Writing a Book Series During a Pandemic (Alissa Grosso)

Although I'm self-employed (alas, I don't make anything approaching a full-time income from my books) like everyone else the Covid-19 pandemic had a huge impact on my employment and income. For awhile there, I dreaded waking up in the morning because I knew there would be news of one more of my income streams suddenly getting shut off. In fact, if Zazzle hadn't gotten into the face mask game, I probably wouldn't have had any money at all coming in.

But the one upshot of the whole pandemic thing is that, it did give me some more time to focus on my writing and books, and that's good because long before I had ever heard of something called Coronavirus I had plans to publish my first ever book series in 2020.

Shout out to Staples that managed to supply me with all sorts of paper, both paper for printing out hard copies of my books, and a case of toilet paper that should last until I write my NEXT book series!

Before the pandemic got underway here, I was getting pretty close to finishing up the first draft of the last book in my series. As it would turn out when I took another look at it, that first draft was in pretty sad shape and needed some extensive rewriting. So, when I wasn't spending all my time trying desperately to secure a pick-up slot to get groceries or find places that still had basic essentials in stock, I was able to get that rewrite done.

And as the country (prematurely as it turned out) began to reopen, I stayed home and worked on revising and editing the four books in my series. Which is pretty much where I'm at right now. I would say I'm somewhere in the middle of the revising and editing process. By summer's end the books will be ready to go off to a professional editor, and maybe, just maybe if 2020 doesn't throw another curve ball our way, I'll get at least the first book in the series published before the year's end.

The great thing about staying home and editing my books is I don't need a face mask, but if you are headed out of the house make sure you wear yours!

Having a project and a goal has helped me to stay sane during these crazy times. It turns out that when a pandemic hits, some of us do jigsaw puzzles, some of us make sourdough bread and some of us write books.

Alissa Grosso is the author of 6 published novels for teens and adults and she's hard at work on 4 more while she eagerly waits for the world to return to normal. Find out more about her at alissagrosso.com.

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