Imagine 19 people in a 5 bedroom home for a long weekend. Imagine these people are related. Now imagine these people one-by-one succumb to the plague. Sounds like a great story right? Not so much if you live it.

This was my Easter holiday weekend.

My thoughts while voiding my guts ranged from “Huh, I ate carrot” to “I’m never going to eat gluten or diary again, why me?” to “Wow, there’s a lot in there.”

The plague hit at a rate of two per day (with a days delay for travelling – hitting two more once they reached their destination). Thankfully each case only lasted 24 hours and it skipped the pregnant lady (that’s right, soon there’ll be 20 of us).

Another unexpected present of this trip – black socks that now have orange bottoms thanks to the liberal amount of bleach used throughout the weekend (in the hopes of stemming the plague).

We survived and next time we holiday together (oh don’t worry, it’s already planned) we’ve opted for seperate motel rooms to make quarantine easier.

Last week was the six year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake that killed 185 people. A memorial wall was unveiled for the occasion, much like a war memorial, it lists the names of the people that died. My next book is set in the week leading up to this tragedy.

After the first big quake in September 2010 there was a certain amount of just carrying on with life. This is something I experienced in Wellington following the Kaikoura earthquake  in November last year. But after the second large quake it became clear that things would never be the same for Christchurch.

I explore this feeling in my new book; how one event, one choice, one realization can change the entire course of your life. We won’t know the ramifications till much later. Over the course of a week huge changes happen for characters and they have no idea what is drawing closer.

Beautiful Abomination will be published in March.

This was a hard year. The normal rounds of death, political upheavals, and natural disasters seemed to multiply. I’ve never heard so many people refer to a year as the problem (“fuck 2106″or “bloody 2016”).

I had my share of disappointments this year too; a broken heart, a lost job, an earthquake, losing the bid on a house and that’s besides worrying about the state of the world. But, 2016 had some wonderful life changing events too; my two brothers got married, my niece was born and I published my first book. I made some wonderful new friends and built friendships with people who were previously acquaintances.

I’m looking forward to 2017 being a better year (it doesn’t have to try hard to achieve that). My next book, Beautiful Abomination, a complete rewrite of something I wrote years ago, should be published. I’m toying with the idea of publishing some poetry; very, very, bad poetry. Another niece or nephew will be born, there will be a family holiday and I will probably purchase a new house. I’m optimistic about 2017 and I hope you are too.

I leave you with a summary of all that was wrong with 2016:

I am almost always sleep deprived. I have trouble sleeping and my neighbours wake me each morning (they work the early shift). Despite this, my natural setting is still pretty positive; I’m polite, I smile at people and, allow them room. But there are days when I’m an arsehole.

Yesterday I was caught behind a truck going 40km/hr in a 100km/hr zone. Once I got out from behind that truck I drove like an arsehole the rest of the way to my destination. Some times I’m day dreaming, going slower than the speed limit, and there is a car riding my arse; maybe we’re both being an arsehole in that situation. But once I realise I either speed up or move out of the way to put the poor bugger out of his misery. I don’t intend to be an arsehole.

About a month ago, on public transport, I politely asked a woman to turn off the sound on her cellphone. I dislike confrontation so it was a big deal for me. Her response was abusive.  I don’t think she realised her phone noises were effecting other people. She was bursting my bubble of personal space but my pointing this out to her probably burst her bubble too.

In the last year or two the population of Wellington has increased noticeably. There are more people on the trains, walking on the streets, more cars on the road. On the New York Subway I noticed that unless it’s peak hour people are so considerate, or maybe mistrusting of others, they will stand rather than take an empty seat next to another person. To maintain a happy community we need to recognise when we’re being an arsehole and correct ourselves.

This piece is partly in response to The Same Standard Distribution of Asshats by Richard Parry and Not Everyone is an Asshole by J. C. Hart (note that I use the British spelling arsehole rather than asshole)

I discovered Rachel Gibson through her Writers Friends series. As a writer it’s a little meta but also very cool to read about other writers. These writers are nothing like me; they all somehow manage to live off their writing (a rare unicorn for those of us on the other side of the world).

You can get it here

A friend gave me one of her old computers when I wasn’t able to use my Asus transformer pad to VPN into work. I’ve had my computer for about a year. I wrote my soon-to-be-published book using it. For the last month or two the laptop has sat open on my desk because I was worried it would snap in half if I chose to close it. Turns out I was half right.