Coronavirus - stay home (and write) 4

Day 15, and the first signs of improvement. Unfortunately I am now showing signs of the symptoms. Hoping it's just a bad cold that wont go away. However, confined to my bed all day today.

It's really hard to concentrate, so writing anything meaningful is out of the question.

I've contented myself with a couple of descriptive sentences about a few characters. I'm too exhausted to type anymore, so this is a  short one for today.

Stay safe everyone.

Coronavirus - stay home (and write) 3

Hi everyone
Yesterday was day 13 for my other half. We were out of key supplies and I could not get a delivery from any supermarket. I had been trying all week as I watched my medicine cupboard empty of all paracetamol and cold cures and my fridge empty of everything except the milk my husband could no longer drink.

I had no choice but to go out myself. I was feeling fine, a little trouble breathing, but otherwise fine.

I walked to my local supermarket - my phone app tells me it was about 2000 steps to get there, so not far.

To my surprise there was no queue to get in and the shelves were absolutely full - except the pasta aisle. Bread, eggs, chicken, veg and fruit. The dates were not long but there was plenty.
I soon filled my basket and suddenly had no strength to even lift it. Just like that - pouffe and I was weak as a kitten.

I got straight to a till and began slowly unloading my precious cargo. Within seconds I was dizzy, unable to focus and shaking. I got so hot. I was on the point of fainting. A combination of sudden exercise, not eating and lifting a heavy weight a reasonable distance was too much for my lungs and body to cope with. Note to self - if I have to go outside, take a mars bar and a bottle of water.

The staff were superb. They got me a sugary snack and something to drink. A gowned-up first-aider checked my pulse and - at a distance - observed me for 5 mins, checking I was OK

Once I was recovered I was able to pay for my groceries - all neatly packed in my back pack by the checkout staff - and make my way the 2000 steps back. I was home 90 minutes after I'd left the house.

I was wiped for the whole day. But I did get the medicine and food I desperately needed.

Last night my husband actually asked for food. - shepherd's pie. First time in nearly 2 weeks he wanted something. First time in a week I had the ingredients and could actually make him something he wanted to eat.

I am hoping that's the corner turned for him.

Today I woke at 4.55 am. I am in the back bedroom and it doesn't have black-out curtains, so when the sun rises, so do I! The good thing about it today was I was able to get onto a supermarket website and place the long-awaited on-line order. The first time I've been able to do that since this all began. I have had a basket of shopping suspended in the ether for five days. That alone had been a step forward - actually being able to build a basket. Previously as there were no delivery slots, there was no access even to that. I am hoping my vulnerable person registration went through and that's why a  slot came up. I cant possibly go to a supermarket again. I am not strong enough.

So, now I am hoping that the delivery goes ahead on Tuesday.

Needless to say I didn't get any writing done yesterday. Today I am back to working at home (I was actually on annual leave last week!). The plan is to set aside an hour after work. I will let you know how it goes.

Coronavirus - stay home (and write) 2

This is day 12 of my husband's illness. I believe he is a little better - the gaps between debilitating bouts of coughing seem longer. Today I am exhausted. Just having a shower and getting dressed wiped me out. I can almost hear my mind issuing instructions to my limbs to move. My chest hurts. It seems that at some point in the night a person or persons unknown put a tonne weight on my chest and then took a file to my throat. That's what it feels like anyway. Hope its just a cold and stress and not the virus.

On the plus side, I found some hidden paracetamol. Yippee!

Still no luck getting any shopping organised. I'm not on the right lists apparently. That or the supermarkets are still waiting for the government list (I am registered as vulnerable to Covid-19) - pick whichever excuse you like from the call-centre list.

I did manage to get a visit from a fully gowned up district nurse yesterday. Luckily my blood tests are improving. The poor nurse had to strip off her protective clothing on my front lawn and stuff it into a sealed bag, leaving it there with the instruction that I was to double-bag it, leave it for 72 hours and then throw it away. Scary, but necessary precautions in these times.

Now I am at the keyboard and waiting for inspiration. I will try to write a new chapter for Mergers and Acquisitions and if that proves beyond me I will edit Legacy - book 2 in my historical fiction trilogy.

Keep safe everyone.

Coronavirus - stay home (and write)

Hi everyone.

It's been a very long time.

With the coronavirus – Covid-19 – outbreak, here in UK we are confined to our homes.  For the past 10 days I have been unable to leave my home, but luckily, apart from the symptoms of a severe cold and cough, I have been keeping well. My family is scattered across the UK, but all seem fit and well with the notable exception of my husband.

He has the virus (although we are not testing in UK so I cant say with medical certainty). I have never seen him this ill, not even when as an adult he got chicken pox. He has been ill for 11 days. His temperature spikes over 38.4 and the pain is unmanageable. He constantly coughs and that wreaks havoc on his headaches. I’m a huge Terry Goodkind fan and read the Sword of Truth novels with a passion (obsessively some might say!). In those stories the hero, Richard, suffers from headaches so severe they will kill him. Terry’s description of how they affect his character could have been written from life – the life of my husband. It’s terrifying.

All I can do is provide drinks, a little food and pain relief. I cant hug him or stroke his face. Not because I’m heartless but because I am in a high risk category. I suffer with a blood-clotting problem and have had clots on my lungs and this is a  respiratory virus. I daren’t do anything that means I may get it.

What am I doing to keep sane? I decided to go back to my writing, which had been on pause whilst I settled into a new job and recovered from major surgery. I promised myself I’d write at least a few words everyday. I did that through January. Then the  virus began to take hold around the globe and things began to change. 

So, today, 10 days into my house confinement I have picked up my lap top, cleared a work space and begun writing again.

As you may recall, I tend to write multiple projects at the same time. Not sure why, but that’s me! The work I picked up this morning was “Mergers and Acquisitions” a sci-fi novel I began several years ago and have never really been happy with. The characters seemed unreal to me and the scenario flipped from trite to too far-fetched (is that even possible for sci-fi?). The theme? How a hidden cabal of corporate interests cashes-in on a word-wide pandemic to take control of our planet. Now,  I can re-write portions of that with real life experience. Not what I would have wanted by a long way, but, writers should write from experience as well as imagination.

In between sneezes, coughing and aching limbs I will set my self the task of completing and publishing this short novel. I will let you know when its available.

Stay well. stay safe, and stay indoors.

Time Flies...

Well it's been a very long time since I last posted any news here.
In that time I have continued to write but not as frequently as I wanted. Now I have taken the plunge and changed jobs, after 28 years with my previous employer! It's been a bit of an upheaval all round, but I work a 4 day week in my new job to free up time for writing. I have just been given a new laptop by my husband - one that actually works! - and now I'm hitting the keyboard with renewed zeal.

1000 words this evening and two new outlines for short stories. Finally the old me is back.

The power of reviews

There I was, actively avoiding writing more of the sequel to Loyalty; wandering around the internet, reading tweets I would normally skim over. You know the drill! Then I came across a review of Loyalty on the US Amazon site. "Could not put it down" they wrote. Wow! It is so wonderful to know someone enjoyed my work. I'm still smiling. Better still, I have several paragraphs of Legacy completed.
From now on I'm going to make sure I review the books I read, hopefully I'll make a struggling Author smile 😀

Quotations

Ocassionaly I find a quote that resonates with me. I was staying in Bloomsbury recently and the following came to mind:

Virginia Woolf

Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband.

She also wrote:

A woman needs money and a room if her own if she is to write fiction

I try to write about the 'real' women. I'm still working on the money and the room!