One Year Later

July 1 was the one-year anniversary of my moving from Sydney to Perth and joining my family, who'd been living here for three months. It's a decision that's only just starting to come right for us after an epic series of missteps, which got me thinking about what's been achieved (or not) in the last year.

• PLUS: Technically Old Friends was written before I moved across, but in the last year it's been polished and released and met with a reasonably good response.
  
  
• MINUS: The well-paying job my wife took on - and the reason for us all moving here - fell through within a few months.
  
  
• MINUS: Perth has a very limited publishing industry for me to work in. The one avenue that looked really promising has since closed off, following a couple of jobs that turned out to be highly frustrating both for me and the editors. Bah.
  
  
• PLUS: My magazine contacts in Sydney are keeping me in enough work to pay the bills - thanks, guys!
  
  
• MINUS: After getting messed around for almost a month, a local radio station that dangled a film review spot for me decided they wanted someone off the telly to do it instead. Grrr!
  
  
• PLUS: Mark and Sharyn at Eneit Press commissioned me to write for their horror anthology In Bad Dreams, out in September. I trust I can rely on you all to buy multiple copies ...
  
  
• PLUS: My wife's just been given the nod to teach Strategic Marketing at the University of Western Australia, ending a lengthy term of unemployment. Woo-hoo!
  
  
• MINUS: It's going to take a while to pay off the bills that've accumulated in the meantime. Sigh.
  
  
• PLUS: Hooked up with fellow scribe Ian Mond over east to work on an audio script.
  
  
• MINUS: An avalanche of bill-paying work has meant I've not had a chance to work on it for weeks.
  
  
• PLUS: My son's allergies have cleared up since moving from the smoke. Both he and my daughter have settled extremely well in their new schools and the simple fact that they're thriving is possibly the single biggest Plus on the list.
  
  
• PLUS: Got asked recently to pitch for another short story for Big Finish. Whether that ends up a Plus or a Minus in the long term depends on whether or not it turns into a commission. But after a long period of not even being asked, it's just good to make it onto the pitch list!
  
  
• PLUS: Mark at Eneit has been emailing me to discuss an intriguing project. Embryonic still, and subject to feasibility assessment, but still exciting ... And the ideas for it are coming thick and fast.

So that's eight Plus to five Minus. Hooray!

By next July let's get that five down to none ...