Friends,
I promise not to preface this post with something like “In these difficult and/or unprecedented times.” Well, hell, I guess I just did.
That has quickly become the tagline of the current era and for good reason. These times are difficult, and they are unprecedented . . . at least to those of us who weren’t around in 1918 for the Spanish Flu. Above all, these are weird times. We’re being asked to shelter in place, social distance, wear masks and gloves everywhere, work from home, disinfect everything around us before and after we touch it, wash our hands as though preparing for surgery twenty-five times a day and any number of other disruptions to the social conventions we’ve fortified throughout the course of our entire lives. And we’re doing all of it, not because we like it but because we must.
Like it or not, we’re all getting a crash course in what it truly means to be human. There is no evolutionary precedent to any of this. Nothing, over thousands of years, prepared us to avoid one another. Instead, we were always brought together by the wind of some invisible witchcraft that many of our greatest minds still struggle to understand today. In short, communication, collaboration, physical and emotional contact, are all integral to what makes us human. And we are all figuring out how to live without these things for the first time in generations.
Combine this with the fact that our global economy is (what else is new?) sliding down a cliff into a shit filled river. A friend of mine the other day posted what I took to be an incredibly profound insight to his Facebook page:
“An obvious observation about this pandemic is that America’s economy cannot survive when people only buy what they need.”
Tyler Durden, Fight Club, Portrayed by Brad Pitt
Damn. That quote struck me deep. To be honest, it frightens me as much as anything else going on right now. Why? Because it’s true. Unless we’re all over-buying shit we don’t need and are employed in such a fashion that allows us to do so, the markets will perpetually tank. Tyler Durden is rolling over in his fictional grave.
My point is, we have dumb-fucked our way over the last ~50 years into quite a corner as a species. But precisely what makes life awful for us makes life utterly impossible for the Coronavirus. You think you hate social distancing? Well, it’s certain death to Covid-19. So, let’s give it to it and let’s keep at it until the medical community can develop a vaccine and can get it distributed to each and every one of us.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve chosen to follow my writing, at least in some loose fashion. The fact that so many of you have, still surprises and delights me every day. It’s been far too long since I’ve given you much of a reason to continue to care or support my work. I’ve found writing during these times of near-constant worry, difficult. Turns out writing horror and sci-fi isn’t easy when you’re living through a real-life Richard Preston novel.
Progress, however, is being made on my next novel and I’m tentatively scheduling it for release in the fall. It’ll be called “The Corroding.” All I can tell you about it now is that it’s coming together and it’s terrifying—even to me as I’m actively writing it. I’m looking forward to delivering on it and can’t wait for your feedback.
In other news, you can now purchase the Kindle edition of Three Days in Ashford for $2.99 and the Paperback edition for $8.99. No better time than now to get your hands on the 2019 IndieReader Horror Novel of the Year. And, let’s be honest, what else are you doing right now? Besides sitting around in quarantine like me, starring out the window like some sort of sad dog? Why not travel to Ashford with Daniel Hallowell and his crew and embark on the paranormal adventure of a lifetime?
Friends, whatever you do, please be safe. Please take care of one another. When you weed through all the bullshit of our times, it always eventually boils back down to people. There are a million shitty things going on right now and not a single one of them even comes close to matching our human resolve. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to ignore it in favor of their own interests. If we help one another, through generosity and bravery and care, there’s no pandemic that stands a moments chance against us.
With love,
-Ty