Oh, it’s been an “interesting” year, hasn’t it? If an author wrote this year’s events in a novel, she’d be universally panned for her lack of realism. Oh, c’mon, people would say, all that horrible stuff couldn’t happen in a decade, let along twelve months. Well, ha. Right?
I’ve been very fortunate in that I kept my job(s), my younger kid likes online learning, and my family has remained economically secure and healthy. But it’s hard not to mourn the time I didn’t get to spend with friends and family—sorry, Zoom just isn’t the same—and the travel I didn’t get to do. Also, I’m a college professor, and adjusting to teaching online has been horribly time-consuming and as difficult for me as for my students. And like many people in California, we spent long weeks stuck indoors because the air outside was too toxic to breathe, worrying about whether the flames were going to come our way.
Still, there have been some bright sides. The ubiquity of virtual meeting spaces has allowed me to watch and participate in all sorts of new things. I’ve been able to spend unexpected time with my daughters, who are 17 and 21 and will soon be off on their own. I’ve been able to listen in as my younger kid takes part in her drama class or argues a case in her government class. I get to set my own schedule, which means I stay up until 2 or 3 am and sleep until 9 or 10. Our cat is thrilled to have laps and attention 24/7, and she loves to Zoombomb. The pandemic has really helped me put things into perspective, and it’s also shown me how wonderfully adaptable and strong people can be.
My writing time has needed adjustment this year. At some points, as many as five of us were working or going to school in this house, so it hasn’t always been easy to find a quiet, relatively uninterrupted space. I’ve managed to accomplish a lot, however. I wrote four novels and two novellas, and I’m in the middle of a third. Along with my co-author, F.E. Feeley Jr., I published my first horror book. I created my own publishing imprint. And while I was doing that, I walked at least four miles every day and listened to a lot of audiobooks. I took online classes on forensic archeology and historical novels. I scared the crap out of some neighborhood boys when I caught them destroying our political yard signs for the fourth time. I baked a lot of bread.
I think it will be interesting to see how the things we experienced in 2020 influence our future writing. Fiction works about social and political upheaval, climate change, and plagues will be colored by our personal experiences. But at the same time, for many of us the wounds are too fresh to poke too deeply.
Tonight I watched the solstice dawn at Stonehenge—via livecam, of course. It’s clichéd, but it made me think about new beginnings, about the gradual turn from darkness to light. And about the potential for change. So here’s wishing that the new year writes us tales of hope, justice, health, equality, and peace.
Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her husband, her two daughters, and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.