People are amazing...

We've been staying in and shunning much social contact like most people with any common sense. Being an ex-submariner it's not a huge stretch for me to be isolated as the cartoon below shows. ;-)

We also got some very cool contact from a neighbor, someone who only moved next door a couple of months ago.

This young family contacted us via a neighborhood web site. They wanted to make sure that we were OK and did we need anything at the store.

We barely know them yet they were genuinely concerned about how we were getting along. It made me smile and I was almost in tears. (I'm a weeper, just to be truthful.) They have contacted us several time in the last weeks to see if we needed anything at the store and that we were doing OK.

Since that contact we've had several other neighbors check on us. It's incredibly heart-warming. We've also contacted a few neighbors to check up on them. Everyone around is doing well.

I hope you'll follow this example and check on those around you, especially the elderly. Even if they are OK it will be a huge moral boost to know you care about them.

On a writing note, I'm getting some great work on my WIP, book 5 of the 'Arlo and Jake' series. Now that I have nothing else to do I'm trying to put all my effort into completing the story ASAP.

Keep safe and wash your hands!

How do other writers do it!!??

Lately I've noticed that I spend more time promoting my writing than writing, and I hate that!!

But...

If I don't tweet, face book and do this blog, how do I get a readership? My books are at the bottom of the indie pile on Amazon and Barnes and Noble because of their self-defeating algorithms.

I get it. They are for-profit company and will make far more money promoting Stephen King's latest books than giving me 'shelf space' for mine.

So I'm tweeting and pimping my books an hour a day just to get a few book sells a week. I could be writing more books and getting them out there, but it seems counter intuitive to NOT promote as much as possible.

I know this is not a new problem and that all new writers have this dilemma. I've vacillated back and forth a dozen times: promote more, write less or just write and forget about the promotion.

Sigh.

So. I'm going to try the 'write more' for a while and try to just enjoy writing for the summer.

Thanks for listening. If you have ideas, let me know.