2021 - Looking Ahead #scifirom #amwriting

 

A Happy New Year to you! Not that it, apparently, has gotten off to that good a start. I must admit that on the 1st of January, I didn't foresee much to celebrate. After all, we'd just gone into yet another lockdown here in the UK and amidst a mass of uncertainty over a return to school (and so to work for me), which turned into last minute closure. Welcome to 2021 on Plague Island! 

And it's not just lockdown for us humans. We're also in the midst of an avian flu epidemic which has seen my poor girls lockdown and me scurrying to bring in bio-security for them too, with a wild bird proof run, no free-ranging, and a disinfectant footbath at their door. All in all, not the most fortuitous start to the new year. But 2020 did have some compensations...

Writing Update

2020 was many bad things for lots of people. But if it had a silver lining for me, it was managing to finish off and edit two novellas, one that released on the 21st December (Solstice on Vintro), the other due for release on the 20th March this year (Lost Serenity), thanks to the discovery that my muse is very much powered by a high level of boredom - the result of six months off work due to the pandemic. I also sent a short story to my editor, but that turned out rather problematic and is still sitting in my to be done pile, so no release date on that. I also committed to edits on book three of my main series in June...

Chook Update

Sadly, 2020 was not kind to my feathered friends. I rehomed two of my squawkier girls due to husband's anxiety. He felt much better but for quite some time it took the heart out of me and my interest in chooks. Then we lost our old matriarch Scoop - the last of our original three and forever the boss - to what I can only assume was old age. She was a majestic eight and a half years old. 

Then just before Christmas, I lost one of my three little madams - Nova. This was my first time losing a girl I had hatched myself, and at just a year and a half old and in good health (as far as I could tell). I was heartbroken. Especially as avian flu had just been called as a major incident and I'd just taken all my bio-security measures (for the first time in my nine years as a chicken keeper). Of course, I was worried she would be the first of them all, though I checked her over very carefully for any signs of the disease, and she'd shown no signs at all of being poorly. But three weeks on and the rest of my girls seem happy and healthy - after a struggle to get weight back on them after their moult, they are now quite rounded (but not fat!) and mystery girl Pixie is even laying her lovely pale blue eggs again. All seems well with my feathered fiends...

Despite government restrictions, Christmas didn't change for us - just the immediate family at home. And of course, there were geeky presents.

As for the rest of 2021, well...who knows?!