When last we met I was banging on about my first attempt at fiction writing. Full of hope and optimism I was. Oh, bless me. Turns out my fluffy beach read wasn’t pleasing to a single soul. Now it lives in a little blue folder on my laptop screen where even I agree it belongs. It was late autumn when I finally decided to put it aside. The leaves had turned and Old Man Winter was poking his gnarly fingers in my direction when I decided to see if I could do better. I tick-tacked away desperately trying to block out all the malaise found in the real world. Anytime bad news passed before my eyes or wormed its way into my ear I developed a bizarre syndrome, a cluster of symptoms—fatigue, irritability, restlessness, a twitchy eye and facial grimace, and a strange urge to let fly a stream of profanity every time Trump or someone like him spoke—for which the only cure seemed to be slipping back into the world I’d created on my screen.

While the wind blew and the snow swirled, I wrote and wrote and the next thing I knew I’d written another book. A book that may be prominently displayed on a bookstore shelf someday or simply take up residence next to the first one in the blue folder, but a book nonetheless. The early reviews from test readers are good and it’s caught the eye of a couple of publishing folks, but as everyone knows, even JK Rowling had to grow a skin thicker than a rhino when she started shopping her little wizard book about. Where it will go from here is a mystery.

For now, the weather appears to be turning although given that there’s still snow in my garden I’ve decided to start in on yet another book. I shall emerge at the first sign of a daffodil and not before. At any rate, whether I wind up a published author or a deranged hermit or both, I’ve found a way to cope with what goes on outside the walls of my house. What have you found?