This is just a quick post to explain what I’ve been doing for the last six to eight months. This is a photo I took of my TV screen a week ago, of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, and her now-famous wall-size display that lists all the people (by position, not personal name) who have either resigned from the Trump administration or been fired since he took office fourteen months ago. I feel it sums up where a lot of my time has gone, while I’ve been away from here.
In short, I have been wildly distracted by breaking news almost every day, and I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time on Twitter (that’s the link to my handle).
One unfortunate thing is that my reading time has suffered, and one really embarrassing thing is that I’ve been writing even less than I’ve been reading. I realize that I need to seriously cut back on my news and media consumption if I’m ever going to finish writing a novel. If only this Dumpster fire of a presidential administration would be over, or if we could at least have maybe a full week without a new scandal in the White House or a high-profile firing or resignation, or without him saying and/or doing things that are spiteful and idiotic and completely unbecoming the office he holds. Just, ugh. So yeah, I need to get away from that somewhat, and soon.
Before I do step back, though, I’m planning to participate in a local event this Saturday, March 24, that’s part of the March for Our Lives. On Valentine’s Day, just five weeks ago, there was a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen people died, and about the same number of people were injured, some very seriously. A group of students who survived the shooting started talking to reporters, appearing on TV news shows, and giving speeches. Within days, they began to organize, to plan school walk-outs as well as a march in Washington, DC, and to spread their messages on social media. The primary message is #NeverAgain, because they hoped the Parkland shooting would be the last school shooting. (It wasn’t, but the subsequent incidents have been much smaller, and at least a couple were accidental.) I’m amazed at their courage and determination, and I’m afraid for my own children, so I support their cause 100 percent.
By next week, I will be getting back into the swing of writing, because dammit, my books won’t write themselves.