Happy Birthday!

This week it’s my birthday-I’m turning 39, which feels old. At the same time, several people have said it seems young, so perhaps I’m biased by it being the oldest I’ve ever been.

I worked on my birthday, I guess I didn’t have to, but it seemed a waste of an annual leave day to take the day off. We went out for lunch, had a home-made cake (not made by me) for morning tea, and it was a generally jolly atmosphere.

I’ve been struggling to do any creative stuff lately. It feels like I have no energy left at the end of the workday, and on the weekends, I have to rest a fair amount. I have some chronic injuries that have been flaring up, as well as some mental health stuff that hasn’t been great.

It’s possible that winter has been getting me down, or that I’m more tired, or more sore, it’s hard to know what’s been blocking my creativity. It’s also hard not to feel frustrated with myself for not doing as much work as I think I should, though my therapist insists that I should be kinder to myself.

I have some projects that are ongoing, a couple of writing projects as well as a mural project, and though they are all crawling along which is better than stopped.

It’s coming up to 12 years that I’ve had this blog, and though I haven’t always been good at updating it, I’ve been here the whole time. Sometimes when I look back at my statistics, I see that people have stumbled across content from when I was writing movie reviews, or Comedy Festival reviews, or when I was dabbling in street photography. I feel like my interests have narrowed in some respects and expanded in others; I’m not doing much photography these days, but I have taken up piano and crochet since then, so I guess it evens out.

I hope that the next twelve months are a bit more even keeled; there have been some rocky patches this year that I would prefer not to repeat. I think my routines are fairly settled, though sometimes I have to throw them out because I don’t feel up to it. Maybe the days when I don’t do anything will be fewer than they have been this year. I might even have enough left over to start doing more marketing for my novels, and perhaps make some proper money off them. I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.

Spring is well and truly in the air, there is a little bit of hay fever going around, as well as some spring colds. Daylight savings comes in this weekend, so we’ll have the light later into the evening. Sometimes that helps to get the creative juices flowing.

I look forward to telling you about my new releases for 2024, and my new projects as they come to completion. Take care of yourselves, and if I can give you some advice I’m not much good at taking, be gentle with yourselves.