Coronavirus Pandemic Day 692 (I Think) - Snow, Omicron, and Mondays

Number of known cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. - 74,328,530
Number of known deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. - 883,370

Welp, we're rolling into the third year of the pandemic scourge. I started counting because I wanted to compare COVID-19 to the Spanish Influenza epidemic a century ago. People resisted the use of masks and ignored health officials' requests for social distancing back then, too. But with today's high speed traveling, COVID-19 is mutating and spreading even faster than the flu.

Despite what others think, I may continue wearing a mask and social distance while in public for the rest of my life. With my screwed-up immune system, those have kept me from getting colds, etc., for the last two years.

Our area of Ohio was still dealing with a Delta outbreak when Omicron came charging in. Being vaxxed and boosted doesn't stop the latest variant, but it does reduce the severity of the symptoms for my friends who caught it.

Ironically, it's a beautiful, sunny Monday. The squirrels are playing in the melting snow. Snow that will either be replenished by another foot of the stuff this week or totally melted by rain. The weather people aren't sure yet. Our area sits at the cusp, and it depends on which was the jet stream shifts over the next two days.

In the meantime, I have writing and taxes wot work on. Stay warm and stay safe, folks!

I Love the '10's!

Sadly moving from two artists who understand bad relationships all too well.

Sleep Adjustment

My sleep is all over the place lately, but last night, I was tired enough to go to bed at the same time as DH. We'll see if I can continue the trend through this weekend. I need to be back on a day person's schedule for the next three months because it's that time again.

Yep. It's cancer check-up time.

Ugh.

Year Four of this shit. One more year to go. Provided something doesn't show up on my scans.

People think I'm being political when it comes to wearing a mask. Nope. I haven't gone through all this cancer crap to die from the common cold's ugly cousin. I've lost friendships because I don't want to die.

*Sigh*

Let's see if I can get some words in before I accidentally take a nap.

Tax Season Is Here!

Even though the deadline for W-2s and 1099s to be sent isn't until next Monday, ours have been streaming in since the second week of January. Computers make calculations and delivery SOOO much easier.

Of course, you've been keeping track of your writing income and expenses. Yes, if you sell your stories or license them to someone else for a fee, you need to report this stuff to the IRS.

How you keep track is up to you. I don't have any employees so that makes things a lot easier. I use Quicken for both household and business expenses. However, you can use a calculator and a notebook, a spreadsheet, or whatever your heart desires.

I do a much better job of tracking business numbers than I do medical expenses. The medical crap is the stuff I always have to cross check fifty times. The rest? I have standard reports I run once I get those last, pesky December receipts entered.

Keeping better track of your expenses and income through the year will make your life so much easier at tax time. Have a dedicated file cabinet or drawer and clearly marked folders to keep your paperwork in case you need to double check your documentation.

Whatever you do, don't leave everything until April. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches and get your refund back from the government a lot sooner!

Writing Goals

 

Have you made out your list of goals for the year?

I'm not talking about resolutions. I'm talking about the concrete steps you've taken to achieve a particular goal.

Say you want to write a novel, and you've never written one before. Break it down into realistic bite-sized pieces. 100 words a day during your lunch break. Or wake up fifteen minutes early to write. Cut out a TV program to write. Whatever works for your schedule.

This picture is the Treasury House in  Petra, Jordan. The people of Petra literally carved their city into the cliffs. They sure as heck didn't do it in one day, much less a year. So why do you think you can write a novel in a matter of days when you have no experience?

Eons ago when I still practicing law, I wrote my first novel 500 words at a time in the local IHOP during my lunch hour. Think about it. 500 words X 5 days a week X 50 weeks in a year. That's 125,000 words a year. Roughly one and a half novels.

Write a novel one bite at a time. The same way you eat an elephant.

I Love the '10's!

Want some candy, little boy?

Time Blurs

Perception of time.

It's different for everyone, and it really depends on the circumstances. As a teenager, the last five minutes of the last period of the day drags on until it seems eternal. But if you're having a blast with your friends, the hour of your curfew comes way too soon.

When I'm writing and I'm so far in the zone I'm living my heroine's life, it can feel like days have passed in a matter of hours. Or maybe I'm writing an intense stand-off before the protagonist and the antagonist in the book that takes a matter of minutes. I look up, shocked to find it's dark outside. Or more likely in my case, dawn has broken.

Normal, day-to-day living usually doesn't provide that odd feeling of time displacement. Or rather, it didn't used to.

With the pandemic entering it's third year and me having to isolate, the feeling of being temporally off from the rest of the world has intensified. If I think of calling or texting someone, I need to check a clock so I'm not waking them.

Genius Kid says he experiences something similar when he works night shift. He has to stop himself from calling us on his days, or rather nights, off. Though as DH pointed out, if GK calls before four a.m., I'm probably still up.

And I've given up on living everyone else's hours. It's just not working for me.

So I'm waking an hour or two before DH gets off work, and I deal with the administrative tasks of Angry Sheep. We have dinner, watch a little TV before he plays video games to relax while I do some writing sprints with a friend. We watch the first half of Stephen Colbert (if it's a first-run episode), and DH goes to bed. I jump into work--writing, editing, and/or online classes. Sometime, I do all three on a given night. Then I go to bed two-three hours before DH's alarm goes off.

Unless I have a medical appointment. I try to set those as early as I can so I stay awake for it, then go to bed when I get home. Or I sleep a few hours, go to the appointment, and crash on my recliner for the rest of my "night".

Time and our perception of it are such weird things.

So Much To Do!

I've got a pile of things to get done.

- My formatter Jaye is waiting for me to review the three short stories and four novels she's delivered.
- I sent a pile of ideas to my cover artist Elaina who does the Justice series for the next three books.
- I have a writing class on time travel to take.
- I need to finish the prequel novella to the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse series.
- I must finish those same four Soccer Mom novels.
- And I need to get started on A Measure of Knowledge.

That's not including the household chores I'm behind on doing. Like finish lining the kitchen shelves so I can unpack the rest of the kitchen-related boxes.

No wonder this Wednesday feels like a Monday.

I hope everyone is having a great day, and you're getting lots accomplished!

I Love the '10's!

Time's ticking away....

Release Day - A Granddaughter of Mine

A Granddaughter of Mine is the latest Justice Thalia story, and it's available today!

This story fills in some gaps around Anthea's birth, how Gerd discovered the identity of her own birth mother, and that the renegades' activities have been going on longer than the Temples suspect.

BLURB
Thalia of Orrin. Upholder of the Queen's Peace. Friend of the Downtrodden. The Breaker of Pirates.

Two generations before the End of the Demon Wars, before there was Thalia the Legend, there was a young justice with a wicked sense of humor, a zest for life, and a duty to her people. These are her cases.

When her granddaughter is born touched by Balance, Thalia blames her own sins for the babe’s blindness. But someone else has plans for the child, and it’s up to Thalia to stop them.

Amazon, all countries
Apple
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
Kobo
Smashword

Damn Insomnia!

I've been awake for over twenty-four hours. I tried to go to bed at five-thirty a.m., only to toss and turn until DH's alarm went off at seven-thirty a.m. I got up and got dressed again before I went to get some lab work done.

Last night, DH went to bed about halfway through Colbert because he was exhausted from dealing with work and his dad. I'm not trying to be a pisser about my father-in-law. His mental faculties are fading at an alarming rate since November. Sometimes, he thinks he's still in the Victorian where he and my mother-in-law raised their five children. Sometimes, he can't find his bedroom in his teeny-tiny assisted living apartment. He forgets that he just has to press a button to get the nurse to come to his place. Other times, he forgets how to talk, and everything comes out garbled. We're losing the man we knew, and it's a sad feeling.

Between DH going to bed and me trying to sleep, I got a bit of writing done on a wip, wrote the script I need for my Kickstarter video, and wrote a good chunk of the text portions of the Kickstarter page.

It's twelve-thirty p.m., and I'm finally feeling tired. Maybe now, my body will let me sleep.

Believe in Yourself

Writers as a whole are an odd lot.

Where other artists constantly practice their chosen form, writers expect themselves to be perfect on the first try.

Where other artists learn the skills and tricks of their trade, writers refuse to even do a quick google on what point-of-view is.

Where other artists spend months and years learning their chosen form of expression, writers expect instant success.

But the one thing other artists do that writers fail to do time and time again? They believe in themselves. 

They enjoy their art for the sake of their art. They don't care what everyone else thinks. They perform or paint or sculpt because they enjoy it. They want to improve. They want to excel out sheer joy.

If you don't enjoy writing, if you're trying to earn someone's approval, or if you think writing a novel will bring you instant fame, then you're writing for all the wrong reasons.

But most of all believe in yourself and write your stories for you.

A Reminder about a Craft Class

I'll be doing a craft class on how to write a novel. This class is mainly for folks who have never written a novel and want to try one. But if you've tried to write a novel and never finished it, but really want to, there may be some tricks or tips that could help you.

The class will be held through Zoom on January 13, 2022, at 6:00 PM EST.

The cost is FREE.

However, you will need to preregister with the Findlay-Hancock County Public Library so Ms. Flick, the adult services librarian can send you the link prior to the class. If you are remotely interested, go ahead and register now!

If you have a problem registering, please contact me on my Contact Form.

Hope to see you there!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 664 - Brand New Year!

Known COVID-19 cases in the U.S. - 54,850,527
Known COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. - 824,301

We entering the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. People are getting tired of the whole situation. I get that. I really do.

DH and I had a lot of travel plans that were canceled the last two years. It totally sucked, especially after I worked so hard to get healthy after my cancer surgery. I'm tired of my glasses steaming up with a mask on. I'm tired of not being able to go to a coffee shop to sip hot drinks and people watch while my brain unravels a plot point.

While the country's media is focused on the Omicron variant, our county is seeing a sharp spike in the Delta variant. The two regional hospitals are full. To the point, the director of Blanchard Valley posted a plea for people not to come to the ER unless they are facing life-threatening injuries or conditions. In fact, DH and his sisters refused to take their dad (my FIL) to the ER.

No, they weren't being cruel. One of his meds can cause constipation, but he refuses to buzz the nurse to get a laxative, even though he's in an assisted living apartment and pays for the damn RN! The last time DH took his dad to the ER, they were stuck in the hallway for six hours. With the hospital full of COVID patients, it's not worth taking a chance even with him fully vaxxed and boostered.

Even worse, DH and I went to his cousin's funeral yesterday. (His son is the same age as GK.) Only a handful of people were masked. DH and I decided not to go to the wake.

I know it's not just me. I spoke with friends over the holidays. Most are like me, major and/or chronic health issues, and we really don't want to die. It's that simple. A big part of the issue is you don't know how your body's going to respond to COVID until you actually catch. It might by mild as a cold. It might kill you. To a lot of us, it's not worth the risk.

For now, I'll focus on writing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 2022 is much, MUCH better than 2020 or 2021!

I Love the '10's!

This was an excellent way to start the decade!