It is indeed true that it lingers longer than the smell of cow poo under your fingernails.

Self-doubt jockeys with joyful optimism, and it doesn’t fight fair.

For every passage of majestic prose, it happily points out that clumsy phrase, that overused trope and exhausted cliché.

Bugger.

Getting the cover to my book [Amy Grace: Paye] painted/drawn/created has taken considerably longer than anticipated – art it seems has no concept of time.

What was to be published in February, was then moved to Easter, and now sits somewhere in the broad and vague expanse of 2026/27.

Time hasn’t been idly spent.

A book I’d written, rewritten, given to Beta readers, rewritten, given to a professional editor, rewritten, is again in the very real danger of again being rewritten. 

Not through need, but nerves.

The devil does indeed make tasks for idle hands…

I’m second guessing everything.

Every historic comment (real & imagined) is being overanalysed.

Every negative, no matter how oblique or trivial is now front and centre of my mind.

No art is without fault, or immune from legitimate critique, and trying to please everyone is indeed a fool’s errand.

I’ve filled my time with the Iceni rebellion, with a spy suffering amnesia, and even a few choice pages around the tales of a sorcerer’s apprentice – yet everything pulls back to the plight of a young woman in Egypt.

Amy Grace dominates.

I need to publish and be dammed.

But before I can do that, I need the much-delayed artwork.

Oh, to suffer the problems of the comfortable first world is such a weight…

Hug those you love, tell them you love them, hold them tight, stay safe, and do your absolute best to remain sane!

Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!