In my last post, I talked about the series entering The Slump, the section of The Wheel of Time where everything drags for a few books. But then, of course, Winter's Heart comes along and perks things right back up again.

The Path of Daggers isn't the worst entry in The Wheel of Time series, but it lacks the drive and excitement of the ones we've had up to now. Instead, it feels like Jordan is getting the characters in place for what is coming next. 

A Crown of Thorns has a lot to live up to, coming as it does after the literally explosive finale to Lord of Chaos. We have a lot of momentum going, and this next instalment does not disappoint.

When I was put on furlough at the start of Lockdown, I was ecstatic. For as long as this lasted, my days were my own to do as I wished. And that meant writing!

And so, on Day One, I sat down at my desk and started working.

An hour later, I had to stop. That was it. I’d run out of steam.

Last month, I officially registered as self-employed.

And, suddenly, I feel comfortable calling myself “A Writer”.

In the course of three days, one of my articles received over 10,000 hits, and I have no idea why this article has been so wildly successful.

Thank you to everyone who has asked me this recently.

It may not seem like much, but it means a lot to me when people ask me this. Not only is it a sign that people are actually interested in me and what I’m doing with my life, but it also makes me think it’s not so ridiculous to call myself “a writer”.

I find it hard to imagine anyone caring about my ideas of what’s going on in my life, and I need to move past that.

Well, 2020 can fuck off. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Okay, if I have to be honest, my 2020 could have been a lot worse. A lot worse. In some very big ways, I am incredible lucky.

Reading and writing are hard. They shouldn’t be hard. They’ve never been hard before. Why are they hard? What do you do when the things that make you the happiest become so hard to do that you begin to wonder if they are worth it?

I’m depressed. I keep telling myself that I’m better than I was. That the last five months have been a slow but steady improvement and I just need to keep pushing. But that’s not true. I’m still just as bad as I was then. All that’s changed is I’m learning to cope better, and I’m accepting there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Book six done, and we’re almost halfway through the series. In the last book, The Fires of Heaven, it felt to me as if Jordan was taking a breath before setting up the next round of story arcs. Now, with Lord of Chaos, things start to get moving again.

I tend to find that when an author has an ongoing character they come back to with some of their books but not all – as Atkinson does with Jackson Brodie – I enjoy those ones less. And it’s true that I’ve enjoyed her non-Brodie books more than her Brodie ones. But I this this was my favourite of the Jackson Brodie books, mainly because the way she uses him as a link between elements of the story, rather than the protagonist. This story isn’t about him. He’s simply part of it.

2020, and things that are to come

So here we are in the roaring twenties. What are we expecting in the next twelve months?