Okay, first of all, how is it JUNE already?? I feel like the first few months of 2020 went by so slowly. There was a huge amount of news every day, largely bad, and my body flooded with anxiety and adrenaline with every earthquake and aftershock here in Salt Lake City.
Then May arrived, and it’s like time started moving at triple speed to catch us back up to where we’re supposed to be. But the bad news didn’t stop–in so many ways, it’s gotten worse, and now it feels like there’s less time to absorb and process everything that’s happening. On top of the pandemic, there’s so much fear, tragic loss, spotlights being shown on pervasive and systemic racism, and protests and riots across the country. I’ve been glued to the news, social media, and the updates from the library where I work. (I especially recommend the NPR Podcasts “Up First” and “Code Switch” for keeping up with what’s going on.)
There is good news out there, too. I love the stories of people coming together at the protests and showing solidarity for racial justice. It seems like the most peaceful protests are the ones where everyone has open ears and open hearts. I hope these can continue until we get real change, and that it doesn’t take much longer to get there.
Through all the depression and anxiety this year has given me, I’ve had to forcefully remind myself to do the things that always help my mental health: reading and writing. I started reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, and it feels so strangely good to escape into the tiny world around Blackwood Manor. Yes, that world is pretty bonkers, but it’s not my world, so it’s better… if that makes sense.
As for my writing, I’m finally making some serious progress on the third and final Soul Searchers mystery. I love being back in the world of Donn’s Hill, because it’s a world I have complete control over. For the sake of an interesting story, I can’t let that world be perfect. But I get to decide the ways in which it’s imperfect. I get to create the problems Mac will face and decide how (and if) she’ll overcome those challenges. In times like these, where I feel pretty dang powerless to change things, it’s nice to be in complete control of something.
I’m hoping June will bring better news for everyone in the world. I’m hoping we can all come together. I’m hoping this is the moment when big change finally happens.
Professionally speaking, I’m also hoping June will prove to be a much more productive month for me than May. I kept letting myself get distracted by other projects these last few weeks, like outlining a stand-alone cosmic horror novel, doing the preliminary plotting on the next two books in the Solstice Survivors series (which, holy cow you guys, I have BIG FREAKING PLANS for Tess and company), and doing some world building on a novel based on a nightmare demon from Basque folklore. All important stuff, and honestly it all felt really good to work on, but I’m laser-focused on finishing Mac’s story now.
In other writing news, I have four more short stories that will be coming out in anthologies this year:
- “No Soliciting,” about one of the last surviving members of a ghoulish race of human-eating monsters who is being tormented by a door-to-door salesman, will be out in July as part of They Walk Among Us: A Collection of Utah Horror
- Mother Ghost’s Grimm Vol II will feature “The Bump,” a short and creepy tale for children inspired by the classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books (no release date on that one yet, but I’ve seen the print proof so I think it’s pretty soon)
- The League of Utah Writers has accepted my horror piece based on an obscure piece of cryptid lore from Northern Utah, “The Thing in Jacky Jensen’s Garage,” for their 85th anniversary anthology The Function of Freedom.
- And one more that I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about yet… but it’s a horror piece in another horror anthology because that’s kind of my jam. 🙂
I’ll post more about each of those once they’re available. In the meantime, let me know in the comments what you’re up to this June, what you’re hoping to accomplish, what you’re doing to cope. ❤️