A Whole New World

Merry New Year!

I mean I blinked and Christmas was over and some Essex bloke in a coat and roll neck jumper was complaining about how hot he was as we were pressed against a bar, with at least a hundred people while all I was thinking about was how to get two bottles of prosecco back to my peoples. We were packed in so tightly, had we all been naked, it would have been one hell of an orgy.

Anyways, last year was hard work - it sped by in a blink, but it was terribly hard work. I came to some conclusions:

1. I still cannot write when I am emotional, and I have been emotional a lot. From weddings, to friends having babies (friends I still see in my mind as wearing school uniform and not having sex), to brotherly relocations (sodding Dubai), it is impossible for me to focus on far away places and love and drama if my heart is on a plane, or in delivery rooms.
2. I have obligations to family in Ghana. No escaping it, especially when health care costs money. Simple vaccinations can avoid a myriad of problems, and whatever my grievance with them, I have to ensure they are healthy. 
3. I need a break. I spoiled myself in 2014. I went all over the shop and had a jolly good time doing that. This year, Morocco - whilst incredible - was all too brief. Spain, absolutely beautiful, was too short. And holidaying in London, never feels like a holiday when your mother can call you about hot water bottle recommendations. I mean...
4. I need a new home. In London means either winning the lottery or getting a promotion with a 50% salary increase... but yah. Change of scenery. Change of location. Seriously. 

The good thing is, I've finished a new adult story thanks to NaNo! It was a young adult, but it got a bit too sexual too quick. I've also nearly finished Wynne's Surprise, which means I have to let the Scot with Swagger go (not ready, not ready, not ready!) I think I've got the paperback thing down, and I can get the meatier stories ready for sweetly scented, papery release. And most of all, with all the fresh, new babies popping out of my friends' bodies, I am feeling twinges of Beppe's story coming to me. Twinges that could be interpreted as sympathy pains, but after an April 2016 jaunt to Croatia, I wholeheartedly believe I will be back on the writing track. 

Change of scenery is nothing less than the best writer's balm to fatigue of too much hard work and not enough rest. So if in 2016, I'm a little quieter, or I'm not blasting people from Made in Chelsea on Twitter as much, it's because I'm watching War and Peace and blasting people on Twitter, or I'm finding my focus in a different country altogether, to get words back on the page where they belong. You know you can't miss something if you're with it all the time? 

I need to miss writing.