My writing week 52

Hi all,

I have just buried the ashes of 2009 after bashing it with a Tony Abbott puppet, dousing it with petrol and setting it on fire. What a woeful year. I achieved very little in writing, hardly read a book, only got my eyes half fixed, was sick all the time, lost my job and my father's dementia took on a whole new meaning. What a pathetic waste of a year.

It's way too early to tell if 2010 is gonna be any better. At the moment my father is waiting in hospital, after collapsing for the third time in a fortnight, to be reassessed this Thursday. If he is assessed as high-level care, which we think he should be, then he will be placed in a nursing home where he can receive appropriate care and my mother can start digging her way out of a landslide of stress.

On a personal level, I have to wait until the 9th of February to get the cataract on my right eye removed, which, if successful, will hopefully stop me suffering from tired eyes much of the time. I am also hopeful that by stopping taking the immune suppressant Imuran I won't be as sick this year. Last year I had eight weeks off work due to the flu, ulcerative colitis, conjunctivitis, bronchitis, cataract surgery and asthma. The ulcerative colitis seems to be under control but you can never tell with the lousy illness. I hope that the removal of Imuran from my system doesn't lead to it flaring up again.

I regards to getting a job, I live in country Victoria and find myself either unqualified or over-qualified for 90% of positions. There is not a lot of point looking for work at the moment if I then have to ask to take a week, or more, off work in a month's time to get my eyes done. Having said that I have just applied for a job. At least, without a job, I might have more time to write and read.

So with my health, eyes, father and unemployment, I am making no new year's resolutions about my writing this year except to try and do some every day, like I did last week.

I hope everyone else is successful with their resolutions of writing more, getting a novel published, receiving 100 rejections in 2010, doing more exercise, reading a novel a week, winning the Booker/Hugo/bad sex scene award, losing weight, drinking less, giving up smoking, marrying an agent/editor, being less abusive to publishers/critiquers/any idiot who doesn't see the brilliance in your writing, and fixing climate change.

Graham.

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