The Calm Before the Storm

Right now, it's the calm before the storm for me -- school starts in two weeks, and I'm taking what I like to call my vacation, which is a blessed period of doing absolutely nothing important. Time enough to get worked up about immersing myself in small-room teaching for a high risk clientele that doesn't mask.

But I'm not falling completely fallow. Yesterday, I attempted to get rid of my writers' block by submitting a few pieces to literary journals through Submittable. This was recommended to me through a graphic artist at Gateway Con as a way to wait out finding an agent and publisher. 

I have gotten a couple publications this way -- mostly on web sites, an honorable mention on a major journal (on a story that was very much genre fantasy!), and a couple other journals and zines. So surprising to me that my work is finding traction. 

So today I will be doing something. Submitting more materials, writing flash fiction, getting back to my book, sending a query letter in for more critique. Something to do with writing.

Try, Try Again

One friend liked my pitch (no, don't like pitches if you're not an agent!)

Three followers (also not agents) liked my pitch

One indy publisher with a suspicious business model liked my pitch

No agents liked my pitch.

What is the next move? Right around September or so, I can start pitching the new improved Apocalypse with its new improved query out to agents. I can research small presses to see if some tend more toward traditional and are looking for my kind of stuff. I can look at Manuscript Wish List to target agents to look at my stuff.

Lots of people retweeted me, especially the pitch for Apocalypse. So there's hope if people recognize its worth.

I'm not quite ready to self-publish yet. I have doubts about my ability to market (which is why I'm wary of "hybrid" presses as well.) But I'm not giving up, because publishing is just the cherry on top.

#SFFpit

Today is #SFFpit, which is a Twitter pitch session for writers of science fiction and fantasy. The idea is one writes a tweet-length pitch for one's novel and sends it out into the Twitterverse to see if it catches an agent's eye. If it does, they will ask for a manuscript.

I have done several pitch contests (#Pitmad as well as #SFFpit), and I have never had much luck. But hope springs eternal, as they say, whoever they are. I load up TweetDeck, an automated tweeting app,  with 20 pitches (10 for each book I want attention paid to) and wait.

I don't expect to get any traction from this, because I haven't before. I

may get moody later today, because nobody likes rejection. I will get over it, because hope springs eternal.

A couple days of laziness

This morning it's coffee and Miles Davis. Life could certainly be worse. In the pandemic, I think moments like this save me from depression. 

I slept all day yesterday. I don't know what that was all about, except that I couldn't keep my eyes open. I think I might be able to today. Time to write -- maybe. If I don't fall asleep again. 

I only have about two weeks before the beginning of the semester. I dread that still, because I think work (the college) will be a hotbed of COVID-19, but I really have no say in it. It's too early for me to retire, because I have no health insurance until Social Security kicks in (and I'm only 57). So I have to face it.

But not yet. This is my actual vacation time, and I can spend it being lazy.

I need a good bit of luck to get through this novel.

I seem to be writing slow, but at least I'm writing under the current method. The method is to free write, then transcribe with editing to tighten the writing. 

I feel overwhelmed by words, though, and wonder if the meaning is there. I'm really stymied by writing lately; I surely didn't go through this self-guessing the first time I wrote this novel. To be honest, I didn't go through self-guessing at all, which is why I've edited and re-edited this book over the past five years.

This book is a beast, and there's no reason it should be, except now it's a romance novel in addition to a fantasy, and I don't know what I'm doing there. I need all the wishes for good luck I can manage.

Feeling young today

Sometimes, I feel really, really old.

Today, I feel younger than my 56 years of age.

I don't know why -- it's not that I feel young. I just don't feel like someone inching toward "senior citizen". 

I wonder if there's something more energetic to listen to than classical music (Mahler) on this Sunday morning. Have I been missing something by not listening to Lana Del Rey? Lady Gaga? (I don't feel like I've been missing anything with Ed Sheeran.) 

I wonder if there's a new hobby I could take up, as if writing isn't enough. Or someplace to go (during COVID, this is a tall order.) 

I suppose if I want to feel every minute of my age, I could just take a walk in this 100+ degree heat index. That would make me feel about 120, I suspect.

So maybe I'm not that young. But I refuse to think I'm old.

The joys of rediscovering free writing

I think I may have found a way to get over writers' block -- free writing exercises.

I have been drafting into Scrivener -- which is very efficient, but not a lot of fun. I didn't realize how its utilitarian background and the very edit-forward feel was keeping me from writing first drafts. The process -- staring at the screen every few words, looking for the perfect word ...

I attended a writing workshop/guided exercise over Zoom, led by Debbi Voisey, and it was a set of guided free-writing exercises, the type where you put pen to paper and then write. We worked through exercises on scenes, senses, and descriptions, and then we free-wrote.

It felt marvelous! It helped me put together a scene I was struggling with for the past two weeks. Moreover, writing felt fun again!

I believe the reason this works is because our internal editors get in the way of our creativity. There's time to edit, and that's after getting words on pages. I found that the words I was putting on the pages needed editing, but not while I was writing them.

I think I will use this free-writing. The way I can use it with Scrivener and with the "Save the Cat" framework is to take each chapter's prompt (the tag on the chapter that says what goes there) and write that in my notebook, then start free-writing in earnest. Then I can enter it in Scrivener and edit.

I hope I'm onto something, because I have been working quite fruitlessly these last several weeks. (Not that I've been doing nothing; I reorganized my classes, recorded several lectures, taken a grad level class, revised my query letters for two books, set up my pitches for SFFpit ... I just haven't been writing.)

Ok, deep breath. I think I could get to liking writing again.

A Little Bit About a Little Kitten

After yesterday's intense post, I've decided I need to write something fluffy. And purry. And zoomy.

So I'll take a brief moment to talk about my new kitten, Chloe.

We got Chloe a week ago, as in impulse cat adoption after Stinkerbelle died. She's a two-month-old kitten, at the time when their eyes aren't quite the color they'll be and they have little bellies still.

Chloe is a combination of sweetness and orneriness, like raspberry-jalapeno salsa (which I highly recommend). She will spend nights alternating between curling up against me and tearing up the bedroom she's held in quarantine in. Sometimes she thinks my hand is something to gently pat with her little paws and sometimes she thinks it's prey. 

I love this little kitten. Biologists suggest that we love cats because they remind us of babies. I would introduce them to Chloe because she's more like a toddler right now, one who draws with crayons on the wall and then asks for a hug with big brown eyes. 

Chloe makes my dread about going back into the classroom a bit easier to take. There is life, and there is love. 

I just made my will today

I just made my will today.

The faculty and staff at my university got the email yesterday from Human Resources referring us to a resource available to university employees. It's a holographic will done with software our human resources area has access to. It doesn't even cost us anything, because our university has been so kind as to provide this service to us for free. 

I am furious. 

Not because I made a will, because I should have done that years ago. I knew better, but let it lapse anyhow because, you know, time passes and nobody likes to think about death. 

I am furious because this is the response of the university to the faculty and staff's concerns about Coronavirus in the fall semester. We've already watched our cases double in the past week and a half in the county. Nobody has died -- yet. What is going to happen when all five thousand-some students come back? 

We faculty wanted online classes. We got assistance with wills. 

To be fair, we're trying some alternative classroom arrangements to allow for social distancing. I will have only eight students per class session; I will in effect be teaching only one class session a week six times (two sections x three cohorts of 8). But these students will be in residence halls, where social distancing cannot happen. They will be in the food court. They will get COVID and, hopefully, most of them will survive, except I guess those with comorbidities like diabetes and immune suppression.

We will wear masks -- hopefully. I've not been told what to do with students who will not wear masks, other than "put them in the corner".  

The death rate from COVID in the US, according to Johns Hopkins, is 3.6%. Most of that is concentrated in minorities, older age groups and people with preexisting conditions that predispose us to complications. I am 56 and obese, and at risk. My husband is 51 with a condition that makes him high-risk. 

I am told to prepare to go fully online at any time. When will campus call this? If students return to campus, some of which are already infected from group activities, the dam will already be broken. I am bracing for ugliness. I am bracing for illness.

I am writing my will.

Music and my past

Music brings my mind back to the past.

The '80s Singer-Songwriter playlist plays on the stereo, and I realize that it was almost 40 years ago that I was starting college, and Springsteen playing "Hungry Heart" makes me remember that I was curious once, walking into local stores in Campustown and browsing for things I had no money for.

I was hungry for experience. By myself, usually, because I didn't understand why I needed other people to go explore. I was an introvert even then, but I didn't understand it. I didn't seek out music, but it found me in the shops, in the computer lab, in pirated tapes from my friends. I followed my boyfriends to concerts -- I remember listening to the Ramones in the most acoustically unsound building on the U of I campus, and Jethro Tull -- where did I see Jethro Tull? 

Later, when I gave up on boyfriends and made friends, we listened to local Irish and bluegrass music. A local music "pusher" turned me on to Gaelic pop and Handel's Water Music. The radio still played on through, and I soaked it up like osmosis.

In a way, I hate reminiscing, because I want my focus to be on the present. I'm not done exploring yet, just because COVID keeps me cooped up. I do intense searches on the Internet for my writing, and for my latest hobby, sourdough bread baking, and for all the little fact-grabbing. I have not studied anyone's psyche (the intense focus of a crush) lately, and I'm not sure I want another one of those at my age. 

I hate the fact that I just used the phrase "at my age" -- I want to be young again, but with the knowledge and the calm with which I meet life now. This is impossible and a waste of time to wish for. So I will let the music tear my heart out, and I will build a heart of calm in its place.

Fighting a little downer

I have time to write now. The class edits I had to make to get my class ready for the semester are done. I've finished my summer class.

I think, however, I'm getting depressed.

It is a depressing time. No getting out and doing a writing retreat or going to a concert. Worrying about going back to school in the fall. Constant worry, with a lot of subconscious attempts to reassure. Most people don't die, I tell myself. 

What are my options?

1) I need to take time to quit thinking about school. It's three weeks till classes start.

2) I need to write. Even if it's taking a short story prompt and working through it. 

3) I need to get outside, even if it's just sitting on the porch swing.

4) I need to play with my little gremlin -- er, kitten. She's playing parkour off every surface in my room -- including me.

5) More Poirot in the evenings -- we're only on season 4.

6) Coffee. Coffee reduces depression.

But I need to write. 

A Perfect Moment

I think I have experienced a perfect moment.

My husband and I have just had coffee and breakfast, and we are both sprawled on the bed (fully clothed). I am typing this entry on my computer while Chloe the kitten tries to climb up my lap desk, and Richard the husband surfs on his phone. Outside, the dark sky and occasional thunder sets a cozy mood.

I have had very few perfect moments these past months. It's like the COVID virus has been a constant unwelcome guest. Even in our relatively sheltered county (until the students come back), cases have doubled in the past two weeks. In a month, I go back to teach with reduced class sizes; maybe that will save me from the virus. I fret about students who refuse to wear masks, because I feel pretty powerless to enforce the rule. I worry about the sheer numbers of partying students who won't practice social distancing.

I have been sleeping more lately, and that's the sign of depression looming. I monitor my thoughts and contradict thoughts that might send me spiraling.

So perfect moments are few and far between, but maybe that makes them all the sweeter.

Sorry for the absence -- the kitten has been monopolizing my time.

I'm sorry I haven't been here the past couple of days. I've been absolutely smitten with Chloe the kitten. It's been about 9 years since we've had a kitten in the house, and the other three cats are middle-aged to senior citizens (ages 9-13).

Chloe is a bundle of fearless zoom-zoom energy, with baby claws and teeth and a tendency to play with all of them out. She's a little purrbucket. She is an angelic con artist. In other words, she is a kitten. 

As you can see, she is a kitten. 

I've had to do a lot of babysitting with Chloe. She's been living in my room, as have I, keeping herself busy and in trouble while I've been keeping her out of trouble. She's met the other cats and they already hiss at each other, and I have to keep her out of fights where she's sorely mismatched.

I'm also getting class stuff done, because my classes are going to be seriously flipped. Each class will be split into three parts, and only 1/3 will be going to class at any given time. So more work is online, and the in-class sessions will be hands on.

I need to start writing again! I think it's been a week and a half since I've written. I'm rethinking my relationship to writing after writing my manifesto, and so far I have not been making time for it. I think it's time to write a short story rather then rewriting the novel until further notice.

Have a nice relaxing Sunday! 

Our New Kitten!

This is Chloe, the new member of our household, adopted from our local Humane Society. She's an 8-week-old tortoiseshell who has revealed a quirky personality thus far. She makes a variety of noises including squeaks and purr-chirps. She's in oral fixation mode, which means she chews on fingers and toes (and her teeth are SHARP!) 

She is currently living in my room because I want to introduce her to the other cats slowly and keep the other cats from eating her kitten food. The other cats have been a little hissy at her, but they're hissy at each other, so no surprise there. 

Her belly is one big orange striped patch, unusual for a tortoiseshell. She doesn't mind having her belly rubbed, but she hates being picked up. 

I'm looking forward to watching her grow up. I'm also looking forward to her not biting my fingers. 

A Writing Manifesto

• I will write for myself regardless of how and where my resulting work will be shared.
• I will not doubt my imagination.
• I will not judge the quality of my work by where it's published, how many copies it's sold, or how much I've earned. 
• I will hone my craft for the sake of improvement.
• I will write from joy rather than from duty.

Too much of not much

It's deep summer, the time when I don't do much of anything.

Except put my classes together for fall, which includes voiceovers of all my lectures so we can spend our one day a week in-class doing hands-on things.

And try to get some plot confusion sorted out in Gaia's Hands.

And rewrite my other query letters to implement what I learned from an agent.

And grade some internship stuff.

In other words, I'm doing a lot for not doing anything. 

Setting up for Fall semester

Today I have to start setting up for fall semester. I don't normally do this till about the first of August, but I have to record some lectures because the students are only coming into the classroom one day a week (1/3 of the classroom each class day.)

Instructions for the classroom look like this:

• Be prepared for the class to go online at any time in case too many of your students (or you) are quarantined. 
• All students and faculty will wear masks if students are less than six feet apart. *note: I'm making them wear masks even if they are six feet apart, because the rows are stacked on each other.
• We will have seating charts for contract tracing
• No handouts/papers because of potential contamination
• Classrooms will be deep sanitized every night
• Faculty/students will sanitize rooms between classes
• No more than one student in the office at one time/appointments required/Zoom preferred

There's probably more here, but this is what I got out of the email from my department head. I don't like the idea of going back into the classroom, but I'll prepare for all possibilities. We shall see.

Rewriting a Query Letter

Saturday has me fixing my query for the next book to go out, the revised Apocalypse. An editor gave me advice to run my query through Manuscript Academy, where I had a chance for an agent to read, review, and suggest in a ten-minute review what needed to happen with it. This cost $50.

My reviewer, Caitlin McDonald, gave me a sound review and the advice that I needed to expand my discussion of the book to three paragraphs. I didn't realize that -- as long as I keep it at one page, I can do more with it. 

Here's wishing me luck. Hope springs eternal.

The Rainbow Bridge

Right after I thought Stinkerbelle was rallying, she had a major seizure and we had to put her to sleep. She was in pitiful shape, I see now, and we would never have been able to restore her to health.

I'm pretty stoic about things. I don't know if that is a good thing. I only get weepy when I think about the Rainbow Bridge, and I think that is because I would rather be at the Rainbow Bridge with all the cats than in the traditional conception of Heaven.

The Rainbow Bridge is a celebratory realm, where cats and dogs frolic, unravaged by age, illness, or neglect. They wait there for their owners, and then join with them as they walk up the bridge to Heaven. I would love to reunite with Cream Puff, Sandals, PJ, Kismet, Sasha, Opalina, Kitty, Belvedere the Kitten, Snowy, and Stinkerbelle. Yes, I am a crazy cat lady.

But once we make it to the gates of Heaven, what happens? I stand at the gates waiting to be judged and found worthy or unworthy. My poor cats are stuck waiting with me, which means they're probably chasing each other. And what if I'm found unworthy? I'm cast into Hell and the poor cats are left bereft.

If I make it there, the Bible says that we get into Heaven with all the other souls to perpetually sing Hosanna with the heavenly choirs. What in Heaven's name (I did that on purpose) is that all about? Unless I am stripped of all that is human, that's going to be really boring. My cats are going to be really bored, I think, and will need toys. 

The Rainbow Bridge, on the other hand, sounds like a perpetual picnic with gallivanting pets and grassy meadows, presumably without chiggers and mosquitos. I could dwell there forever, petting kitties and doggies and talking to the occasional macaw. I think I'd stay there. 

Notes on Life

Note 1: Stinky is still hanging in there. Every time we think she's a goner, she does something like eats again. Right now she's faceplanting in the couch cushions, but she's alive and somewhat upright. 

Note 2: I am struggling with my work in progress -- writing Gaia's Hands without it being a total downer is hard. 

Note 3: I am still struggling with my future as a writer. I have not had any luck after several rewrites and several sets of queries on my (four now three) books. I am wondering if it's time to self-publish, keep trying, or give up the writing thing entirely. Don't worry; I've gone through this before. 

The COVID-19th Nervous Breakdown

There's a COVID-19 hot spot in a summer camp in Branson, and I know they've been practicing social distancing and masking because I have a contact down there. Still, 85 people (kids and counselors) have COVID-19.

I have to teach this fall face-to-face (or F2F as we call it in education). I teach human services courses at a university 5 hours north of Branson. Although I will meet with only 1/3 of my students on any given day (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) in order to practice social distancing, and we will (hopefully) all wear masks, I'm still a bit wary. 

I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. If the university says we're face-to-face, we're face-to-face. It's a little nerve-wracking, especially as our plans don't take into account the residence halls, the hallways, the food court ... 

I have just about resigned myself to getting COVID this fall. It's better, I think, than fretting about it for the rest of the summer.

Stinkerbelle is Dying

Stinkerbelle in better days. Note the evil gleam in her eyes.

I think my cat Stinky is dying. She's fifteen years old, and she has taken a sudden slide into not eating much, not moving much, and not using the litterbox, instead deciding to go on the blanket where she lies. She is still eating, though, and purring, and she doesn't seem to be in any pain, so I don't know if it's time to put her to sleep yet.

Stinkerbelle (her full name; she's also been called Stinky, Stinkerbelly, Soccer Ball, Sockerbally, and Turnip Head) has always been a trial of a cat. I adopted her at four months out from under a friend's porch, and she always has been a little bit feral. She earned her name from the time when she was a kitten and she crawled on top of me while I was semi-napping. She walked up to my face and looked at me sweetly, then punched me in the eye with a paw. 

Stinky then unleashed her reign on terror on the house. Fighting with the other cats, escaping the house, swatting at us -- Stinky was our cross to bear. I loved her in the way I loved my bratty inner child -- with a combination of exasperation and awe. 

Now Stinky stands only long enough to rearrange her old bones. Her head hangs down and she wobbles. She doesn't have enough meat on her bones anymore. She lets my husband and I pick her up and hold her like a baby. She purrs instead of fighting us.

It will be time soon, I think. When she stops eating, when treats are not enough to entice her, when she has trouble breathing. But for now, she's still on the couch waiting to get petted again.

Learning about my Characters: Jeanne and Josh

 I'm what's known as a plantser -- I start a bare outline and fill it in as I write. I'm finding out more about Josh and Jeanne as I write, and they're turning out to be quite the couple.

Josh is afraid of an intimate relationship, but not for the usual reasons. He believes in another world, a world of spirits, hidden (as he puts it) in plain sight. He feels these spirits, sees visions, dances among the unseen in aikido. If he opens up, he reveals that world inside him.

Jeanne, meanwhile, is afraid of herself. She has been repressing her own relationship to the hidden world, because it wars with her adoption of the logical world of research. What happens, then, if she finds out -- or remembers -- her true connection to the world of the plants she nurtures?

I've gotten to the point where Josh has spoken of the hidden world as a theoretical, a source of poetry, and Jeanne begins to examine the imagination that she left behind in her chemistry labs. It's exciting to see them launch into the second part of the book, the part of mysteries. 

Another excerpt from work in progress

Another excerpt from the work in progress:

Friday came, and Jeanne felt exhausted after a day in her laboratory, a day alone where she tried not to ruminate about the offer she had rejected or the threat to her chances for full professor. She sat on her couch and put on some U2, listening to the call to righteous action. Something blossomed in her, the memory of her childhood when she began studying the plants in her yard, when she felt something greater than herself. Her imagination, she thought, when she had used it. 

That evening, she almost didn’t go to the cafe to meet Josh. She knew he’d be disappointed if she wasn’t there. And maybe there would be comfort for her

She arrived early to find Josh already sitting at the table, head bent over what she learned was his always available notebook. He looked up as she sat down across from him and put away his notebook. His eyes searched hers; his smile upon greeting her shaded quickly to concern. 

“What’s up?” Jeanne asked.

“Not much. I was just writing. You look wiped out — the Growesta stuff?” asked Josh.

Jeanne nodded. “It’s not over yet. The dean tried to put a GMO plot next to my research plot; it would have destroyed the conditions of my research. He backed down on that. Then he berated me, berated my work, and doubled down on the threat to keep me from getting the promotion.

“The worst part of it for me is that I can’t do anything about it. No matter how hard I try, the body of my work will not be judged by its worth. I’m not used to being powerless over a situation.” Jeanne grimaced. “But the alternative is betraying Gaia.”

“Gaia. You’ve mentioned that before. You talk about Gaia as if it’s a being.” Josh glanced toward his notebook and pen and apparently decided against it. 

“Well, that’s the hypothesis,” Jeanne explained. “That the earth is a living organism, a whole organism based on systems. I believe that it’s more a metaphor than something to be taken literally; at any rate, I don’t want to be promoting Growesta’s need to extend its market share. I’ll allow that factory farming and the monoculture systems it creates are a necessary evil until alternative farming systems can be created or resurrected. But I need to work toward the alternative.”

“So what now?” Josh asked.

“What now? There’s nothing I can do.” 

“Yes, there is,” Josh insisted, taking her hand. “If you have no control over what happens, you have nothing to lose. What would you be doing if full professorship wasn’t in question?”

The warmth of his hand startled her; she didn’t want to pull away.  Jeanne paused. “Much the same as I have been doing, but … ” She thought. “I wouldn’t worry so much.”

“About what?” Josh inquired, and she found herself looking down from his penetrating gaze.

Jeanne considered. The wayward scents, the behemoth plant in her greenhouse. Gaia as a living thing rather than metaphor. There was a time when she would allow herself thoughts, fancies she didn’t have to prove. She ruthlessly pruned them away with scientific method. “About how I think. About Gaia. I used to have imagination. I used to be able to embrace fuzzy concepts like Gaia as an organism, even …” Jeanne paused. “Then there was college, and graduate school, and the scientific method. I began to let go of that part of me.”

“Why do you want that part of you back?”

Jeanne remembered a prior conversation, and how it put tendrils in her mind while she fought against Growesta, against her Dean, against the injustice of being denied credit for her work. “It was something you said the other day. About the unseen world? I used to believe in that. It fueled my desire to go into my field. But then …”  Jeanne faltered. The scent of spice viburnum wafted through Jeanne’s consciousness. It would be weeks before those flowers bloomed. 

“How can I help?” Josh asked. “I seem to have planted the seed.”

“Tell me about this unseen world.” The scent of flowers grew stronger.

Music and Memory

Sometimes I feel so old.

Usually it's when I listen to music from the 1970's. I was a child then, as I graduated high school in 1981. As a child, I didn't go out of my way to listen to music; I absorbed it by osmosis from the AM station in our car and clutched my little brick AM radio with its mono earplug at night.

I knew all the songs, however. I knew them as narrative to a time of solitude, of lying in my room crying over the bullies at school, of words not being sufficient, of glimmers of light when someone extended a hand. Of scraps of poetry, words written in pencil on lined paper, fading as pencil often did over the years. 

I do not remember well. My memory is like a pile of Polaroids, instant photos, jumbled on a table, and I pull a random one out. I remember the snippet of memory in the photo and it evokes emotion. The story that goes with the words starts with "I remember when" but has very few words attached. The few stories I remember don't have video with them, only words. 

The right song pulls the most obscure photo from the bottom of the pile, the one that's faded, whose colors have reverted to greyish brown. All of the emotions, however are there, and I find myself weeping at something lost that I can't really see. 

Right now I'm listening to a playlist on the stereo, with luscious rich tones that we didn't know in the AM radio era, and I travel in the back of a station wagon in 1974, nine years old, trying to make sense of the world. 

Nagging fears in COVID

Here's me, writing during the time of COVID-19. 

I'm scared of the future. I'm scared about the students coming back this fall, bringing their contagion from far-flung places. I'm afraid of what happens when they're all congregated in their living spaces, in close proximity to each other. I'm afraid of their parties, their incaution, and their bravado. I'm scared that my university, who needs the revenue of on-campus students in residence halls to survive, will fail if students don't show up and will fail if they have to refund students' residence hall money if they have to leave.

I can't be fearful of everything or else I won't survive. So I put the fear in a box and go through my day-to-day activities. Sometimes it reappears when I read the news. 

There's nothing I can do but adapt. 

First Draft

Now that I've done two hours for Camp NaNo (July edition), I can write today.

I'm starting to feel like a writer again. I don't know what happened, except I put pen (fountain pen) to paper and came up with about a chapter's worth of plot for Gaia's Hands. It's really rough -- I don't know if my characters are consistent or my atmosphere atmospheric or any of that, but this is all about a first draft

I've learned a lot about first drafts in my six years of writing novels, and this is what I've learned:

• You just need to write. Edit later. 
• When you're new at writing, you will think your finished first draft is glorious. When you're more seasoned, you will think your first draft is an abomination. In reality, it is somewhere between the two.
• Let yourself get exhilarated by what happens in your first draft. Marvel at the characters, feel excited by the plot. Think of it (to use another metaphor) as planning and planting a garden. It will take a lot of weeding to get to its final result, but you're not at that stage yet.

So right now I'm really excited about Jeanne's experiment with the basil, where she learns that she has a green thumb, something she can't ignore when the results are quantified in front of her. Later I'll grimace at how my characters haven't necessarily reacted to type. But that's later.