I’m a pretty brave sort of fellow. I’ve weathered a lot. I’ve climbed to the peaks of high mountains, delved deep into caverns far below the ground, and wandered into the depths of gloomy forests. I’ve battled adversaries both strong and crafty.

Of course, that’s just in my stories, but it’s still a sort of courage – at least that’s what I reckon.

But there’s one thing that scares the heeby-jeebies out of me. One thing that breaks me out in a cold sweat. One thing that represents my worst nightmare.

I used to be a tough young bugger. Nothing much would get to me. I could watch the most emotional and dramatic movie and not bat an eyelid. Even the most weepy scenes would leave me impassive. Not a tear would drop from my eye. Nothing much would move me.

I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the past or reminiscing about things I used to like or people I used to hang out with.

When I was young, I was really obsessive.

Once I got interested in something, it would take up all my attention.

Being a writer means having many goals to aspire to.

Firstly, there are the obvious ones. The initial one that comes to mind is simply write lots of books. And then, once those books have been written, sell lots of copies and have lots of people read them.

A few weeks ago, as I first dipped a nervous toe into the unknown waters of 2019, I published my list of goals for the year.

You may recall that it wasn’t extensive. In fact, the only goal I was prepared to list was making progress on my current novel. The plan was to begin pretty much now. As you read this post, I should already be hard at work pulling apart and putting back together the fairly garbled prose of my first draft. Except I’m not.