I have been trying to find motivation for this update, so if you only care about the book, then let’s get that out of the way. I got 12 pages of notes to implement ranging from “Add a dog to the sheep scene” to “Research mining related riots in 1929 Scotland“, and the book has remained at 65.000 words.
This is overshadowed by the news that I got made redundant. Not fired without pay, so not the worst way to lose your job, but not ideal at Christmas. This happened a little over two weeks ago and it definitely took the wind out of my sails.
Six years on and the recruitment business is having the financial sniffles, and the only way to survive is to burn out the fever, taking some talent with it. So I guess this is as good a time as any to reassess and reorient, get some rest in and fix the odd bit around the house.
The question that naturally arises is what to do next?
As a child I only had a few things I wanted to be: helicopter pilot, secret agent, and an author. Helicopter pilot was never going to happen due to bad eyesight. Secret agent was the work of silly movies with silly plots and, most importantly, is nothing like real espionage. Which leaves authorship the only viable dream.
My ongoing love affair with books started young for me. I spent more time at the library than in my room as a teenager, and to this day I remember where my favorite sections were at my local library. I remember rows of index cards showing where the good stuff was (Ninjutsu*, Greek myths and African Fauna comes to mind), and exploring shelves for hours just in case I missed something good (which I did. I didn’t read The Lord of the Rings until I was in my early twenties).
As I grew older, the idea of writing a book was something you had to do. In my head, anyone and everyone needed to write a book about something, anything, and add it to humanity’s corpus of knowledge. It’s silly, simple even, but it’s what I expected others would do and I would do the same. The great thinkers of our time had done so, why wouldn’t others try it as well?
Interest in writing and whether you had something to say, didn’t really factor into my logic at the time. Nor did the idea of publishing, building a plot, understanding sentence structure, format, intent or anything else. You just had to contribute. It was the most natural idea in the world, and while over the years I learned that very few people actually think the same way, the realization didn’t temper my drive.
This is the main reason I write. I may never get published and that’s fine, but I set myself the goal of finishing my book in 2026 and this unintentional career break will be a much needed space to get it done.
As this is the last post of 2025, I wish you all a joyful 2026. Happy New Year!
TL;DR – Book is going well, lost my job and I am looking forward to writing more.
- Autocorrect does not like the word Ninjutsu word. While writing it suggested Ninjitsu, Jujitsu and Injurious as correct terms. Never trust your AI tools.
Torben Jensen 
Leave a comment