The Selkie...

Things have been dreadful at work. So bad in fact that I had to take a few weeks off with stress. I'd basically been running on little more than fumes for a couple of months and it was taking its toll. The speed with which the doctor signed me was a joy to behold after I'd listed the reasons for feeling exhausted and stressed. All of it was work-related and getting out of that corporate apocalypse for a couple of weeks was desperately needed.

And I did bugger all. OK. I didn't exactly do bugger all: I spent time with the Missus, I returned to hapkido training, I arranged a reading of a new play, which I started work on, and I planned a comic, which I started writing. I also returned to BJJ training.

It was all stuff I should have been able to do alongside work, but I simply couldn't do because the job had become all-demanding. I am furious with the place I work for taking so little care of me and for demonstrating what I can only call a virtually criminal lack of duty of care.

But I am also a little bit annoyed with myself. I should have stopped working those hours a long time ago and thrown the ridiculous and ever-increasing demands of the job back at them. But I didn't. My sense of professionalism was exploited. I won't make the same error again, though. I feel like I am through it now.

Having a new play to write, which is currently titled The Selkie, is always energising because it means I have an idea I am excited about and I have a bit of fire back. It's the same with the comic idea. I've planned to write a comic for about three decades but I never got round to it. But seeing the Boy write and publish his comic, then get it stocked in comic shops and take it around comic cons has really kicked my arse into gear on this. A boozy night out with a pal of the Missus and her fella also suddenly made this scheme a reality.

It feels like there is some light at the end of particularly tiring and not-very-creative-tunnel. I feel like I have finally kicked in again. If I get stressed at work again, I'll now just see the doctor again and get signed off for a month or two. Fuck 'em. They don't deserve to have people as good as me working there.

This realisation and change of focus is good. Because, frankly, I've been a right miserable cunt.