It’s Wednesday night – and it barely seems like a blink of an eye since two weeks ago, when I was preparing, packing and getting ready for an early rise and the journey to Cornwall. This time, I’ve got a much earlier start – instead of 8.55 am, my flight’s at 6.30 am, which means reaching the airport by 5.30, which means leaving for Newquay at 4.30… and I’m sure you can work out roughly when I’m going to be getting up tomorrow. Not exactly ideal, but I’m crossing my fingers for a relatively smooth journey – yes, there’s been snow down here (nowhere near as much as in other parts of the country), but it hasn’t been too heavy, so there’s a vague chance that tomorrow’s trip won’t disintegrate into a Planes Trains and Automobiles style nightmare.

It’s been an extremely nice two weeks – lots of relaxation, lots of calm, a brilliant day out with Tris, and a chance to write. I’ve had a few tech issues – my current Netbook, an early Asus Eee PC nearly conked out thanks to a faulty adaptor – it’s been sorted, but an upgrade of operating system seems to have exponentially upped the amount of heat the thing gives off. It now leaps to slightly over-comfortable heat within about an hour, which has me generally twitching and wondering if there’s anything I can do. I love gadgets, but I also don’t like being too dependant on them, especially when they inevitably start misbehaving – but, at the least, thanks to my current financial situation, there’s a chance that I may be able to upgrade or replace it.

I don’t feel like I’ve properly arrived in 2010 yet. I’ve found myself in a slightly odd mood – the prospect of travel always gets me slightly tense, even when I’m not playing the Snow and Ice Lottery, and being at the beginning of another year makes me simultaneously hopeful and worried, staring at the possibilities in front of me and wondering what to make of them. One of the most important things I’ve got to do – slowly but surely – is continue to move on from some of the bad things that have happened over the past two years. It’s easy to let myself get down about some of the things that have gone wrong, or the times when I do end up lonely – but the fact is that I’ve actually made a lot of new friends over the past year, and I want to try and make sure that I do the same this year. I’ve already got priorities I need to get sorted for the next six months – to finish my proofreading course, and to finish my new book.

Ah yes, the new book. I’ll introduce it now – I might as well, since I’ve been referring to The Hypernova Gambit as ‘the book’ for so long, things could get confusing. It’s called ‘Chill Out’, it’s a bizarre mixture of family drama and crazed fantasy, and it’s very, very ‘me’. I’m aiming it to be shorter than my first one – I’m trying my best to have fun with it, I’m about 100 pages in, and it has finally reached the stage where it’s actually feeling like a novel rather than just an interesting collection of bits.

I’ve got a plan. I know where I want to be. And whatever roads 2010 takes me down, I’m going to do my best to ensure they’re fun ones.

And now, you must excuse me. I’ve got sandwiches to make, and packing to finish…