I did not achieve 30 hours of writing this week, only 26.5, mostly because since midday today I lay on the sofa and ate an entire pack of Oreos and watched a tranche of Netflix and YouTube documentaries on SARS and H1N1 because I am a moron. But still, I am about to send my story to my beta reader, universe bless her wonderful brain.

I bought my ticket yesterday to Gay Lit Oz in Sydney in March 2021 (Australia’s own dedicated LGBTQ+ genre author event) so I can go and squeal at amazing authors and buy many books and generally fangirl with windmilling arms all over the show. Tickets are an incredibly reasonable AUD$20 per day so if you’re in Aussie (or NZ) consider going along .

I was working overtime yesterday when Jacinda announced everyone – everyone – entering NZ must self-isolate for 14 days on arrival. I came home exhausted and experiencing other people’s generalized crushing anxiety. Fucking mirror neurons. My gut clenches and my brain circles around “what if,” “what next” all without any input from my logic circuits and I’m ridiculous. I haven’t been this glued to news websites since September 2001. Going forward I am allowing myself 2 x 10 min news updates per day and that’s it.

I understand the reasoning. I understand we need to flatten the curve. But I have people in my cancer support group saying they won’t be going to their oncologist appointment this week because it’s “too dangerous” to expose themselves.

This is a long-haul journey. An effective globally available vaccine is reportedly a couple of years away. Australia is making noises that their copycat travel restrictions will be in place for at least 6 months, so I guess ours will be about the same. We can’t put life on hold for 6 months. And yet I grok the reflex jerk.

Goal for the week:

Acknowledge anxiety and release it. Let it drift past as the universe flows on.

Keep writing, every day.