A Fresh Start

Dear Neighbors: 

When I got Covid in 2020 I lost all my motivation, and will, for writing. Breathing and being, surviving, was all I could do. At the end of last year I starting writing again. My brain started to come alive in a creative way, and the fog that had prevented me from remembering things, including basic, humdrum words, lifted.  Now I’m actually having to reign myself in so that there is some order and structure to the flood of words that is pouring out. This transformation is nothing short of a miracle. Truly, it is beyond wonderful.       

   I’ve known, since March of 2000, that something was missing. There was a gaping hole in my life, an emptiness that I did not understand. It is only now that I realize that what was missing was my writing life. I was not whole when it was gone. Now it is has returned with a passion that is a little breathtaking. 

   This means more than you can imagine. I’m back at my desk every week morning writing, drafting and doing research. In the afternoons I read, and rest, because I am still in the clutches of Long Covid; my brain is eager, but the rest of my body has other ideas. This means that my weekends are ‘days off’ again, and all the sweeter for it. Mind you, I still find myself scribbling on Saturday and Sunday. The words will not be held back behind any dam. 

   I have ‘to do’ lists again, and this morning I tangled with the less pleasant side of having an online presence; editing HTML. I’d forgotten how much I dislike this kind of work. The ‘housekeeping’ side of creating and maintaining an online presence is headache inducing. Things have changed since I last set up a blog so I’m having to solve new problems and learn new skills. 

   I’m reminded of what it was like when I first started Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews (TTLG) back in the early 2000,s. TTLG was born of a necessity to create a job for myself that would accommodate my health issues. I had so much to figure out, and I felt unsteady, wading through unknown waters. Then, like now, I had to unravel what I was trying to do, after which I had to figure out how to make my concept a reality. 

   Back then I used a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website builder. I built the whole first rendition of the site by myself. When that program became cumbersome I rebuilt it using a more sophisticated program. 

   Eventually the site became so insanely big, with thousands of reviews, that I hired a wonderful man to build a Wordpress site for me that had a database behind the scenes. He put me in touch with a creative and generous designer who brought to life TTLG’s beautiful online identity. 

   In 2023 I realized that I could not go back to TTLG. I had Long Covid and I had no idea when it

would leave me in peace. I did not know if Covid had damaged me irreparably. Running TTLG was hard work, and it was an online publication so there were deadlines. I had to accept that I could not live in a deadlines world again because my health was too unpredictable. The one thing I did know was that I still wanted to do something related to books, but I did not want to just write reviews. I wanted to write articles as well. I wanted to write about anything that caught my interest. And this is how the idea Of Wonders Wild and New was born. Once again, a calamity has given birth to a new venture and my life is going in a different direction. 

   Today I realized that this new phase in my life isn’t just a little change. The new ‘job’ that I have created for myself is not like TTLG. It is a whole new branch on my tree of life, and therefore it is time to set aside my TTLG self and shift gears to become my Of Wonders Wild and New self. Goodness! 

   Five years ago I never imagined that I would be reinventing myself again; for the fifth time. Starting afresh in a new endeavor requires a lot of work. I have to build a whole new foundation for this venture, and expand my network of contacts in the book world to include the folks who write, build, and publicize books for adults. There will be new publishers to discover and new authors to connect with. I need to make sure that the blog has all the bells and whistles that I want it to have. I need to learn, all over again, how to edit images so that they look good when they are uploaded into Facebook and Blogger. I am thinking that I need a new domain, email, and logo so that Of Wonders Wild and New is front and center in my professional life. 

   So, a fresh start. Onward and upward.

Art by Nancy Reyner