Round Robin Blog Fest January 2022

Happy New Year to all of the Round Robin Bloggers and those who follow us!

If you're not familiar with the Blog Fest, each month we go around the world - literally! - and answer the same great writing question put forth by our fearless leader Robin. This month's question is:

How are you dealing with the COVID pandemic in your contemporary novels/short stories? Not as a political statement or polarizing pro/con mask stance, but the way the COVD virus effects the day-to-day lives of your characters and appears within the story’s plot line?

So far the pandemic has not permeated any of my novels. I've chosen to keep them in quarantine where the virus can't touch them. There has been so much negativity and conflict as a result of all of these protocols that I didn't want to add to it.

I did, however, write a short story over the holidays that I based in a mall at Christmas. While I didn't go into great detail about protocols and the like, I did mention things like everyone wearing masks and trying to remain socially distant.

The story begins in a gift-wrapping kiosk which is surrounded by Plexiglas and refered to by the two main characters, Drew and Harley, as a snow globe. When an agitated customer brings them a package to wrap that sets off alarm bells for them both, Drew sets off to find out where the man is going and what he's up to.

Funny enough, the whole desk idea was inspired by my desk at work. Where I used to work behind an oak desk in a historic building, during Covid my workspace was renovated and now very much resembles an Ikea desk-based fish bowl. (Long story!) To the point I'm planning to color some paper fish to decorate it with. When I told my boss about my plan, he nearly fell off his chair laughing!

This is not my boss!

My current work-in-progress (book #13!) will not have anything to do with Covid but I can't speak to future series. With any luck this will all become a distant memory and lockdowns will become a thing of the past. For now I'll focus on "normal" and hopefully continue to entertain and distract readers from the new protocols we'd rather not thing about on a moment to moment basis.

And now I pass the blog torch along to my fellow bloggers to see how they feel about writing the pandemic into their stories...

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Dr. Bob Rich  https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2wY 

Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/

Helena Fairfax  https://helenafairfax.com/blog/

Robin Courtright http://rhobincourtright.com