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| You can wake me every day, darlin' |
The last few months have been particularly trying, exasperating, exhausting, debilitating, sickening, and a host of 'ings' of that ilk. There's the family drama, and as a good friend of mine puts it, "Ain't no shit like family shit." There's the spiking Covid infection and death rates on my tiny island after such a great start where we kept the crisis in check--then masses of stranded Trinis were brought home, community spread took off, pandemic fatigue set in, the insane conspiracy theories became the other pandemic, and indiscipline flourished.
I have not been idle during the past seven or so months: I've been hard at work editing, formatting and shepherding other authors' books to publication. I'm really grateful for this; those deadlines force focus and concentration like nothing else can, and the money I earn from this and from royalties takes care of expenses that my regular incomes do not.
Quite a ride, it has been, with no end in sight. So my intention, now that Brazil's P1 variant has landed here, looked around and smiled, anticipating the chaos and devastation that's within its power to inflict?
Refocus. Refocus on the writing. Hard.
I have so many projects in so many stages of non-completion. The GWIN (Great West Indian Novel) has been at one-third for--and I checked a few days ago--at least 10 years. By contrast, I have two complete stories in my historical series that have been ready for publication for over a year; all I have to do is get covers for them. Most of my modest royalties come from the historical series so I really need to get cracking on this. Then there are two novels and a half-written novella in the Liane Spicer romance bunch. The completed memoir that's also been snoozing for more years than I want to recall. There are literary short stories to be submitted to journals and competitions; seven or eight of those are just sitting on my hard drive and in the cloud.
It would be wonderful to have a gorgeous man in a very brief toga wake me on mornings with a sunny smile and abs, then proceed to make me meet all my goals. But in the absence of such, it's all up to me to refocus. Hard.
