Marie Alice Writes & Reads

Diary of a writing project. Day 169: Writing quarantine – First of fourteen

The libraries are closed. Among severals other institutions and public services. Order of the government. It’s understandable. There’s a pandemic after all.

When I heard the news though, that’s when I started to feel real uneasy about this whole virus thing. Not that I was so comfortable with the idea in the first place!

The libraries are closed. Among severals other institutions and public services. Order of the government.

It’s understandable. There’s a pandemic after all.

When I heard the news though, that’s when I started to feel real uneasy about this whole virus thing. Not that I was so comfortable with the idea in the first place!

Books are my safety blanket, a beautiful source of comfort, whenever real-life gets… troubled. And so is the library. With the soft smell of paper, ink, dust and whatever product they use in the bathrooms.
I do wonder, how many of you, fellow writers, feels this way about books and libraries?

We’re lucky. This house is packed with books, for I have a bit of a « you can never buy too many books ».

And we are both working from home in the first place – even though I don’t have any freelance writing gigs at the moment – , so work-wise, money-wise, it’s fine, kinda, I think.

Adjusting the writing routine will be my biggest challenge for the coming weeks.

Taking care of a young kid is a full-time job, plain and simple, so I plan to write very early in the morning, during nap time and in the evening, like I always do.

Today, at 8 pm, I was not able to focus on the manuscript anymore but unable to sleep either. One of those weird side effects of the pandemic, anxiety.

Here I am, trying to find fun and free indoors activities for kiddo and me. Also trying to find ways to not become a crazy yelling mess, like I was this morning.

Well, better sleep on it I guess.

Dear fellow writers, all the best in your current writing endeavours.

Diary of a writing project. Day 168: geese convention

Two villages were built near a water basin lost in the middle of a fertile plain.

A village for the rich. A village for the poor.

At that time, anglophone were the rich and the francophone, the poor.

As time went by, the villages merge to become one small town.

That’s where we decided to live. We liked the water, the view, the house we bought, one of the only one with a big tree on the front lawn.

All the relevant questions were asked and answered and vice-versa.

But we didn’t ask anything about the geese. And so, it was told to us that, twice a year, for a month or so, canadian geese held a convention on the near by quiet waters of the basin.

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Diary of a writing project. Day 167: The gloomy novel idea I will never work on

At first, I thought it would make a good novel.

The in-famous Covid-19 was just starting to spread its viral wings-tentacles-thing-ys, and getting out of China was becoming a problem.
The government of my friendly country sent an airplane to bring many people home.
Among those people was a family of four.
Problem was, the husband, both with Chinese and Canadian citizenship, was to stay behind. In the infected zone.

On the radio-show I listen to every morning or so, for a week or two, we’d listen to her anxious plea to get her whole family back home. Back to safety.

In real-life, this story has a happy ending.

However, in my mind…

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