So what I really want to write is a blog post about is how busy writing I’ve been and how I’ve finished a draft of a huge book and how I love it very much.  But that blog post is probably a week off.  So instead I’ll talk briefly about the challenges I’ve set myself this year.
2014 is going to be filled with adventures.  Some are personal challenges – so personal in fact that no-one other than me knows about them.  I like the idea that no-one is able to encourage me and instead I have to rely on my own willpower.  Some are adventures that are huge and geeky and have some of you going “wow!”.  And some are a journey that I’ll share along the way.
One such journey is starting to sword fight.  I found out about a year ago that there was a really good sword fighting school round the corner from me.  They’re the type of school where it’s a study of methods of the past masters rather than theatrical choreography.  The problem was back then, I was in no physical shape to really start training.  I’m probably still not.  The warm up exercise alone nearly killed me.  But it didn’t, which is good because I had a lot of fun.  I’m definitely the most unfit, the slowest and least agile of the group which is fine because the way I see it I have the biggest room for improvement.  And besides if I can get through last year I can get through something as simple as learning to kill a man with steel.
Plus, it’s research.  Darwin’s not a sword fighter but in both the novel I’m about to finish and the Thieving King there are master sword fighters and I’d like to write combat for those characters that won’t have my new colleagues tutting and telling me “that’s not how it’s done.”