Tag Archives: blogging

Blogging, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: A Shaky Image

For this week’s Photo Friday post I offer you a slightly different sort of image. Last weekend, early Sunday morning – 3:33 am, to be exact – I was awakened by something I hadn’t felt in years: an earthquake. The initial tremor was followed about 30 seconds later by an aftershock. Neither was very large: The first was 3.1 on the Richter Scale, the second 2.8. But they were forceful enough to make a rumbling sound that woke me from a sound sleep, and they did make the house tremble a little. And the reason for that was that they were centered, I kid you not, about 4 miles from our house here in Tennessee. They were also shallow – only a few miles into the earth’s crust.

I lived in California for several years. Nancy and I were in Mountain View for the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which disrupted the World Series, caused enormous damage, and resulted in many casualties. This little set of tremors was nothing compared to that. Still, an earthquake centered four miles from our house? Yeah, that’ll get your attention.

There is a major fault – the New Madrid Fault – centered around the shared boundaries of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. The network of minor faults from that seismic zone reaches our home. Which is cool. Sort of.

Anyway, the image below is the readout from the seismograph in the Geology Department at the university.

Have a great weekend. Stay safe, be good to yourselves and to one another.

Seismograph Readout

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Writing-Tip Wednesday: Ideas — Finding Them, Using Them

You may notice at this point that I have yet to offer any tangible advice on dealing with or coming up with ideas. That’s right: I’m stalling. Writing about ideas is really hard. Giving advice on developing ideas is nearly impossible. But I started down this rabbit hole, so let me give it a shot.

Back at the beginning of this calendar year, when I started the Writing-Tip Wednesday feature, I asked folks in my Facebook Group for ideas about what subjects I should cover. I have written about most, if not all, of the suggestions that came in at that time, so I would like to begin today’s post by renewing my call for suggestions. Please, if there is any topic you want me to cover, let me know and I’ll do my best to turn it into a Wednesday post.

Today, I would like to take on an amorphous topic: ideas. I am asked all the time, “Where do you get your ideas?” And whenever I’m asked, I come up with some vague answer that goes something like, “Ideas come from everywhere. Writing, particularly writing speculative fiction, is an exercise in asking ‘What if?’ What if we put magic in this historical period? Or what if we take an island world with kingdoms and early flintlock technology and add time travel? Or what if we blend werewolf dynamics with detective-noir storylines and issues of mental health? “What if” is a powerful question, one that can take us to entirely new worlds.”

Or, in response to “Where do you get your ideas?” I might say, “Different stories come from different places. Sometimes I key in on a specific character and grow a story from there. Sometimes my imagination fixes on an element of a magic system, or some other worldbuilding element, and suddenly I’m plotting out three books. Sometimes I’ll visualize a scene – some key moment in a story I’m still discovering, and that’s the foundation for my next project.”

Both of those answers are true. Both of them reflect realities of my creative process.

But the truth is, in answer to “Where do you get your ideas?” I could just as easily say, “My ideas? Where do they come from? I have no fucking clue.”

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Ideas, many writers will tell you, are a dime a dozen. When I was just starting out in this business and still working on my very first series, the LonTobyn Chronicle, I worried that I would never have an idea for another project. When at last the idea for Winds of the Forelands came to me, I was both ecstatic and profoundly relieved. Today, my worry is not that I won’t have another idea; it’s that I won’t live long enough to write all the ideas I have. I’ve had people – folks who aren’t professional writers and who, frankly, have no sense of what the writing profession involves – say to me in all seriousness, “I have this great idea for a book. You should write it and we can split the royalties.” I usually say, with feigned politeness and more patience than I feel, “I have all the ideas I need, thanks. But it sounds like something you should write.” I WANT to say, “Dude, if you think coming up with some lame idea is half of what I do, you’re nuts.”

You may notice at this point that I have yet to offer any tangible advice on dealing with or coming up with ideas. That’s right: I’m stalling. Writing about ideas is really hard. Giving advice on developing ideas is nearly impossible. But I started down this rabbit hole, so let me give it a shot.

1. Don’t worry about where ideas come from. I won’t say it’s a stupid question, because it’s not. But the vague answers I offered above are about the best I can offer, and really the question is moot. Every idea has its own origin story, and no source of ideas is better or more valid than another.

2. Simple is okay. Been done before is okay. Even derivative can be okay. The other day I was listening to an NPR story about a new retelling of the Cyrano de Bergerac story. This is a formula that has been done to death, and yet here is a new interpretation of it that sounds fresh and compelling and that is obviously marketable. The idea is a starting point; sometimes it’s a framework as well. Ultimately, though, your characters and voice and style will define the story. Your setting and plot devices will set your work apart. Originality is born in the creative process.

3. Ideas can’t be forced. Except when they can. Yeah, I know – really helpful. But both of those statements are true. Ideas come on their own time, by their own volition. They take us by surprise, inspiring us with their potency and novelty. It’s a great feeling. At the same time, though, we can brainstorm, hastening those ideas, forcing them to the surface. It takes patience, but it can be done. I like to ask myself questions (beyond “what if?”). I will often open a new blank document on my computer and just start typing stream of consciousness. This approach doesn’t always lead to a great story, but it certainly can. Try it.

4. Great ideas keep giving. Some ideas lead to career-defining projects. Some fizzle. It’s not always obvious from the outset which is which. What’s more, we can be blinded by the power of that moment of epiphany when the first inkling comes to us. The test, though, is how the idea builds. I find that the best ideas I’ve had beget new ideas, one after another. The visualization of a scene, say, quickly leads me to a character, or two. And those characters introduce me to a magic system. Which begins to shape my world. Get what I mean? If an idea comes to me, but then just sits there, like an imagined lump, spawning nothing else, chances are it’s not that great an idea after all.

Ideas are slippery. They lack form until we give it to them. They need to be written down, because they will abandon us if we don’t give them our full attention right away. And, of course, there is no guarantee that even the best idea will lead to a bestselling book. But ideas are also the currency of this business, the things for which we quest, and the foundations of all we do.

And so I wish you a never-ending series of wonderful, fruitful ideas. And if I have a really good one, I’ll share it with you and you can write it. We’ll split the earnings…

Keep writing!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: My Mom

We lost my mother nearly twenty-five years ago. It seems like so much longer, and it seems like yesterday. A cliché, I know, but true.

Mom and Dad, by the authorI am the youngest of four children, and by the standards of the time, my parents had me late in life, so I can say truthfully all of the following: I’ve always felt that I was too young to lose my mother, and I know that Mom died too soon, but I also know that she lived a full, rich life.

She was a child of the Great Depression – she would have been seven when the markets crashed, ten when Franklin Roosevelt was first elected. Forever after, he remained her political hero, the measure by whom all other Presidents were judged. She came of age during World War II, a young Jewish woman in New York, horrified by the spread of Nazism across Europe, and by the subtler forms of anti-Semitism found all through her city and her country.

Mom and my father married in the fall after the war ended, while my father and his family still grieved for my uncle Bill, Dad’s younger brother, who died in France. When my oldest brother was born three years later, of course they named him William.

Two and half years later, my sister was born. Six years after that, my second brother, and six years after that, me. Four children spanning almost the entirety of the baby-boom generation. Somehow, Mom managed to parent each of us with both consistency and sensitivity to our unique personalities and moments in history. My brother Bill, who grew up rebellious and tortured, a product of the Sixties, adored and worshiped her. My sister, who didn’t rebel the way Bill did, and who was the lone girl in our family, considered Mom her closest friend and confidante. And Jim and I, younger than the other two, raised in very different eras with different expectations and needs, loved her deeply as well, and learned so much about parenting from her shining example.

Mom didn’t work outside the home for her first two decades as a mother. Later in life, though, as I was starting elementary school, she began her studies to earn an advanced degree and her teaching certification. She taught for twenty years as a learning disabilities specialist in a public school system outside New York City, a job she loved in a field that was her passion.

When she wasn’t working and parenting, she was learning. She was a voracious reader – it’s no coincidence that my siblings and I all wound up as writers of one sort or another. She and my dad were happily married for nearly fifty years, and they loved, loved, loved us kids. But it seems to me that their marriage flourished after we were grown. They had always loved to travel, but once on their own they truly began to explore: France and Greece, Israel and Egypt, Peru and Turkey. They attended the theater, went to concerts, visited museums and galleries. Always together, always curious, always valuing the arts in every form.

On this Mother’s day, I can’t help but wonder what Mom would think of the world we live in now, a world nothing at all like the one she departed in 1995. She would have been devastated by the 9/11 attacks on her beloved New York, and might have wept with joy at Barack Obama’s election seven years later. My father was the gadget lover in their marriage, and so he might have been more taken than she with computers and smart phones. Then again, any device that allowed her to see her children and her grandchildren on demand, at a moment’s notice? On second thought, she might have been the one pushing for the newest technologies.

She would be horrified by the current occupent of the White House, appalled by his lack of intellect and curiosity, his mistrust of science, his cruel and craven approach to politics, his criminal disregard for the principles enshrined in our Constitution. She would have a healthy respect for, and fear of, the coronavirus, and would be contemptuous of those ignoring health experts in their rush to “open the economy.” But she would also have genuine compassion for those suffering in this, the worst economic downturn since the Depression of her youth.

Mostly, she would be concerned for the well-being of her kids and grandkids, frustrated by her inability to get to the symphony or the Long Wharf Theater, and eager for news from all of her friends and relatives.

It would be fitting in a piece like this one to end with something about how much I miss Mom, and how I think of her every day. And I do, both. Honestly, though, she’s been gone a long time, and as much as I grieved in the years immediately after her death, I have long since made peace with the loss. The truth is – another cliché – she is with me all the time. I hear her voice in my head whenever I read something she would have found interesting, or take a photo she would have loved, or cook a meal that might have impressed her, or marvel at the speed with with my own children have grown into adulthood.

It doesn’t take Mother’s Day to make me think about her. But for this Monday Musings post, I thought I would introduce you to my Mom.

Enjoy your week.

Blogging, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: My Lake Reflections Addiction

The first step to overcoming a problem is admitting we have one.

I have a problem.

I am utterly addicted to the lake near our home, which has been the subject of far too many of my Photo Friday posts of late. Here is another image, captured there just before sunset about a week ago. The water was still, allowing me to use those gorgeous reflections, and the sun was gilding the new foliage on the poplars, maples, and oaks surrounding the lake.

You can see pollen on the water’s surface, and that might actually be the short-term solution to my Lake Jackson addiction. The pollen has only gotten worse in the intervening days, rendering the water somewhat less conducive to reflections and such. So this might be my last image from this spot for a little while. We’ll see. Already I’m thinking that thunderclouds reflected in late summer might make a stunning photo. And then the leaves will start changing. Oh, and late fall brings fog. And imagine this place in the snow…

–Sigh– I’m doomed.

Have a great weekend all. Stay safe and be good to one another.

Golden Light, Lake Jackson, by David B. Coe

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Writing Tip-Wednesday: Reevaluating Goals in the Time of Covid-19

Each of us responds in his or her own way to stress and uncertainty and fear – and there is plenty of all three to go around right now. I have one friend who has been unbelievably productive during the past six weeks. And yes, I hate her just a little bit.

I believe strongly in setting professional goals for myself. Sometimes that means work goals – “I want to write book X by June 30th and book Y by September 30th, and then I want to write three short stories in October and November…” Sometimes it means what we might call achievement goals – “I want to see this book in print by the end of summer, and this book sold to a publisher by the same time, and this short story placed by the end of the year…”

I find that work goals keep me focused and productive. They are a tool I use to self-motivate. Once I write something down in my work calendar – “Work on new fantasy from January to April” – the end of April becomes, in my mind, a deadline. I treat it as such, even though in a technical sense no one may be waiting for the book at the end of that period.

Professional goals, obviously, are more fungible. They have to be, because we have limited control over the marketplace and our relationship with it. Even those who self-publish can’t fit every circumstance to their needs and desires. But still, having those sorts of goals can help with focus, with productivity, and also with that tendency many of us have to overwork our books and stories and thus delay sending them out. (See last week’s Writing-tip.)

As I have already written in this Wednesday feature, the pandemic, and the economic collapse that has come with it, are bad news for the publishing industry in general and new writers in particular. This is a scary time to be pursuing a career in any of the arts, writing included. This is, in my opinion, not a good time for strict adherence to achievement goals.

Work goals, on the other hand, might just be the secret to making the most of this time of social-distancing and Stay-At-Home orders. Each of us responds in his or her own way to stress and uncertainty and fear – and there is plenty of all three to go around right now. I have one friend who has been unbelievably productive during the past six weeks. And yes, I hate her just a little bit. I have another friend who has been unable to do any creative work at all. I probably fall somewhere in between – I’m too distracted to be as productive as usual, but I’m managing to get work done. I recently completed a 30,000-plus word novella, and I’m already nearly halfway through a second. Given how distracted I’ve been, I’m pleased.

My productivity has actually gone up in recent weeks, and I believe that’s because I have finally adjusted to this new reality, and so I’m no longer beating myself up for not writing as quickly as I usually do. I had considered revising my work goals for the year; instead, I abandoned them entirely in favor of work goals for the next couple of months. We are in uncharted territory at this point. No one really knows what the world is going to look like two weeks from now, much less two months, or six. And so for now my goals are to finish this second novella and then write the third. When that’s done, I’ll edit them and figure out what to do with the trilogy. And after that… Who knows? I’ll make those plans when the time comes.

At the same time, though, I am not ready to give up on goals altogether. True, I don’t quite know how I will market the novellas when they’re ready for distribution, but I still want to get them done, and I still want to feel productive. The truth is, I’m happier when I’m working. I feel better about myself and my career, and I genuinely enjoy creating. I seek a balance: I want to have goals that force me to work, that maybe push me to keep writing, even if not at my usual pace. At the same time, I have to be cognizant of the simple fact that I’m not at my best right now. This is a global crisis – medical, economic, political, social. It’s a frightening world we’re living in, and that has to take a toll.

If you’re one of those people who can work through this at your normal pace or even faster than usual, good for you. I hate you a little bit, too. For the rest of you who feel as I do – that you want to remain productive, but can’t quite work at your usual speed – find that balance I’m talking about. Maybe you usually write 1500 words a day, but currently feel you’re only at 75%. That’s 1100 words a day. That is still a decent pace. That will give you a novella in a month or so, a novel in three months. You’ll feel like you’re accomplishing something while also being realistic about our current situation.

The point is not to write quickly – the goal ought never to be solely about that. Now especially, the goal should be to find a pace and level of achievement that maintains both our standards for the work we produce and a feeling of professional and emotional health.

We really can’t ask for more than that.

Keep writing!

Blogging, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Photo Friday: Abstractions and Reflections

For this week’s Photo Friday post, I offer something a bit different. The original concept for the image is not original, of course. I’ve seen others do what I did: namely composing a photo entirely with water reflections to get a somewhat abstract blend of color and shape and form. I took this one a week or two ago, when leaves were first appearing on trees near the lake. I captured several images – this is the one that I liked best, though if you asked me to tell you why, I probably couldn’t.

I hope you like the image, and I hope you have safe, fun, peaceful weekend.

Lake Reflections, Spring, by David B. Coe

D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle, Writing

Writing-Tip Wednesday: When is a Manuscript Done?

There comes in the revision process a point of diminishing returns. And upon reaching that point, we need to say, “The novel is good enough, as good as I can make it with the feedback and skills and tools at my disposal…”

When is a manuscript done?

There are many ways to answer this question, from “A manuscript is never done; eventually we just stop working on it…” to “It’s done when it’s published,” to “It’s done when the author decides it’s done.” To be honest, I find some truth in all three of those, and a host of other answers I haven’t yet mentioned.

Those who follow my social media feeds closely, may have noticed that I post about finishing the same manuscript on two or three or even four different occasions: once when I finish the initial draft, again when I complete my revisions and submit it for consideration or publication, yet again when I complete edits and turn in a production draft, and maybe one more time when the book is in its final form and is ready for release. Each of those is a milestone in the development of a book. Each is worthy of celebration.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)But when do I consider the manuscript done? There is some truth to that first answer I gave. I consider all my books works in progress. My very first book, Children of Amarid, published in 1997 and recognized with a Crawford Award two years later, was, to my mind, never really complete. I knew for years that I could make it better. And when we finally got the rights back, I edited the book mercilessly (and did the same to its two sequels) and released the Author’s Edit of the novel. Only then, did I truly feel I had finished that first effort.

There is also an essential truth embedded in the other two answers I gave above: “It’s done when it’s published,” and “It’s done when the author decides it’s done.” Notice, I didn’t say “It’s done when it’s perfect,” or even, “It’s done when it can no longer be made any better.” There is no novel I can think of – not any of mine, not any by my favorite fantasy authors, not any by Faulkner or Steinbeck, Stegner or McCarthy, Morrison or Marquez – that is perfect, or that couldn’t be made better, even if just incrementally so, by one more editorial pass. There is no such thing as a flawless book. So stop trying to write one.

Seriously.

The true significance of the question “When is a manuscript done?” lies in its import for writers in the early stages of their careers. I know so many beginning writers, young and old, who are working on the tenth or twelfth or twentieth iterations of Their Novels. And for them I offer that first answer again: A novel is never done; eventually we just stop working on it. There comes in the revision process a point of diminishing returns. And upon reaching that point, we need to say, “The novel is good enough, as good as I can make it with the feedback and skills and tools at my disposal. It is time I submitted this book to publishers and agents.”

Now, let me be very clear about what I am NOT saying. I am NOT saying that your novel doesn’t need editing and revision. Of course it does. I’m working on book 25 right now. Or maybe 26. Whatever. I still need feedback and editing. I still need to revise every book, and revise again, and then revise some more. I still use Beta readers. I still seek feedback, tweak the book, and then seek more feedback. Rinse, repeat.

But here’s the thing: I can go through all my edits and revisions and then give my manuscript to a hundred new Beta readers, and chances are each of them will offer some new, unique criticism of the book. Where does it stop? How much editing is enough? When is a manuscript ready for submission?

Obviously, this is a decision each of us must make on his or her own. But the pursuit of perfection can be a career-killer. No editor or agent expects your manuscript to be devoid of flaws. As I said, there is no such thing as a perfect novel, and first novels almost always come with their own set of faults and foibles. Do what you can – make sure your plot works, keep your characters consistent and believable, by all means take care of all the typos and grammatical problems you can find. Your manuscript should be clean and professional. It should be as good as you can make it within reason. It should not be the only thing you’ve worked on for years and years. Because you know what? I’ll bet you every dollar in my pocket that the editor who decides to buy it is going to suggest a bunch of changes. That’s just the nature of the craft, the nature of the business.

In this case, “good enough” is not an abdication, it is not indicative of a lack of caring or effort. It is reality. Work on your book. Make it as good as you can. But don’t obsess over it, and don’t overwork it. Most important, don’t retreat into edits and revisions before you finish that first draft. Get the thing done. Then get feedback and revise. And then send it out and get to work on the next project.

When is a manuscript done?

A manuscript is done when you allow it to be. That’s probably the best answer I can offer.

Keep writing.

Blogging, David B. Coe

Photo Friday: Fog on Jackson Lake

Another week gone, another Photo Friday post. How is it possible, when we’re basically all sitting at home doing next to nothing, for time to fly by so quickly? March dragged. April has sped by. At least for me.

Anyway, today’s photo is another one from Jackson Lake, near my home. This was taken on a foggy day and captures the lake in a different mood. Compare it to the previous photo I posted of the same view, which you can see here. As I said when I put up that first image, this is a spot I intend to visit again and again as it changes through the seasons.

I hope you enjoy this photo, and I wish you a wonderful weekend.

Spring Fog, Jackson Lake, by David B. Coe

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Writing-Tip Wednesday: Making the Most of Our Present Situation

My Writing-Tip Wednesday post for last week was a downer (and also had a rather annoying typo near the end, for which I apologize). No way around it: The publishing business is in a bad place right now, and if I am going to offer writing advice to you every week, you deserve as well an honest assessment of the market.

Today’s post is not intended as a corrective for last week’s, so much as a chance for me to offer a way forward. My career is taking a hit right now, too. Almost everyone’s is. But I’m not giving up. For one thing, I have no other marketable skills. More to the point, I still love what I do, and I have a ton of stories I want to write.

The truth is, much of the advice my colleagues and I offer at conventions and workshops, and in online venues like this one, seems tailor-made to this new world in which we find ourselves. Here are some examples:

“Don’t try to write to the market.” My reasoning with this bit of advice has had two components. First, the market is a moving target, and getting a book out into the world can take a little time, particularly if you’re trying to publish traditionally. By the time you get your book about The New Hot Thing out to the reading public, the Thing might well be neither New nor Hot. Second, we generally write best those things about which we’re passionate. Sure, every now and then our passions and the market’s predilections align perfectly, but those moments are rare. Better you should write the book you are burning to write. It will reflect your enthusiasm, your passion, and that will make it more compelling. In today’s world, “Don’t write to the market” makes even more sense, because the market doesn’t know right now what the hell it wants. Writing the things YOU care about and WANT to write has never been more important.

“Love what you do.” Similar to “Don’t write to the market,” but broader. “Love what you do” is probably the answer I give most often when asked, as I often am, “what advice would you offer to young writers.” And I mean it in three ways. First, as I said above, write the story with which you’ve fallen in love, the one aching to be told. That’s the one that will turn out best. “Love what you do” also has a deeper meaning. At the best of times, writing is a tough profession. So do it for the right reasons. Do it for love of the written word, for devotion to story telling, for fascination with characters. Writing because you think it will be an easy gig, a way to make money – that’s never been a good idea, and it’s never been a worse idea than it is right now. And finally, “Love what you do” means enjoy the process, and commit to doing it well. None of us knows where the project we’re working on right now will wind up. Will we sell it to a publisher? Publish it ourselves? Let it languish in a proverbial trunk? So it’s more important than ever to love the actual writing, to lose ourselves in the act of creativity.

“There is no single right way to do any of this.” Boy, if I had a dime for every time I’ve said this… It applies to the craft and to the business, and I believe it’s vitally important that writers offering advice repeat this often. Those of us who have enjoyed some success in publishing speak with authority, simply by dint of having experience and a publication history. Less experienced writers take our words to heart, and so they have to be reminded that our way is not THE way. Because THE way doesn’t exist. And this is especially true right now. As I said last week, people who claim to know what publishing is going to look like after Covid-19 are fooling themselves and anyone foolish enough to listen to them. No one knows nothin’. And even if they did, there is no single right way to do any of this.

“To the extent you can, make writing part of your daily routine.” Earlier this year, I wrote a post in which I said that those of us proclaiming “Writers must write every day” had oversold the point and done a disservice to writers who can’t write every day, whether because of family obligations, or day jobs, or health issues, or whatever. I also said, though, and will continue to say, that writing often and regularly are good things. The more we write, the better we get and the greater our daily output. In this way, writing is like exercise – it gets easier the more we do it. And so, in this time of stay-at-home orders and social-distancing, why not try to write every day? There’s really no down side, and maybe you’ll finally finish (or start!) that project you’ve been thinking about for months (years?). In other words, tying in another bit of advice my colleagues and I have shared before, “BIC!” Put your Butt In the Chair!

Keep writing!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Covid-19 and Hope

Last week, when I wrote my Monday Musings post, I was pretty ticked off at the world. And this week, after watching “protesters” in Michigan, North Carolina, and other states take part in the worst sort of astroturf demonstrations, one might expect that my mood would be even worse.

I mean, think about it. People in NC drove to the state capital to demand that their state be opened up because, they claim, the governor has overreacted to the crisis. Yet, many of these protesters remained sequestered in their trucks wearing face masks! You can’t make this shit up! Then there are the Michiganders who showed up for their protests carrying high-powered rifles and Confederate flags (dude, I live in the South, and the flag has nothing to do with my heritage. It sure as shit has nothing to do with yours…). One guy carried a banner that read “Trump Pence” and that displayed between their names an enormous Swastika. Yes, that ought to help their reelection chances. Hard to believe they haven’t yet turned it into a lawn sign…

Kellyanne Conway, one of Donald Trump’s most visible flunkies, was on Fox News the other day trying to justify the Trump Administration’s withholding of money from the World Health Organization, and she actually said “This is Covid-19, not Covid-1, folks…” implying that health officials should have been better prepared. The problem with this “logic” is that we didn’t have Covid-1, Covid-2, Covid-3, etc. The disease is called Covid-19 because it was identified in 2019. But, hey, it’s not as though Kellyanne is a senior aide to the most powerful political leader… Oh, wait…

On Saturday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis opened Florida’s beaches. Yep. And Floridians flocked to them, unprotected and, it seems, utterly clueless. This after DeSantis was caught on camera putting on a face mask the wrong way – he put one of the ear loops around his head so that the mask hung sideways over his face with the other ear loop dangling below his chin.

We’re fucking doomed.

Except we’re really not. And that, actually, is the point of today’s post.

My wife is the provost of the university here in our little college town, and as the Chief Operating Officer of the school, she is tasked with coordinating the Covid-19 response. The other day she sent out a message to the university faculty and staff that concluded with a personal note about how much hope and solace she took from the community’s response. And I was amazed at how similar her thoughts were to my own percolating ideas for this very post.

Let’s start with the obvious: many of the reactions we see to the crisis – on all sides – are rooted in fear. I am observing social-distancing and stay-at-home guidelines because I don’t want to get sick. I’ve read enough about the disease to harbor a healthy fear (as it were) of contracting it. In the same way, the protests we’ve seen – however wacky and misinformed and filled with rage and hate – are based in people’s legitimate fears of an economic depression. Fear is, and has always been, a powerful stimulus for political action and governmental response.

But I see more than just fear at work here. I am worried about the economy, too. I don’t know anyone who isn’t. A large swath of the population, though, has made a conscious choice – a supremely rational one, in my view – to sacrifice their short-term economic security for the health of their families, their friends, their communities. We have said, “Yes, I know this is going to be painful, but I want to keep my children safe, my elderly parents safe, my neighbors and friends safe. And I want to be safe, too.”

We have done this despite the utter absence of Presidential leadership, and often despite the absence of leadership at the state level as well. Sure, there are people who thumb their noses at safety, at community. And yes, every day we see new idiocy from our leaders and opinion shapers – Doctor Mehmet Oz telling Sean Hannity that losing 2-3% of our school children would be an acceptable outcome if we reopened schools; Bill O’Reilly telling us that many who have died from the coronavirus were “on their last legs anyway.”

For the most part, though, people throughout the country and the world have put material concerns aside in order to save lives. And that ought to give all of us grounds for hope. If we can do this to stop the spread of Covid-19, might we also be capable of doing it to curb global climate change? Might we be willing to make the far, far smaller economic sacrifices necessary to ease social inequality, combat the historical economic and social impacts of systemic racism, and find solutions to our ongoing health care crisis?

This is a rare moment. A historical inflection point. A tragic moment to be sure. We are being tested daily. Some days we are found wanting. Too often, our elected leaders and media outlets fail us. And yet, I’m hopeful, perhaps naïvely so. People keep saying that even after we emerge from this crisis, our society will never be the same. I believe that. And I believe the differences between the old normal, and what my wife calls “the next normal,” can be ours to choose. Likely we will find ourselves in a more cautious world, maybe a less physically intimate world, at least at a societal level. But I choose to believe that it will also be a world in which we will appreciate more fully the potential of cooperation, communal action, and commitment to something greater than ourselves.

Wishing you all a healthy, wonderful week.