Coping in Covid: A Writer's Journal

To paraphrase the poet Leonard Cohen, there are cracks in this pandemic, where the light is creeping through. At least I hope so. The days lengthen. March 14 looms as the date Daylight Savings spring ahead. A snow moon, I just discovered, peaks this very weekend, bathing the land in light as bright as day, but more potent. I have gone through a hard-working week, editing this bear fiction anthology, further learning the fundamentals of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS, for us pros), the handyman and his crew working here most days to fix the interior wall of the master bedroom and the causal ice damming on the roof and the broken dry wall resulting from water leaking through into the furnace room. I have almost successfully organized most days, due to pulling up on my evenings a little. The three P’s are still in play, like trickster constellations. Being incommunicado after my annual conversation with someone, a  friend - well, much more than a friend, actually - of years ago,

Slow-going work today, as stress crescendoes in from all sides  (yes,  crescendoes  can be a verb, kiddies) . Shoveled snow off our roof this morning using a periscope-like-extendable shovel to avoid ice-damming that's happened every year the past few years. But instead of making it better, there is a waterfall coming through the frame above our bedroom window. Reliable handy-man already called, so there's that .... I meant to be editing a short-story for the hirsute-man fairy tale anthology, trimming it down to 5,000 words from 7,000. However, when I opened the doc, none of my Track Changes remained; only the comments. So much hang-wringing until my partner compared this doc to the original (I always keep originals), restoring all edits. And I have edits on my own hirsute-fairy tale to work through. So, some progress in the pandemic! Just an uphill fight, amid a maelstrom of stress on all fronts—house and editing work. Good thing I could announce some big publishing news

So, hells, a pretty great day, between a sweetly feted birthday and news from a publisher about a new book of mine coming out. Cover, title, and all. Ironically, I had posted less than an hour before about a book of essays about writing horror I received as a gift and then, within the hour, I was posting about my book of sci-fi, fantasy and yes, predominantly horror stories. So such exultation! Now I wonder, as the hour creeps later, whether I am not afraid of failure at all. Perhaps it is success that I am afraid of. Paradoxical, yes, but it may explain some things about how I can handle success or the idea of success, or perceive lack of.

Made it to my desk by 8:38 A.M. - a new record! Heard from a friend who I am technically not supposed to be talking to, on account of history. Think Tom Cochrane’s song, “No Regrets”, and I will leave it at that. Props to her for being sensible in spite of our naughty past. We talk to each other now as if we are holding our breath sometimes. We are all too aware that sharing little fantasies with each other is rather distracting. It is still slow-going on editing the anthology of bear fiction, but I am finding I am learning so much and this is the fun of the work for me. That, and finally getting to discuss my burning editing questions. How do you consistently use em dashes? No spaces, either side. i.e.: This is the way—which I really people understood—that em-dashes should be used all the time. Is the word ‘king’ capitalized? Only when using a surname; otherwise it is lower-cased. i.e.: “King Edward” versus “The king entered the room.” Exceptions to this rule include Duke whic

So a good friend asked about my following vague-posting about getting solicited. Feeling kinda' chuffed - got solicited for the first time in years and didn't have to be walking down Somerset Ave. in our fine LGBTQ1+ village, wearing a tight black T and denim to get solicited. And it's the (marginally more) respectable kinda' solicit, involving writing fiction. Here's what happened. I  am trying out an editing gig and decided to be clever. I joked that Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) rules say that 33 per cent of the anthology I am looking at should be Canuck content. The person I am working with replied, 'Well, you did not write me a story." I answered that I may have missed the submissions call. Or did they ask for the stories from the authors? This is a common practice for editors in the business to ensure they curate a collection of quality work. "The call for submissions was on the website for a year!&q

Got through nearly the whole week—since Tuesday—without any of the green or the pot, so there’s that. Still had a beer each night, sometimes two. Managed to virtually hang out with a friend on Wednesday and another on Thursday, watching things on Netflix and Shudder. All week, I edited this anthology for my publisher, about fairy tales with hirsute or burly, hairy men. So that work got me back on track during the day. As my partner said it would, the editing work got me out of my head, but also on a schedule, working through mornings and most of the afternoon. The only real drawbacks to the work are that I am working for a small honorarium, so there is no much monetary compensation coming my way for all these hours. But the upside is that my publisher is not tipping his foot waiting on me, so there is very little pressure. As well, I am working very slowly, this being my first proofreading edit since I did one for a poetry antho back in 2005 or so, and that was entirely a different b

I continue to struggle, but the struggle has progress. I am not on a full-day schedule, due largely to a family emergency last week (and a 12-hour stay in the emergency ward) that knocked my schedule sideways all last week as I tried to rally back. It was, in the end, a matter of gallstones.  Still I am learning all about how to do a final proofread of a manuscript. The manuscript is fun - an anthology of bear fiction. And the kind of bear that decidedly does not live in the woods but, rather, large hirsute or hairy men. Ideally, I am trying to slot the editing work into a six-hour portion of my workday, with an hour left for my own writing and an hour to run my writers' shop - getting out submissions, writing new stories, editing stories, and finding markets for book reviews. My late hours are shifting as I pivot to getting to bed more toward 12:30 or one o' clock,  rather than two, three or four A.M. That is helping tremendously-I think?-although I still find myself napping i