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<\/a><\/p>\nMay, 2020,\u00a0 Tigger and Ragtime when the grass was green<\/em><\/p>\n Meanwhile, I had started a new book–not a Paks book, but a book I thought might be easier to write, set in the Vatta universe.\u00a0 It was intended to be the third book in Vatta’s Peace, but I knew I’d have to let it develop any way it wanted to, and not push for the same speed of writing that I used to have.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s still just called NewBook (no title) and it’s now just over 100,000 words.\u00a0 Slowed down somewhat but not completely by the pandemic and moderate self-quarantine: everyone in our family is at increased risk (R- and I by age, plus pre-existing conditions that *some* politicians think make us unworthy of care) and our son as a disabled person whom some politicians also consider not worth saving.\u00a0 This is a GOP-dominated state, and some of our state leaders and other political talking heads have been eager to say that this group and that group don’t really matter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When our governor decided to re-open the state (after a late and incomplete closure and no real “wear a mask” statement) our case numbers were still rising, and Memorial Day was right in front of us.\u00a0\u00a0 To say I was angry at this gross disrespect for human life is to put it too mildly.\u00a0 Our national and state leaders kept making it clear that the rising death toll didn’t bother *them* because they insisted the deaths weren’t that important.\u00a0\u00a0 As one right-wing pundit in Texas said about the increasing deaths, “It’s mostly elderly and Hispanics.”\u00a0 Thank you so much, you smug arrogant scum, I thought.\u00a0\u00a0 I was not surprised, but definitely angry, when the recommended emails, letters, and calls to my representatives at both state and federal level has zero effect.\u00a0 A story began to take shape in my head in\u00a0 June, but I tried to stick to the book.<\/p>\n Even as a friend in New Zealand was describing the approaching end of their shutdown because of rapidly declining cases (NZ now has had no new cases for over 100 days)\u00a0 and I was anticipating being an online program participant in their WorldCon, we experienced spike after spike,\u00a0 including in my hometown and its county and those adjoining, down on the Border.\u00a0\u00a0 And then my husband’s younger brother and his wife came down with\u00a0 COVID-19 in Houston, his wife went into the hospital, was intubated, and died.\u00a0\u00a0 We were not close, but that was the week they moved morgue trailers into our state, and shipments of body bags, and of course I was sad (and angry) about their situation even before she died.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I couldn’t write at all at first, or think clearly enough to do the prep work for the panels I was supposed to be on or moderate, so I withdrew from programming, and when my brain started functioning better…the story came out.<\/p>\n