Happy New Year!

Photo by Antonio Gabola on Unsplash

Although Covid-19 is far from over, the dreaded year of 2020 is over and we start today with a new chapter.

Vaccines have been and are still being created and, despite the high toll the winter season celebrations will have on the spread of the virus in the weeks and months to come, we have every reason to look ahead with optimism. And it is exactly that, a virus. It’s not a supervillain bent on the ruination of or total domination of the world. It’s just a virus like so many others, only it’s new so we have no long-acquired immunity to it.

Hopefully our beloved local businesses will be able to open again and start picking up the pieces soon, people laid off and furloughed will be able to go back to work, and our lives will be able to return to something resembling normal.

 

I’ve never been a New Year Resolution kind of person. But, I am about promising myself new starts and doing better going forward, and that can happen randomly at any time throughout the year. Of course, we all know the saying about best laid plans.

Since March I’ve promised myself to blog more, write more, edit more, and read more. That despite being among the lucky few still able to be working the ‘pays the bills’ job full time and other commitments to family and the writing community.

 

Like so many others, I’ve been in a funk since our first shutdown in March. In roughly 2 ½ months I’ll have been working from home for a full year. It would be a dream if not for the near total isolation of seeing the world through the front window and in-person social contact being relegated only to a pair of teenagers, my partner, and two dogs. One of those dogs lives to be an asshole, but she’s still cute, cuddly, and lovable; and can cover your entire body like a blanket if she lays across you.

 

As socially distanced (aka physically apart) as we are, we are all in this trying time together. Let’s be together (apart), help each other, and most importantly be kind and forgiving towards each other.

Simplify your life by rehoming things of valuable use to others that you have no need of. Those out of work are struggling and have no means to buy these things.

Share a smile and a wave with a neighbor or a stranger from a distance.

Pay forward or commit an act of kindness to a stranger.

Be extra kind to those serving us daily in the stores, delivering our parcels and groceries, looking after our loved ones in hospitals and care homes, and all our first responders. They are going through an unbelievable amount of stress right now.

Give a little something of yourself, safely, to help others.

 

I do promise myself, again, to blog more, write, edit, and read more. And to share that to help others.

We will explore character development and story arcs, formatting and editing, platforms and self-promotion, and more. The world of writing and being a writer is as vast as the worlds we build in our stories.

 

You can sign up for my infrequent Author of Darkness newsletter or follow my fan blogs for my two pen names: L. V. Gaudet (adult fiction) and Vivian Munnoch (youth and YA fiction).

 

Let’s continue to meet (virtually) in the new year and grow together as writers, because that’s what being a writer is all about.