So far it’s been a year of brain fog, among other things
I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me, 2024 wasn’t a great year. It may have started out well, but it ended with a serious health challenge. Thankfully, I’ve pretty much recovered, but I have some lingering brain fog. So along comes 2025. I was hoping it would be a much better year, but so far it’s been downright bizarre. Politics aside, I feel like I’m living in Clown World. Massive wildfires and floods. Mudslides. A series of plane crashes, some of which could have easily been prevented. We’ve been having some strange weather here in Texas as well. We normally get one or two Arctic freezes each winter. This year we’ve had three so far.
On a personal level, I recently discovered that several of my friends weren’t the people I thought they were. It all started when a few of them posted some hateful, divisive posts on Facebook. Several other mutual friends then chimed in, all in agreement. Their vitriol was jaw dropping. Ironically, they were all people who I had met at church. I simply couldn’t believe how these upstanding “good Christian women” could be so hateful. I tried to post a respectful disagreement on one of their posts. Instead of responding with the same respect, that so-called good Christian woman decided to double down. She sent me private message personally attacking me, as well as my late father, whom I had mentioned in my comment. I told I her was sorry she felt that way. I also made it clear that I want no further contact from her.
Please understand. I’m not saying all Christians are bad people. In fact, I’ve had many Christian friends who were sincerely good people and were always willing to go the extra mile for others. I’m just saying these particular “good Christian women” were, to be honest, hypocrites. You can’t put on the, “God loves everybody and I love everybody” act on Sunday mornings, and then turn around the following day and post vitriolic hate on social media. I will give these ladies credit for one thing though. They are all damn good actresses. Their Sunday morning performances were indeed Oscar worthy, and they really had me fooled.
Needless to say, all the above has affected my writing as well. I recently started working on my next contemporary romance novel, The Diversion. Like my earlier romance novels, it will include a crossover character. Jenna, from Rivalry, will make a cameo. Drew Grayson, a man she briefly met at a wedding reception, will be the leading man. He was originally intended to be the leading man in Rivalry, but Bill came along and hijacked the story. Sometimes characters have minds of their own, but their ideas always end up being better than mine. So far it’s off to a good start, but this time it’s taking me a little longer to get my act together. Therefore, I can’t predict when it will be complete. And who knows? Some church ladies may end up in the story. As a word that rhymes with witches. You know what they say. Never upset a writer. She may write you into a book and kill you.
Marina Martindale
Rivalry Is available on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and with other online booksellers.
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