Monthly Wrap-Up – March 2020

Hello everyone,

Well, I think it is fair to say that March was a month like no other. It has been an extremely worrying and unsettling time which has brought about wholesale changes to the way we live, and that sadly looks set to continue for several more weeks.

As I have adapted to the need to stay at home and socially distance myself, I have simply tried my best to keep busy and not to become overly consumed in everything that is going on. Luckily, I have not lost the motivation for reading, writing, or indeed blogging.

When the social distancing measures began I thought here was an opportunity to read twice as many books as normal, but instead I have read at exactly the same speed. In March I managed to finish a total of five books, and here they are:

Containment ⭐⭐⭐.5
One Year Later ⭐⭐.5
The Good People ⭐⭐⭐
Circe ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dead Popular ⭐⭐⭐

In terms of writing, it has been an interesting month! I submitted a previous non-fiction WIP to a literary agency – I have not heard back yet which could partly be due to the current situation – and also began to revise my current WIP.

I had written something like 25,000 words on it, but this revision involved starting again almost from scratch. I made the decision because I just thought there was a much better way of telling the story, and having started I already feel more confident in the new version than I ever did in the other.

The other main change for me during March is having to work from home. I began doing this on Thursday 19th, and it was a completely new experience. It has not been as bad as I expected; I feel very focused and am trying to stick to a similar routine, which has so far worked well.

The biggest challenge with work at the moment are the constantly changing circumstances. March marked five years of working for the University of Bristol, which was a milestone that I am very proud of, but this year has been difficult due to academic strike action and COVID-19, which has seriously altered how students are assessed.

Before I had to start working from home, I made some excellent progress with piano playing, reaching intermediate level. As I have said before, there is no better feeling than when I master a new tune, and that applies to an even greater extent when they get more difficult.

To finish, here are some of my favourite blog posts from March:

• Emmie gave an excellent analysis of ‘Love After Love’ by Derek Walcott, a meaningful poem that I studied briefly at GSCE.
• Sofii wrote a fabulous discussion post about book rating systems and asks if they are really important.
• NS Ford gathered some very enlightening information about whether or not readers think books should tie up all loose ends.

All the best for April, and happy reading 🙂