What To Include and What Not To

The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across the United States, and the subject of whether to include it in our stories is raging across the internet.

The problem is we don't know how this will all shake out.

Take 9/11 for example. It took a little while for everything to shake out into the new normal. DH and I used to book last minute airline tickets, pack our overnight bags, and fly anywhere in the U.S. at a moment's notice. Five years later, things like taking off our shoes and no liquids in our bags had become normalized.

However, we only lost 2% of the people in those terrorist attacks than we've lost to COVID-19. And the numbers of dead are still rising (even if our president is deliberately hiding the numbers).

There's the safety gyrations we have to perform to limit our exposure to the virus. Masks. Soap. Hand sanitizer. Gloves. PPE.

We haven't been able to sit at a coffee shops for four months. We may never be able to meet at coffee shops again. Or until a vaccine is developed. We don't know.

I think that's why my fantasy books have been selling for the last four months. Things have been difficult for all of us, and we want to escape into different worlds, even for just a moment.

But when writing contemporary stories? It's difficult because we don't know what the new normal will be on the other side of the pandemic.

So, what am I doing?

I've been writing alternate fantasy worlds, of course. Alter Ego is writing some historical erotica for the rest of the year. Doing so keeps my mind off of now. Off the illogic of dinners at a fancy restaurant or going to a movie.

And if nothing else, writing in fictional worlds helps clear some mind space to deal with the real world.