And can you believe it?  Just as I pick myself up again, re-energise myself and my blog, finish my novel, begin my second, realise I have a really successful business, run my marathon, feel like I’m on top of the mountain after a long long climb……  my husband ends my marriage.

Whoosh! A massive gust of wind throws me over the edge. But you know what Life?  You know what? I’m still hanging on.  Your gust has blown me off the top but not back down. So I am not going to talk about that right now, because there is so much to write about how and why my marriage has ended so abruptly that I might crash WordPress with the volume of words I need to write. Either that or it’s another book… perhaps a trilogy. Perhaps a whole fucking library. Because this is some story. But it’s not for today.

Life’s wind is buffeting me but I am hanging on. Today I want to talk about my novel.  I finished it. And several people actually think it’s good.  Good enough to be sent to agents. Good enough to encourage me to hurry up and write my second. Last night I attended the Irish PEN Awards to honour an amazing woman writer (and so prolific she leaves me breathless) Eilis Ni Dhuibhne who spoke about the importance of words in our lives to enrich and support us, to teach us and guide us. And words will get me back up that mountain. Words that I will read (oh the pile of books beside my bed smile at me like friends I know they’ll be), and words that I will write. Words that I write for my day job, words that I write for fun and words that I write for my sanity. Life, you can blow me off course as much as you like, but I have an armory of words and they will always lead me home.