Disaster 2009

As I prepared to launch myself into the new year, I was determined to buck the trend towards doom and gloom. All around us the news is grim. So I was intending to talk cheerfully about the way book sales will boom as people seek out cheaper forms of entertainment and escape. How books will boost morale.

Hah! So much for my good intentions. Instead it turns out that I could do with some morale boosting myself. What a way to end 2008! On Christmas Day I took a nosedive off my new bicycle and shattered my right wrist. My RIGHT wrist. My writing wrist.

So I am now a right-handed writer unable to write. What good is that? Of course I know I can peck at a keyboard left-handed as I am doing now or use a dictaphone - or digital voice recorder as the techies now call them. I can even teach my computer to use a voice recognition programme. NO, NO, that's not how I write. For me the creative process works in a mysterious and unfathomable way as the words flow from my head, down my arm and into my right hand. They spill on to paper from the tip of my pen. I even think more clearly with a pen in my hand. Yes, I know there's all that stuff about use of your left hand stimulating a different part of the brain. I'll be extremely interested to see what comes out of it.

So as you can tell, 2009 has arrived with a new and totally unexpected challenge, a demand that I adapt. Okay, that is my New Year's resolution. Adapt. With a scary metal plate in my wrist and intense curiosity in my head as to how I'm going to set about it, I venture forth on my new book. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is actually Good News, not bad.

I'll let you know. Happy new year.