It’s been a ‘interesting’ year, full of ups and downs.

It started well, with me riding high off the relative success of last year’s NaNoWriMo.  It was an important milestone with my writing, the first time I ever got around to actually finishing something in a short time that I even remotely liked.  So, that was Planet Of Snakes (a sequel to the unfinished Desert Of Zin) and very happy I was with it too.

(Not that it matters what’s finished and what’s not, things have changed in that quarter.  More on that in a mo.)

Then, shortly after the new year, my mother had a cancer scare.  Not good, not good at all.  But she had it removed, went for her radiotherapy and everything is currently peachy keen.  (It’s amazing how you can get all of the angst, worry and relief of a time like that and boil it down to a couple of sentences…)

Then a few months into the year amazing news arrives.  Ruth is pregnant!  I still remember how excited I was when I found out.  We had been trying for a while and finding out really was a gift.

Then we hit the summer.  And intimidation and bullying at work.  Not good seeing as I worked for the my church.  With the benefit of hindsight, and plenty of counselling, there is definitely an element of a culture of dishonour about the way some Christians act despite the ‘Culture of Honour’ that is advertised.

Anyway, it wasn’t a sudden thing.  Using the same old hindsight as before it’s clear that my self-esteem and confidence were being ground down over a long period of time.  More on that later as well.

There was a welcome break in there called Summer’s End, a progressive rock festival in the small town of Lidney, by the Forest of Dean.  Myself, The Psycho Chicken, Bruce and (when she felt like she could endure all that glorious prog) Sharla enjoyed Steve Hackett, Pallas, Pendragon and all the wonderful bands in between.

But then back to work where the situation continued to get from bad to worse…

The months of September, October and November were back to the growing depression, anxiety, stress and suicidal tendencies.  This really was the worst part of the year for me.  I was being intimidated and harassed by my line manager (who, unfortunately, was also my minister) and despite already letting people in authority know the situation he was still my line manager and still intimidating and harassing me.

Now, I understand that in the cold light of day it might not seem like much, but when your church is your work and the only feedback you get from your minister/line manager is negative and your interests and thoughts are open to ridicule, it tends to affect you poorly.

NaNoWriMo arrived in November, right at the height of how bad things were getting.  With panic attacks and ‘The Fear’ growing almost daily it was a miracle in itself that I was able to get over 24k words.

This was the ‘All-New’ Desert Of Zin story.  I felt like the existing one was going nowhere.  I had no plan or interest in keeping it going and any ideas I did have just seemed tired.  But then I thought that it might be an idea to take the core concepts I still had in mind for the story and just start afresh.  Different setting, different characters (although with the same names) and with a narrow scope, at least initially, than the original attempt.  And for the most part I’m a lot happier with it so far.  Lots of stories to tell though, which is good.  Stops me from getting too bogged down with any one story.

But it wasn’t finished in the month, so there we go.  I’ll try again with something new next year.

It was the second-last weekend in November when everything hit the fan.  Angry threats were made at work and that was the straw that broke back of it and I handed in my notice.  Better that I was unemployed and healthy than employed and suicidal.

And I haven’t really regretted it once.  It’s a no-brainer that I have not been back to Whiteinch Church of Scotland for the Sunday Celebration and I don’t think I ever will.  I do wish them well for the future but if they ever want to see this ‘Culture of Honour’ fully realised they’ll have to really look at sorting themselves out.  One thing that going though my own counselling process has shown me is that there are a good few of Whiteinch Church leadership who need counselling of their own.

But with a month of the year left, two wonderful things happened.

A story, Whiteinch In Flight, was accepted for a local anthology…

…And my daughter was born, late for Christmas, but in plenty of time for the new year.

I have big plans for 2010.  It really feels like I’ve been through a lot this year and I’m confident and a feeling a lot more prepared for what I’m planning for the year ahead.

There are books to write, a wife to keep happy and a daughter to raise.  No problem.

- Alistair

Both mother and baby are doing well and should be back home from the hospital tomorrow.

(I would have posted this yesterday but I was shattered when I finally got home…)

- Alistair

Baby isn’t here yet.  Although we have a week before Ruth is induced.  We’d rather avoid that if possible but it’s not up to us; until then baby will arrive whenever he/she wants to.

There is other news which is quite exciting but I’ll probably post that tomorrow when I’m more awake…

I think it’s time for an early night with 253 by Geoff Ryman. 

- Alistair

At the moment, adhering to Ruth’s new Task Centred Therapy, we are sitting at the computer table painting miniatures.

For the last few days I have been stripping the paint of a number of old Grey Knight models (Games Workshop’s finest) and have been trying to set them to the current paint scheme.  It helps that I had only ever finished six of the beggars in the old scheme, a turquoise and silver theme that isn’t particularly grey or knight-like.

But they have all been under-coated, base-coated and dry brushed with the new style (pics to follow) and I’m embarking on the details tonight.

And in a spirit of encouragement Ruth has joined me.

Ages ago I had my hands on a box of Eldar Guardians, sitting on the shelf, unbuilt and unpainted.  She had painted one in the past and decided that she didn’t want to do any more.  That’s fine.  But now she has the challenge to paint each of the figures from the box (sixteen in total) in a different style to the one before it.

Hey, at this rate most of them might even be done by the time baby arrives…

- Alistair

Let’s see.  What has been going on in the life of Al?

Well, NaNoWriMo started and, two and a half weeks later, stumbled and fell of the ride.  Loads of bad stuff happened, mostly from my work, and I was a basket case for the majority of the month of November.  Truth be told I was a basket case for a good few months before that and I still have a long way to go before I’m back to normal (whatever that is) and am back working on all cylinders.

25,000 words though.  That’s not bad at all.

I’m currently unemployed as I had no other choice than to leave, the sanity of both Ruth and I was more important than a part-time admin job, and it’s going to be a long haul before I have my confidence and self-esteem back to where it should be.

Anyway, all of this madness got in the way of my finishing NaNoWriMo, which is a damn shame as I was really enjoying the story I had set myself this year.  But with time on my hands before the impending birth of my first child (due date = 13th December!) I am spending some of it on Desert of Zin so I don’t totally lose the thread like I did before.

- Alistair

The computer desk has been jettisoned (today, thanks to Edgy) and the pc has been set up in the front room on Ruthy’s old work desk, with a new Acer 22inch wide-screen TFT monitor replacing the 19″ CRT monstrosity that took up most of the space on the old desk.  And now that part of the shifting of stuff seems to have settled, I have time to dedicate to bashing more words into the various stories I have on the go.

Which nicely brings me to the point : yWriter is back on the PC!

For those who don’t know yWriter is a very nifty piece of software that helps you organise your work, by chapter and scene if necessary, and it helped me organise things enough to get though the joys of last years NaNoWriMo.  And it’s back in time for this year.  Quality.

One thing to note though, I tried running it on Linux through Mono but it’s nowhere near as good as it is in Windoze.  Fortunately I have Xp set up in VirtualBox and it’s working very nice there, thank you very much.

Which reminds me, more work to do.  The pub beckons soon but there’s easily an hours worth of writing to get done.

- Alistair

The amazing Mr Push already has one of his stories on the site, check it out, and I think I have something to send the way of Telling of Tales.  Well, it’s not there yet, but I have plenty of time to get it right.  I’m trying to cut it down below 800 words and make it a bit more aerodynamic…

With the awareness that baby is enroute for a December arrival I’ve been working on an alternative beginning of Desert of Zin and I’m aware that there are about 40,000 words still to go in to it, and there are 3 good months to get the bulk of the work in.

Of course, there’s still this year’s NaNoWriMo.  I’m in two minds whether I’m going to have the time for it, but depending on the whole progress of the Zin book.

- Alistair

Well, what’s new (since the last post way back on the 13th of June)?

To be true, there’s good and bad.

On the bad side, I’ve been really struggling with stress and depression recently and it seems like my hermit impression has (again)  spread as far as my blog.  Boo to that, I say.  But things have been improving in my personal and work lives, so it’s up, up, up from here.

On the good side, drum roll please, I’m going to be a Dad!  And that far outweighs anything that’s on the “bad” side.

Right, it’s late and that’s enough of a post to start back with.

There IS some writing news to share, nothing big and exciting, but I’ve been back in the saddle as my mood has improved.  But I’ll update that part of the game tomorrow.

- Alistair