As the first half of the first month of the new, revamped Mishmashers.com comes to an end, I hope you’re enjoying everything we’ve cooked up for you. I, for one, am very proud of what we’ve already accomplished, and I hope we can continue to build and grow from here on.
As of January 16th, I am homebound and in isolation. On the eleventh, I was diagnosed with Covid, and I have been having it out with the ailment ever since. In spite being vaccinated, by symptoms were a lot to handle, but nothing I couldn’t handle. What you have to understand about me is that I’ve always treated sick days as mini-vacations, so to speak.
Whether I had a high fever or was spewing at both ends (ew), I always looked at it as an opportunity to spend time on things I might not otherwise have time to do. Like writing for my horror blogsite called the Nightmare Shift, for instance, or touching up nagging loose ends I’ve been procrastinating on for some project. Covid, however, made me commit to the role of sick. For three straight days, I was bedridden, and not by my own desire to rest, but because I physically couldn’t bring myself to do anything besides that. My wife and I were both diagnosed and both went through the ringer the last week. Currently, I feel a lot better than my worst, but I know my road to recovery isn’t finished. I still have sore lungs, a cough, and general fatigue, but I can the light at the end and look forward to it.
My Covid-19 diagnosis was a bummer for a lot of reasons (beyond the fact I didn’t want Covid), as it meant I was unable to attend the premiere of the new Scream film, nor was I able to enjoy the vacation I had lined up for myself (in place of the book convention I was attending on Mishmashers Publishing’s behalf in Carbondale, Illinois, which was canceled due to ongoing Covid concerns).
In celebration of both Beck and I’s recovery, I decided it’d be fun to premiere our collaborative novel Cotton: The Spinster’s Daughter a little early!
About a year or so ago, we started the project – the story of a young girl (named Cotton) who is raised by a trio of sibling lamias in the mysterious island of Petree.
As anyone who is familiar with my writing can attest, Cotton is very, very different from any project I’ve ever undertook, which is exactly why I needed Beck’s help in its creation. She came up with the core concept and general outline, and I handled the writing, technique, and expanded on and developed some of her ideas and characters. It’s a very different collaborative experience than the one I have with my brother Scott Moore on the Canes series, but one I’m very excited to continue on. The series is a much lighter, more upbeat story than I’ve ever told and should be a series that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
Air high-fives and hazmat hugs,
McConnaughay