Me, Too (Writing and Post-Covid)

Both Charlotte's and Donis's posts this week struck home with me. At the best of times, I procrastinate even when I have something I want to get done. The only thing I don't do this with is moving around odds and ins that I'm inspired to move around while flipping through home decorating magazines. I love those magazines even though I get sticker shock when I realize I picked up one with an enticing cover and tossed it into my grocery shopping basket without checking that tiny little price. I think they make it tiny just so people who need to dig out their glasses won't bother to stop and do that. And those $10.99 magazines have occasionally costed me even more because I have stopped reading to go to the site where I can see the options and sometimes I buy that perfect thing with one tap of my finger. In my own defense, at the trail end of the worse of the pandemic, I did finally get around to getting my handyman in to paint because I had spent so much time looking at the yellow walls that came with the house when I moved in. And then, when I had refreshed my walls with blue, new accessories were required.

But . . . as I was saying about procrastination, I have now reached "Master Level". It happened during the height of the pandemic when my brain ceased to work. The one good aspect of that was that I started an on-going email letter writing habit again with a friend from grad school. Back in the days when people  wrote letters in long-hand and sent them off by stopping at a mail box, we communicated more often. But in the age of emails, we had gone astray. During Covid-19 we have gotten back into the habit of checking on each and what is going on in our lives. I did the same with a friend here closer to home. And with other people who I communicate with regularly. But even with all this communication, I had curled up in my little nest, tossing mail on my desk unopened, and opening the front door only to walk the dog. I even joined a grocery delivery service -- actually that last decision turned out to be a wise one. After trying at least four other services, I found one that delivers protein, healthy fruits, vegetable, and cookie dough made of ingredients that all look healthy and can be eaten from the container or baked.

My improved communication habits and strategy for getting dinner in less than 30 minutes are in place, and I hope will continue. What hasn't change is my habit of spinning my wheels longer than I should each day before I get going. That means that when I finally start I end up going later in the day than I would like because I have more writing time to try to make up. But this morning when I was putting off getting out this post, I checked today's tip from Ancestry DNA and discovered that the fault is in both my environment and my genetic tendencies. In keeping with that I stopped to read the accompanying articles about other traits before finally getting to my post. Actually, today I have a semi-good excuse. I got up early to take my dog to daycare because I scribbled a faculty event in the wrong box in my old-fashion planner. It would have come up in my electronic calendar, but this week I planned to be proactive -- and I ended up being a week early. So, today, I was so early dropping off Fergus that I thought I could spend time thinking about whether to have brunch or lunch while wandering off to read those "when you have the time" articles that are fascinating when I should be doing something else.

I have found a good idea or two reading those articles. My only problem is sometimes I read something both useful and fascinating but I don't have pen and paper at hand and I'm too comfortable to get up and get both, so I tell myself I will remember, and I don't. I know enough to immediately write down whatever I wake up dreaming. But this week I was having a dream -- a solution to a plot problem -- and I woke up almost there but Fergus had shut himself up in my bedroom when he was pushing at the door trying to get out. I got up to let him out, and as quickly as that my dream was gone. I've been hoping it would come back, but it hasn't.

Like Donis, I am hoping that the more I get out again, the more I will get to at least "re-set" when it comes to socializing again. In one area at least, having animals in the house has helped out. When my beloved Harry died, I found both Fergus and Penelope -- not as replacements for Harry, but as animals with their own personalities. It has taken me a while to settle in with the two of them. But it has also given me a Covid interest. With Fergus, the wonderfully socialized puppy I received from a breeder, the task has been to contain some of that bounciness and train him. With Penelope, my rescue cat from Louisiana, it has taken almost a year between the time she began to talk to me when she wants something and expect me to understand and last month when she began to curl up against me on the sofa and even stretch out in my lap. That would be great except I gave myself a physical excuse for researching rather than writing when I grabbed my lap top to keep it from falling from the sofa and managed to loosen the hinge on one side. She jumped right up and finished the job. Now, I'm going to have to take it back to my computer guy again  after having broken both monitor hinges this time. 

But I have a fully functioning desk top at home and in my office at school. It is only a matter of sitting down at either. Note to self: Ideas rattling around in head have to be put on paper in timely fashion.

 

Covid and Literary Conflict

 By Thomas Kies

 Two weeks ago, today, my wife and I won the lottery…sort of.  We both got our second Pfizer vaccination.  It was like this massive weight was lifted off my shoulders.  After a year of wondering if I’d catch covid-19 and end up on a ventilator in the hospital, my anxiety level dropped precipitously.

If I was of a mind to write something about the pandemic into my work in progress (which I’m not) I wonder what kind of conflict that could be defined as.  

Tonight, in my creative writing class, the participants will be reading the first few pages of their book.  I didn’t define what that might be.  I left that up to them. I’ve assigned this before in other classes and it’s usually pretty interesting.

We’ll also be discussing different types of literary conflict.  

There’s character vs. self.  This might take the form of inner demons—alcoholism, addiction, phobias.  Or it might be a moral dilemma such as: If you can’t afford food to feed your children and there were no other options, would you steal?  Is murder ever moral?  Can I have one more cookie tonight and ignore the scale in the morning?

There’s character vs. character.  This is the classic good against evil—the good guy or girl versus the bad guy or girl. With shades of moral nuance thrown in.  After all, don’t most villains think that what they do is right?  They might see their actions as being outside of the law, but it’s still the right thing to do.  It can be as powerful as a life and death battle in the climax of your book or being handed a written warning by your clueless, overbearing boss.

There’s character vs. nature.  This is where the hero battles forces like weather, wild animals, the wilderness, or a natural disaster.  Think Titanic. Think Old Man and the Sea. Think Texas after a snowstorm. 

There’s character vs. the supernatural.  This is more for authors of fantasy or horror and not so much for mystery writers.  My protagonist, Geneva Chase, doesn’t do battle with demons or zombies or ghosts. But in my first book, Random Road, Geneva rides along on a waterborne ghost hunt. 

FYI, that scene is based on a real ghost hunt I went on years ago.  The only spirits I saw that night were in the bottom of my wine glass.  

There’s character vs. technology.  I think this is more in the realm of science fiction writers, but I do understand the angst, anxiety, frustration, and rage I can feel when my internet goes out and I have to call the freaking cable company to get it back on.  

There’s character vs. society.  This can incorporate a broad spectrum of conflicts.  It could stem from race or religion.  Townies vs. the jocks on campus. It might be a character caught up in the raging fires of war. It could be me staring down an IRS audit. 

Then there’s something called passive conflict.  When the protagonist is being kept in the dark, lied to, or avoided.  Much less violent than physical conflict but can still do mental damage to a character. Much like being in high school and not being invited by the cool kids to any of their parties. 

I’m not bitter. Anymore. 

So, to circle around to the pandemic.  I guess we can slide that into character vs. nature. And I’ll be damned glad when we have all gotten vaccinated. 

Ink In Her Veins

 By Thomas Kies

The headline in my county’s Sunday newspaper is “Nothing to See Here”, referring to the efforts of local politicians to get a bill passed eliminating the requirement to post public notices in the paper.  They would like, instead, to post them on the county website.  

Yet another attack on newspapers. 

The protagonist in my Geneva Chase Mystery series is a crime reporter for a small independent newspaper that’s on the brink of being purchased by a media conglomerate.  Geneva is based on several women I’ve worked with over the years when I too worked in the newspaper and publishing business.  

It’s a business that I loved.  I did everything, including working as a pressman on a Goss web press in Detroit, becoming a staff writer, eventually becoming an editor, then moving into advertising management, and ultimately becoming the publisher and general manager of a magazine publishing house here on the coast of North Carolina. 

 I even delivered newspapers during a blizzard in one of the company’s ancient, rear-wheel drive vans.   Yikes.

The business was exciting, interesting, and fun, but filled with the pressures of working on a deadline.  

Unfortunately, the business has changed.  The combination of the Great Recession, the effects of the Internet, and Covid-19 has been disastrous for newspapers.  Their main source of revenue is advertising and all three of the factors I presented have shrunk that revenue stream.  

Before the Great Recession, the housing market was booming.  Real estate companies were spending a fortune in the classified section of newspapers, along with car dealerships, and companies looking to hire employees.  

Starting in 2007-2008, the housing bubble burst followed by cascading disasters in employment and consumer confidence.  Companies who always knew about the Internet, suddenly found it very attractive.  It was cheap and easy to use.  

The lucrative classified pages in newspapers diminished to a disastrous level. The advertising in the main pages of the paper also either got smaller or went away altogether. 

According to a New York Times article in December of 2019, over the past 15 years, more than one in five papers in the United States has shuttered, and the number of journalists working for newspapers has been cut in half, according to research by the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism. That has led to the rise of hollowed-out “ghost papers” and communities across the country without any local paper. “Ghost papers” are publications what have severely cut the staff in their newsrooms making any kind of investigative reporting non-existent. 

Covid-19 has delivered even more pain to newspapers.  When the world shut down in March of 2020, stores, shops, bars, and restaurants all closed their doors for months. Advertising became even scarcer.  Even with the world starting to open back up, the number of pages in your local newspaper has become less and less.  

An unexpected circumstance from the experience of working from home, more newspaper companies are closing their newsrooms, having offsite printing companies produce their publications, and selling their buildings and assets.

A huge part of the joy of working for a newspaper was being with the people you worked with.  Yes, the pressure of daily deadlines could lead to fraying nerves and in-office tension.  But at the end of the day, these people were your “newspaper family”.  Even though I’ve been out of the business for more than ten years, I still stay in close touch with a lot of them even if it’s through social media on the Internet.

Speaking of the Internet, the way people get their news has changed dramatically.

The transition of news from print, television and radio to digital spaces has caused huge disruptions in the traditional news industry, especially the print news industry. It’s also reflected in the ways individual Americans say they are getting their news. A large majority of Americans get news at least sometimes from digital devices, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020.

More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes,” including 60% who say they do so often. This is higher than the portion who get news from television, though 68% get news from TV at least sometimes and 40% do so often. Americans turn to radio and print publications for news far less frequently, with half saying they turn to radio at least sometimes (16% do so often) and about a third (32%) saying the same of print (10% get news from print publications often).

The point of this rambling blog is that even in fiction, I’m transitioning Geneva Chase, crime reporter, into going freelance, working gigs for her newspaper on occasion, and working for a company called Lodestar Analytics that does open-source research as well as instigating deep dive investigations.  

Personally, I still like newspapers.  I get the paper out of Raleigh every day (even they’ve stopped printing on Saturdays, however) and my local newspaper (which has cut back from three days a week to two), as well as the Sunday New York Times (which seems to be flourishing).

I also subscribe to a digital Washington Post feed and routinely scan other websites (all free) for news from around the globe. I’m a news junkie and the Internet feeds my addiction. 

Still, I’m happiest when I’m writing scenes where Geneva Chase is working in the newsroom.  She’s got ink in her veins. I’d like to think that I do too.

Looking Backward and Forward

 By next Friday at midnight -- whatever happens between now and then, if the planet is still turning -- 2020 will be in our rear view mirror. We have called this year by many names -- some of them curses that our mothers would not approve of -- even if she is uttering the same curses when no one is listening. 

To say it has been a bad year is an understatement. But it also has been educational. We've learned things we didn't want to know -- like at what point we become numb to the daily death count. Or, think we have, until we lose someone we know and/or love. Or, until the media reminds us with yet another story that makes us understand once more the toll that COVID-19 has taken on individuals. Today, there was a story about a young woman who gave birth to her child and then died. The article was accompanied by a photo of the day when she and her husband celebrated her pregnancy. They are glowing with happiness. And now she is gone, and he has had to break the news to the other children. 

We can imagine one death, one family devastated. That haunts us. We have learned that this year. Learned it over and over again even when we tried not to see or listen. 

But we've also learned that we need to find time to stay connected with the people we care about.  Once upon a time, before email, my best friend from grad school and I used to write each other real letters. With email, oddly enough, the letters became less frequent. Until the past few months, when one email letter has led to another and we are having an on-going conversation about our lives. 

Some of us, those of us with "companion animals," were reminded of how much we value their companionship. I dropped my cat, Harry, off at the vet's last Wednesday evening for a procedure on Thursday morning. The vet and I were anticipating that I would be able to pick him up on Friday morning. Instead, the blizzard blew through depositing 22.5 + inches in our area. I spent the next six nights realizing that even when Harry is napping in a corner somewhere, the house has a different vibration when he is in it. I was as relieved as he was when I could finally pick him up on Tuesday afternoon.

Something else I learned this year -- vanity is a lot of trouble and sometimes unnecessary. For decades, since I was in my 20s, I first plucked out gray strands and then dyed my hair. I could never find a color that felt exactly right, although I did settle on a cool shade that worked with my skin tone. I thought occasionally of saying to heck with it and letting my hair go gray. But I didn't want people to think I had "stopped trying" or that my hair had turned white after a scare (old superstition). I didn't want to look in the mirror and see that I looked ancient. But this fall, while working from home and unable to get to a hair salon, I chopped my hair into a shape that worked on Zoom. Then, although I'd ordered hair color delivered with my groceries, I decided to see how gray my hair actually was. That was when I realized -- as more and more gray appeared -- that I liked the silver. It was great with my favorite shades of gray and blue. The color worked with my skin tone. Still, I was shocked when several people on Zoom said they liked my hair. Who knew?  The only problem now is that I need to update my author photos.

 I've also learned how to order a delicious meal online. I had used Grub Hub before. Now, I know how to "read" an online menu and find what I want. Last night I had a seafood feast -- fried oysters, crab hush puppies, mussel boil, and coleslaw. All this from a restaurant I had just discovered. And I'm doing my part to support local businesses with an order every couple of weeks -- my reward for learning how to do more with veggies and left-overs.  

Although I would rather have made this discovery under happier circumstances, I have finally become a fan of technology. I like what one can do on Zoom. I also like what one can do with a combination of new technology and old. I found an "animal communicator" online. We talked on the telephone, and then she did a session with Harry using a photo that I had sent her. In case you're interested, Harry has never lived with a dog (I wasn't sure), but he knows what they are. He was curious about the puppy (see cute photo) that is likely to join us in the new year. But he is withholding judgment until he encounters him and sees how he behaves. The session was inspired by my research for a book, but it was also fascinating.

I could go on with the list of things I've learned this year -- some good, some bad. You must have your list as well. I've going to see how many of those things -- for example, the need to get outside and get fresh air or at least open windows even in a pandemic -- translate into New Year's resolutions. 

Happy Holidays and Take Care,

Frankie

Don't Get Sick - With Anything.

Donis here.  I intended to do a post on writing about race in a historical novel, but the other current world-wide plague made me change my plans. My husband Don was sick for much of the past week. This is is not a good time to be ill, especially since we weren't sure what the problem was. On Saturday he had a bad headache all day. By Sunday it had developed into a blinding headache, nausea, dizziness. On Monday he wasn't able to get out of bed at all. But he had no fever, no coughing, no problem breathing. The symptoms of the Covid seem to present differently in different people, and the infection rate in Arizona keeps going up. We've been very careful about leaving the house, but we have donned our masks and gone to the store on occasion. Was it Covid-19 or something else?

This reminded me of the kidney failure incident of 2009. On that occasion he got worse and worse, couldn't get out of bed for several days. We thought it was the flu – until he began to hallucinate and I bundled him up and rushed him to the emergency room, and thus began an ordeal I don't care to think back on.

Many of you Dear Readers know of Don's history, since I haven't been secretive about it at all. He's been doing very well for quite a while now, but over the past decade, he has endured just about every health problem you can think of – eye bleeds, heart failure, kidney failure, Crohn's disease, colon cancer, broken arm, post-op infection (fifteen surgeries in twelve years). He's also of an age. He is in the number one category for a bad Covid outcome.

I tried to call the doctor's office but couldn't get through. What to do now? Shall we go to Urgent Care? Would he infect people? Would people infect him? I don't want to go to the hospital emergency room, not right now, not if we can help it. I don't know if it's an emergency. What if they admit him? I wouldn't be able to go in with him. I don't want to be separated from him when he's sick. I asked him what he wanted to do and he squinted up at me and said that if he didn't feel better in the morning we'd go to an Urgent Care. I still couldn't get through to the doctor. I couldn't decide whether I should keep calling and pushing, which left me annoyed and upset. To be cautious, I went to bed in another room and tossed and turned Monday night, checked on him every few hours. It amazed me how quickly I fell back into my emergency caretaker mode.

Tuesday morning he was better. The nausea abated and the headache just a dull throb. By the end of the day he was much better and was able to eat. Today (Wednesday), he's tired but much back to normal.

Once upon a time he was plagued with knockout headaches like this, but he hadn't had one for more than twenty years. What a bitch of time for his migraines to return. I can only hope that this was a one off.

So for God's sake, my friends, take care of yourselves, because this is no time for anybody to get sick, Covid or not.

By the way, the doctor's office has not yet called back.

Day what? Week what? And wealth that never happened.

I imagine a lot of you are like me, stuck in this lockdown with the passing time smearing into a blur. Here in Colorado I think we're into week six or is it seven...eight?

To cope with the anxiety of the quarantine and the virus and the economy, I've been channeling my thoughts into a cartoon series called Cats In Quarantine.

You can follow the daily offerings on my Twitter feed, my Facebook page, or on Instagram.

But this economic meltdown did present an opportunity, of sorts. Earlier this week, when oil dropped to less than a dollar a barrel, I got the great idea of making lots and lots of money. I'd buy the oil now when it's dirt cheap and hang onto it until after the economy opens up. People will start driving. Airlines will be flying. The economy will be moving again, literally. When that happens, then oil will shoot back up to $40, $50, $60 a barrel. Buy low. Sell high. I'd be rich. Not Jeff Bezos rich but further ahead than where I am now. Then a friend with experience as a professional trader explained to me using short sentences and small words the folly of my plan. As background, if you looked at my bank account and my standard of living you'd see that my financial acumen is on the shy side of dazzling. Turns out that oil is a commodity and when you buy oil, you are buying an actual quantity of oil. You can't hang on to that oil for long unless you take physical possession. Which is why you have dudes scheming to lease tankers brimming with cheap oil and holding on to them until the price is right. There are instruments such as oil options, oil futures, oil EFTs, and others, and my friend cautioned that the road to financial ruin is paved with guys and their visions of easy money. And to underscore how perilous gambling on the stock market can be, the Wall Street Journal ran a brief article where US Senators - a class of people you'd think would have their thumb well positioned on the pulse of the financial world - have a worse track record than the regular investor. So my plans for quick bucks went poof!

About Heroes

Like many of my fellow bloggers, during this time where we’re self isolating, practicing social distancing, and wearing masks to the grocery store, I’m finding it difficult to dive into my current work in progress.

I fear that anything I write will pale in comparison to the drama tragically unfolding hour by hour all around us.

But I do have time to think and observe.

The subject of heroes occurs to me.  Earlier this year I taught a creative writing class (we still have two more classes to complete) and talked extensively about protagonists. We discussed how they need to be relatable but flawed in some way. And they're always up to the task at hand, no matter the consequences or the danger.

We have them in real life. We always have, but it’s much more obvious now. The doctors, nurses, and health care workers risking their own lives in overcrowded hospitals, not able to access enough ventilators to keep up with the number of people suffering from Covid-19, unable to get the proper gear to keep themselves from getting sick.

As always, our heroes are also the law officers, firemen and EMTs that continue to work even though they’re putting themselves in danger of contracting the disease. And many of them have.

Less obvious are the people who are working in our grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and (thank heavens) the liquor stores. We also need to thank the truck drivers, the mail carriers, and sanitation workers.

In our creative writing class, we also discussed bad guys. We have those in real life as well. We have the people who refuse or ignore the call to practice safe distancing. There are decision makers who refused to recognize the virus as a threat or moved much too slowly to mitigate it. Then there are those individuals and companies that hoard needed supplies and profiteer from tragedy.

What we don’t have yet is a proper ending. We're not sure what that would look like.

One of the many reasons we enjoy reading mysteries, especially in uncertain times, is that we’re pretty certain that by the last page, justice will be served and the heroes will be victorious.

But this isn’t fiction.

It’s real life. And it's scary as hell. So, when you interact with our real life heroes, thank them and tell them how much they are appreciated.

Real life heroes, good on you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Washing floors, anyone?

I know I promised to reveal my four secrets to a successful story on this blog, one secret at a time, but that was a  month ago. As everyone has noted, that was another life. We have entered a period of surreal, suspended animation. As my daughter calls it, it's as if the world has stopped. And in many ways it has. All our daily routines and activities have changed, replaced by constant email, text, and phone conversations and non-stop news. A trip to the grocery story is now a huge excursion, and as Aline said, the highlight may be that daily walk. In my case several walks since I have two dogs, but now the walks are around the same few neighbourhood blocks. Gone are the parks and trails I used to take them on, because in their wisdom the National Capital Commission that runs them all has shut them down to avoid crowding. So now there is no quiet, serene place to avoid the crowds.

Life is not normal, and people are distracted and discombobulated. As writers, we are all struggling to find focus, to find our characters in the desert of our imagination, and to sink into that oblivion that we call the creative zone. I have all the time in the world, I tell myself, and surely this is not so different from my usual hermit life. So I've been pushing myself and berating myself for my meagre output and for my desire to wash the floors (yes, wash the floors!) just to put off picking up the pen.

And then I found this article on Facebook. It's very human and full of understanding, hope, and sound advice. The author wrote it for her fellow academics but it applies equally to us writers. To anyone whose work comes from within their own head. Judging from her story, I assume she has lived through war and terror, and has now found safe haven in Canada, and so she knows a thing or two about disrupted lives. Canada has never had a war on its own soil (discounting the war of 1812, which was very localized and very long ago), and so people born in Canada have no experience facing the kind of trauma and turmoil that much of the world has lived through. We have much we can learn from the refugees who have chosen our country, in terms of resilience and wisdom.

So I decided now is not the time to blog about the third secret to a successful story. Someday – I have no idea when – I will return to it, but it's not what we need right now.

This is what we need.

Lying to Myself

No cute clip art this time. No adorable family photos.

Today I'm not trying to think positively about COVID-19 or all the economic ramifications. I tried that yesterday. As usual, when I lie to myself in the day time, my dreams make me face the cold hard truth. Dreams tell me how I really feel. Last night was not pleasant.

I'm grief-stricken for all the small businesses who will never recover from this worldwide catastrophe. My husband owned a livestock truckline for 23 years. I remember all too well the blood, sweat, and tears that went into keeping it afloat. In most small businesses the margin of profit is very small.

I haven't delved into the details of the massive government bailout yet. But I hope this time around there is some protection against executives getting millions of dollars in bonus payments and small business left to sink or swim. There is nothing sadder than employers having to lay off people who have been with companies for years.

As a college town, Fort Collins has a network of lively cafes and bistros. Today we are under an official stay-at-home order. I can't imagine how all of these places will find the money to crank back up again when our situation changes. My friend up the street said her dog groomer was not allowed to open her doors. My neighbor, said his massage therapists was under the same "non-essential" designation. The fine for violating this is $1000.

I'm reluctant to write too much about our new rules in this email because they change daily. Colorado has a first class medical system. I consider it a privilege to live in the state. We brag about being the most fit state in the union. Nevertheless, the virus has just exploded here. We have a much higher death rate than I would expect. Everyone I know is cooperating.

Life doesn't change much for writers. I have a delightful academic book about Kansas to review. An editor requested some revisions for a novella.

Nevertheless, my thoughts and prayers are with all the wonderful people who lead very different lives, and whose ability to provide necessities require working in the public every day.

God bless all the health care workers and the people who are exposed on a daily basis

On Writing, the Pandemic, and Self-Isolation

I’m putting the finishing touches on my latest Geneva Chase novel and getting it ready to send to my publisher by the first week in April. They’ve asked me to put together a 250-word description of the book that could possibly be used on the back cover as well as a 650-word synopsis.

Additionally, it was requested that I send over a description of the “emotional hook” of the novel to help with the cover design.

I can’t recall ever being asked that before. After giving it a fair amount of thought, the “hook” for Shadow Hill is that Geneva Chase is trying to gain control of her life in a world that is out of control.

It struck me as being appropriate for what we’re going through right now. It’s like we’re all living through an improbable international thriller film. It has all the elements of a hell of a story: a viral pandemic for which we have no treatment or vaccine, a slow, clumsy start to testing, we’re running desperately low on hospital masks, gowns, and respirators, entire states being shut down, and a world economy is in shambles.

Don’t even get me started on the politicians.

I’m doing my best to complete my publisher’s requests as well as finishing my manuscript but finding it hard to stay focused. My attention keeps pivoting to real life. I worry that whatever I write can’t possibly compete with the story that’s unfolding worldwide.

I can’t control what’s happening in the world, but when I should be writing, I can control my immediate surroundings. I get myself a hot cup of coffee and turn on some unobtrusive, ambient music. I pull up whatever I’m working on onto my laptop and get to it, ignoring the bad news, at least for the time being.

The world that we writers create is something that we totally control.

An unintended consequence of this virus is the self isolation. I know some people have a problem with it, but I think most writers are good at self-isolation. It's how we work.

I once heard a publisher say, “Most writers are damned hermits.”

Isaac Asimov said, “My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. Creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones.”

PS...because of the coronavirus, all the schools have closed, including our local college where I was teaching creative writing. I was two weeks shy of finishing the course. One of my students sought me out and asked if I would critique the last assignment I'd given them. I took it as a compliment and told him that I would.

Stay safe. Stay healthy.

The Virus and Publishing

During this time of upheaval in the financial markets it's difficult to predict the effect on publishing. Traditionally when the economy goes south people read more. Will that hold true now? Are we a Netflix nation?

Last month an editor requested a piece of fiction with a specific subject and the peculiar word count of approximately 20,000 words. I finished it on time and much to my amazement rather liked it when it was finished. It was/is to be included in a four-author anthology. Now, who knows?

How much do the major publishers depend on huge publicity pushes with multi-city author promotions and carefully staged appearances at events. I have several not so carefully staged mini events pending. I enjoy presenting information about my books, but Colorado is really shutting down right now.

The United States has a wide-spread sophisticated health care system. Our population as a whole is healthier than most of the world. Colorado has an awesome system in place. Our governor took immediate steps to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Much to my amazement, the bishop of Colorado (Episcopal--my own denomination) just sent an email requesting that parishioners attend online. St. Luke's will be closed for in person worship this Sunday.

Is all of this necessary? I don't know. That's the point. The amount of confusion from both a health and financial standpoint is eerie.

We here in America are in a state of suspension. Waiting to see. Waiting to see.