Thanks to my friend, Reesha, this is now my new catch phrase for 2020.

Last month I shared how RL had attacked me with needing to take heaps of domestic/stick leave because of family stuff. After thinking Mum wouldn’t make Christmas, she picked up and we had a mad scramble to find her a resthome, plus clear her house to put it on the market.

All that done, but RL hadn’t finished making my life hell just yet. I’ve had my car back to the garage three times in the space of two weeks to the point where the AA callout person greeted me like an old friend on the last callout. A large bill later, I’m still nervous every time I drive, and hope the car behaves itself for the foreseeable future.

But wait, there’s more.

I had to take my beloved Kaylee to the vet early last week as she was doing the ‘want to go and can’t’ dance. She’s okay now thanks to pain meds and antibiotics, but the blood test showed she’s in early stages of renal failure. She’s 15 and with a renal diet should be okay as it’s been caught early. So any ideas of spare money are going to be quite literally eaten by my cat! Good thing she’s cuddly and cute.

I’m finding it very difficult with all this going on, not only to find the mindset to write, but also the time. Every time I think I’ll do something writing related either the phone rings or I’m running around sorting out real life. It’s been very frustrating!

So much for my brilliant plan of re-releasing a book a month, which has slowed right down, but luckily hasn’t ground to a complete halt thanks to my fabulous friends, both online and in RL.

I’m a huge believer in being a part of a community—not only have mine kept me going on more than one occasion, but I hope I’d been able to do the same for others in turn and pay it forward.

On the subject of communities— three years ago fellow Kiwi author Gillian St. Kevern and I met for lunch at Gotham and talked about how good it would be to set up an online New Zealand Rainbow Writers group. Our dream included a meet up in RL where we could hang together over a weekend and talk face to face.

This weekend that dream is coming true. A group of us from different places around the country are meeting for a weekend at mine—as I’m in the centre of the country so the midway point—for our first, hopefully regular, NZRRW writers retreat. I’m very much looking forward to it, and will tell you all about it in next month’s post.

Meantime I’d love to see some of you in my readers group and/or signing up for my newsletter.