I have and have not been in pandemic funk. I'm an ambivert, but my introvert half has come out in full force this last year. She's like rolling up her sleeves with an 'I got this!' and settling in. At the same time, if my author critique group hadn't gone virtual and still met via zoom every week, I might have fallen further into funkiness. The fact that my job closed in August didn't help, which made me find a new job. The new job was an hour commute each way and required people to work in the OPEN OFFICE with 40 people in the same room. They didn't mention the open office until I arrived on my first day (all interviews were virtual due to pandemic). So I started looking for another job immediately, because the anxiety level of being in that open office would have been high even without COVID. I can't concentrate with that many people, noises, movement around me. I'm an accountant, not a DJ.
So, fast forward to December, I got a new job - but it meant I had to move to Connecticut (from upstate NY). Which meant finding a house. No rentals were reasonably priced, as all the NYC people were moving up to CT. A rental apartment 2/1 was $1800 a month! For that much, we bought a 3/2 house near Naugatuck with a 1/2 acre land. So all of that.
The new job is not WFH. Unfortunately, I still have a nasty commute. 35 minutes without traffic, which would be fine. I tested that before we put an offer on the house. But mid-December during COVID was not a fair test. It's often an hour commute with heavy traffic. Sigh. But I love the work and the people are great, and I have my own office, so I'm working to negotiate at least 2 days a week WFH. As an accountant, 100% of my work can be done from home.
So, long story, I haven't been that isolated in the pandemic, because I've had to go into work each day.
In writing news, some may recall I have a 9-book historical fantasy series with a small press publisher. Each book is on a 5 year contract. As the first one came due last year, I had to fight to get the rights back. My publisher did NOT want to have one book self-published and the rest published with her. She insisted that I buy back the rights to all the books at once (about $2500). I insisted there was no such clause in any of the contracts, and had no interest in doing that. ($2500 would have been more than I've made in royalties on the entire series since inception). Finally, I had to pull in the mediators at SFWA, who looked over all the contracts, and agreed with me. She finally backed down and gave me what I originally asked for - as each book comes up for reversion, I can re-publish with new covers, new edits, etc. I'm also doing print and audio versions (she only ever did print on the first one and never did audio). So far, it's doing well, and book two is on pre-order to be released August 8th.
I'm also working on an urban fantasy trilogy. Book one is in the latter stages of editing (Taming of the Few). Book two is just finished with the first draft (Much Ado About Dying). Book three is a glimmer in my NaNoWriMo eyes (All's Fae that Ends Fae). Still waffling about the series name. I'd settled on The Hidden Gods Series (the folks with magic are called the Unhidden and Irish Gods show up as characters at some point). However, I'm toying with a more Shakespearean name. Love's Labor's Found Series? A Midsummer God's Dream Series? The Winter's Gods Series? Don't know. Bleh.
And I'm still editing my Extreme Planning for Authors Workbook series. I'm breaking it into three workbooks at about 15K words each. Pre-writing, writing, and post-writing stages. It's all written, going through critique group, and then more editing.
I usually work on two to three projects at a time in various stages. I've got four right now and it's officially too many. Since Legacy of Truth is on pre-order, that's MOSTLY done and done. I want to get closer to finishing another project before I start a new one.
In other news... while our critique group has been great on zoom each week, it's shifting back to in-person, and a lot of great writers in the group have dropped off. So I'm looking for a new one, either virtual (preferred) or in person. Is anyone in a weekly critique group that's interested in a new member who gives mostly polished work and knows what a word count limit is?