Is this thing still on? **tap tap**

OK, so the global pandemic has changed the world. The UK formally went into lockdown in March 2020 – exactly 69 weeks ago tomorrow. I know the week count, because I have been keeping score, making a note at the top of my notebook every time I go into a new week working from home.

Technically England comes out of lockdown tomorrow, with all social restrictions removed, and the wearing of masks becoming voluntary, not compulsory. But several supermarkets and retail chains have already announced that they expect their customers to carry on wearing them, and London and several other major cities have also declared that mask wearing will still be compulsory on public transport. I am specifying ‘England’ here because the other nations of the United Kingdom have announced different rules.

But the pandemic is by no means over, and the uncertainty we’ve all had to live with for the last 18 months or so continues. We’ve all struggled in various ways. I have found it difficult to write during the pandemic, and I have neglected this blog. Dealing with the real world has been stressful enough – trying to work out what to write about seemed too much.

However, no matter what happens in the future I want to try and regain some focus on the writing. I have recently completed the second draft of the fourth book in the Shara Summers series. I enjoy writing about this character, but I am not sure what the future holds for this series. The first two books, previously published by Muse It Up, are currently unavailable since the publisher recently closed its doors. The third book is looking for a home and currently unpublished, and the fourth book nobody else has read but me.

I intend to self-publish the first two, once I get the rights back. It would be nice to find another publisher for the rest of the series, but I am uncertain if publishers are happy to pick up a series in the middle, and it seems no one wants to take on previously published work these days. Self-publishing might be the way forward, but that seems like a minefield that will be intimidating to navigate.

On the horror fiction side, things are even more uncertain. I have a very short first draft of a sequel to OUTPOST H311, which was a struggle to write – I found it difficult to write about an apocalypse when it felt like we were living through one. Sooner or later I do want to go back to this and finish it, but I’m not in the right head space for it at the moment.

Maybe it’s time to start something new. But I am short of new ideas at present. Dealing day-to-day with life in a pandemic seems to be sucking up most of my mental energy.

As England heads into what is being called ‘Freedom Day’ there is still a lot of uncertainty. I am still working from home and will be doing so for the foreseeable future, since there is no word yet on when we’re expected back in the office, and foreign holidays, which I have been sorely missing, are still off the table. It has been four years since I last visited my family in Canada, a place I was used to visiting at least once every two years, and since Canada’s borders are closed to non-nationals I have no idea when we’ll be able to get over there. And by the time they open up their borders, the UK might well be back in lockdown.

But I do intend to at least pick up the blog again, with a new post at least once a week. This, at least, gives me a modicum of control in a world that seems out of control.

Till next week, then, I wish you all the best in whatever it is you are doing. Even if that is just getting through the day.