I've had a lovely Xmas break with my partner, and while it was quiet with only one trip out for lunch with friends on New Years day, we've both been enjoying the chance to chillax.
Mostly we've been catching up with TV shows: watched the Good Place Season one, which was so good we had to immediately get Season two, an excellent show that tickled my interest in philosophy (the discipline I love and hate in equal measure); followed by Season two of The Orville, which was excellent; then Season two of Discovery, which was also very good, but I could have done with a little less emoting in some of the scenes that interrupted the pace.
We've both been reading, and I managed to finished a lot of good books.
First up were the six books in the space opera/Mil-SF Frontlines series by Mark Kloos, highly recommended. Read books nine through to thirteen of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, which are compulsively readable; and after that it was Diane Rowland's White Trash Zombie series books five and six.
And as a result I've been a feeling a lot brighter.
In other news about the state of the author, on New Years eve I had a steroid injection into my right thumb. Hopefully this means in a week or so I will be able to use both hands at the same time, which will be a relief (given that not being able to use both hands made the last year suck big time).
Just one of the many fall-outs of my rheumatoid arthritis returning in 2018. An unwelcome relapse caused by the stress from my old job with the NHS. But 2019 was made worse when the side-effects of my anti-rheumatoid medication sent me down into the depths of despair, which knocked me for six.
Though, as I sit here thinking back over the last ten years, I really need to remember how bad things were back in 2010 for a sense of perspective.
Back then I was taking methotrexate to treat my rheumatoid arthritis. Unfortunately, the medication suppresses the immune system, which meant the cysts in my breasts, became inflamed and went septic. That landed me in hospital and having emergency surgery.
So 2019 wasn't as bad as 2010.
However, the realization that no matter how much I enjoy being a therapist, the stress of dealing with patient's emotional upsets is not doing my health any good, and that career is over.
But, I must be grateful for the chance this has afforded me to start writing. Bringing my stories to market has been a challenge, but I've learnt so much that I see the past experiences as a silver lining of the cloud that has blighted my career.
Anyway, enough maudlin reflection.
I've been happily working on collecting the first three novelettes of my World of Drei stories. This will be the first volume of an open ended series about the emergence of an AI during a Russian civil war. It has been fun to do, and an interesting direction has emerged from it, but more news about that in another post.
In the meantime I'm waiting for the book to come back from copy editing, so while I'm waiting I've put the cover up as a tease for everyone to enjoy. You may also have noticed I re-did the covers of the first three stories too.
OK, that covers everything I want to say, so I will end now by wishing all my readers a happy and prosperous New Year. Catch you all on the bounce.
No comments:
Post a Comment