Pandemic Journal May 22: What Part of the Story Are We In?

It's been hard to write lately.
It's hard to concentrate, hard to be creative, hard to keep my butt in the chair and focus.
Before starting a writing project there are questions to keep in mind:
What is the main goal?
How will the characters grow from this?
What is the main crisis of the story?
With our current story, called Covid-19 Pandemic, we don't even know what part of the story we are in.


Are we at the end? The middle? Or, are we still at the beginning?

I think we are still at the beginning of Covid-19 Pandemic, but things are opening.
States are opening for political
and economical reasons. Not for safety reasons. I'm convinced if you were able to get the health director drunk and alone, she would tell you the decision is against her better judgement.
But, the hospitals are waiting and hotels are waiting for patient overflow or recovery.
The wheels of the economy need to start turning again. And we are all getting "quarantine fatigue" (though, we can look back to our ancestors for strength and inspiration--they had to deal with this on a regular basis, and often for a year or two at a stretch!).

If cases rise after opening, we will all be back at home again. It's a faulty plan but one made with consideration of the numbers and not much choice.

Three Things Thursday: Did You Know?

To take your mind off all your questions and musings about what we're really supposed to do to "be safe, be cautious..." 

I come across things all the time that pique my curiosity and compel me to either verify the wonder of it or just find out more. Here are three things I've come across in the past week or so:


1. 
    Giant tarantulas in Peru, India, Sri Lanka keep tiny frogs, called narrow-mouthed frogs (Microhylids), as pets. Insects try to eat the burrowing tarantulas' eggs but the frogs eat those insects. In return, the spiders protect the frogs from predators. So cool!

 
For more information: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/tiny-frogs-and-giant-spiders-best-of-friends/

2. 

    Eggs are pretty fascinating.

 Before a hen lays an egg, it’s coated in what’s called a “bloom.”

The bloom is a thin coating that covers the egg and protects the insides from bacteria. It seals the egg so protects the humans that consume the egg from getting sick on any bacteria that may have gotten into a washed (or, bloomless) egg. 

Eggs that come from the grocery store have had this bloom washed off so eggs have to be refrigerated and eaten much sooner than unwashed eggs.

For more information: https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/washing-eggs/


3. 


Sir Isaac Newton was very productive during the Great Plague of London quarantine in 1665.
In a little more than two years of "social distancing" he helped develop calculus, he researched light, color, and spectrum and, and he thought hard on the principles of inertia which led to his Universal Law of Gravity. 

For more information: https://www.biography.com/news/isaac-newton-quarantine-plague-discoveries

What are you doing reading this blog? Get working! Get thinking! Come up with the next invention! Figure out how the Big Bang happened!

Short Story Woes

I wrote "The Ruins" many years ago and I loved it. 
It is about a middle-aged British couple, Ted and Peggy, who travel to India on holiday in the early 1970s. The setting is primarily Chittorgarh Fort in Rajasthan. Chittor Fort is a beautiful, massive complex that rises above the plains and spans almost four miles, encompassing a village, the remains of a palace, several temples, and many towers.

The couple experienced a disturbing tragedy a number of years before that continues to affect their lives and culminates in an emotional incident among the crumbling ruins of the fort.


I worked hard on "The Ruins." I submitted it and it didn't get accepted. It didn't even garner good rejections where they encourage you to make some changes or try again later.
Fast forward some years and I am part of another writing group and I have to submit something for critique. 
My story goes over well enough and the main suggestions from five different people skirted around the same issue--I love when that happens! It makes revising easier to know where the problem lies. But I still have a lot of work to do exploring the emotional arc of the two main characters.

And... I'm not so in love with it anymore. It's probably on its 5th draft by now. 

Hopefully you don't know these people:)

The characters are like grandparents; I love them, but do I really want to sit and listen to their stories and advice and put up with the weird medicinal smells emanating from their bedroom? 
Or, maybe it's like a marriage, where you forget what drew you to a person so many years before and maybe you don't even really know the person anymore.

However, I made a commitment and put a lot of work into this story and I don't want to abandon dear Ted and Peggy. So, I will persevere and attempt to figure out where their story leads.

Pandemic Journal May 11: Finding a New Groove

We were in a groove there for awhile.
We were doing our own things, then coming together to eat lunch and dinner and to play games or watch a movie or just hang out together. It was actually pretty nice.
That has slowly eroded over the last few weeks went on, and we are watching our own shows on different TVs, going for walks at separate times, talking on the phone with our friends in our closets, even eating at different times.

A beautiful bookstagram post-not mine.

I was on my phone texting and on Instagram way too much. I experimented with Bookstagramming but discovered it is not my thing (you have to have a little Martha Stewart in you to be successful and I DO NOT).
I'd hardly see my teenager throughout the day, if I didn't go into her room to pester her.
We are in the same house but not engaged with one another.

I finished my short story then finished the first round of edits. I had nothing to work on--rather nothing I wanted to work on.
I am trying to get involved with another story needing revision but I am on autopilot, my heart isn't in it.
I feel useless, what is there to do?
Who needs me?
We need a change.   
I need to get my family re-engaged; watch a common show, have movie nights again, play some different games, bake chocolate chip cookies together.

Watch out kids-things are about to get wild!

I need a list (I function so much better with lists).

To-Do List Week of May 11th:                                       

Louis is getting all the love though!

Graduation video for friend
Read short stories for writing group
Critique at least one member's submission
Revise 'The Ruins'
Make muffins
Go through junk pile
Get paint for kitchen
Video for boss retiring
Yoga I  I  I
Cardio/Weights I  I  I
Write blog post

Pandemic Journal May 2nd-Restless

Getting restless now. 

Are you?

I feel like I'm waiting. But, waiting for what? 

I'm waiting for the next call or text from a friend.

I'm waiting for a change. I'm waiting for big news.       

I'm waiting for the next Bookstagram with a fascinating book I want to read but can't because the libraries are closed and the bookstores are taking forever to ship (I don't know about Amazon).

I'm waiting for something to happen.

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

It's hard to sit still. It's hard to finish projects. (I've left this post three times already and the broom sits in the kitchen and a bowl of dry ingredients sits waiting for the wet.)

I'm questioning authorities. Why can't the elderly and compromised stay quarantined and those who aren't go ahead and go about their lives and just be careful?
But then again, what does careful even mean?
There's been just over 1,000 deaths from the virus in Ohio. Thousands more are infected and apparently thousands more don't know they are infected. And these are low numbers compared with many other states and many other countries.

Head Exploding, 1951

So, I'm just going to learn crochet chaining and help out a mask maker. And that's how this post ends.

The Broken Bridge and the Dream, 1945

*Salvador Dali images in honor of the surreal times we are living in (and because any excuse to add Dali to anything is a good thing--more on him later).