WordPress ‘Stats’ tells me that crimsonprose is now one year. Yippee, light the candles candle! And since it’s traditional at the turn of the year to review the past and make plans for the future, this I will do.

Last Year

The most notable development over the past year has been the loss of my pc-phobia. No. I didn’t fear that the pc-tower would take on a strange life overnight, to savagely attack me when o awoke in the morning. Maybe phobia’s too strong a word. Try aversion. But even that’s bizarre considering my first computer was steam-driven –  512k ram, 20mb hard disk, 5¼” floppies. So what had happened that might explain it?

CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome aka ME). If you find yourself yawning you may skip this next paragraph.

What Is CFS?

To many, CFS is still regarded as the perfect excuse for not going to work. That’s ironic, since CFS tends to hit those who have put too much energy into their studies, career, job, hobbies, romance  – life. Then, when the body’s defences are depleted by exhaustion, along comes a virus – any virus – and zap! The virus seems to knobble the body’s mitochondria, present in their thousands in every cell of the body. It’s been discovered that CFS sufferers have a depleted quota of these micro-powerstations, essential for converting stored energy to available energy. Therefore, though the adrenaline flows, the body is unable to use it. Result: unresponsive muscles, cns signals snarled in the system causing pain, and a hyperactive brain. Drenched in adrenaline, the brain cells respond with high anxiety, panic attacks, and sleeplessness (the other reason for that chronic fatigue). 

Me and IT

That heightened anxiety would kick in whenever I anticipated any change to my computer set up (luckily I had an IT engineer acquaintance who kept my machine ticking over, and installed x, y, and z software for me – until about 18 months ago when long story and I never saw him again).

But there I was in November 2012 with a backlog of creative writing and no one reading it. I thought, even if only one other saw it . . . Enter my persistent daughter; “Get it out there,” she nagged. 

Since then I have changed from IE Version Ancient, to Google Chrome, have changed from tower to laptop – which necessitated downloading Chrome and iTunes again (help, what’s my account name, what’s the password?), setting schedules and what’s the language of my keyboard? South African? Don’t ask  – and have now, not one blog, but three. Aversion or phobia this past year has been overcome. Yippee! Nay, double yippee. Nay, let’s push the boat out. Triple yippee!

My Three Blogs

“Even if only one other person reads it . . .” In snowball-fashion, as it has rolled over a snow-field of wordpress readers, crimsonprose has accumulated 91 followers. Okay, so that’s small compared with the monsters out there, but a respectable sized snowmanperson all the same (and I thank every single one of you).

I didn’t expect crimsonprose‘s sibling blog Feast Fables, dedicated to the fantasy trilogy, to match these statistics. And, hey . . . I’ve not been disappointed. Feast Fables has acquired 29 followers, 27 taken from the followers of crimsonprose. “Even if only one other person reads it . . .”  So I’m happy with that.

crimson’s history has been the stunner. Yea, yea, yea, so it has only 8 followers (though only 2 are shared by crimsonprose). Yet 1432 views for just 12 posts? It consistently gets the hits yet I’ve not posted an article there since June of this year. (I am working on one, I promise, only it’s so time-consuming and sleep has to come first – I mean, sleep has to come first, it cannot be resisted).

Next Year

The Blogged Books

Both Neve and Feast Fables (Book 1, Fall Alone), are due to finish around Christmas/New Year. Feast Fables (Book 2, Dark Days) should occupy most of 2014, while ditto for the fantasy Roots of Rookeri, intended to run after to follow upon the conclusion of Neve.

AOB

Guest blogger ‘Toli Tall Tales’ might be joined by my friend ‘Iris’, nicknamed Einstein for her many theories.

Anything else is dependent upon inspiration. And since said inspiration so often arrives while I’m washing up, in this coming year, I’d best eat plenty to ensure I’m often up to my wrists in hot soppy suds – speaking of which, I feel a nibble coming on so best I pull this to a close. 

There are, however, two things I’ve yet to do. (1) To thank Brian Bixby of the Sillyverse blog. Not quite my first follower, yet an early joiner; there is scarcely a post across the three blogs that lacks his comment/s. I thank you Brian, for your continued interest, and your tolerance at my insistence on using ‘English’ English, despite what the Google spellchecker wants. (2) To ditto the above to ‘Russel’, a faithful follower despite of late his comments have grown less. I wish you well with your revision of Edward and Amelia.