Is 2020 shaping up to be an absolutely crazy year or what? I did a double-take when I saw the date on my last post—March 13. It feels like soooo much longer ago than just two months.
To be honest, March felt like it lasted a year, and then April topped it by stretching out to encompass an entire decade. I know I’m not alone—I think a good percentage of the world’s population has experienced that weird sense of time dilation. And then these first two weeks of May have been so cold, gloomy, and rainy that I feel like we traveled back in time and are reliving March again. So strange…
To paraphrase Monty Python, “Nobody expects a world-wide pandemic.” My home state of Indiana enacted a shelter-in-place order not long after my last post that onland, boy, was that an experience! It was rough on my husband to have to stay home, since he’s used to running 90 mph for the ministry, but for me, this whole thing has been the weirdest blend of normal and surreal.
Normal, because the day-in-and-day-out of life with four children—one homeschooled and three toddlers (my youngest had her first birthday during all this COVID-19 mess!)—didn’t change much. The surreal part has been my husband working from home, not seeing our family, not being able to go to church, and not being able to do all the normal social things we normally do. Not to mention seeing empty shelves in grocery stores over the past few months—stuff I’ve seen in pictures of other countries, but never here unless there’s been a major weather emergency.
I’m grateful for all the people who’ve continued to work in the midst of all the craziness to keep our country going. Hopefully things will settle into a new normal soon. This, too, will pass…eventually…
Project Updates
My job as a storyteller is to entertain people and provide an escape from reality for a little while—and I’ve been working like a crazy woman through this whole mess to produce more stories for y’all to read. Believe it or not, being stuck at home has turned out to be a good thing for my writing. I’ve written more in the past two months than I have for a long time—out of a sheer need to maintain my sanity. LOL!
Writing has been my escape from the crazy during all this (and from my children, I’ll admit it, to give me a little recharge time so I can dive back in and be a pleasant mommy instead of a stressed-out mommy). My husband has been using some of his downtime to pack certain things in preparation for our move in a few months, but he’s stepped in at various times to occupy the children and give me a chance to work, and I’ve been really grateful for that.
So, on that note, I’m very pleased to announce that Gold-Dust Roses (still a working title), is almost done. The story has taken a few more twists I didn’t expect and it’s been so much fun to write. I’m hoping to finish the final draft this week. After that, it will go out to my first readers.
I’ve been working on another project that popped up during the past two months and insisted that I write it in between working on Gold-Dust Roses, but I’m not far enough along to say much else yet. It did bump my space station detective series a little further down the list, but it’s hard to argue with characters as lively as the ones I’m working with now. Hoping to have something to announce on that in June.
In other news, my gold star system is working really well. There have been some days that the prospect of not getting a star has driven me to the computer to write a few more words and hit my daily word goal. (There have also been days when I look at it and just say, “Nope, not happening.” Such is life with tiny humans. *grin*
But on the whole, it’s very encouraging to see all those little stars glittering at me from the calendar in the kitchen.
Hope y’all are staying safe!
Until next time…