{"id":446,"date":"2020-12-04T01:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T01:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/?p=446"},"modified":"2020-12-06T14:19:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T14:19:48","slug":"ive-been-away-too-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/04\/ive-been-away-too-long\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Been Away Too Long"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been away from my blog yet I haven’t gone anywhere!<\/p>\n

People say that we have to journal our days in the pandemic, but have you find that it’s difficult to do so? I have different journals for each book I’m working on, a prayer\/spiritual journal and a general planner one. I checked my planner one and for the most part, I’ve avoided journaling about the darkness of the pandemic. I think one reason is that there’s no escape from it. No sitting down at a favorite coffeehouse to break up your day. No wandering into a movie theater and ordering a big tub of popcorn for a matinee. Even for my regular walks with Tulo, I have to remember to wear one of the masks that are hanging by the door.<\/p>\n

So journaling about the pandemic doesn’t seem helpful. Yet it is everywhere, literally everywhere around the globe. This is our shared reality.<\/p>\n

Recently I’ve been starting to write about the pandemic for two fiction projects. One is for a new web serial that I’ve created for Discover Nikkei. The other is for the second book, AN ETERNAL LEI, in the Leilani Santiago Hawai’i mystery series.<\/p>\n

In the web serial, “Ten Days of Cleanup,” the story revolves around a Marie Kondo-ish “cleanup” expert who agrees to clear out the storage unit of a mystery customer during the height of the pandemic in May. And in the book set in Kaua’i, my protagonist saves a stranger who is unconscious in the waters of Waimea Bay in October when the island was open again to visitors without a full quarantine.<\/p>\n

Unlike writing about the pandemic in my personal journal, writing fiction seems to be the way to access my reality. The limitation of sheltering-in-place, social distancing, communicating on phones and Zoom, dealing with masks and sanitizing has a defining role in the plot. In a strange way, I’m able to record my pandemic experience more honestly in this format.<\/p>\n

Whether anyone will want to read these accounts, especially after the height of pandemic, is anyone’s guess. But for now, I write and build worlds. In this context, I have full control.<\/p>\n

To read the first installment of the web serial, go to http:\/\/www.discovernikkei.org\/en\/journal\/2020\/12\/4\/cleanup-1\/<\/a><\/p>\n

New installments will appear on the 4th of every month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been away from my blog yet I haven’t gone anywhere! People say that we have to journal our days in the pandemic, but have you find that it’s difficult to do so? I have different journals for each book I’m working on, a prayer\/spiritual journal and a general planner one. I checked my planner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,20],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-resources","category-writings","tag-pandemic-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naomihirahara.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}