Not a lot to update, since we're not far into the year. I had two publications last year, both in October, and I'm waiting for the publication of another piece of flash that also happens to be the last thing in my inventory that's not published or trunked. I wrote a short thing last week I'm not particularly happy with (certainly not enough to go to the bother of revising and submitting), and something the week before I didn't finish and don't intend to. I'm supposedly working on a story right now but here I am blogging even though blogging is dead, so there you go. 

I have watched a lot of Netflix already this year. We started with Australian mini-series Tidelands, which I loved right up until the last episode when it didn't end so much as stop. This is something DC's Titans is also guilty of, but I read that they moved the final episode of series one to the beginning of series two so at least I know there's more of that. It did mean the first season ended with a particularly bad episode though, with no obvious link to the main plot right until the end, which wasn't particularly interesting. We caught the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery season two yesterday. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, what with the change of direction, but it was fun and I'm likely to stick around for Stamets, Tilly, and the new engineer anyway. We're also watching season 13 of Supernatural on DVD. That show has some issues (like their treatment of female characters, and some glaring plot holes) but it knows what it is and it's still fun. I was off work two days last week with a bad cold, and started Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, and have ordered the first of the books it's based on.

Winter is always tough. Once Christmas is out of the way it's just one long slog of cold days and dark nights until spring. The glums hit early this winter too, back in December. I ended up not leaving the house except to go to work for most of the month, because of the crowds, and suffering from a bad bout of depression. The one time I did get out to the shops I ended up abandoning my basket in the store because the queue was ridiculous. I'm mostly feeling better now, trying to keep busy with reading, Netflix, and sorting the house out. It's baby steps, but I'm hoping this year is better than the last, politics notwithstanding.

It's been a long time since I last posted (a loooong time). That's life. I'd recently started a new job and joined the gym on last update, and they kind of took over. Between training, building up experience, more training, more building up experience, new job ate up most of my processing power. The gym, it turned out, ate the only hour in my (working) day that wasn't taken up by work or being mentally tired. It also ate up the only hour until I got home where I wasn't in company, which turned out to matter more than I thought.

Long story short, I've been mentally and physically knackered for most of the last nine months. I've written one thing, a piece of flash which I hope I'll be able to give a publication date for soon (yay!), and that's it.

The thing is, I assumed it was all the job, but when I got comfortable after the second round of training my stress levels and general crankiness didn't change - except on the days I didn't go to the gym. I'd dropped back from five days to three and it didn't help, except that on the days off I didn't get out of bed hating the world.

So last week I didn't go to the gym at all. I spent the hour reading, checking emails, and generally chilling out instead.You know what? I felt better. I didn't ache all week, my knees didn't hurt, I wasn't tired and stressed, and I didn't wake up wanting to set the world on fire. Apparently a busy gym, where I'm never sure which equipment I'll actually be able to get to, a packed and too hot changing room, queuing for grubby showers, and rushing to get to my desk, was exactly what I didn't need.

The next step is to reclaim that hour for writing, but it's hard to get going again from a dead stop. I've bought a Reckless Deck and the book Tarot for Writers in an attempt to generate prompts and ideas. At the moment the only thing standing in the way is me. Let's hope it's not another nine months before I have something to post.