As you may know, I am a health care provider. I own a dental practice and am responsible for the care of a couple thousand people, and the livelihood of five more, including myself. We’ve been shut down during this pandemic; we will reopen soon but we are at the mercy of our supplies of PPE (that’s personal protective equipment, if you don’t know by now). Masks, especially, are hard to come by, as are some surface disinfectants like Lysol spray. At first we couldn’t find hand sanitizer, liquid soap, paper towels, any type of surface disinfectant, alcohol, and even hydrogen peroxide. Now, some of those things are more available. Not like pre-Covid-19 levels, but we can get them, sometimes at inflated prices.

Anyway, that’s only there to point out that there are many distractions from being creative, and this pandemic has provided even more. When we first closed, I felt good. I didn’t think we’d be closed long, and I was able to get some needed rest and concentrate on writing. But since my last post, which was approximately 6 weeks ago, I’ve accomplished very little on the writing front. I think about the stories I have going. I’ve been concentrating mostly on two novel-length projects. The first is that Addison Falls novel that you can read about in my previous post if you’d like. The second is a third (or fourth, if you count the prequel short story volume) in the vampire detective series. I was inspired to start on that one after re-reading LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton, and then following it up with his NIGHT LIFE story (featuring some of the same characters) and LOT LIZARDS, both of which exist in the same universe. I wanted a different “vibe” to the story and Garton’s works provided me with a glimpse of the neon-y cheap strip club vibe that I think might make it work better.

I haven’t had a lot of ideas for NEW works beyond the stuff I already have going. As we prepare to get back to work at our office, I hope to reduce the distractions and stress levels associated with continuing on in this pandemic. It’s probably wishful thinking, but hey, gotta hope for the best, right?