This has been a difficult time for the world with the coming of COVID-19. I hope and pray that you and your families are staying safe and well and doing everything to stay that way according to the CDC and your government regulations.
What have I been doing to keep busy? Being a writer has kept me occupied writing every day in some form – blogging as with this post, emails, and working on my latest project.
My latest project is Abby & Holly Series Book 5 which is nearly finished and will be into the editing stages soon. While I work on this book my husband is working on Book 2 of Drystan the Dragon and Friends Series. I edit each of the pages as he completes them. Of course there will be plenty more editing when he has completed the book.
Here are the other books in the Abby & Holly Series and Drystan the Dragon Series which are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Blurb:
This is a magical series about Drystan the dragon and his friends. These dragons are colorful, engaging and fun to read about. They teach children the importance of friendship, caring for one another, being kind to others, and it’s okay to be different. All dragons are of different colors and their names begin with the letter ‘D’ – a fun way for young children to learn the letter ‘D’ and colors.In Book 1 Drystan makes a new friend, Durward, who invites him to visit the Land of the Rainbows. While they are there they have an adventure. Find out what the dragons do to save the day.
John and I are always each working on a different book at the same time. That is why you may see two books coming out close together. The writing part of the children’s books take a lot less time to do than the actual illustrations. Therefore, I complete my part of the book for him and he picks it up from there. The MG/PT/YA only needs John to add a small illustration at the beginning of each chapter and a cover. The novels for 18+ only need his expertise for creating the cover. I do all the work on the writing which takes so much longer than any children’s or MG books.
In between all the writing, promoting, marketing of my books I have begun some crochet projects – baby afghans, sweaters, hats. I will be ready when anyone of my nieces or nephews begin a family. I dreamed not long ago about a baby boy being born into our family. I know it’s not me!! I felt that this was a precursor to what will be coming, hopefully to a healthier time in our lives. I will be ready!
Besides cleaning house daily I will start cleaning out closets – throw away what is old and give away what is still good that I am no longer using. This will enable me to look for some new spring and summer clothes to put in the places that I clean out. Ha!
Of course I do fun things too like watching some great series with my husband on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or regular TV channels. There is so much to see that there is not enough time to see it all. If we lose TV I will have to write more which will enable me to pump out even more than 5 books a year! That could be a good thing for me but not for my poor husband who is overworked by me already! Sigh!
I do miss getting out spending time with family and friends and going to lunch or dinner and going to the movies. I believe we will get back to normal before the summer. Right now it looks like we are being kept isolated in our homes until May.
What we can do is order in meals from many restaurants that are opened only for delivery or pickup. This is one way for us to support our local businesses. We can go to drug stores for health items and grocery stories for our food. What we must do when we visit these establishments – be careful not to touch your face, nose, mouth or eyes after touching anything in the stores and wash your hands as soon as you get home or use antiseptic cleanser immediately. We don’t know how long the virus can live on different surfaces.
I saw a video today that made me nervous about going to the supermarket or bringing home takeout. In this video the man mentioned cleaning every item that you brought home with an antiseptic on a paper towel, wash all your fruits in soap and water for 20 seconds, sterilize the outsides of all containers and remove all your items from boxes such as cereal and discard the box and put the cereal into your own containers.
After seeing this video I went crazy and cleaned every item that my husband recently purchased from the supermarket and washed the fruit with soap and water. Of course I washed my hands a hundred times in between touching everything. Sigh!! What a job! I was exhausted after that because I had already cleaned the house from top to bottom with antiseptic cleaner. Phew!
Here is the link to this video:
I know that being older puts me into the danger zone for this virus but I don’t think I am going to make it if I have to do this every time we shop! My energy is now depleted!
There is a point in time where we can over do something. I hope all my efforts keeps my husband and I safe and healthy. I pray that you and your families will stay healthy and safe too.
Keep your kids busy doing their school work daily and spend some fun time reading. Here is my site on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for some reading suggestions. Watch for new books coming this year from Jemsbooks.com!
I feel pure joy writing for children and hope with God’s help and blessing to continue to write many more fun adventures for children to read and enjoy. I do enjoy writing for MG/PT/YA and 18+ too!
Stay well and safe, my friends! I send love and prayers to everyone! Take care! We will make it through this together. Keep your faith and pray. God Bless everyone!
Blessings & Hugs! Stay Safe, Stay Well and God Bless!
READING GIVES YOU WINGS TO FLY! SOAR WITH JEMSBOOKS ALL YEAR THROUGH! HAPPY READING!
Janice Spina aka J.E. Spina
Award-Winning Author
Jemsbooks for All Ages!
Jemsbooks.com
Jemsbooks.blog
Jjspina(at)comcast(dot)net
AMAZON.COM AUTHOR PAGE (All books)
AMAZON.COM JE SPINA NOVELS PAGE
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I am very busy, Janice. I am working, home schooling and now have a Youtube channel too. I already knew about cleaning products brought from the store with a weak bleach solution.
Good to hear, Robbie. Keep busy and happy and safe. God Bless you and yours! hugs xx
I’m having to do a lot more cooking! I don’t like cooking and I’m not good at it, so I usually eat tinned stuff, but it’s hard to get hold of now so I’m having to cook more of my meals from scratch. It takes a lot of time and energy I’d rather spend on writing. As for disinfecting all my shopping, I think that would drive me mad!
It drives me crazy! My husband usually cooks on the grill while I work. But I’ve been cooking too. Been so strange not seeing people out and about. Some take walks in my neighborhood but stay far away when we pass each other. So sad! Prayers and love that you and yours are safe and well! 🙏😘🤗
I’m not doing so well with writing progress, but keeping busy with attempts at writing, slow progress on edits for a book I hope to be releasing soon, petkid playtime, and watching things (we have a decent DVD collection some of which I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, SKY TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disny+, so plenty of viewing options). Then there’s housework and those kinds of things.
To be honest, other than us being restricted as to how much and where we can walk Lilie and Logan, and the stress of it all making it tough for me to focus properly on writing right now, not much has changed with my day to day happenings.
I wish you well with your writing, Tori . Stay safe and well. 😘