always cheerful. It was her fifth day in nursery before the staff ever saw her cry, and then it was because another baby was upset. My parents often said I was the same as a toddler. I don't remember it. By the time my long-term memory started up much of the joy had been knocked out of me.

 Why do we do this to ourselves? Children need to learn about stranger danger, to be careful crossing the road, and not to touch hot things. They'll become warier, but we do more. Too often we fill our kids with our own hotchpotch of fears and biases, some of them society's, some of them our own. Caz and I are trying not to. If we succeed well enough that Bella grows into a happy, confident young woman, we'll have done all right.

 I say I want her to be the first woman on Mars, but I don't really. I want her to be the best she can be at whatever she chooses to do, while still being happy.