“You are
never too old to set another goal or to dream a new
dream.” ~~ C.S. Lewis
Hi all,
I hope you all had a safe, happy Christmas and that your New
Year's celebration brings you joy... even if that means eating
cheese and crackers and cookies and going to bed by 10:00
which is how I'll likely be celebrating. ;-)
So, without a doubt, 2020 has been an exceedingly difficult
year. Even though I won't be sorry to see it go, I
wanted to take a few moments to remember what was good about
it... including with JABB. So that's what you'll find
below.
1. The jigsaw puzzles from JABB
566 and others- Yeah... They're goofy. But I
found myself coming back to them numerous times over the past
months. Sometimes when I felt anxious, I'd pick a good
podcast episode and listen as I put together Andrew or the
Dyeland map or a Wordle. It was nice.
2. Starting the Discord channel- While it's not be very
active lately, I really enjoyed catching up with people in the
early days of the pandemic. And it's hard to believe that
I went from not really knowing what Discord was to having it
open at almost all waking house (ETA: hours... I meant hours...
Wow.) to chat with friends. If you're interested in
joining JABB's channel or just chatting with me there, please
let me know and I'll send the link.
3. Writing! Considering I often felt like I was
creatively zapped by all the stress, it was heartening to
realize that I wrote and uploaded six stories this year, have
another 3 or 4 in the editing process, and then have the
Christmas story. I wasn't as unproductive as I thought!
4. To get more specific, I really enjoyed writing "A
Visit With an Old Friend." While I don't regret the
choice I made to have the Dyeland stories exist outside of
TBAA's canon, I do sometimes miss the Andrew we know and love
from the show. Dyeland's Andrew is great. But he's
not the same. So I loved getting a glimpse of the "real"
Andrew after so long.
5. Writing "Relentless
Affection" was another highlight for me. It's been
on my heart for a long time to feature a transgender character
but I could never really figure out how to do that. And
then I had a series of story flashes that brought me
Loreena. That story was also special to me because I was
having a hard time connecting creatively with Joshua. But
I felt like he really clicked in that story and some of my
confidence returned.
6. And then came "Requiem
for a King"... I hesitate to call this a highlight
given its origins remain very sad. I still can't totally
believe Chadwick Boseman passed away. But it really helped
to write this and, even with the sadness, I enjoyed seeing Ivy
and Sy in the early days of their marriage. Plus, as with
most of the stories this year, writing it really helped me deal
with my emotions... in that case, not only surrounding Mr.
Boseman's passing but also the murders of unarmed Black
men. I really hope I don't have to write another story
like it, though.
7. Finishing "God
in the Gloom"- It's definitely not my best work and, to be
honest, it's not a story I see myself re-reading with any
frequency. But it really did help me process the anxiety
and emotions I was feeling not only because of the pandemic but
also some family drama. It also felt good to finish it
because it was the first full-length story I'd written since the
pandemic started and it was just good to know I still had it in
me.
8. Even though I still haven't edited it, I did feel
pretty good about "You'll
Never Walk Alone" if for no other reason than that it was
the story most impacted by the pandemic. "Gloom" was
always mostly going to be about Andrew and JenniAnn watching a
TV show which actually made even more sense in a post-COVID
world. But with "Walk," I had to reconfigure and even
jettison some scenes I'd liked because they simply no longer
made sense post-COVID. Also, I was kinda pleased with
myself for writing a full-length story in which Andrew and
JenniAnn are pretty much relegated to cameos. I'd turned
to stories about them as a sort of fiction version of comfort
food and wasn't sure I could stay focused on a story that didn't
feature them. But I found I could.
9. Well, if you've read the first part of this year's
Christmas story, you know that two "new" characters have come on
board: Aziraphale and Crowley from Neil Gaiman's and Terry
Pratchett's Good Omens. Sierra will be writing
about how exactly their story plays out with the modern-day
Dyeland characters. It's been a lot of fun planning for
that and then also taking a look back and imagining a possible
encounter between them and Joshua. That definitely won't
be the last you see of that trio!
10. Frankly, I'm just glad that I've stuck with biweekly
newsletters. Sometimes they've been really short.
But at least I kept sending them. With all the upheaval,
my brain's been mush at points and it was tempting to throw in
the towel or, at the very least, go off schedule and skip a few
weeks. However, I'm really glad I resisted
temptation. Because I feel like once I skip a week, it
would become easier to justify skipping the next and then the
next and...
And now we'll see what 2021 brings...
This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for being an
inspiration during what was one heckuva crazy year...
JABB Portal
JABB TOC JABB
588
(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from
Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions,
Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions. They
are not being used to seek profit.)
