Keep On Keeping On

The pandemic quarantine is a year old now, at least around here, and I’ve somehow yet to adapt. We’re luckier than many because Mr. M and I can both work from home. But there’s been a lot of at home time now.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my home. I’m a homebody, so I prefer it to most places. But finding creativity after staring at the same walls for twelve months has been… difficult. I’m starting to write New Shiny 2: EVEN SHINIER, and it feels more like the working title should be Dread: The Dreadening.

I was going to write a sekrit indie thing, too, but I just don’t know if it’s going to happen. I was supposed to start on it in February, but February got swallowed into the void, so no dice. I need to write it, both for career and financial reasons and because I want y’all to be able to read something new this year since Hunted (aka New Shiny) doesn’t come out until early next year.

But the motivation is… bleh. I sit down to write and bleh. Bleh bleh bleh.

Same thing for New Shiny 2, which I am under contract to write, and if I don’t, they will ask for their money back with many angry lawyers.

And the thing is, I *love* Hunted. Re-reading snippets of it, I think it turned out great, even if a quarter of it was written in a caffeine-fueled haze in December. Edits are due to land this month as the publishing machine creaks to life, so hopefully my editor likes it as much as I do, lol.

I love the characters and the world, and I want to tell the next story.

Right up until the point I sit down to write.

This is a lot of words to say: if you’re struggling with creative work, I see you. Everything is very bleh, and creative work is hard when many of the things that spark creativity (overhearing conversations in the grocery store, seeing people on the street, having drinks with friends) have all been put on hold for a year.

But there is light coming. I’m in group 1B, and last week I got my first dose of the vaccine. The weather is warming up, so more outdoor activities are available. We just have to keep on keeping on. We’ve got this! :)

7 thoughts on “Keep On Keeping On”

    1. Likely in the summer, but I should know more in the next month or two as Voyager starts ramping up for early 2022 releases. As soon as I have a link, I’ll post it! 😊

  1. While my job is different and has other home office challenges I can sincerely hope that your creative senses will be tingled soon again with interesting input.
    Judging from the amazing characters and stories you have gifted us with so far I am looking forward to the resulting book. And keeping fingers crossed for a surprise- that’ll keep the twitchy preorder reflex in check until the link is up :)

  2. I know it’s not the actual title, but New Shiny 2: EVEN SHINIER made me laugh out loud.

    Sekrit indie project sounds fun, but if you don’t get to it we can wait until 2022. Your stories are well worth waiting for :)

  3. I totally get it ALL. (I haven’t gotten my notification yet about getting my shot, but I’m on a list, and hoping for the best! Library staff kind of fall between the cracks, we are expected to be open BUT aren’t getting any special shot status. Ah well!)

    My husband is working from home too, and I go in and work 2 days a week on site, and 3 from home. I am writing a few things I hope to self-publish one of these days in the not-too distant future. Sometimes the creative bug will hit and I’ll do well on the new thing, sometimes I am just nit-picking over my first edit of my other slightly older thing. Then there is the pile of dusty things sulking in the corner. We won’t talk about them. They are all related, because I’ve heard indy authors should have a body of work to release fairly close together. So, I know I need to dust them off and get them polished but…bleh bleh bleh.

    We also won’t mention researching which can be a giant engrossing rabbit hole some days. (Is it realistic for my FBI character to do this? Let me go look at a thousand FBI forums and web sites to see what they say. Whoops what happened to my writing time?)

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