And here we are, a new year, new possibilities, but steadfastly still wearing the same old hair shirt! 

We have invested time effort and emotion reviewing Amy all the way from the alleyway in Cairo to the hazy autumnal sunshine in San Francisco. 

I’ve never wrote (or written) a plan, a plot summary, or an agreed narrative that needs fleshing out prior to the start of my scribbles. 

Sometimes I get carried away with an idea, and write a fully detailed scene and then end up working to bring the existing tale towards it, but as a rule of thumb I just let my imagination take me (and by default Amy) wherever the falling keys take us. 

So, December/January was my opportunity to review the current narrative, to see if the chaos theory had worked, to see if the tale (currently in three parts), as written, made sense?

It is very hard to debate in the echo chamber of a solo review, and that is where I’m struggling. 

But, I was critical.

And I was dispassionate.

One moment we needed more dragons, the next moment dragons are so last week – well not literally, but that is kind of symptomatic of my internal monologue.

One moment we’re all happy with ‘as is’, then we look at the ever growing pile of rejections and look for intangible improvements that I know I cannot deliver. 

The story is just that, it’s as good and indeed as bad as I can create, it can never be anything else.     

And, in the end, after it was over, after I’d edited all those pages from alleyway to hotel I rested happy in my creation.

I like what we’ve got.

I’m happy with the result.

It could be delusional denial – it could be. 

However, we are happy, and currently (spoiler alert!) in book three Amy is also happy.  

Happy in our creation, we will continue to see if others will share this with me.

BTW the advertised job opportunity still stands… 

Notwithstanding the rejections, the pushed keys keep adding black type to the empty white pages, my expression therapy with Amy continues.

Oh, and ‘The Diary of a Nobody’ is plodding along too – more akin to the at times irreverent narrative style of Sisyphus than Amy. Which naturally enough is just another excuse for me to moan about isolation, death greed and the pointlessness of it all, and to indulge in some observational humour and critique about the current societal obsession with transactional consumption!

Yeah – a laugh a minute read; well he is the last man alive – give him a break! 

So there you are, you are up-to-date with it all.

Oh, and I’ve had a fish finger sandwich, and the shop that provided it has gone out of business – whisper from the gods or poor fiscal management?  Don’t know, could be either/neither, could be both, could be relevant, probably isn’t.    

So as Hazel O’Connor sings softly in the background about spilt tea (oh silly me) we warm our hands on our own jealously guarded brown elixir of life, we warm our hands and feel somewhat content with the world. 

Amy is moving forward; progress is being made.