You wouldn’t know the world ended a year ago. There’s little hints here and there of course. It’s hard to ignore an, invasive lateral flow test, and there are posters on every wall and most surfaces when you wander the halls. I wonder how long the spray painted social distancing signs will remain for. I wonder if one day we’ll be nostalgic for them, a bit like relics of other eras. I hope not, that would be incredibly grim. I also somehow doubt it, but only because there’s nothing that iconic – other than the blue and white facemask – that came out of all this. Even Zoom didn’t define it beyond a few minor cultural shifts. But other than a couple of masks, and a still half full office, it’s kinda like nothing even happened. I don’t know how I feel about that. Then again, this is one reason I have a therapist lined up.
On a slightly less existential issue, MAL is still lacking thrills in its fun and games, and while the tonal shift around the midpoint will help with that, it’s not a stretch to say this one is going to need a top to bottom rewrite just to make it engaging enough. That’s fine, I find my best work comes out of that, but still, I do feel my rewrite pace – I’m currently working through four different novels at once, though three aren’t mine – is slower than I’d like. Four sounds like a lot, but I am not doing four every day. That’s where I need to aim for, because to be blunt, rewriting takes me less energy than writing. It’s the bonus of not having pride of authorship: I can have slaved over a chapter for hours, and agonized about it time and again, then get to the rewrite and cut the whole thing out without batting an eye.
But let’s be honest, writing and even work are far from my mind right now, even as I keep working through my work queue. That’s because tonight, finally, I get to go play Magic in person again. It has been way, way too long.
samshuttleworth.com 