Happy New Year from No Wasted Ink!

As we put a welcome close on 2020, I am reflecting on all that happened during this remarkable and  extraordinary year.

Things started out well.  I was on track to becoming a Poet Laureate in my hometown.  I was not going to apply for the job, but received an email from the head librarian on the day the job closed telling me that the position had reopened for one week.  I was strongly urged to apply.  So I did!

I was interviewed in January by a panel of city officials. Then heard nothing until the first week of March. I was to come to city hall for fingerprinting. This is the first step in the hiring process, although it was stressed that I did not officially have the job until the council met for final approval.  I was also scheduled for several live readings to promote my poetry book “The Planets”. This included a huge science fiction festival in San Francisco.

Then the pandemic hit during the second week of March. My world crashed in.  I faced empty shelves at the grocery store and in my home’s pantry.  TP became a scare item.  My husband’s new job moved to our home.

One by one, all my events canceled.  In June, I got word from the city that they had decided to shut down the Poet Laureate program. Their reason being that all city programming was closed indefinitely.

Yet, when a door closes, sometimes a window will open.

Out of the blue, I received an invite to be a panelist on the Sci-Fi Roundtable Podcast.  April through June, I spent my weekends recording with my fellow science fiction writers as we talked about genre, tropes, and writing tips.  I ended up recording around 15 or so episodes which are  trickling out this year and into 2021.  The podcast gave me something to look forward to each weekend and helped keep me grounded.

Virtual Conventions started in May and I found I was welcomed as a panelist in venues that used to be too far away for me to consider in the past.  I volunteered to read the winning poetry from the Balticon poetry contest as my first virtual convention.   I ended up being in programming at a half dozen events in addition to being an artist at my regular cons such as Comic Con and SD Who Con in CA.

I have participated in several writing challenges, all done from my home office.   I have written a couple of flash fictions, a novella draft, and completed a full revision pass on one of my WIP novels.  While I have not been publishing much, I have been getting things done.

Like many of us, I am looking forward to the New Year and hoping that we can all get back to normal lives.

Stay safe and be well,

Wendy