Some are a personal wishes, perhaps a little esoteric, others refer to movies that might be a little off the mainstream, but here we go.

1. Have George put Star Wars back to the way it was. We all saw Han shoot first.
2. Walk away while an explosion goes off in the background in slow motion
3. Have a glass of rum with Captain Jack Sparrow
4. Fight zombies with a yell of “Yeah-boy”
5. Tell Captain Picard to “Make it so…”
6. Have Jar Jar Binks meet with a very messy end so we can have no doubt he’s gone
7. Drive the cool Batmobile from Batman Begins
8. Understand Vogon poetry
9. Get a real cone of silence
10. Take the Tardis out for a spin
11. Dinner with Terry Pratchett
12. Find that the Serenity 2 movie is going to happen
13. Walk into a casino wearing a tux and order a Martini “shaken, not stirred”
14. Enjoy slow barbequed Ewok, St Louis style.
15. Have a sonic screwdriver in the tool box
16. Sit and listen to Isaac Asimov and Philip K Dick discuss robotics, replicants and the four laws.
17. Re-read the entire Foundation series in order
18. Look good in an Indiana Jones fedora and learn to crack a whip
19. Complete all levels of Angry Birds with three-stars
20. Visit the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley
21. Shoot an original (Buster Crabb) Flash Gordon blaster
22. Burning man
23. Have a “Law” named after me
24. SXSW Interactive
25. Have the Swedish chef cook dinner
26. Car chase through the hills of San Francisco Bullit style
27. Leia, gold bikini and…
28. Listen to the history of the universe as told by R. Daneel Olivaw
29. Work out what the hell was going on in Lost
30. Don powered armour and into the drop-capsule
31. Learn to wield a lightsaber from Yoda
32. The ultimate dinner party: Josh Whedon, Hunter S. Thompson, Stephen Fry, Stan Lee and finally Gene Roddenberry
33. Visit Westworld and take on Yul Brynner, after all the bugs have been worked out
34. Beat the Kobayashi Maru
35. Partner Logan 7 for a day
36. Tour the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough with Nevil Shute
37. Number-5 in the red dress
38. Sit in a cool chair, wearing a collarless shirt and monocle, while stroking a white cat and utter the classic line “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die”
39. An afternoon on the Holodeck
40. “Beam me up Scotty”
41. Have a Monolith in the front garden
42. Fly through the air firing two guns Hot Fuzz style
43. Watch a live game of Rollerball (“Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan…”)
44. Road trip with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
45. Have HAL ask me “What are you doing Dave”
46. Hear an Avro Vulcan take off on full reheat one more
47. Watch the Killer rabbit take on the Black knight
48. Go hiking with Bill Bryson
49. Get shot out of a launch tube from Galactica
50. Fit a shock collar to George Lucas that goes off everytime he tries to re-edit one of his movies

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I could put down five or six hundred words about times, but as with every other year no one really has a clue what’s going on.

The headlines are
• Times went down over the test
• The step noses on the cars are ugly
• Ferrari have a lot of work to do, but it’s promising
• Hamilton looked good
• Red Bull were fast
• Torro Rosso, Lotus and Force India did OK
• The step noses on the cars are really ugly

Absolutely nothing there we did not know before the test started and I just saved myself a bunch of time.
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1. Find a time that works for you.

Someone told me when I started this that I would need one of the following: insomnia, proper coffee maker or a case or two of Red Bull. I know that every conversation I have with Sharon the editor she keeps pausing to take continual sips of coffee, but I never developed a taste for the stuff. I’m not in a rally car sponsored by Red Bull any more, and that stuff is spendy when purchased by the case. Ignoring the amphetamines option just leaves insomnia. After everything that went on last summer I still struggle to keep my energy level up all day, it is often lowest in the evening after work. So I adapted and discovered that by getting up at four I get a couple of hours in with good energy before I’ve got to go to work.

2. Prioritizing my writing

You don’t get to be a proper storyteller by putting it so far down “the list” that it’s sitting between “Ride a Motorbike around Alaska” and “Climb El-Cap”. I have discovered I enjoy writing (editing less so), more than I expected and while I don’t spend two hours every day writing it is something I make sure to carve a little time out for. I am a writer because it’s not just what you do, but rather, it’s part of who I am. And something that important to me becomes a priority.

3. It’s not supposed to be easy

What’s more, for me it’s probably not going to get much easier. Dad once said that stuff really worth doing (I think he was trying to talk me into paint the front of his house at the time) requires a lot of work and skill. I’m starting this as someone who got “could try harder” in English Lit at school, so I’m less prepared than most. This writing thing is hard work, but that’s fine, it’s going to be worth it in the end.

4. Dealing with fear

One of the themes through my writing is how I deal with change and fear. That could be fear of the unknown, failure, what I will become if I don’t change or fear of what people will think. A little preparation, being pragmatic about it and fear is diminished. I have found that if I face my fear head on and it’s gone. I was told at a conference last year that people who fail at writing typically do so for one of two reasons. First they were lazy, or two because they were afraid. I’m not lazy, so if I failed it would be because of the second. What’s the worst that can happen?

Is writing a book is going to see me fed to the tigers in the coliseum?  Nope.

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5. Stop listening to the naysayers

When I first started this project and put together the proposal I was rejected, a lot. I was told that it would not sell, maybe they are right, but I’m not writing for them, I’m writing for me. I was told by my editor that my job is to prove them wrong and product the vest manuscript I can. That’s my job, and I can do that.

6. Not worry about what I can’t control

Worry is one useless emotion, especially if it’s stuff out of our control. We can’t control reviews, Amazons terms and conditions, reviews, readers and so many other things. I can’t control how people treat me, over the last two years someone threatened to have me thrown out the country, sent to prison, living on the streets and bankrupted. This is why I have a lawyer, she deals with her and I don’t have to. It takes the worry away from me, and just as importantly, the control from her. As an emotion worry does nothing. Thinking about what can happen has its uses in identifying issues and developing plans to work around them. That’s not worry, that’s planning and is a good thing.

OK, I do worry that Barnes & Noble is going to do something stupid and follow Borders in committing bookstore hari-kari.

7. Don’t dwell on the mistakes

Yeah, I screwed up big time in the past, we all have. Everyone has something they are not proud of and one of the things I’ve found is that others don’t care what happened. Mistakes will haunt you and stay with you only if you let them. They are a large part of my writing, not explaining them, but getting over them. Writing is way more fun than even the best therapists office.

8. Admit what I am

I may not make a living at it, but I am still a writer. If I got the chance to sit around in by robe writing about unicorns and fairies it would be pretty sweet, but that’s not ever going to be me. Writing is a way for me to relax from my daily job. It’s still a hobby, abet one I take seriously, but it’s for fun. But I am a writer and I like that label.

9. I’m in no hurry

I’m not going down the self-publishing route, but I am working with people who understand this is my first time at this and are very supportive. An experienced editor told at the beginning of this process that books are like wine; they need time. So I was told to take the time. That I’m not being judged on how much I write, but rather how well I write. I’ve hit the milestones, am slowly moving forward and am making sure speed does not come at the cost of quality.

10. But a little urgency never hurt

Yeah, I get this is the opposite of what I just said, but there we go. As the sign on the conference room door at work says “Warming: Deadlines are closer than they look”, and with out deadlines it would be chaos.

The high res version is here at Bodega Studios