by Ruth Harris
Between Covid and lockdown rules, cabin fever and cooking, sour dough and sour moods, 2020 is—finally!—dragging to an end.
- Anne dealt with non-Covid-related debilitating health issues.
- I had to navigate NYC’s soaring Covid infection rates.
- She had a meltdown involving a TV remote.
- I had one triggered by laundry.
The good news is that with the help of her talented physical therapists Anne is now on the mend and, for me, masks, once terrifyingly scarce, are now widely available.
Meanwhile the blog carried on.
- From SEO secrets to marketing and mental health
- To tips on finding the best comp titles and the rewards of persistence plus tips about how to recover from rotten reviews.
- From how to survive the chaos point in your book and how to rescue an endangered book
- To sussing out scammers and how to sell more books by our estimable web master, Barb Drozdovich—
- Anne and I and our savvy guests, offer our experiences, our mistakes, and our fixes.
A browse through our posts for 2020 will yield insights and strategies concerning other issues relevant to authors.
How to express gratitude—even in 2020.
To wind up the year on a positive, hopeful note, Kathy Steinemann contributed a post about ways to use the season’s many opportunities to express thankfulness: Veterans Day, World Kindness Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and more.
Anne pointed the way to spiritual help via a (free) guided meditation especially for writers.
For physical help, I wrote about my issues with back pain in September. Since then, I’ve come across this (free) gentle, effective yoga-Pilates session specifically created for people who’ve been sitting all day. (Writers!)
Good-bye, farewell and adios to 2020.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
To you our readers, however, Anne and I send our very best wishes for the happiest of holidays as we all look forward to a new—and greatly improved—2021!
by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) December 27, 2020
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What about you, scriveners? Anything you won’t miss from 2020? What good things are you hoping for in 2021?
A NEW BOOK FROM RUTH HARRIS!
Park Avenue Blondes
Special Launch Price—Limited Time only: 99c at Amazon and GooglePlay!
For fans of Nora Ephron—Women’s Fiction Meets Cozy Mystery in the Big Apple.
Available at Amazon, Kobo, GooglePlay, iBooks, and Nook
From a snooty charity gala to a blizzard at a Russian army barracks, fashion editor Blake Weston, and NYPD cop, Ralph Marino, her handsome, sexy husband, must work together to solve the murder of a Wall Street Midas.
But who did it?
Renay Porter, a Park Avenue Blonde with Walmart roots, says she wants a divorce from her super-rich husband, but wouldn’t murder be easier — and more profitable?
Muffy Astor, a Park Avenue Blonde with a North Shore pedigree knows — and tells — everything about everyone. Or does she?
Cynthia Blair, a Park Avenue Blonde with oodles of money, knew her husband was a fortune hunter when she married him, but now she’s stuck with him — and a Vuitton bag containing a blood-soaked shirt.
Can Blake’s snark, brains, and pepper spray catch the killer? Or will she be the next victim? And what will Ralph say when she plays sleuth?
“A refreshing escape to the 1980s with two fun, smart and savvy globe-trotting women sleuths. Perfect entertainment!” —Anne R. Allen, author of the bestselling Camilla Randall Mysteries.
“This cozy mystery is a wry and witty romp through the NYC world of socialites, financiers, fashionistas, the publishing industry, and even a literary drug smuggler. A fun read!” —Debbie Burke, award-winning author of the Tawny Lindholm Thrillers with a Heart.
Congratulations, Ruth, on the new book. Sounds rather interesting! ????
I won’t miss being stuck here in my town. With no car and current financial struggles, we have not been able to leave this English town since February. The world is so small at the moment.
Also, I won’t miss not being able to see anyone/friends. I have complied with all the Covid restrictions and not even dared to go to have a coffee out.
For 2021, I hope to finish the first draft of my second novel, and translate my first from English to German.
Here’s hoping for a better year!
Also, wishing you good health, Anne!
Katja—Same here in NYC. Other than grocery shopping—always with a mask—it’s almost like a ghost town. Long running shops have closed, no movies or plays, no seeing friends, no dinners out. Life as we once knew it, seems to be on hold.
Congratulations on finished the first draft of #2 and on your translation. Good luck with both and best wishes for 2021!
NYC must be most extreme – a city that usually never sleeps!
Literary agent Janet Reid lives there. I know she’s struggled with being locked in!
Let’s hope 2021 is kinder.
Looking forward to another year of your helpful blog.
Thanks, Ingmar, for the kind words. We all certainly hope and wish for improvement in 2021.
Anne and I wish you all the best for the new year!
It’s most definitely been a year. Brava to Anne & her fabluoso PTs & OTs. I love it when things are getting better & looking better.
CS, you are sooo right! (as usual.)
Anne and I and her PTs and OTs all send our best wishes for a much improved new year!
About the best thing to say about 2020 is that we survived it.
B/c of social isolation, I made some new online friends (including Anne and Ruth!) as the writing community reached out to each other. A big plus.
Early on, I realized there were two choices: eat or write. When my jeans no longer zipped and even elastic waistbands were tight, I decided writing was better. Three more books in my series were published in 2020, with a fourth to release in January.
Now if I could just shed the Quarantine Fifteen…
Anne and Ruth, wishing you a better New Year. You are the silver linings in an otherwise-cloudy 2020!
Debbie—Wow! Congratulations on your super productivity and good luck on #4! I love people who don’t let a little thing like 2020 get in their way!
About the only good thing to say about 2020 is Bye Bye!
2021 has its work cut out. Including disappearing the Quarantine Fifteen! And it better not fink out on us!
As the year whose name shall not be spoken comes to a close, the thing I won’t miss is “lockdown” -specifically the border closures between countries. We’re so fortunate in the free world to have (normally) unrestricted international travel. And fortunately, in a crazy time like this past year, we have the internet to travel in. Best for 2021 to you two, Ruth and Anne, as well our friends around the writing world.
Garry—Yes! Most excellent: “the year whose name shall not be spoken.” Well said, indeed!
We all seem to feel as if we’re stuck in an endless round of musical chairs…stuck wherever we happened to be when Covid struck.
Anne and I were fortunate to have the blog and our treasured readers to sustain us through the seemingly endless months. We both wish you every good thing in the coming year!
Ruth, thanks for the send-off! Seems like a shallow boat stuck in the mud at low tide…
You and Anne and all the wonderful guest posters have sustained me, and I’m sure every reader of the blog, throughout this year. The year that went on, and on, and on! :o)
Here’s hoping things get better by leaps and bounds in the near future for us all.
Thanks again for staying in the boat with us, sharing and leading, and seeing us through…
Maria—Thanks for the very kind words! Anne and I are lucky indeed to have the blog and our fabulous readers to cheer us on through a definitely difficult year.
We both wish you every blessing in the new year!
Thank you for the best wishes for a much better 2021, Ruth! I’m glad to hear that Anne’s health is improving and you have a book coming out!!
Liz—Thanks so much for the kind good wishes. Both Anne and I wish you and yours the very best for a new—and greatly improved—New Year!
Thank you, Ruth and Anne!
You two have definitely had a rougher year than I have. I hope your 2021 is full of good health and a daily bushel basket of joy.
Patricia—I have heard that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. We’ll see! 😉
Meanwhile Anne and I wish you every good thing for the 2021!
What a wild ride this year has been, Anne and Ruth! I’m glad it is ending on positive notes for you both. My family and friends have been blessed with good health so far. We’re hopeful the end of Covid is in sight as vaccines rollout and we do our best to be patient and vigilant in lock-down life. I especially appreciate your tenacity in delivering timely and useful messages the past 12 months. Here’s to a new and improved 2021 for us all.
Cat—So glad to hear your family and friends have stayed healthy. As you say, the vaccine rollout promises the beginning of the end of Covid.
Thanks for your kind words and good luck from both of us for the coming year!
Yeah, no. About the only thing that I won’t miss is work, ’cause hey, I done retired!
Beyond that, the rest of 2020 bit the big one. From living in a state where the gov’ment thinks that cratering the economy is the way to go for a Covid response (yes, I think that not cratering the economy with a punishing lockdown is actually a good thing.) instead of doing a more measured response to Covid 19 (not quite the punishing lockdown and cratering the economy), to having some unhealthy family members for a good chunk of the year (non-Covid), I’m more than ready to get back into the groove of writing for 2021. Looking forward to taking things easy before jumping headlong into the writing projects that have been idling for the better of 1 1/2 years.
I just want my government, on any kind of level, use a little common sense when saying “follow the science” while attempting the same pointless lockdown methods that simply haven’t worked. If not, we’re just gonna have a repeat of 2020.
And nobody wants a repeat.
GB—Sorry to hear about your family health issue but certainly concur with your comment about not wanting a 2020 repeat. Once was definitely enough! *More* than enough, in fact!
Anne and I join in wishing you blessings for the new year!
We’ve been fortunate in Australia, being an island and with excellent medical people and contact tracers, plus a small population to start with. I’m grateful for that. Also for the writing community supporting and inspiring each other online, holding conferences and workshops virtually, and for people like you, Anne and Ruth, keeping our spirits up despite your personal challenges. Thank you so much. Writers spend half our lives indoors anyway, living in our heads.. But the restrictions compelled me to indie publish my memoir and a Christmas novella, with another novella struggling to be born. I wish you and your huge following a happy and healthy 2021. May your words flow.
valerieparv—We’ve certainly been impressed by Australia’s response to Covid. As you say, definitely something to be grateful for.
Sounds like you’ve been productive—such a positive reaction to an otherwise blighted year. Congratulations — and the best of luck!
Thank you, Ruth and Anne, for making 2020 a little more bearable because of your helpful posts to guide us on this writing path. To those of you who got the CV and lived through it, congratulations. And I do hold out hope that 2021 will be better than what we’re going through now.
Peace out.
Patti
Patti—Thanks for the kind, cheering words. Anne and I join you in hoping a much improve 2021 is on the horizon!
Congrats on your book. Love the title!
As far as things I won’t miss in 2021, I’d say watching restaurants, stores and theaters lock their doors again after just re-opening. My heart breaks for them. I won’t miss not going to concerts to see my favorite bands as music is my panacea. I certainly won’t miss all the long term friendships I watched dissolve over political nonsense and differences of opinion concerning the pandemic. And even worse, watching the number of Covid cases soar, not only in the news, but in my personal circle of friends as well.
As far as what I am hoping for in the new year, first of all A TROPICAL VACATION to recoup, refresh, rejuvenate. Seeing people coming closer together instead of more divided would be fantastic as would seeing my friends again any time I damn well please. And last but not least I hope to be able to focus enough that I can complete one of my other dusty, half finished books while I will be finally recovering from much-needed knee surgery. 🙂
Happy, healthy New Year to both you and Anne. Looking for some great books to read (it sure helps). And thanks for reminding us that some good things DID happen in 2020, Right now, I just can’t remember what they are. I am going to challenge my mind to do so though 🙂
Bonnie—Thanks for the kind words! So glad to hear you love Park Avenue Blondes!
1000% behind you on that tropical vacation. The Caribbean? Bali? Somewhere gorgeous in Africa? SE Asia? Oh, my. How to decide!
Backatcha with the good wishes. Anne and I send you ours for a healthy and happy 2021!
I’m with you gals on kicking this year to the can. Wishing everyone a better 2021, good health and back to the land of living. 🙂
dg—Anne and I definitely welcome your added kick power! Bye bye 2020 (and not a minute too soon!)
We wish all the best for the new year to you and yours!
Thanks so much ladies. I look forward to a sparkling new year here with your always inspiring and informative posts. Stay safe! 🙂 🙂
Good riddance, 2020! I managed to stay productive and focused until the holidays ripped me from my fictional cocoon and dropped me into real life, which resulted in a recent emotional meltdown. I unplugged for a day or two, and emerged with a renewed outlook for 2021. Highly recommend taking extra “me time” when needed. Happy New Year, Ruth & Anne! Thanks for all you do. xoxo
Sue—Aaaargh. Unplug to reset. Maybe we’re just like computers. lol Anyway good for you.You’re definitely not the only one!
Thanks for the kind words and good wishes. Anne and I wish you and yours (at least the ones you can still tolerate) all the best for 2021.
Due to the pandemic, the small Canadian indy publisher that published two of my novels was forced to close their doors. Now I have to self-publish those books. They did give us rights to the ISBNs, the cover, etc., but I still have to learn to self-publish. Kindle is supposed to be easy, but the available tutorials don’t match the way I learn best.
A friend at work and a former son-in-law both were hospitalized and needed care after discharge, and because our daughter was exposed, Thanksgiving was less than anticipated.
But our family has stayed safe and well, despite some being on the front lines, and that is something to be thankful for. And so is this blog! Thank you Anne and Ruth for the treasure of your information. When occasion presents, I always recommend this blog. May you have a great new year.
Fred—Glad to hear your family continues to be well, but you’ve certainly had an eventful year. Please take your self-pubbing adventure step by step. I’ve found that things that seem hard at first, turn out to be fairly easy after a bit of practice and perseverance.
Good luck with your book and thank you for your kind words about the blog. Anne and I appreciate our readers more than we can say—they keep us going when, sometimes, the going is rough.
We both wish you and yours all the best for 2021.
Thank you both for another year of helpful, smart posts. Wishing you both a HEALTHY and happy new year.
Nina—Thank you for the kind words. Anne and I appreciate them—and you. We both wish you a safe, healthy and happy new year.
Great round-up, Ruth. Health and happiness to you and Anne in the new year.
So long and thanks for all the links! 😉 Cheers.
Thanks, Sarah! Anne and I send you our wishes for all the best in 2021. 🙂