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quoththeravynSomehow there's not that much to say when you're retired. I see it's been essentially a year since my last confession.
I've settled in pretty well. Pre-plague, there was lots of stuff to do here, and lots of interesting people to talk to, have dinner with, listen to. I'm living in a continuing care retirement center near Denver. Oddly enough I went from being one of the older people in my circles to one of the youngest.
And then the virus rolled in. Since there are lots of folks here with complications of various kinds, the management figured out how to let us isolate and interact only at a distance, before it was required. And it's been quite successful. There have been six cases of residents in the independent living section who've tested positive, out of about 1700. Also seven employees. All of this seems to have come from outside the community (for example, one couple came back from a cruise in the Caribbean in early March and spent a month being ill after they returned). In the assisted living building, there have been zero cases, and they have actually tested everybody. I'd say that's a big win.
Now comes the relaxation of the rules, and I hope people continue being careful. The unrest in the streets is a poor mix for a pandemic, but free speech isn't free, and unconscionable things are going on out there that require a response.
Meanwhile, there's been lots of solitude and time on my hands, so I've spiffed up a pair of novels I've had moldering on my hard drive for way too long. First the queue is the story of the Ravyn persona (somebody who lives here in my head with several other people; less imaginary than most of the characters in my fiction). The title is Ravynscroft and it started as a grief memoir which grew, as the main character picked herself up from a broken queer marriage and began sharing her house and her love with increasing numbers of people, into wry commentary on monogamy. I honestly don't think I knew I felt that way, except that it didn't work for me in real life.
This is a second novel in a series that started with my already published novel Necessary Lies. It intersects incidentally, here and there.
Next in the queue, for later in the summer or early fall, is a time travel novel I wrote some years ago that I've now punched up and put back together again, But Before That.
And then I used November to do a nano-esque assembly of a bunch of related vignettes into a much rougher and draftier novel that's a direct sequel, a decade on, to Necessary Lies. It's going to take... I dunno, a year maybe, to make it presentable. It'd help if I knew where it's going, plot-wise.
I hope things are going as well as could be expected, for all of you. I'd promise to write more often, but it seems, based on my past performance, that would be unlikely. Perhaps when the book hits the street...
I've settled in pretty well. Pre-plague, there was lots of stuff to do here, and lots of interesting people to talk to, have dinner with, listen to. I'm living in a continuing care retirement center near Denver. Oddly enough I went from being one of the older people in my circles to one of the youngest.
And then the virus rolled in. Since there are lots of folks here with complications of various kinds, the management figured out how to let us isolate and interact only at a distance, before it was required. And it's been quite successful. There have been six cases of residents in the independent living section who've tested positive, out of about 1700. Also seven employees. All of this seems to have come from outside the community (for example, one couple came back from a cruise in the Caribbean in early March and spent a month being ill after they returned). In the assisted living building, there have been zero cases, and they have actually tested everybody. I'd say that's a big win.
Now comes the relaxation of the rules, and I hope people continue being careful. The unrest in the streets is a poor mix for a pandemic, but free speech isn't free, and unconscionable things are going on out there that require a response.
Meanwhile, there's been lots of solitude and time on my hands, so I've spiffed up a pair of novels I've had moldering on my hard drive for way too long. First the queue is the story of the Ravyn persona (somebody who lives here in my head with several other people; less imaginary than most of the characters in my fiction). The title is Ravynscroft and it started as a grief memoir which grew, as the main character picked herself up from a broken queer marriage and began sharing her house and her love with increasing numbers of people, into wry commentary on monogamy. I honestly don't think I knew I felt that way, except that it didn't work for me in real life.
This is a second novel in a series that started with my already published novel Necessary Lies. It intersects incidentally, here and there.
Next in the queue, for later in the summer or early fall, is a time travel novel I wrote some years ago that I've now punched up and put back together again, But Before That.
And then I used November to do a nano-esque assembly of a bunch of related vignettes into a much rougher and draftier novel that's a direct sequel, a decade on, to Necessary Lies. It's going to take... I dunno, a year maybe, to make it presentable. It'd help if I knew where it's going, plot-wise.
I hope things are going as well as could be expected, for all of you. I'd promise to write more often, but it seems, based on my past performance, that would be unlikely. Perhaps when the book hits the street...
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-03 11:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-04 12:09 am (UTC)And yeah. A place like this could either be the worst or the best place to ride out a pandemic. Thankfully, it's one of the best.