Dear Readers,

This is my 40^th entry in the Pandemic Year series. I’ve been writing them since March 2020. Sometimes it seems like I’ve aged ten years during the past sixteen months. It has been an eventual week and a half or so, which I will describe herein.

If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy of Molly’s Song, you may do so here, here, or here. And speaking of the book, last week I took auditions for the audiobook version of the novel. I wasn’t quite sure how many to expect, but I got over thirty! All of them were good, many of them were excellent, and one of them was perfect. So now I am happy to say that I have contracted with a talented actress to record the book. Yesterday evening I got to listen to the extended fifteen minute sample and it was truly stellar work. Even in pre-Rona times, I listened to a lot of audiobooks, usually 6 or 7 a month. As I have barely left the house during the pandemic, that number is closer to 10-12 for the past year. It is probably due to the fact that I am such a devotee of audiobooks that the most exciting part of the writing process for me is when I get to listen to and decide on a narrator for one of my own books. Getting to hear an actress give voice to a character you created, particularly when the character’s voice sounds exactly like it does in your head, is one of the grandest feelings in the world. I already can’t wait for you to be able to read the book and share in Molly’s story, but I am especially eager for you to be able to listen to the book.

And speaking of Molly O’, I have been hard at work on the first draft of the sequel, tentatively titled Molly’s War. Thus far I am eight chapters and 25K words into it. It is going fairly well. The hard thing about being a writer is that you have to create a character that you love and then put them into terrible situations. Nobody would read a book that had no real conflict and only consisted of happy things happening to happy people. In the chapter I just finished, Molly meets the man in the picture that accompanies this post. If you are up for a little detective work, figure out who he is and then you’ll figure out where she is and what she is about to experience. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks, “I wish someone else would’ve created me instead of this demented gobshite!” Ah, but our Molly is a survivor, and she’ll be okay no matter what the world throws her way.

Tomorrow, Friday, I am supposed to go to an outing with some other fully vaccinated people…former co-workers from a college where I used to teach. I hope I can make it, though at this exact moment, I am unsure if I will. After several weeks of feeling as good as I ever feel these days, today the back spasms came calling again. It always starts the same way. There is a brief, almost fleeting twinge of pain. As soon as it dissipates, I have just enough time to grab my three large ice packs from the freezer, throw them onto the bed, and lay down on them before the full on wave of spasms hits about five minutes later. If I am lucky, it only lasts for a day. If I am unlucky, it can last for a week or two. The jury is still out on how long this latest bout will last.

Until next time, friends, take care of yourselves. And each other.

L.H.