Under Desert Stars   Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo

When lockdowns and “stay safe, stay at home” admonitions became newsworthy last year, a friend asked how I was handling the enforced isolation. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I pointed out that as a writer, isolation was part of my job description. Less facetiously, I reminded him that I was stuck at home with the right person, my wife of more than thirty years, and the two of us were coping pretty well.

But in truth, the comment about writing and isolation was all in jest. It wasn’t that I got through the disruptions of 2020 because I was accustomed to spending my time alone with the words that I write. Last year, the process of writing Variation on a Theme helped keep me sane. Pandemic and politics, along with a seemingly endless wildfire on the mountains that dominate the local landscape, provided reasons aplenty to be depressed. Writing that book gave me a way out for a few hours each day. The positive effect on mental health and morale was enormous. I’ve used the way I immerse myself in the writing process to ward off the stress of the real world at other times in the recent past. In the years since I launched this indie author career, I’ve lost two brothers, my father, and my father-in-law. Writing my War of the Second Iteration series, The Gryphon Stone, All That Bedevils Us, and Toby as all these calamities unfolded, being able to fully engage my mind with the process of creating these worlds and the people within them, made a very real difference.

Part of the reason this works so well for me is that, as an indie, I’m free to write what I want. While marketing of the work I produce is an important related activity, I don’t write with the market in mind. I don’t write a book wondering how well it will sell. Commercial success is a goal, and a worthy one, but if mine remains a modest success, I can live with that. I didn’t go into this with the idea that it would be easy money, much less with the expectation that I would make a living at it. I tell the stories that excite me and hope they interest others sufficiently that they’re willing to pay for the opportunity to read them. If that doesn’t happen it’s certainly disappointing, but I’m free to move on to the next story without the concern that my publisher will dump me because sales are low. I’m therefore fully engaged with these stories I decide to tell, not distracted by more mundane concerns such as marketability, and can escape into the process of bringing them to life. It can be an enormous relief to do so, and last year was yet another example of how that escape has kept me from needing mental health care.

Because I’m free to do so, I don’t write in the same market niche all of the time. That’s how Toby came into being. My next book – Variation on a Theme – also speaks of this freedom. It’s nothing like anything I’ve tried to do before. I enjoyed the challenge of making it work, vexing as it often was, and more often than not was able to focus my full attention on the first draft and the revisions necessary before beta readers could take their turn. (Did it work? Well, in the near future, you’ll tell me.) While it was being beta read, I was free to turn my attention to new stories in the Second Iteration universe – making a strong start on a four-book series. A literary agent would go nuts trying to deal with the way I slip from one market niche to another – assuming she lasted past the first two such books. A traditional publisher would show me to the door and lock it behind me.

So like everyone else caught up in the events of the year 2020, I coped. My wife and I stayed home, kept our heads down – literally and figuratively – and I wrote. All the while, pandemic and politics raged around us. I was aware of events, and of course I was worried, often deeply so. Writing isn’t a perfect escape from the real world, just a chance to let the worries slip away for a while. A chance to let the stress fade while I catch my breath and move on with life. In the process, a story that insisted on being written became a collection of well-ordered words. With any luck, distracted as I sometimes was – okay, make that frequently distracted – I got all those words in the right order, and created something people can relate to and enjoy. And just maybe it will give someone else, someone in need of a little escape, the means to get away from it all for a while.