28 Mar Hitting My Stride
Good Saturday morning, everyone! I hope you’re all well and staying in touch with family and friends. As they say, physical isolation doesn’t mean social isolation.
Well, Ted and I finished our second week of social isolation yesterday as I imagine most of you did as well. I won’t lie. There were a few days earlier this week that it got to me a bit, but then my daughter Julia brought her partner Simon, his son Jamie and George the dog over for a visit from a safe distance. We stood on the sidewalk and they sat on the tailgate of their truck. So, no hugs, but a tonic for the soul nonetheless.
I also shook off the doldrums by getting busy working on a new manuscript. The hours passed without me thinking about Covid-19 and the terrible havoc it’s wrought on so many lives and families. I feel as if I accomplished a solid start on another book, hitting about 5,000 words. If I keep up the pace, I could pass James Patterson’s output although the moon will have to be bright blue before that happens. (I know. I know. Don’t tempt the universe.)
I spent the last couple of days working on some publicity for Dundurn. They asked me to video a reading from Closing Time and this took a bit of trial and error as I don’t videotape as a rule. Then, yesterday, they had me take over the Dundurn Instagram account for a fifteen minute ‘chat’. I thought I was going to be writing answers to questions (like I did once on Twitter) and realized a few hours before show time that I’d be live and basically giving a monologue. It took me a while to figure out how to actually log on to the Dundurn account and make the camera go live, then I had to come up with something to say. Anyhow, the fifteen minutes flew by and it was actually fun! Maybe, Facebook live next 🙂 I’m not sure if they’ll be reposting the live chat, but here is the video of me reading from Closing Time . Special shout out to Peter and Janice in PEI and Gary in Ottawa for checking in.
And last weekend, I wrote an article for Crime Reads – this took three days and Dundurn submitted it to them on Monday, I’ll post the link once it’s issued. Dundurn also posted an article I wrote a while back to coincide with the Closing Time release. called, oddly enough, “It’s Closing Time”.
My interview with Dylan Black on Daytime Ottawa was changed from in-studio to phone-in, but even this got cancelled as Rogers understandably shut down the studio to protect their staff. I was looking forward to seeing him again – you can always rewatch our interview for Bleeding Darkness from two years back.
So, I’ve done my part this week to fill up your time with a couple of videos and a post to read. You’re welcome. I’ll try to have more stuff for you to do next week:-) Although, you can always order some books and escape into another world in the meantime.
Until next Saturday — look after yourselves my friends and stay well.
Take a bubble bath.
Call a friend.
Drink wine.