Tag Archive for: pandemic

Reggae Saved Me During the Pandemic of 2020 by Juliana Aragón Fatula

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Dear Reader,
Twenty twenty-one, the pandemic year, I turned 64 and officially became a viejita. A little old woman. But not la abuelita, not a grandmother. No that didn’t happen. I’ve been waiting for decades, but my one and only son had decided that he hasn’t found the one to settle down and raise a family. Not yet. I have hope. I’ll take the blessing of having a son and remember the choice I made to only have one child. My man child is now late forties and it will take a miracle, but I believe in miracles and magic. 
Music has always been playing like a soundtrack to my life. Like a comedy/tragedy, my life spills out in a blur that has included alcoholism, drug addiction, jail, recovery, abuse, survival, mistakes, success, love, happiness, depression, fear, spirituality, anger, bravery, melancholy, absurdity, loathing, jubilation, wit, and wisdom. Mine has been an abundant and holy moly journey down the what a long strange trip it’s been. 
The music of the fifties filled my ears and I danced with my older siblings to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, and Fats Domino. 
The sixties brought the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Motown Funk, and the blues of Roy Orbison. 
During the seventies, I smoke, rolled, burned, and puff puff passed the doobies to the Doobie Brothers, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, never could spell their name right. And of course, there was the Cosmic Blues Band and Janis, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jackson Browne, Linda Rondstadt, Neil Young, The Eagles, and Joni Mitchell.
The eighties were for disco and punk music and the nineties were everything from rap to reggae to country to opera to tex-mex to Bollywood.
The twenties and the twenty-first century gave me a combination of blues and rockabilly. But in 2020, I dropped to my knees and asked the gods for deliverance and the answer came in Rastafarian Rap Reggaeton.
I danced away my Covid 19 blues and sang along with the Marley Boys. Collie Buddz gave me the inspiration to finish two manuscripts: One poetry book, Gathering Momentum and one murder mystery love story, The Colorado Sisters. I wore my Bluetooth headset religiously and danced under the clothesline, the grape arbor, the sunshine, the moonlight, and the rain. I sang and danced and grew giddy about life again. The music and the writing healed me like they always do. 
My friends worry I spend too much time isolated and not enough time Zooming and socializing on the websites, but I love being alone and listening to my music and writing my stories. It makes me incredibly devoid of anger towards covid idiots and non-believers in science and lets me trip around in unreality instead of the world we live in for real. The real world. 
So if you stop by and visit me, get my attention because my headset takes me to another world and I can’t hear a thing, not dogs barking, sirens blaring, kids crying, husbands yelling…
If you stop by, smell the roses and the tea simmering on the stove and sing along with me to the oldies as we grow old and tip toe through the tulips, or poppies.

Plotting Party

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 by Bethany Maines

Last weekend, I reached peak pandemic and hosted a gathering in my carport. It was a writer’s gathering, aka a Plotting Party, so there was a lot of sitting and staring at our notebooks. And also snacking and freezing. But, as with other joint writing gatherings I’ve hosted, we did use each other to work through problems in our outlines. No one asks more “but why?” questions than a writer except a four-year-old trying to stall bedtime. But why do you want a ball in your story?  But why is she in Ireland?  But why did the killer drain all the blood? Each story has it’s own answer and it’s fun to hear the reasoning that went into each one. 
Of course, being the writer in the hot seat isn’t quite as much fun, but it does serve an important purpose. Searching out the answers to those questions forces me to examine the clues in the story I’m writing as well as my intention for writing the character or story that particular way. When another writer points out that my characters motivations seem implausible I’m forced to confront why I want that scene or why I want the character to behave that way.  Being faced with well-intentioned friends who simply want to understand my story is the equivalent of Law & Order level third-degree. Pretty soon I’m caving and confessing that I just like something and I’ve been ignoring my characters motivations all along. 
But the added benefit of a plotting party is that I have additional minds to help me brainstorm. And with brainstorming comes encouragement and a cheering section that is irreplaceable. The pandemic has put a lot of things on hold, but creativity and friendship clearly haven’t been one of them. I see more outdoor plotting parties in the future, particularly as the weather gets warmer and I wish all of you a carport full of friends of your very own.
**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

Behind

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 by Bethany Maines

 

As I write this, I am very far behind on writing my fourth
book in the San
Juan Island Mystery series. I have a title, a nice first chapter, and half an
outline.  Which is at least half a draft
short of where I wanted to be at this time. 
And in other news, there’s a pandemic and my child just started back to
school, but for some reason school doesn’t start until 9:45.  Why this is I have yet to determine, but it
delays the start of my work day by a significant chunk of time.  I would love to say that those two events are
causally related, but they’re really more corollaries. They are linked and
related through the reality in which we wade, but, as much as I would like to,
I can’t actually say that my school districts scattershot, indecipherable
response to the pandemic is actually to blame for not sticking to my schedule.  I may be able to blame the pandemic itself,
which has sent me head long into escapist fun writing and sees me closing in on
finishing a trilogy of paranormal romances, but I think, in the interests of
truthfulness, that’s as far as I can pass the blame.

Me trying to escape the pandemic through writing.

But as school starts back up there is a lot of twittering
about the kids being behind. Or not being behind. Or being able to catch up no
problem!  To which I say… yeeeeeah?  Maybe. 
The truth is that private schools have been in person and in session for
much of this time.  So if you could
afford private school, which generally means that your kid (who was already looking
at better outcomes than a public school kid) is, in fact, ahead.  Yes, the public school kids will bounce back
and they’re already in similar boats to each other, but let’s just say that
some kids have better rowers on their team than others.  Yes, everything will work out in the end, but
the rah-rah “no one is behind” cheer strikes me as particularly delusional when
I can point to a whole contingent of children who are receiving a better
education due to finances. The pandemic has distinctly widened the gulf between
the haves and have-nots. 

But back to me.  Am I
behind?  My deadlines are relatively
self-imposed.  I can flex them.  Is it sooooo bad to be running late?  Maybe if I type for two days straight I can
catch up?  If I can learn anything from
the school debacle, it’s that no, probably sprinting to catch up is not the
way.  Writing consistently is probably a
better way to get quality work.  But
having already not done that, it’s probably best to go the public school route and
tell myself that I’m not behind and that everything will work out in the end.

***

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, The Deveraux Legacy Series, and numerous
short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some
serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her
daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

A Christmas Like No Other

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A Christmas Like No Other

By Lois Winston

When I was a child, we didn’t have much in the way of holiday celebrations. Without going into lurid details, let’s just say my parents never should have had one child, let alone four. However, the one thing I did learn from them was how not to be a parent. As a result, I’ve always made sure holidays were a big deal in my family — decorating, tree trimming, cookie baking, listening to holiday music, and watching holiday movies are some of our favorite activities. I even enjoy shopping for those perfect gifts for everyone. And always topping my holiday list is gathering with family and friends. 

Of course, Covid-19 has forced us to pare that down severely this year, but instead of moping, I’ve decided to focus on next year’s holidays when—hopefully—this awful pandemic will finally be behind us. First up on my to-do list will be booking a flight to California to visit our son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren we haven’t seen for what seems like forever, except on FaceTime.

 

For much of my adult life I juggled three careers at once. I’m now retired from two of them and concentrating full-time on my writing. I’m used to spending my days working from home. That’s the one part of my life that hasn’t been impacted by the pandemic. Escaping into the world of Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth, has been a way for me to block out all the horrible things that have occurred during 2020. 

 

She, of course, would have it otherwise, but I get it. She didn’t ask to go from a normal life as a middle-class working wife and mother to a debt-ridden single-parent who constantly stumbles across dead bodies. Then again, conflict is the name of the game when writing, and cozy mysteries do need their fair share of dead bodies. Readers kind of expect that. Besides, otherwise, what would an amateur sleuth do for 300 pages?

 

So far, I’ve written nine novels and three novellas in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, but the action has taken place over little more than a year at this point. When the series arc brought me to December, I knew I was going to have fun writing a Christmas mystery. As a matter of fact, I had so much fun writing Drop Dead Ornaments, Book 7 in the series, that I decided to write a second Christmas mystery. Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, Book 8, picks up days after Drop Dead Ornaments ends.

 

Hey, there’s nothing like a little murder with your eggnog and gingerbread cookies, right?

 

As a holiday gift to my readers, the ebook edition of Drop Dead Ornaments is currently on sale through the end of December for only .99 cents.

 

Happy holidays, everyone!

 

Drop Dead Ornaments

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 7

 

Anastasia Pollack’s son Alex is dating Sophie Lambert, the new kid in town. For their community service project, the high school seniors have chosen to raise money for the county food bank. Anastasia taps her craft industry contacts to donate materials for the students to make Christmas ornaments they’ll sell at the town’s annual Holiday Crafts Fair.

 

At the fair Anastasia meets Sophie’s father, Shane Lambert, who strikes her as a man with secrets. She also notices a woman eavesdropping on their conversation. Later that evening when the woman turns up dead, Sophie’s father is arrested for her murder.

 

Alex and Sophie beg Anastasia to find the real killer, but Anastasia has had her fill of dead bodies. She’s also not convinced of Shane’s innocence. Besides, she’s promised younger son Nick she’ll stop risking her life. But how can she say no to Alex?

 

Buy Links
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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

 

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Pandemic, Protests, and Privilege

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By AB Plum

Paraphrasing E.L. Doctorow, “Writing is a socially
acceptable form of committing murder.”

I’ve been killing a lot of characters this past month.

Not because the pandemic has demanded much of a change
in my life. I, basically, lead a life of privilege. I think killing “the bad
guys” is my way of venting frustration about the handling of the pandemic fueled by institutional racism.

Food, good, fresh food,
appears on my table nightly. The house where I live provides more than adequate
shelter. Walking daily remains part of my routine. I am white, well educated,
and healthy (except for a heart condition that puts me in the “Higher Risk” COVID-19 category). One risk I don’t have to deal with: 
living in constant fear of the police.

I like to think I’m smart enough to be grateful for my
lot in life and to be sensitive to so many others less fortunate. (It sounds
self-serving, but I grew up poor as dirt and have never forgotten my deep roots
in poverty).

Unconsciously, I write about flawed characters who
often are well-to-do. Many of them, though, have memories of being poor,
disenfranchised, ill, mentally incapacitated, and marginalized because of race
and/or gender.

In my Ryn Davis Mystery
Series, she runs a safe house for former prostitutes. With Hispanic surnames,
little education, less money, and children with absentee fathers, these women
are struggling to learn computer skills that will give them better chances to map
out independent lives and to protect their children. None of them has ever met un policia they trusted.

Beau “Peep” Scott earned millions as a drummer in The
Stoned Gang. The rock group’s name is apt since Beau burned too many gray cells
to take care of his fortune. His parents were drug addicts who neglected him,
and he deals daily with people’s sneers about his intellect. He adores Ryn and
may be the only man she trusts completely.

Elijah White, former Stanford law school and business grad,
successful corporate attorney, and the oldest of five siblings, now runs his
own PI business in Southern California. He remembers going to bed hungry. His
father was shot and killed by a cop.

Angie, a former Ph.D. candidate in biology and the
abused, runaway wife of a Silicon Valley tycoon, is about to hang out her shingle
as a vet for the homeless. She lived on the streets when she met Ryn. She
shares an affinity with Elijah and Beau for 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. She
also understands classism from the perspective of a trophy wife to a toothless
bag lady.

These are a few of my regular characters in the series.
I’ve not killed any of them and don’t see that happening in the next book at
least. Instead, I look forward to exploring greed, lust, and power as the
primary reason for murder—and maybe for most of society’s woes.


***  AB Plum
lives, walks, and writes in the heart of Silicon Valley. No Little Lies, her third book in the Ryn Davis Mystery Series hits
Amazon on July 6. Preorder here.  
























Visions of the Future

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He says he fell in the deep end,
thank goodness, or he’d’ve
hit his head on the steps.

Y’all my 65-year-old fully dressed husband fell into our pool whilst washing down the deck. It reminded me of something I’ve seen recently that said “You can tell if you’re old by how people react when you fall. If they laugh first, you’re young. If they immediately run to you to ensure you’re okay, you’re old.”

Well, I did the second scenario with him. All he needed help with was the removal of his hearing aids. Which made me laugh and then our 17-year-old son and I fell into a huge fit of the giggles. My sweet husband may never live this down. It’s been three days and his shoes are still soaked because he won’t listen to me tell him to take out the soles and set the shoes and the inserts in the hot almost-summer sun we’ve been enjoying here on the outskirts of Charleston.

In April he turned 65, which makes this the once a decade nine months of teasing I get to subject him to because our ages are flipped. He’s 65 and I’m 56. I think it’s hilarious. He shakes his head at me a la Desi at Lucy.

Which got me to thinking about the romance that we write, the beginning, falling in love, and getting to know one another. The first time they fart is kinda cute, the “don’t go down the hall or near the guest bathroom anytime soon” is equally adorable but never written about.

When I was a child, our family would go on two-week trips with another couple and their niece and nephews. I usually shared the room with the couple and the niece. Once I caught the wife trimming her husband’s bushy eyebrows. I said, “Wait, is that a thing? Am I going to be doing that when I’m older?” She replied, “Only if you’re lucky enough to be in a relationship this long.”

Mary Grace Coker Couch and 
Dud Spiegel (DS) Couch, Jr.

When I could drive myself to Easley, SC from either college in Columbia or home in Charleston, I’d visit with my grandparents once a month of my own volition. My grandfather would wait until I visited so I could cut his nails. He said when I trimmed them; they didn’t need filing. Whatever magic I did, left them perfect. He might have said this so I’d visit more often, but it worked.

My grandfather got very sick toward the end. My grandmother and I would sit at the kitchen counter playing solitaire and not speaking before nine in the morning (her rule). Papa would venture down the hall to the restroom from his bed. Nanny would eagle-eye and sonic-ear his every move. It made me sad but joyful that their intense love affair had lasted over sixty years. She was attuned to his every move.

As I’m writing my stories of the blossoming of love, I’m instilling in that depth of feeling the longevity and faithfulness of many years to come. The stinky bathrooms, the wiry eyebrows, the missteps into pools while fully dressed and while the spouse is on a conference call, the never getting the order right at the drive-thru, the refilling of the coffee cups without asking, the Batman signal of the empty tea pitcher on the counter, the kiss every time one of them departs or arrives, all melt into one beautiful love story that’s lurking in the unwritten epilogue.

When you read a story, do you ever picture the hero and heroine as a long-time couple with all their quirks and habits?

For example, imagine Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy in their fifties. They’re 21 and 28 when she accepts his proposal. How will they change but still be in love thirty years later?

What would they be doing to get on one another’s nerves? What would they do to show their deep love? Would they finally be straight with one another and not hide behind their words? Will she still think he’s hot when his dad bod goes swimming in the pond?  Will she caution him not to be reckless on his horse? What’s his reaction when she’s gone on one of her extensive walks and hasn’t returned by tea-time?

Are they enjoying being home together all time, since Mr. Darcy lives off interest income? How do they spend this time? Do they have couple friends? Dinner parties? Travel? Is she exasperated with him now that she’s hit menopause? Is he worried about losing his hair?

My take? I think Fitzwilliam will take joy in his wife being her own person and speaking her mind, I can see him watching her with pride at dinner parties or when she’s taking the lead in community events. And Elizabeth/Lizzy will pamper on him and sit in his lap by the fireplace for years to come, much to their children’s and servants’ chagrin.

I might be embedding my relationship with my husband in their storyline though, what are your thoughts?

—-

Robin Hillyer-Miles writes romance of the contemporary, magic-realism, and cozy mystery varieties. “West End Club” appears in the anthology “Love in the Lowcountry: A Winter Holiday Edition.” She’s writing “Cathy’s Corner” a 45,000-word contemporary romance set in the fictional town of Marion’s Corner, SC.

Robin lives near Charleston, SC where she works part-time for the YWCA Greater Charleston (she took this photo <<< on 12/11/2020 her first day on the job) and gives tours of downtown Charleston (when there’s not a shutdown because of a pandemic). Her yoga instructing has fallen by the wayside but she strives to continue her home practice (it’s fallen by the wayside too, honestly).

She and her husband of 24-years love working from home together. Their teenage son enjoys finishing his junior year of high school online. The dogs don’t know what’s going on but they are digging all the attention. Her husband insists she needs a pool wherever they live, and she’s been enjoying the heck out of it during this stay at home order.

You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobinHillyerMilesAuthorTourGuideYoga

The anthology is offered on Amazon in paperback or e-book here: