Sound the trumpets, declare a national holiday – the proofreading is done!

Well, not completely – but the bulk is out of the way, and I’ve only got a tiny amount of tidying up to do tomorrow morning before I can send the whole package. It has, as usual, been a little on the intense side. In certain ways, it’s been welcome, and in others, it’s been a bit of a drag, but it’s almost done and it nets me another healthy chunk of money which has got to be a good thing.

Mood-wise, I’ve been doing pretty well – there have been some bounces back into depression, and it doesn’t take much to set me off, but I’m still doing okay, and I’m slowly getting my head around the intricacies of life in Manchester. One of the things that definitely helps is that there’s a very large section of parkland that’s only five minutes walk from the house – you have to cross a busy dual carriageway to get there, but the park itself is big enough so you can briefly pretend that you’re not even in a city, and it’s also been allowed to become a little wild in places. It’s got an actual character, and there’s a duck pond, and paths, and playing areas, and it’s proving to be a very pleasent place to go for a walk. It’s not quite the same as the wooded road where I used to walk in Hampshire – but it’ll do for now.

Anna is off on a business trip to Hong Kong this Friday, so I’m going to be on my lonesome once again for a few days, and then next Wednesday things will get action-packed once again as I embark on a madcap eight-day trip back to London for as much of the London Film Festival as I can fit in. Right now, I’m definitely down for kid’s fantasy The Secret of Moonacre and the barmy-looking South Korean Sergio Leone homage The Good The Bad The Weird, and I’ll be seeing lots more besides, but I’m also going to make sure that I actually socialise, meet people, and have fun. I’ll also be staying in a Picadilly-based hostel with a 24-hour reception for four nights , so I might also be trying to take advantage of a little of the West End night life for the brief window that I’m there. It’ll be work, but it’ll also be play – something I’m rather in need of right now.

There’s plenty of stuff I need to sort out over the next few days – but I’m also feeling the need to start writing again. I really want to start having some fun – however long this section of my life may take, I’m in an interim, chrysalis phase right now, and writing is one of the only things that’s going to make me feel like I’m getting somewhere. I’m looking forward to sitting down with an idea and actually having fun with it. It may take me a long time to get to the point where people are actually going to pay me for the crazy stuff I’m thinking up, but I’m willing to put in the effort. I’ll get there in the end.

The end of my second week in Manchester – and things are looking better. It’s certainly hard to believe that things could look worse than they did last Saturday – which was officially one of my genuine low points – and things have been on something resembling an upward curve. Having some firm work to do has definitely helped – there’s something about the firm structure of proofreading, and knowing you’ve got a certain number of pages to get through per day, that makes time just whirl past. Not that I haven’t had my rough moments, of course, but they haven’t been quite as crippling as before, and I’ve been able to get through them more easily. This may not be a path that I thought I’d be on, but it’s the path I’ve ended up with, so I’m going to make the best of it. A strange sort of perceptual change has been coming over me over the last few days, and the situation I’m in doesn’t feel quite so horribly wrong anymore. I’m getting the impression that I can actually cope with this for the immediate future, and I’m able to think about what I’m going to do next without wanting to crumble. There are still some loose ends that need to be tied up, and I’ve also got the upcoming adventure of the London Film Festival to look forward to – it’ll be eight nights in London, and a chance to properly catch up with some people who I didn’t really get to see in the flurry of action before I left. Plenty to do, and the vague feeling that I can actually approach it all with something resembling positivity and hope. Stranger things have happenned…

It’s very hard to be strong at a time like this.

I’m five days into my new life, and I’m regularly veering from feeling positive, to fracturing into several hundred pieces. I’ve never been good at coping with life at the best of times, and right now there’s a lot to find completely overwhelming. Probably the strangest thing is trying to get used to city life again, and realising that while I think Manchester will be good as an interim place, I’m not certain I’m ever going to want to settle here. There’s a lovely park just a few hundred metres from my house, there are funky shops, there’s energy and life… but I miss the countryside. I miss the peace, and the friendliness. I’m not designed for city living. I’m finding adjusting to life as a single person difficult as well – I had to do my first major shop today (in ASDA of all places) and I found myself on the verge of a minor emotional breakdown. An ASDA in the middle of Manchester is not the right place for that kind of thing. I got through, and I’m pleased I got it done, but it was a close call.

The strangest thing that’s happenned tonight is that I’ve walked out of my new room several times, and been surprised at the layout of the house’s upper floor. It took me a minute to realise why, but it’s because I keep expecting it to be like 26 Dundalk Road, the shared house I lived in when I first met George. It’s an odd moment of displacement that I find difficult. I’m getting back to work tomorrow, mainly because I think work is the only thing that’s going to get me through this. I’m not good at being social, at meeting new people, at making friends. i just don’t have the wiring for it, and I’m not sure I’m up to doing it again. My life at the moment (and the way it’s been for the past eighteen months) seems to mainly consist of me being on my own, and maybe it’s time I got used to that. Maybe I need to use that as a reason and an excuse to throw myself into the fictional worlds that are lurking in my head, and start building them properly. I’m fed up of being envious of people who get to think up cool stuff for a living – maybe my book is going to sell, and maybe it’s not, but the last thing I should be doing right now is waiting. I need to buckle myself down, and get some serious work done because sometimes it’s the one thing I think I’m actually good at.

Sorry. This is probably turning into a bit of a rant. I ended up taking my wedding ring off – just a few minutes ago – I’d been putting it off all week, and I think it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I don’t know if writing this down is wise or sensible, but tapping words onto a keyboard is one of the only things I’m capable of right now. I know I’m going to get through this, and I know that in a year’s time, I’ll look back on this and hopefully be able to see my life finally getting on a true upward curve. The only thing that scares me is that I was thinking roughly the same thing this time last year. It’s been a very tough twelve months, and getting through these next few weeks is going to be hard. I’m going to make it, but there are points where it’s harder than I can bear.

I will make it. I will make it.

(I am having moments where I can smile, and joke, and have fun. To be honest, I’m very glad I’m staying with Anna – she’s out at work a lot, but it’s lovely when she’s around. Time alone isn’t always ideal at a point like this – but these are the cards I’ve been dealt. I can moan, I can wail, or I can get on with it and play.)

(Time to try and re-don my poker face….)

It’s done.

I’m now an official denizen of Manchester. The move went (aside from a certain amount of emotional anguish) fairly smoothly. George was really good, and really helpful – I was exhausted and in bits, and George was there being level-headed and helping me out at moments when I needed it. We may not have been able to make our marriage work, but she’s still someone who I want in my life, and I’m glad I was able to say farewell (not goodbye- I will be seeing her at the end of October, and I’m not slamming the door on the past) without collapsing into a thousand pieces. Plus, I was so busy for most of the morning that I didn’t have many points to actually think about things, which was probably a good thing.

The journey up was remarkably free of traffic, even if the weather gradually shifted from glorious sunshine to driving rain, and I had to stop myself from spotting how many placenames I could see that were listed on the track “It’s Grim Up North” by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. We arrived at 6.45pm, just after Anna was back from work. Much shifting of boxes later, and I was ensconced in Anna’s house – saying goodbye to George’s dad was difficult, simply because he’s an absolutely fantastic bloke and it was one of those ‘point of no return’ moments that tells you life is moving on. Then, he was off, and the next phase of my life was beginning.

I’m still in unpacking mode- there are some things I need to sort out, and I’m also trying to be gentle with myself. I was bordering on exhaustion yesterday, and it’s okay for me to give myself a couple of days where I don’t do much. The practicalities of internet access may be an issue for a little while – thanks to my non-wireless enabled Mac Mini, and my EeePC’s unwillingness to connect to a wireless router that’s password protected. Some software updates may be necessary, plus I’ve got addresses to update, and things to do, and a book to proofread fairly soon… but not yet. Today, I’m going to potter around, do a few things, and then maybe head into the city centre and have a little explore.

I’m in a new world. And I think I’m going to be okay.

Today is the day. The move is scheduled for this afternoon, and- as is usual – packing has been frenetic. I’m just about done. It still doesn’t feel real, though. It feels like I’m living a very odd TV Movie version of my life. I don’t know what’s going to happen from tomorrow. Here’s where I get to find out.

Speak to you next in Manchester…

If there’s one activity I hate, it’s having to put my books in boxes when I don’t know exactly when I’ll be unpacking them. It’s not something that’s good for the soul, and today has been very little other than packing. I’ve got to that point where the books are 90% done, but everything’s gotten very diffuse and odd, and the last 10% seems to take five times as long as it should do. I seem to be bouncing between feeling incredibly overwrought and breaking down every five minutes, and a very peculiarly blank feeling of emotional numbness. It does, at least, feel as if I’m trapped aboard a ship that’s plunging into a Black Hole- it doesn’t really feel like anything exists beyond next Monday, and it’s going to be exceptionally odd (and not to say a little traumatic) to actually get there.

I did at least have a tremendous time at the Gollancz party last night – I was even kindly given a lift, so I could get drunk with impunity. Thankfully, I avoided getting weird and emotional drunk, instead plumping for kooky and eccentric drunk (which is always more fun). Had some great conversations, some great laughs, and I’m also reminding myself that just because I’m moving to Manchester, it doesn’t mean I’m falling off the edge of the world.

I’m going to be really, really glad when this is all over. Well, to be honest, I’m probably going to lock myself in a room and do an operatic amount of sobbing. But then, after that, I will be glad. I’m doing this for the right reasons, and at least this way I have the hope of making things better.

Tick tock tick tock…