2020 has begun, the start of a new year and a new decade and as with every new year’s beginning a chance to evaluate your life and your goals for the future.

In my writing I had reached a place where I thought I knew my voice, I had three book series on the go, two under the name of Jack Dillon, each having three titles, and a sci fi series under my own name that had ten titles which already had a spin off and sequel planned. I knew where I was going, I had been interviewed on local radio in my old home of Staffordshire where I had lived for the majority of my life and on international radio from LA in the US. This last one had listeners in the region of fifteen million so I thought if I can’t get something from this then I probably never will.

Like I said I knew where I was going, or I thought I did. I then hit a brick wall. It was around the time that Avengers Infinity War was released and my partner and I went to see it as we are both huge comic book fans and have been for most of our lives, even before it was cool to be a fan. I came away from that film thinking I wanted to write a story with as much impact as that had. So I started the first draft of what would be book eleven in the sci fi series, the Col Sec series. That brick wall hit me as hard as a literal brick wall.

Around the same time where I worked was not doing too well and it was finally bought out and the new owners slowly began to implement a few changes and I started to notice a few health issues worsening. I moved home close to the end of this year which brought the health issues front and centre. I’ve had back problems for years now and I had an x ray over thirty years ago which showed that I had two of my discs closing up but nothing was done. After a morning of excruciating pain and a visit to the hospital it was decided by the doctors for me to have an MRI scan. I was already suffering with arthritis in my hands and was awaiting a bone density scan to see if I had osteoarthritis so this was just another thing to worry over.

After spending the New Year off work and facing further time off until the doctors get a handle of this and what to do I have spent time at home, a great deal of which was spent trying to write and on social media. As I said earlier, my dry spell has not produced anything as yet probably because of other things that have been on my mind and I have to admit to being more than a little anxious about my future health.

One day not too long ago I was commenting on social media about a topic close to my heart and I received abuse from other people also commenting. It wasn’t because I had said anything abusive to them, nor was it beacuse of how I worded my comment but the of the content. I had dared to put forward my opinion which differed radically from theirs. I remember when I was a teenager back in the late 1960’s and I had my opinion over things such as music and if anyone didn’t like what I liked they were either fools or had bad taste. This was exactly the same but ramped up several degrees simply because of the anonymity the internet affords. Social media nowadays has become the breeding ground for bullies and cowards, giving them the freedom to say things to people in a way they would never dare to if that person was face to face with them. I kept my comments and replies as polite as I could because I didn’t want the situation to escalate any further and in the end I came away from it thinking that It was something I could definitely do without in my life.

For too long I have been concerned about what people think of me, whether or not they like my writing, am I good enough and finally I came to realise that it’s all for nothing. People will either like you or not, they will either read what you write, or not. Nothing I do or say will change it, so why bother? Worrying over things that are out of my control is simply wasted energy. I wanted my writing to be accepted by the public because it was my dream to be a writer and when I retire it was something I could do to bolster my income and keep me active in my twilight years. That doesn’t seem as if that will happen now, the books have had little exposure despite several marketing campaigns from different companies and professionals in the field and the only ones who benefitted from all this were the marketing professionals. Am I bitter, no point, it wouldn’t change anything if I was so in this new year I am going to do what I want, when I want. Either the books will sell or they won’t but I refuse to tailor my writing because of some marketing trend or because someone thinks it’s what the public wants. I started writing because no one was writing what I wanted to read so I wrote it myself. I’m going back to that to see if I can recapture the feeling of immense satisfaction I had in finishing that first novel. If these nerves in my back are not sorted out and it deteriorates then I’ll just have to enjoy what I can while I can and not allow it to hold me back. I may not be able to continue working much longer but that doesn’t mean I have to stop living my life.