What a Month This Has Been!

     At the beginning of the month of March, I was winging my way to Tennessee for meetings and hopefully book distribution.  I did the former, sharing my second Billy Bob story with my writer friends in the Etowah Writer's Guild, as well as meeting with my compatriots in the Author's Guild of Tennessee.  Book distribution didn't happen, which was probably just as well considering how the month tanked.

Lovely east Tennessee

     I managed to get a little writing done at my friend, Patricia Crumpler's (Benevolence, Fins and Fables, Sorrow Song, and Death and Disorder) house. What we did more of was relax and watch Perry Mason. Don't ask why a predominately science fiction writer is so hooked on an old courtroom show, but we both are. I didn't realize this would probably be my last trip for a while, nor my last church meeting in church either.
     My trip home was comfortable, there were empty seats on the plane. Waiting in the Atlanta airport were people wearing face masks and sitting several seats apart. I had to get home to realize just how hard it was to find some of those face masks--and toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towels, bleach, and canned beans! Hand sanitizer, I managed to find at the third Walgreen's I stopped in before my trip. After the trip, forget it!
     I came home to the declaration of a pandemic and the aforementioned panic in the Wal-mart aisles. Why toilet paper has been so hard to find is almost as great a mystery to me as the cure for the corona virus is at present. Still and all, I live in a household with an at risk senior. I think I am a slightly at risk senior, too. We are now under a shelter in place declaration. (At least Mayor Tim Holt made it sound less painful.)  But when you live in a house with a gregarious man with cabin fever, it's painful!!
     Then there are the platitudes of- "But you can get so much writing done!" No, I haven't gotten so much writing done. Staying home everyday doesn't automatically mean you produce words. Stress doesn't produce words. We have worked in the flower bed, taken some long walks, driven to Lake Overholser. I have also done a great deal of editing, and I have signed up for Camp Nano in April. I do have several projects that need attention. I suspect I will have a great deal of time for all of them.

     And I keep reminding myself often as I wash my hands, watch the news, talk to my grandkids on Zoom... this, too, shall pass. It will pass!

     Y'all stay well and safe!


      PS from Scamp- "Virus? What virus?"