I should be in New Orleans right now. Eating, drinking, being merry, and, oh, attending the Pop Culture conference. Sadly, the face to face conference was once again cancelled this year because of COVID-19. Please understand, with surging infection numbers, I completely agree with this decision. But I’m still sad.
I was so excited back in the spring when vaccines and masking had severely curtailed pandemic cases. Going back to New Orleans, the city of my soul, was going to be the highlight of my year. I had a list of restaurants to eat at, museums to visit, and sights to see. Some of this was research for the Under the Moon series, others were just for fun.
However, I have decided to make (spiked) lemonade from the lemons life has thrown at me. I was actually going to lose almost a week of writing time for this trip—well worth it—but not anymore. I learned long ago that anything written at a conference or vacation is gravy. Trying to schedule writing time while I’m out of town just never works. My brain is in a different place. So, good news is that this draft probably will be done at least a week sooner than planned. Maybe more. I am well over half way through this rewrite and several thousand words ahead of where I thought I’d be.
Maybe next year I’ll get back to the real New Orleans. Until then, I will content myself with Juliette in my fictional version.