COVID-19 dominates most discussions and most news right now and certainly occupies a lot of my thoughts. I’m finishing the last day of a 14 day self-isolation after an exposure. Saying thanks to all the health-care workers who are now the front line fighters in what is truly a war.
It seems almost selfish to talk about writing with this going on in the world, but that is the purpose of this blog. There are far better places to read about the pandemic (here is one of them: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/pages/coronavirus-alert). Isolation does provide the necessary conditions for writing and I am continuing to work through the first draft of a new book. Having sketched the book out in an not-chronological sequence, I am now trying to fit the pieces together. Many places need to be re-written and there are the inevitable sections that have actually been written twice in different ways and different places or no longer fit at all. Hopefully, not too many weeks until I have an entire draft that I can read through. (Of course, then I will probably cry and start ripping it apart again.)
Haven’t finished reading anything new this week. Part of that is writing and part of that is having my hands on Sharon Penman’s new book, “The Land Beyond The Sea.” For historical fiction set the in 11th and 12th centuries, nothing is better than her books. I’ll be reading and enjoying the one for a while (they are big books).