It’s official. 2020 has broken me. I have officially cracked.
I even wrote a Aliens/The Thing inspired chicken story called, “IT CLUCKED.” I had a freaking blast with this story! You can find it on Amazon in: CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories <<—click the title to jump over to it!
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Good News/Bad News/Everything in Between
I’ve had some questions, recently, that I need to address. “Hey Amber – I saw you were supposed to be in <<insert random anthology here>> but you are not showing now!”
Yes, you are correct. 2020 was supposed to be my year to ramp up my writing. I signed up, and was accepted into, quite a few anthologies and box sets.
Then, COVID, job distress, and the ultimate resource zapper, cancer, struck.
I can’t remember if I discussed this previously, and I’m too lazy and tech stupid to look back through my own blog. My apologies if so.
So Mom’s health started to tank, and around the first part of June, we found out she had stage 4 small cell lung cancer. Good news: it’s September, and she’s responding *really* well to treatment. Bad news: We have to take one day at a time. Fighting multiple battles across multiple fronts – blood pressure, glucose, insert random level of whatever that suddenly decided to go haywire here – that seem to level out, and then we find ourselves playing ping pong again. Most days go well, but between all that, running our business (gotta eat and have electricity), homeschooling Logan (catching COVID is not something we are willing to risk with Mom, virtual was not an option) – my writing is done at night, with a significantly reduced block of time, and usually accompanies wine (and sometimes an emotional breakdown). LOL.
I’ve been blessed, honestly. Sure, Mom has cancer – but all things considered, it’s going well for now. Business has slowed down to the speed of a sloth, but we still have *just* enough work to keep the lights on and feed ourselves. Logan’s schooling is going well, other than he misses his friends (which hurts my heart).
AND. The set/anthology organizers as well as my publishers have been SO incredibly gracious. They are letting me hang in until the last minute. Sometimes I can eek something out in its final form (see Cracked, above). Others, especially the more lengthy ones, have had to be cancelled or pushed to another set in the future.
So, yes. I’ve missed a couple of sets/anthologies that I was scheduled for. I may miss most of them, I may be able to catch a couple of them. I’m still working on Degara Part II for Takamo Universe, and I still hope to have that sucker ready to go by December at the latest.
But it’s all a juggle. And I know some balls will be dropped because I have no choice.
Hang in there with me. I promise you’ll see more from me this year….just not as much as I had intended.
And to my publishers, set/anthology organizers, editors, and beta readers – thank you. I mean that. <3
