What's It Like Now: Writing Covid Into Your Story

 It's New Year's Eve (mild clapping) and I'm sure you're at home, like me, like everyone, doing nothing, just waiting for that ball to drop so we can be done with this year. I find myself swarming with a lot of pent-up rage (mostly aimed at politicians and dum-dums who refuse to wear a mask because of 'mah freedoms'), but also a sad resignation that, despite the vaccine, we won't be climbing out of this dark tunnel anytime soon. 

This is our new way of life. Caught not wearing a mask in a crowd is the new going-to-school-naked nightmare. Most of us are used to wearing masks. Used to keeping our distance, canceling parties, working from home, zooming get-togethers, e-learning, etc blah, etc.

Which begs the question for writers, do we incorporate Covid into our book universes? and how?

A friend of mine, who has far more publishing cred than I do, said editors and agents are mostly ignoring Covid as far as stories go. Recently published titles, supposedly set in 2020, do not incorporate the pandemic into their novels. But that is presumably because they were acquired pre-pandemic and to make such drastic changes wouldn't just suit the story, it would cost time and money in rewrites. 

Books are a form of escapism, and nothing anchors us more to our current nightmare than reading about it in our forms of entertainment. And, yet, television shows that have returned to filming are working Covid into the existing universe. Showtime's Shameless and NBC's Superstore are two that come to mind. If this is our new reality, then shouldn't our art reflect it too?

I can't imagine reading a book set in 1919 that didn't, at least, mention World War I and its lasting trauma, so why would we pretend Covid doesn't exist in our own works set in present-day? Is it because we (publishing) expect this to go away and lose its relevancy? If so, that seems short-sighted.

I haven't heard a consensus on this, and I would love to know what writers are doing.

So, writers, what are you doing? Are you absorbing Covid into your plots? Ignoring it? Writing fantasy or historical fiction to side-step it? What? I need to know.

And happy New Year.

So, how's your quarantine going?

A post by Mary Fan

Greetings from the coronavirus capital of the world! I guess, to be precise, that would be New York City, and I'm just across the river in Jersey (everything is legal in New Jersey!). Still, I live (well, lived) half my life over there and see it every day from out my window, so close enough.

OH, WHAT TIMING, just as I was typing the above, a huge hospital boat thingy floated down the river outside my apartment. Behold!

The cavalry is here! 

This is super weird... usually when giant boats float by my window, they're cruise ships, but that hasn't been the case lately, for obvious reasons... NYC certainly knows how to strike a pose, doesn't she? With the moody clouds and everything? It reminds me weirdly of a scene from a war movie or something... like, we're grimly but hopefully watching the troops go off to war (spotted a couple of my neighbors also taking pics at their windows).

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, quarantine. Well, actually (as one of my guy friends so helpfully reminded me), it's stay-at-home orders (thanks, dude, I do know a thing or two about words). But everyone's calling it quarantine cuz, frankly, it feels like it fits better. "Stay at home" is what I do on the weekend when I'm lazy. "Quarantine" means there's a disease going around... which their is. Also, it sounds more dystopian, which is how the world feels right now.

I'm entering Week 3, and luckily, I have an office job where I can work from home. Not gonna lie, when it was first announced that a bunch of stuff was getting canceled and closed, I was a little relieved, since I'd overscheduled myself to the brink. The idea of not having to spent an hour-ish each way commuting (on overstuffed, always-breaking-down trains) was pretty appealing. But the novelty wore off real quick.

Can't get to my trapeze so this'll have to do

What's more, I thought I'd spend all that extra time catching up on the book projects I'm woefully behind on. While I do think I got more done than I would have otherwise, I've also spent way too much time obsessively reading the news (which, I know, I know, you shouldn't do) or turning off my brain with some mindless TV (by now, I'm sure y'all have watched the bizarre alternate reality that is Tiger King as well). There was one evening when I had my WIP up on my laptop and spent maybe 15 minutes staring at it uselessly before accepting that it just wasn't gonna happen. Turns out, it wasn't the lack of time that was impeding my progress. It was the lack of brainpower.

Between virtual happy hours and one-on-one video chats, I must say that loneliness hasn't really been an issue. The thing that's really been getting to me is the lack of physical activity. Ordinarily, I'm perpetually tired and will find any excuse to blow off the gym (oh no, it's raining and my shoes are wet, can't go). These days, I'm almost literally bouncing off the walls. Shadow boxing and conditioning exercises just aren't the same as hitting heavy bags and swinging from trapezes.

I guess this quarantine thing has been revealing about some things. I've worked in open office environments for the past several years, without the option to work from home, and I was always dead after work. Now, my workload hasn't changed that much, but that dead feeling is gone. Turns out, it wasn't the work. It was the people (hooray for being an introvert?).

I wasn't originally planning to do April NaNo, but I'm so behind on my WIP that I might use it as a motivator to power through the rest of this manuscript. Might as well. I have the time.

Anyway, how's your quarantine going?

Modern life is the pits: struggling during a pandemic

Greetings, everyone.

This post might read like the anxiety-ridden stream of consciousness that is currently swarming my insides. Today, for the first time since quarantine, I actually cried standing at my kitchen counter. My anxiety is peaking and we haven't even hit the mid-way point through all this yet. I am on edge. Everyone in my house annoys me.

I haven't really been able to write through all this. I know most authors are struggling to get words down. But, just the idea of an interruption, which is guaranteed in a house with three kids, makes it impossible to open my Scrivener app.

My kids are always around and my husband suggested we get them on a routine since distance schooling officially starts Monday. And by we, he means me because he is working from home and can't be disturbed. But since my job is part-time, I am the constant caretaker of everything--just like normal except I can't escape this house.

I'm supposed to be teaching remotely on Monday as well but I've annoyed my students so much with texting them instructions on how to accomplish this--and without any guidance from the community college--that they've stopped reading my messages. I'm trying not to worry about it. But I'm worried. So there's that.

I've gained weight too. So that's fun.

I know I should feel grateful that my family is safe and healthy and my husband still has a job, and I am. But I am also struggling to cope. That's the reality. I am grateful and irritable and angry and defeated. I can be all those things and still be grateful.

Modern living is difficult on its best day, let alone during a global pandemic.

How is everyone?