Okay, maybe things aren’t quite that bad. But there are certainly days when it feels that way.
So it turns out it’s been nearly a year since I posted an update or review here, and there’s a simple reason for that: I got bored. The truth is, my blog has never exactly caught fire, you know? I’m no Bloggess, after all. And I’ve decided that’s okay. For a long time, it wasn’t okay, but as I approach nearly 60 winters on this planet (if I’m lucky!) a lot of detritus has begun to fall away. Like competitiveness and jealousy. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this blog is also one of the things falling away.
I started the blog to promote my fiction and freelance writing, and since I’m no longer doing much writing for public consumption, a lot of the motivation is gone. Publishing two novels was a disillusioning experience, to put it mildly. Writing fiction for a very small publisher is even less lucrative than it is for the big pubs. And even freelance journalism is a hard gig these days, at least as far as income generating work goes. So I moved sideways into working in libraries. There’s a lot that’s good in libraries, but much of what makes them good is also what makes them a germaphobe’s nightmare. There will be a lot more to worry about in libraries in the post-COVID world when it finally gets here (and despite what all you fools frolicking on beaches without masks think, we’re a long way from POST-COVID). I, for one, do not envision myself trying to sanitize books (assuming any libraries will even have the budget to do something like that). Nor do I want to be the library associate who hears a customer utter those words I so often heard in the pre-COVID world: “She was too sick to go in to school, so I brought her to the library!”
My other recent gig has been acting as communications coordinator for a small defense contractor. Since most of our business involved traveling great distances to facilitate meetings and present workshops on information too sensitive to be shared via conference platforms like zoom, that biz is a lot less active now too.
So what to do next?
I’ve thought frequently about writing a new book, and that may yet happen. But in two months of semi-quarantine, it has yet to make it to the top of my things to do list. So don’t hold your breath waiting for that next chick lit suspense novel from me.
What have I been doing instead of writing? Here are a few things that have been keeping me busy. Maybe you’ll want to check some of them out.
- READING. In the beginning of this semi-apocalypse, I truly could not concentrate well enough to read anything. It’s still a bit of a struggle. I found that revisiting some old favorite books was a great solution to Quarantine Brain. Short stories have also been a great option, since they don’t require sustained concentration. Two wildly different old faves I
reread were: The Crystal Cave, the first in Mary Stewart’s absolutely stupendous retelling of the legend of King Arthur, from Merlin’s POV; and Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney’s masterful example of second-person narration, ending with one of the two* best last lines in all of fiction: You will have to go slowly. You will have to learn everything all over again. - WATCHING YOUTUBE. But not just any YouTube. There are so many good free things on YouTube, especially right now. You can watch all the great theatre companies of the
world for FREE! Take your pick from Shakespeare’s Globe, the National Theatre of Great Britain, or Canada’s Stratford Festival. You can watch The Solitary Rambler, an adorkable salt-of-the-earth British guy who takes you on tours through small towns and scenic rural bits of Great Britain. All free. Oh, and there are great workout videos there too! - PAINTING! Yeah, no one is more surprised than me that this made it onto the list. Blame Jim Parsons. I follow him on Instagram, and he casually mentioned he was keeping busy by doing an online drawing class via zoom. Two months and four courses** later and I’m actually producing stuff like this:
* The other great last line in literature is this, of course.
**If you too need a new hobby that makes a tremendous mess and gives you an excuse to spend money on a whole new category of stuff and say things like, “I think I need gesso for this,” visit The Art Studio NY. They have wonderful teachers who are doing an amazing job of teaching art from a distance.
So that’s all the news from my tiny corner of the universe. I hope those of you still sticking around to read these very occasional posts are all keeping safe and healthy, and I hope we will all still be here on this messed up, wonderful, infuriating planet a year from now, when I might get around to updating again.
These days, everyone is saying “Stay safe, stay healthy,” but I prefer the Vulcan version of this. Live long and prosper, everyone.
