Coronavirus Pandemic Day 201 - What the Hell Was I Thinking!

 7.2+ million infected and 208+ thousand dead are the known numbers in the U.S.

These numbers are staggering. And yet, we pretend life goes on.

Case in point, DH and I are in the process of buying a house.

Back in July, we kind of given up on looking between the buyer's market and finding something that would work for us. Our primary criteria is having home offices on opposite sides of the house. When you both work from home, it can get disruptive. Especially in an apartment where I'm stuck working in the living/dining room and DH has to go through it to get a soda refill in the kitchen.

(Before anyone suggests it, yes, we do have a mini-fridge. No, we don't have any space in the apartment to put it.)

So,with all the pandemic crap, we resigned ourselves to living another year at the apartment and saving our money to build the type of house we need.

And then this house just kind of dropped in our laps. DH got the notice two weeks ago. Listing indicated this place met most of our criteria. We looked at it two days later with a super-critical eye. Man, this could actually work for us.

We called the bank to renew our pre-approval. We put in a bid, and six hours later, we had an agreement. Technically, it took that long because our realtor had a ton of stuff lined up, and it was a Saturday.

Now, I have to pack the apartment and make arrangements for various maintenance things once we have possession. Frankly, having a bunch of strangers in and out of the house worries me.

Okay, it worries me a lot.

But my new office will be the Florida room. All kinds of natural light and a space that's all mine. And we're only going across town, not 1200 miles across the country.

I hope it's worth the risk.

I Love the 90's!

I still love Jagged Little Pill.

The Publishing Challenge

 During one of WMG Publishing's class sales, I bought The Publishing Challenge. It sounds stupid on the surface, paying someone to make me accountable for sticking to a publishing schedule.

But with the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. descending into facism, this challenge has helped keep me on track with my writing through the chaos.

Each month, I need to publish one of the following:

- a novel

- a novella (minimum of 20K words)

- a bundle/anthology/boxed set (minimum of five short stories)

 

I can hear some of you say, "But, Suzan, you just published a single short story this month!"

Yeah, I did. Under the Suzan Harden name. I published a novel under Alter Ego, and that counts. It doesn't matter which pseudonym I use.

So what's the point of this post?

Do whatever you have to keep going through hellscape 2020 has become!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 194 - Moving again

6.8+ million cases. 202+ thousand dead. Those are the REPORTED numbers in the United States alone.

 

I say reported because some governors (looking at you Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) and White House representatives are doing their damnedest to hide just how bad things are. Most citizens are doing what they can to slow the spread. But between those who STILL claim the disease is a hoax and the lack of a cure or a vaccine, more people will get sick.

 

More people will die.

 

And yet, the earth spins on.

 

A weekend ago Sunday, DH got an alert on a house for sale. Last month, we'd pretty much given up looking. We hadn't found anything that worked for us considering we both, well, work from home.

 

Like I've told several friends, arthritis is starting to become an issue. I'm going to have to switch to dictation sooner rather than later. I can't be dictating a sex scene while DH is on the phone with a client, walking them through journal entries. So, we need offices on opposite sides of the house, or sufficiently distant our devices can't pick up the other one.

 

But yeah, we'd given up last month, renewed our apartment lease, and planned to save up to build exactly what we needed. And this house pops up, so DH said hey take a look at this while we were watching the Steelers game.

 

I looked, not expecting a whole lot. But damn. This one could work. I mean, the only thing I could nit-pick on Realtor.com was the white stove in a refinished kitchen with hickory cabinets, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. So, we made an appointment to see the house on Wednesday. I was absolutely sure there would be something wrong.

 

The only thing I could bitch about, besides the white flattop range, was the puke yellow paint in the master bathroom. An easy fix. But most importantly, it has rooms on the opposite sides of the house for our offices. Heck, DH and I can't even see each other when we go to the kitchen for drinks or head to the bathroom.

 

We got the financing pre-approval arranged on Thursday and Friday and put in the offer on Saturday. Six hours later, we had settled on terms. I swear that was the fastest negotiation on real property I've ever been involved in.

 

So yeah, we're moving again. In the middle of a pandemic. GO TEAM HARDEN!

I Love the 90's!

The Purple One reigns!

The Print Book Shuffle

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how interconnected we all are, whether we like it or not. My paperbacks from my July release finally arrived yesterday.

 

I can't blame anyone. COVID-19 has slowed everything down. The shipping companies are overwhelmed by the increase in the number of packages and the new safety measures, plus their own people getting sick. And that's not taking into account the new Postmaster General attempting to sabotage the Postal Service.

 

The printer I use is overwhelmed. Their orders are up, thanks to another major book printer going under this year. Their own personnel are sick, and the remaining folks have to do the PPE dance. On top of everything, they are starting to have trouble with their suppliers.

 

The paper and inks suppliers are having the same shipping problems, their personnel are getting sick, and their remaining employees are doing the PPE dance.

 

And so on. And so on.

 

It's an ugly cycle, but it's not going away any time soon. But later today, I'll do my part to keep the Postal Service in business. Because no matter if it's rain, sleet, snow or gloom of night, readers need their books.

New Release - Murder Most Fowl!

Murder Most Fowl is officially out in the wilds!

I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I really hope you enjoy it. Plus, it's only 99-cents!

So what's it about? A murder inquiry takes an odd twist over the possession of a prize rooster. Yep, a rooster

Amazon, all countries
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
Kobo
Smashwords

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 187 - Exhaustion and Science

I slept until two p.m. today. The stress of getting a new book out and the hellscape our country has become wore me down. Not even DH's birthday helped. We had a low-key celebration at home with a lot of takeout food.

We're at 6.6M+ cases in the United States and 197K+ deaths, and the numbers are still climbing.

After six months, everyone's tired of the disease, the deaths, and the drama. I get it. But if you go back and read the account of the Spanish Influenza pandemic, COVID-19 wasn't going to go away after six. months. I know a lot of people were hoping so, but it ain't gonna happen.

Nor am I an anti-vaxxer, but I want a vaccine with proven effectiveness. I refused to take the shingles vaccine for years until its prevention rate was above 60%.

Despite the propaganda being bandied about, we aren't getting an effective, safe COVID-19 before the end of 2020. I never had hope that we would. One of the research studies had to shut down their human trials because of some serious side effects. It sucks, but you can't rush the research.. It always needs to be refined and tested over and over again.

I believe the research facilities WILL find a vaccine, but it takes time. Time is something some of my fellow citizens will not allow. Or else they believe the disease is a hoax. And that belief will kill hundreds of thousands of more people, and the thought makes my heart ache.

I Love the 90's!

Madonna never disappoints.

The Thursday Blues

Yes, I know it's Friday. I'm venting about all the shit that happened yesterday. I was doing pretty good. I managed to haul my ass out of bed by ten a.m. to write the last five chapters of the Alter Ego novel that must be uploaded today. Not a problem, right?

 

I managed to get one sprint done before the waste started hitting the spinning turbine.

 

- DH needed to vent to me about one of his employees.
 

- My eye doctor's office called and rescheduled my appointment for the 5th time in 2020.

- My pharmacy has a new computer system. Instead of calling me when all my refills are ready. Instead, the automated system was calling me as each prescription was ready. I have 10 effing maintenance drugs I'm on.
 

- Our meal delivery service had a software glitch and sent us meals we did not order instead of the ones we did order.
 

- A publishing service provider sent a series of e-mails in need of validation of their choices, which is totally weird  because they can usually read my mind.
 

- The army decided NOT to stream GK's graduation online.
 

- GK first called because he was stressed about getting his dress blues ready for graduation.
 

- GK then called exhausted and angry because he had been up half the night getting his dress blues shaved and steamed for graduation, and he was then told they would be wearing their standard uniforms.

- Blogger has a new upgrade that I'm struggling to figure out how to do things. It's so confusing I had to resort to the old version in order to write this freakin' post. (And I can see why my friend Angie gave up on using this f***ing thing!)

 

-  And to finish the day, DH was going to stop at Steak N Shake to pick up dinner after he was done at the high school (he runs the clock for all the soccer teams) since I was having a rough day. Steak N Shake closed earl.y

To top everything off, I feel guilty bitching about my minor problems when friends and acquaintances in the Pacific Northwest are evacuating from the massive wildfires or are on standby to evacuate if the wind shifts. They don't need my hopes and prayers. They need a miracle snow storm to douse the flames like some friends in Colorado.

Now? For me?

Now, I'm going to read a friend's vampire novel I promised to read back in April. And then I'm going to have some fun with Harri and Aisha by seeing what kind of hot water I can dump them into this weekend.

I'm so ready for some football...

Deadlines!

I've got an Alter Ego book that has to be finished today. So, I'll leave you with this funny:

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 180 - Happy Labor Day!

We're getting some unexpected thunderstorms, so it's a good day to curl up with the puppy and write.

I hope everyone is enjoying their three-day weekend!

I Love the 90's!

I could feel this song so much!

TGI Labor Day Weekend! Or Maybe Not

I'm officially done with quarantine, but it's not like I can, or want, to go anywhere this weekend.

So, I'll be doing a lot of reading, writing, and television watching over the next three days. I feel like this is the new normal, and honestly, it fits with my introverted personality. However, I'm blessed to have DH and the Princess Pup at home as well as friends I can call, text, e-mail, and/or Zoom with when I feel the need for human contact.

If you're having issues dealing with the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout, and you need someone to talk to, there's NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

There's no shame in needing a little help. We all do these days. So please call or e-mail them.

We really are in this together.

Sprinting through the Pandemic

I admit it. Getting words done while the world is disintegrating around me has been difficult for the last six months.

So I've been trying something new. I've been doing writing sprints with just a few friends online. We're only writing in twenty-minute stretches for a few hours, but I've been getting in a lot more words in those short sprints.

Why?

1) Part of it is breaking the stupid myth in my own head that I need a solid block of two hours to get anything done.

2) I feel more comfortable writing with people I know even if we do live hundreds of miles apart.

3) The sprinting got my competitive streak going. Not with the other writers, but with myself.. If I could do 100 words in that sprint, can I do 150 in the next?

I'm not going this is the end-all, be-all solution for everyone. For me being trapped at home under quarantine for the last two weeks, this has helped immensely.

So don't be afraid to experiment with your daily routines. You never know what you might discover about yourself.