Pandemic ponderings

Yesterday I got together with one of my writers' groups face-to-face, for the first time since lockdown.  It was a very different meeting from our previous gatherings.  Usually, we are focused on our writing achievements, and goal-setting for the next month.  The meetings are usually very joyful, with lots of laughter.  We did try to keep to that format, but the pandemic made some people's reports rather sparse.

I've adjusted to life in lockdown without any major discontinuities.  My life was already centred around my writing, and that hasn't changed.  My writing routine has changed from writing in cafes to writing at home, but I have managed to motivate myself to keep on working.  But that has not been the case for the other members of the group.

There are three romance writers in the group, and two of them confessed that they no longer want to write romance.  They didn't know what they wanted to write instead, but were content to let the answer come slowly via their intuition.  The third writer, a paranormal romance writer, has done the opposite.  During lockdown she's managed to secure a six-book contract for her novellas.  She recently had problems with Amazon taking down her books, so this is good news.  Last time I saw her, before lockdown, she was despairing about the whole situation, and threatening to give up writing.  It was good to see her feeling upbeat about her writing again.

I too have been questioning the value of what I'm doing.  I always write hopeful stories which are on the light side. I don't do dystopian, and I don't do blood-soaked anything.  There is rarely much explicit violence in my books.

Now I'm working on two books which are elaborate riddle quests.  There is threat and danger in them, but the biggest threat lurks off the page.  And in the midst of the doom and gloom in real life I'm questioning whether it's worth even submitting it right now.  The group reassured me that people will want to read hopeful things, and endorsed my idea of submitting two different novels at the same time.

I had mixed feelings about the meet up.  I guess I was missing the easy banter and ready laughter we usually share, but it was unreasonable of me to expect that right now.  The pandemic has radically changed things, and not for the better.