Novelist in Lockdown to Control Novel Virus
April 08, 2020Covid-19 in NYC, April 8, 2020
Novelist in lockdown to control novel virus, Covid-19 in New York City: As a novelist who writes all day, Monday through Friday, isolation is normal. But lockdown is not! Writing a novel takes me years. By nature (and habit), I aim higher than my reach. So writing requires not just isolation but so much concentration that I lose track of time. What feels like five minutes is closer to five hours. And I’m surprised when my husband arrives home around eight pm or so. I haven’t prepared dinner. So to function in the here and now, I need to eat, drink, and gear up for a long, hard run every night. Since “The Best of Crimes” was published, I fare better if my late-night circuit covers seven miles, not just four. Otherwise, I can’t sleep, and migraines besiege me.
Sickness in Fiction
For years I wrote “The Best of Crimes” in tandem with its sequel. And, the sequel, a work in progress still, currently lack a title. With my lifelong talent for bad timing, the sequel begins in September, 2019. In all the years I’ve spent writing and rewriting this, it never occurred to me that a global, lethal virus would put ordinary life on hold in 2020. The sequel involves many characters. And the plot runs on how they and their families change and grow through decades. Of course, they will survive Covid-19—if I do.
But their lives, like ours, will change in ways I cannot foresee. For years, I’ve invented phrases to use as slang so the dialogue doesn’t age. But the pandemic may reconfigure the basic ways people interact. Granted, an idle question now while everyone on the planet struggles with a crisis unlike any in human memory.
New York City Becomes Covid-19 Epicenter
Further, life in New York City lurks within shuttered spots, because all public venues have closed. Just several weeks ago, the pace and activity here exhilarated and/or exhausted residents and visitors alike. But over the weekend of March 13th to 16th, almost all stores, restaurants, bars, and playgrounds closed. Colleges emptied. But especially eerie for someone running at night, traffic disappeared. In daylight, delivery trucks appear in spurts. The city’s transit system reduced the schedules for subways, ferries, and buses. Now, when I can’t sleep, I look out the window and see double rows of ambulances waiting to get to the hospital two blocks away. After a week of dreaming about one person and then another lying on a stretcher and hooked up to an oxygen tank, I thought to close the curtains.
Covid-19 Grows More Dreadful Every Minute
Covid-19 grows more dreadful every minute. And lockdown involves new restrictions every day. Back in March, when those who could, first began working from home, I still ran around at night, jumping to maintain distance from anyone in sight. I wore bright blue Nitrile gloves and waved to signal—nothing personal. We’re all in this together.
And even big, brooding men, apparently struggling with frustrations and injustices beyond me, granted me a smile. Sometimes, they even waved back. Now, however, while we’re all in this together, we cannot ignore that some of us have health insurance, but many do not. And those with temp work, multiple part-time jobs, or none at all, are truly desperate. What’s lost to them isn’t a stack of paper. Every opportunity has evaporated.