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<\/a>Glob\u00adal pan\u00addem\u00adic<\/strong> (e.g., COVID-19): Spend ALL of your day alone, writ\u00ading, with per\u00adhaps your spouse work\u00ading at home as well. Severe\u00adly lim\u00adit your for\u00adays out into pub\u00adlic spaces like gro\u00adcery stores, libraries, restau\u00adrants and the hard\u00adware store. Stay away from movie the\u00adaters and instead watch Dis\u00adney+ at home on your 60\u2033 HDTV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flood, wild\u00adfire, mud\u00adslide or oth\u00ader nat\u00adur\u00adal dis\u00adas\u00adter<\/strong>: Spend ALL of your day alone, writ\u00ading, until the nat\u00adur\u00adal dis\u00adas\u00adter comes uncom\u00adfort\u00adably close to your house, at which point back up all your work and leave with banker\u2019s box\u00ades of your lat\u00adest manuscript\u2014by boat, heli\u00adcopter, log\u00adging skid\u00adder, or oth\u00ader con\u00adveyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immi\u00adnent mete\u00ador col\u00adli\u00adsion with Earth<\/strong>: Spend ALL of your day writ\u00ading, typ\u00ading REALLY fast so you can fin\u00adish the book you\u2019re work\u00ading on before the mete\u00ador hits. Then, try to upload the book to a satel\u00adlite or have it engraved onto a tita\u00adni\u00adum tablet before you\u2019re immo\u00adlat\u00aded. If you have time left over before the mete\u00ador hits, get out\u00adside and take a walk. Maybe try yoga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inva\u00adsion by aliens or a for\u00adeign army<\/strong>: Spend most of your day alone writ\u00ading, keep\u00ading a loaded rifle or shot\u00adgun handy by an open win\u00addow and tak\u00ading fre\u00adquent breaks to sip cof\u00adfee and pick off alien\/foreign mil\u00adi\u00adtary inter\u00adlop\u00aders. Some of the aliens or for\u00adeign mil\u00adi\u00adtary per\u00adson\u00adnel might claim to be fans of your work; don\u2019t be tak\u00aden in; plug \u2019em and get back to your nov\u00adel. Seri\u00adous\u00adly, the news ser\u00advices are mak\u00ading a big deal about how peo\u00adple and com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adties might have to self-iso\u00adlate in order to con\u00adtain the spread of COVID-19. There seems to be a deep-seat\u00aded fear of being alone. When I heard these con\u00adcerns, I said to myself, \u201cIso\u00adla\u00adtion? Soli\u00adtude? Avoid\u00ading large groups? Lim\u00adit\u00ading expo\u00adsure to oth\u00ader peo\u00adple? Talk about in my wheel\u00adhouse! This has been my dai\u00adly life for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now I\u2019m in the mid\u00addle of read\u00ading and revis\u00ading the lat\u00adest draft of the \u201cbig book\u201d\u2014my 600,000-word, 1850-page epic nov\u00adel. There\u00adfore, as dis\u00adrup\u00adtive as the COVID-19 out\u00adbreak might be for oth\u00ader peo\u00adple, pro\u00advid\u00aded I don\u2019t con\u00adtract the virus it won\u2019t change my day-to-day life (read\u00ading and revis\u00ading a long-ass book) one bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t mean to sound flip or cal\u00adlous, because I sin\u00adcere\u00adly hope that this pan\u00addem\u00adic runs its course with a min\u00adi\u00admal loss of life, and I hope my friends, fam\u00adi\u00adly and fans all emerge from this cri\u00adsis unscathed. In the mean\u00adtime, I plan on doing what I\u2019ve always done\u2014hunkering down and writ\u00ading like Issac Asi\u00admov<\/a>. * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n In oth\u00ader news, last month I turned 50 years old, and I went on a great ski\u00ading vaca\u00adtion. Reflect\u00ading on turn\u00ading 50 (and real\u00adiz\u00ading that, sta\u00adtis\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly, I have few\u00ader years left to live than I\u2019ve already lived), I decid\u00aded that while my writ\u00ading career might not be as com\u00admer\u00adcial\u00adly suc\u00adcess\u00adful by this point as I\u2019d once hoped, most oth\u00ader aspects of my life\u2014most notably my health\u2014are excel\u00adlent. I\u2019m con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00ading the plan I put in place a year or so ago: to only spend time with peo\u00adple I tru\u00adly enjoy and to focus on my writ\u00ading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feel\u00ading nos\u00adtal\u00adgic after my 50th birth\u00adday, I spent some time brows\u00ading my junior high school year\u00adbooks and end\u00aded up dis\u00adcov\u00ader\u00ading a pho\u00adto of myself from 7th grade that I\u2019d nev\u00ader noticed before. In the pho\u00adto, I\u2019m read\u00ading a sto\u00adry I wrote to my Eng\u00adlish class (a pho\u00adto of this pho\u00adto appears below, but the orig\u00adi\u00adnal is maybe 1 inch by 2 inch\u00ades, so it\u2019s blur\u00adry as hell). On the black\u00adboard behind 12- or 13-year-old me is the tan\u00adta\u00adliz\u00ading par\u00adtial title, \u201cThe Mys\u00adtery of the.\u2026\u201d The rest of the sto\u00adry title is blur\u00adry, but upon inspec\u00adtion with a mag\u00adni\u00adfy\u00ading glass I decid\u00aded the last word on the board is \u201cSasquatch,\u201d mak\u00ading the sto\u00adry title \u201cThe Mys\u00adtery of the Sasquatch.\u201d Giv\u00aden my keen inter\u00adest in all things Big\u00adfoot, the wilder\u00adness and Boy Scouts at that age, this title makes total sense. I think it some\u00adwhat prov\u00adi\u00adden\u00adtial that I should dis\u00adcov\u00ader this obscure pho\u00adto of myself at 12 or 13 doing the very thing that I would ulti\u00admate\u00adly grow up to do. It was at 13 years old that I knew I want\u00aded to be a writer, and dis\u00adcov\u00ader\u00ading this pho\u00adto at age 50 seemed to give visu\u00adal evi\u00addence of its inevitabil\u00adi\u00adty. For my 50th birth\u00adday, my wife took me to the (Von) Trapp Fam\u00adi\u00adly Lodge<\/a> (yes, the Von Trapps of The Sound of Music<\/em>) in Stowe, Ver\u00admont, where we cross-coun\u00adtry skied, hot-tubbed, ate well, and explored. I met the Von Trapps\u2019 grand\u00addaugh\u00adter, Christi\u00adna, who was very gra\u00adcious and wel\u00adcom\u00ading; I ate exquis\u00adite French toast, drench\u00ading it in maple syrup made at the lodge; and I had the best piz\u00adza I\u2019ve ever had in my life.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n To close out this short blog entry, here are a few pho\u00adtos from my Ver\u00admont ski trip: This morn\u00ading I over\u00adheard my wife on a con\u00adfer\u00adence call with her cowork\u00aders at the col\u00adlege where she works. They were dis\u00adcussing how the col\u00adlege\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,337,7,292,13,14,233],"tags":[541,544,528,533,536,96,535,531,539,530,537,542,381,532,222,529,538,545,534,540,355,543],"class_list":["post-8441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-novel-writing","category-personal","category-vermont","category-writers","category-writingexperiences","category-writing-life","tag-bigfoot","tag-cdc","tag-covid-19","tag-disaster","tag-natural-disasters","tag-novelist","tag-novelist-contingency-plans","tag-novelists-work-day","tag-outbreak","tag-pandemic","tag-plagues","tag-sasquatch","tag-typewriters","tag-vacation","tag-vermont","tag-virus","tag-viruses","tag-who","tag-writing-contingency-plans","tag-writing-during-covid-19","tag-writing-life","tag-young-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8441"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8754,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8441\/revisions\/8754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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