Let's all hope this new year is a grand one, and a big turnaround from the last two. While there are positive things to speak of in any year, Covid 19 has overshadowed most of the good news out there. On the homefront here in rural Eastern Connecticut, new cases are rising at an alarming rate. In my family we are all vaccinated and those who can do so have been boostered. We all wear masks in public and avoid big gatherings. This is how you beat something as pervasive as this virus. We don't want to lose a loved one, or take a chance of infecting someone else. That's not being paranoid, it's being wise and thoughtful of others. That's how I was raised.
Well the big winter holidays are over now, the tree is down, and all the decorations are packed away. Most of the goodies have been eaten, and the gifts are not only unwrapped but unboxed and put to use. So now it's time to settle into the business of writing once more.
I actually got some writing done off and on during the stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. It wasn't a lot, but in past years I've taken that period of time off completely to concentrate on the holidays themselves. So whatever I got done puts me that much farther ahead starting off this year.
Complicating the situation just a bit was that fellow writing pal, honorary family member, and all-around good guy Lee Houston Jr. had another open heart surgery (his second in 13 years) back in mid-October to replace a failing artificial heart valve. Though absolutely necessary, that is a very complex and invasive procedure with a long and painful recovery period. While the surgery went well, there were some speed bumps along the way. He is just now starting to feel like himself again. Lee lives with us and now that I am partially disabled he is a big help to me around the house as well as great company and a fellow writer. So his presence was sorely missed. I did whatever I could to take up the slack as well as keeping his loved ones informed about his progress, but I was often pretty frazzled and not up to doing a whole lot of writing. So that holiday slack-off started kind of early this year. Which all told, was still a very good writing year regardless...
I had planned the week before the big gift-giving holiday (which most of you call Christmas but I tend to stubbornly refer to as Yule because mine is a secular celebration) to get things done in a timely manner. Each day had a purpose, most of it gift wrapping until we got close to the actual day of our family get-together and I needed to at least bake something for my older son's birthday. So I managed to get gifts wrapped for former neighbors, a package sent to a friend, and gift cards out for the mail and paper carriers. That was Monday, and I felt soooo accomplished. Which was good, because I had a mountain of family gifts sitting on my fireplace hearth, waiting to be wrapped. That would give me at least two days for wrapping, another for baking and whatnot, and then Friday our part of the family was getting together at the kids' house. All cut & dried, everything planned out. Then Monday night, having done a late evening email check before bed, I found a galley for my Sinbad novel awaiting my final pass for corrections. That's when the fun started! 😵
Now to be perfectly honest, no one at Airship 27 was even suggesting I needed to get that book gone over and turned back in immediately. This was something I pushed myself to do. I was dying to see that book come out, thinking what a great time this was for a release so that folks can spend their holiday gift cards on some reading material. So Tuesday as soon as I could get to my PC, I sat my butt down in the chair and got to work going over it, which is basically reading the entire novel from end to end, making internal notes about anything that needed changing before it went to print. It's a lengthy process and not one that you can hurry through, and I gave it my full attention for the better part of 7 hours that day, with frequent breaks to rest my eyes and give me a chance to get up and stretch my legs. I got it all done in one fell swoop. That final hour was wrapping up and writing the cover email for when it got sent back. Caught the folks in charge off guard, but yes, it did come out by the holiday, and we were all pretty pleased about that. Great interiors on this one by artist Gary Kato, and a knock-out cover by Ted Hammond. If you enjoy the whole Sinbad mythos as well as the story of the Minotaur of Crete, you're going to love this book. Just rereading it was fascinating, because there were bits along the way I had forgotten. Once a book is done, I move on to the next project, and my mind shifts gears.
You know, I got all those gifts wrapped the next day, in another marathon session of similar length. This one took place in the living room, with the tree lit and music on the cable holiday station, some of which I could actually sing along to. Oh, I was thinking about writing while I was otherwise occupied, I'd been picking away at Silver Pentacle novel #3 for weeks. But the family holiday comes first. With those gifts wrapped on Wednesday, I was back to having Thursday for baking. Which was what I did, making the Nestle's Tool House Pie my oldest son wanted for his 38th birthday (which was on Thursday the 23rd, but we waited a day to combine things). And then Friday, Christmas Eve, we traveled to their house for take-out Chinese, opening gifts, spending time together, and just being thankful that we're all healthy and safe. Yeah, that's what it's all really about.
The next day was quiet, the married son and his family had to go visit his in-laws, and because the weather was not too nice, my oldest decided to stay home. I made shepherd's pie, an old holiday standby dish for when there was no big gathering. A big pan for my household that lasted a couple days, a smaller one that got delivered and devoured by my two sons. They still enjoy their mom's cooking.
You see, being a writer, I could have just put all this other stuff aside and said, "Oh I'm too busy with my career to keep doing this or that." But being a wife, mother, grandmother, and friend, I won't even contemplate that. While I have scaled back the holiday projects I do now, the older I get, the more that I realize how short these years actually are, and how precious the fleeting moments of grace and goodwill have become. I love seeing the smiles and watching the faces light up when memories from the past present themselves once more. This is not a religious holiday for me and mine, but it is a spiritual one in that we long to be together. We talk about the passing years and the people we've loved and lost, and how you must cherish every moment that you have with each other. I have time to write most days, but when it's time for family to gather, even the writing that I love so much has to take a back seat. We have a little wooden sign in our living room here which says: FAMILY FIRST AND FOREMOST. We don't just mouth it—that's how we live.
No worries folks, I will be back at my desk, pounding the keys on Monday January 3rd. It's still what I love most to do with my unoccupied time. With the holidays behind me, it's full speed ahead once more.
Living life to the fullest and writing onward all through it,
~NANCY
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