State of the Author, September 2024 edition

It’s been a long month. In fact, it feels like it’s been three long months, all condensed into September.

I was sent copy-edits of Heir of Light, the new Sagara novel (it’s the sequel to Shards of Glass). I was given enough time to do them. I… have a bit of a flinch response to copy-edits. My father’s 90th birthday was this September 11th, and because he’s getting on in years, my sister flew in from LA, and my brother from Victoria. So — we were all going to have dinner together. My sister and brother were staying with my mother at our childhood house, which is what normally happens.

My brother, however, tested positive for covid the day after he arrived.

My father tested positive Tuesday morning. And then things went… badly. So we piled into the car from our non-covid house and headed to my parents house. (I mostly went because his O2 levels were <89 and he did not want to go to the hospital, and I intended to over-ride that. But my sons chose to go because he wasn’t doing well, and they wanted to be able to say good-bye if it came to that.)

My dad actually rallied. He had a high fever — 39 degrees celcius — but his resting temp is 36.4, not 37, and seeing my sons, seeing all of us together, seemed to really make a difference. When he fell asleep, he said that his mother (dead when he was six) had gone away again, so maybe he would be staying for a while >.<)

And my mother tested positive for covid the next day. So: we did not have my dad’s birthday dinner. Instead, we had covid house, and possible covid house (ours).

So there was a lot of writing work interruption — which totally makes sense and was totally expected. My sister did not test positive; she didn’t catch covid. (We believe she actually had an extremely mild case of covid about 2.5 months ago, fwiw.) So she was there, and she could care for my mother and father. My mother being the world’s worst patient.

Everyone did survive; everyone recovered. My mother finds the ease with which she tires now almost insulting — or at least her reaction to it implies that =/. (I did not say: Mom, what do you think Covid IS? Of course you get tired more easily — just give it a couple of weeks.)

Copyedits, however, were due back on the 30th, and I did actually manage to get them out on time (in part because we were overstaffed for Saturday at the store, and I begged off). My brain is a bit mush.

But now I am looking forward to actual uninterrupted writing time while I finish The Wild Road (I think at most 2 chapters, including the one I’m writing now, and epilogue) and getting further in to Cast in Blood, which, as usual, has gone a bit sideways.