February – the longest month – is here. January was busier than I thought (or planned) it would be. I didn’t take much time off over Christmas and New Year, and I’m still waiting for that elusive break. I have, though, granted myself One Full Day Off per week, if at all possible. No guilt working allowed. Step away from the screen.

Wonderful things happened in January. I saw one particular friend for the first time in eight years, and was able to celebrate the publication of her new book in the UK (it having already been released in Canada (bestseller) and the US (nearly a bestseller)). Headed to London for the first time since pre-pandemic. I also saw other friends I hadn’t seen in about four years. Work rolled in; I ran a writing workshop which people apparently enjoyed? Another friend asked me to write a song for their book launch thank you gathering, based on their book, and I’m really pleased with the result and can’t wait to sing it.

That little success at actually writing a thing made me thirsty for … oh, what is it, that thing that’s been elusive for months, it feels like. Oh yeah, creativity. The past few months have also darker, also a touch more bereft feeling, despite the busyness, because I haven’t felt like me. I haven’t been making stuff, really, not with enjoyment. I turned down one kind request to run a workshop because I felt like a fraud leading people through writing when I was barely getting a word down myself.

Taxes are done now. I’m tired a lot of the time (February and also the general state of this godforsaken country), and I love supporting other people’s work, but was starting to think I’d imagined I’d ever made anything myself, really. Two stories I wrote last year that are waiting to be published haven’t yet seen the light of day, and I looked up the files just to check I hadn’t imagined them (and, if I had, to then write them because I think they’re good stories). It’s been cold and windy – reason enough for me to avoid going to open mics. Still though, I started bouldering again (more than the once-per-week-if-that that it dipped to mid last year). Not swimming though. So much shit in the river now (thanks Tories).

Trying a thing now, anyway. Started it yesterday, and it’s the sort of thing that I may well abandon in a few days (so skeptical I’ve titled the notepad I’m doing it in ‘attempt #1’). Apparently forgotten how to spell ‘sceptical’ but I like it with a k, so it stays. Anyway, I’m trying this hooey thing that goes against my fairly anti-self-help-book core, and I am hoping it works. Probably placebo but I submitted to Visual Verse for the first time in *checks* a year and a half. I’m writing here. Maybe something’s shaking loose.

Having said that, I am considering just closing this website. I have a ‘work’ site now, that no one ever visits, but I survive all the same. Thinking on it. Maybe I’ll transfer some of the entries there. Maybe not. So old now, these. A dusty archive, reflecting a life that … well, that’s been pretty stagnant for the past few years. Like a lot of people’s, I suppose. Time to change things, as much as can be changed in the current expensive and limiting circumstances of being a low-income earner in a country in crisis.