General Update (aka 2020 Takes Its Toll)
Things have been … surreal lately, for lack of a better word. Protesters tear-gassed in front of the White House, protesters tear-gassed a mile from my house—all while protesting against police brutality. Meanwhile, a global pandemic rages, and will almost certainly surge again. And amidst all this, I spent two weeks in the hospital while being treated for an auto-immune disorder. A one-time occurrence, or something (else) I have to deal with for the rest of my life? It’s too early to tell.
Days pass, and yet time stands still. I’m just super-grateful I’m home, and safe. I’m grateful that we’re healthy and have everything we need.
My editor has returned notes to me regarding the first half of the Book 3 draft. Over coming days, I’ll start reviewing them to the best of my ability. I absolutely can’t set timeframes for completion at this point, LOL; that concept seems so foreign right now. I still have medical stuff to deal with weekly, if not more often. I’ll finish when I finish, and do my best to keep you informed of progress.
Be safe and be healthy!
8 thoughts on “General Update (aka 2020 Takes Its Toll)”
Hello Ellis!
Since we haven’t heard much from you here and considering 2020 seems to start showing some mercy:
How are you ?
Everything fine?
Kind regards,
Walter
Lieber Walter! Du bist ein treuer Freund!!
Please permit me to write a more detailed blog post when I’m in a better place mentally to do it. For now, I can say that I’ve been healthy since June, and my family has been, too. (Thank goodness!) Since we live in Pennsylvania, we were thrilled that our votes helped to decide the election in Biden’s favor! I didn’t celebrate in the streets—the grocery store, the hospital, and doctors’ offices are the only places I’ve gone since March—but I shared the sentiment.
Und wie geht es dir? Ich hoffe alles bei dir schön ist! :)
Hi Ellis,
I’m just happy to hear that you are OK, don’t worry about the details.
We are on our second lockdown to get things under control, and as it seems it’ll take until end of November, but otherwise I am doing well.
Bitte gib acht auf dich, dieses Jahr und seine Prüfungen sind nicht zu unterschätzen. Der erste Lockdown hat mir mental mehr zugesetzt als ich mir je hätte erträumen lassen, aber mit Hilfe von Freunden und Familie ging es wieder besser.
Stay Safe!
Ich glaube dass der erste Lockdown schwer für *alle* war. Everyone had to make big adjustments in some way. I’m so glad you had help to get through it.
Kennst du Stoizismus? You may want to read the advice the Stoic philosophers had with regard to imprisonment and exile. It has helped me at times. Here also is a video that explains a different lockdown strategy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck You can also pretend you’re on some kind of special mission. It sounds silly, but it may help!
Viel Glück zu dir mit dem zweiten Lockdown. I would prefer another lockdown to the denial of reality that so many people have here. We have no leadership at the national level, obviously. On my state and local level, it seems leaders are too afraid to lock down again for fear of angry armed idiots showing up at capitol buildings and such. Enforcement of mask-wearing, social distancing, etc. has also been lax. People who understand the risks are the ones wearing masks and quarantining themselves at this point. I fear how bad it will get with winter and holidays coming up. All I can do is stay at home, keep away from the news, handle one day at a time.
Ich hoffe die Zukunft wird für uns besser sein!
Hi Ellis,
are you still around?
Up until now I took solace in getting some signs of life from you over at https://thedailywtf.com/ but there you weren’t active since March.
Hoping to hear from you!
Walter, thank you for thinking of me! It has taken me a while to realize it, but I finally understand that I well and truly burned out last year, and need time away from everything in order to recover. Health-wise, I’ve been great since leaving the hospital, but I’ve needed to do (and still need to do) a lot of “reprogramming” emotionally to avoid falling back into the old habits that led to burnout in the first place.
I don’t know when or what I’ll return to. The only thing I know for sure at this point is that I’ll be walking down a much nicer path.
I hope you and yours have been well. Take care!
Hello Ellis, hope you are well. Just wondering when you will be back to posting and writing.
Hello, Ari! Due to personal circumstances, I’m still on hiatus with novel-writing. However, I hope to be writing articles for The Daily WTF again on a more regular basis. Thanks for checking in!