Week 9: Quarantine Chronicles
Has it SERIOUSLY been over two months?! According to my Quarantine Chronicles, it's been nine weeks now. It's been both the longest time ever, and the shortest. Weird how that works.
It's hard to believe that we've been dealing with COVID-19 for 2 months already in our area—some places have been dealing with it for more than that. Fairbanks, Alaska has been pretty mildly affected, and for that, I am very thankful. Our city is opening up to 50% capacity for shops and restaurants, and hopefully, our infection rate will stay low. Most people aren't wearing masks, but I'm all about it. My daughter may have more issues fighting this off than the typical kid, as she has a blood sugar issue, and I don't want to take chances. So even though the infection rate in Fairbanks is low, we're still taking precautions and avoiding people. (I haven't gone to the store since March. Talk about weird!)
It’s important to acknowledge that this has been taxing on everyone in different fashions. Some might have lost a loved one or more. Some might have gotten sick. Some might have lost their jobs. To those who fall into all those categories, I am praying for you and your families. Feel free to drop a comment below about how you're doing and how I can pray for you during this situation. Or even shoot me an email via this link.
Okay. I'm kind of done talking about that stuff. Who isn't, really?
Our highlight this week was finding the first dandelion! It’s still yellow, so we’re just entering summer. (Yes, I know you’re jealous.)
My life has, more or less, gone on unchanged as a stay-at-home mom of two. Alaska is one of the states more mildly affected, and my family and friends have remained safe so far, no matter where they are. I have many friends in WA and OR, and I pray for them constantly. My husband has gone back to work full-time now though, so I'm trying to find ways to keep the kids busy myself without running into a lot of people. We've gone to parks, but try to avoid the playgrounds and germ-swapping that occurs there! Especially with a two-year-old who refuses to wear a mask.
My six-year-old son's schooling officially ends on Tuesday the 19th, but I don't think we'll have much to do the last couple of days. Ordinarily, I think I'd be heading out to the store and getting his teachers an end-of-year gift (I wish I were a crafty parent who could make something for the teachers, but I am not). I'm so sad that we didn't get to finish out my son's very first year of school. It's been so weird for him with just the budding friendships he didn't get to follow through on. I know that his kindergarten year is minor compared to the senior years of other students, but I do find myself reflecting on the differences during this year. I have high hopes that fall and the 2020-21 school year will resume as "normal," but we'll have to see. I don't think we can fully predict what the fall will bring.
I know we all had so many hopes for 2020. So many people had a tough 2019, and I started out 2020 with great hope that things were going to turn around. However, we personally started off rough, with a hospital stay for my daughter, struggling to get a diagnosis of her ketotic hypoglycemia (which required ruling out everything else it could be), and have ended up with thousands of dollars of medical bills only to have trouble with insurance covering the best treatment for her, which happens to be a constant monitoring of blood sugar. It's been stressful at times.
Wow, I wasn't planning on going into all that. I know my struggles have been minor, as well as our health issues. My prayers are with those of you struggling even more than I. Please don't hesitate to reach out should you need prayer.
Writing update:
- I'm still working on the first draft of Canens #3, and it's still untitled, and it's gone way over the word count I planned, even though I'm not at the top word count... Ugh. I am already at 100K—a full-length novel—and I feel like I have about half the story left to write.
I don't know what went wrong! (Though I have a sneaking suspicion.) I told myself I was not going to write excessively, I was going to plot it out, and I was going to refrain from writing in circles. I think for the most part, I have kept to the outline, but there was a lot of Winterberry story that I had to get under my belt in order for me to make sense of the story.
Despite my desire to plot ahead, I am partly a "discovery" writer, and I struggle to outline extensively and not stray from it as I write. Instead, I will plan and plot the major points, but each scene can vary greatly, involving adding characters and events that add tension to the individual scenes. Sometimes the needed action of the book doesn't lend immediate tension to a scene, and I find myself more intuitively throwing that needed tension into the scenes as I write. Sometimes that means creating an entirely new character in order to achieve that tension. However, I then must make certain that the created tension is something that is worthwhile for the novel. I don't want to add a rabbit trail, but rather to create a tapestry of threads that weave together in the end and over the course of the series.
- I am also actively working on revising a co-writing project I have. This is a portal fantasy that has gone through two initial drafts already, and now it's my turn to revise accordingly. If everything goes to plan, this will be the first in a trilogy. So far I've edited about 10K, which is about 10% of the book. I really need to snap up my pace!
But I am super excited about it as well. It's a change of pace for me, and totally my co-writer's brainchild. I've contributed, but I'm at the point where I'm really earning my keep now.
- I've also got a ton of projects on the back burner, which I'm not letting myself think too much about right now. I need to focus on these two so that I can maintain a good pace on writing and editing. However, I do find it helpful to have a couple of projects going at once so that if I'm not in a first-draft writing mode, I can move on to editing.
For the week:
CC3: 14,312
