Good evening, dear readers! I am back once again after another long break between posts – over a year this time, D- for consistency eh? This post is just going to be fairly quick and focused on answering some of the following questions:

Where the hell was I?

What have I been up to?

What are my current plans for the blog?

Let’s answer these in order, shall we? So, to start:

Where the hell was I?

Geographically speaking, I have been in Uxbridge until a couple of months ago. Mentally speaking, as I’m sure many other will relate to, I have been all over the galaxy; stuck in black holes, riding the explosions of supernovas (though more often the former). A mixture of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the stresses of my final year of university have made it nigh impossible to summon the mental energy to write anything outside of my course, and often even that was tough. Additionally, the pandemic has not been conducive to movie releases, and somewhat had the same effect on video games and books, so there has been a lot less around for me to talk about even if I did have the capacity!

What have I been up to?

Surviving, mostly. As bleak as it is, and without going into too much detail, my mental health was incredibly poor from about September 2020 right up until my final hand in date at university.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom – some big positive things have happened!

First of all, I am in a new relationship with a fantastic woman. Pandemic dating was strange, but we made it work! I can confidently say she’s been an absolute angel in supporting me for basically my entire third year, from planning out my pre-deadline work schedules to reduce stress, up to strong-arming me into booking counselling sessions, and so much more.

Secondly, I not only survived my final year of University, but got a First in my Dissertation and an overall First Class Degree from my course! I am incredibly happy with that, and it (more or less) makes the time, massive loans and toll on my mental health feel worth it!

Third and final point, and a little more minor, has been moving. Not long after finishing University it was time to move, which was even more stress and fairly time consuming as I did it all myself with my poor, overworked Ford Fiesta. I was lucky that some family back home had some space available; however, packing everything up and shifting it over in several car journeys, plus the joys of being the last flatmate around and doing the final clean etc. (with a lot of help from my girlfriend) meant that stress from studying was carried on a bit further than it needed to be.

What are my plans for the blog?

Now that I have the energy, physically and mentally, to start writing things in my spare time (which I now have far too much of) I do want to get back into the swing of things. Add to that that the film industry has started moving again, and that the spare time is pushing me to look into more new games to play and things to watch or read, and it’s a slightly more creative climate I find myself in. I would like to try and get something out about once every month or two, but there are no promises being made yet as I still feel like there’s recovery to be done. Additionally, I don’t find myself functioning too well with the total lack of structure I have in life right now due to being unemployed, and I will also have another large disruption to my life: I’ll be moving into a flat with my girlfriend soon, so that will mean more disruption, packing etc. and likely a lot of cleaning, re-decorating and such depending on the state of the place.

Lastly, if you want to keep an eye on anything writing related, please follow my new Twitter account where I’ll post updates on an upcoming anthology I’ll be featuring in, as well as any other news about any pieces I can get published!

So that’s it for now, readers! Hopefully my next post will be something a bit more “substantial” i.e.  a review or feature, though when that comes along is anyone’s guess! For now, I hope you’re all doing as well as can be and stay safe out there!