A New Year and a New Blog Update Too

Happy New Year, dear readers—and what a year it’s been. Somehow, we’ve managed to make it through an entire year of pandemic insanity…and we might have to push through another one, as the pandemic doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.

Thanks to the general insanity of last year, you may have noticed that this blog hasn’t been updating as frequently as it used to. While I generally prefer not to talk about myself on this blog, I figured I owed you all some kind of explanation. Some big things happened, too, so I figured I’d let you know about that as well.

Things that happened this past year and a half that have forced me to put my blog on hold, more or less:

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I was offered a book contract, which failed: In late summer of 2019, I was offered a book contract for my novel—the same one which inspired this blog, actually. This was extremely exciting, and I started making plans to revamp everything and refocus my content back to true crime. Unfortunately, before I could sign anything, the contract fell through in early 2020. The experience was both extremely exciting and extremely depressing, and I’ve been struggling with my writing ever since.

My job got really insane: So, as my bio on here says, I work for a public library. During 2020, as the virus gained major ground in my state, my job…changed. Not only did everything about my job change, but for most of the pandemic, rather than working from home, I’ve been forced to work with the virus-laden public face to face every day for hours—many of whom still won’t wear face masks. Since my medical issues put me at greater risk of dying from Covid-19, the whole situation has personally been very stressful. It doesn’t help, either, that my department lost over half our staff this year while our workload increased—literally, my boss actually calculated it out—by 500%. My boss refused to hire any replacements as well. While I’m grateful to still have a job in this crazy time, it’s been physically and emotionally draining, and all I really do now is collapse on the couch when I get home…which hasn’t been great for my writing output.

My grandma died: The day after Christmas, my grandmother died rather suddenly from Covid-19. Though she’d been diagnosed a few months ago with terminal throat cancer, she was supposed to have three to six months left to live, and I had planned to go see her in January once I got my vacation time back. Needless to say, that won’t be happening. The whole thing was pretty awful, and I’m still upset about it, honestly.

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Suffice it to say, with everything that’s been going on, I’ve struggled to find the energy to write in general. However, I’d like to keep this blog from dying…I’m just not sure how regularly I’ll be able to post going forward.

Thanks, though, for all of you who continue to stop by and read this blog. Just knowing that there are still folks out there who read what I write on here helps a lot. Hopefully, you’ll all stick around for this year, too.

Happy new year, folks.

May 2021 be better for all of us.