WRITING IN A TIME OF COVID 19: Guest Post by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

Nancy Lynn Jarvis:
Writing in a Time of Covid 19

I’m a big fan of the late writer Gabriel Garcia Márquez, but I never imagined when I was reading Love in the Time of Cholera or A Hundred Years of Solitude how his titles would seem so appropriate for us in 2020. This Covid19 thing has put us in the middle of a mess, hasn’t it?

When we were first told to shelter at home, it didn’t seem like a big deal to me. I live alone in a mountain home and feel safe nestled there. I didn’t mind that I couldn’t interact with friends and family first-hand for a while because, like all writers, I have characters in my head talking to me, sharing who they are and what they’re doing, and keeping me company. I imagined that I could use my solitude to write.

The only thing is, I couldn’t. I’m not prone to writer’s block so that wasn’t my problem. I simply couldn’t focus. I’m not what you’d call a disciplined writer with a routine and daily page requirement, but even so, since 2008 when my first Regan McHenry Real Estate Mystery came out, I have produced a total of seven books in that series, written Mags and the AARP Gang, a stand-alone coming of age (if that’s possible for characters in their eighties) comedy, written a little inside baseball book called The Truth About Hosting Airbnb, something I do―did before the virus hit―coordinated submissions from one-hundred-twenty-eight cozy mystery writers for a cookbook, and herded seventeen cats―I mean writers―who submitted short stories for an anthology. I also put out the first book in a new series, PIP Inc. Mysteries.

I can write. I can produce. I’ve done it. The only time I couldn’t was after my husband died and being in mourning stopped me from concentrating. As I stared at a computer screen, frustrated because new words didn’t flow, it seemed like my loss of focus now couldn’t be like mourning the loss of someone I loved. What I discovered is that mourning then and what was happening to me now were exactly the same thing and that I was affected in the same way.

Shock hit first. I stared at the calendar marking the passing of time, reminding myself that I had made it through another day. Grief and tears came next and regularly as the death toll rose and stories of heroic medical personnel catching the disease broke my heart. I experienced anger. How dare this be happening. Why weren’t better decisions made? How could this disease be winning? The almost overwhelming desire to awake from the nightmare and get back to normal followed, and finally, so did acceptance that life would never be normal again.

Of course life will be good again. We will adapt to our new reality. We will be able to hug one another and do the simple things we enjoy. We will come out of mourning for life as we knew it and for those we have we lost. Those born into this new world won’t divide their lives into before and after.

I’m moving through mourning this time, too, like I did after my husband’s death, and can write once more. I’m making real progress on the second book in the PIP Inc. Mysteries series which I started before this new world when I didn’t know how apt its title, The Funeral Murder, might be.

***

Nancy Lynn Jarvis was a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor for twenty-five years but was having so much fun writing that she let her license lapse in May of 2013. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz. Nancy's work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years. 

In the course of writing seven books in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series, Nancy took some detours. She wrote Mags and the AARP Gang, a novel Nancy thinks was channeled through her by an eighty-three-year-old woman with a story to tell, and a little insider's book The Truth About Hosting Airbnb. She also edited Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes, and most recently, Santa Cruz Weird, a short story anthology with contributions from seventeen Santa Cruz writers.

Personal Loss and a New Series: Guest post by NANCY LYNN JARVIS

NANCY LYNN JARVIS:
Personal loss Ends the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series but gives Birth to Private Investigator Pat and a lot more cozy fun.

When I started writing the first of seven books in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series, everyone was someone I knew and all locations were real, too. As I wrote, characters quickly got renamed and became my creatures. They were free to do what I wanted them to do; free to sometimes become murderers.

I was an active real estate agent when I began the series, so telling stories about my profession was easy and the books had an authentic ring. But time passed and I let my license lapse. Technology had so greatly modified the day to day workings of the business that my stories were in danger of becoming dated and stale, and after a decade, I was having less fun with Regan.

But the end of my Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series came about because of the death of my husband. Regan was happily married to Tom Kiley, her business partner. I was happily married to Craig, my computer savvy /beta reader/cover implementer. Craig wasn’t Tom, but in my mind, Tom’s blue eyes were exactly the same color as my husband’s eyes were. I saw them as I wrote Tom.

I did do one more book, The Two Faced Triplex, after Craig died, but it was painful to write. And when it was time to do the cover, always our favorite shared activity, the man I hired to help me made me cry. It was time to retire Regan and Tom and start a new series.

I have a good friend who is an unlicensed private investigator. She never wants to become licensed because she doesn’t care to spend three years as an apprentice working for a licensed private investigator, but mostly, she often works outside the box and doesn’t want to be limited by the codes that go along with a license.

Her name is Pat and she’s a mesmerizing story teller. I’ve used things she’s told me about her work for several books, especially The Two Faced Triplex and I have enough story plots from her adventures to do several books. I suggested we should collaborate: she could supply details and authenticity about how she works, and I would make up stuff for the sake of the story. The concept of PIP (private investigator Pat) Inc. was born with The Glass House, the first book in a planned series.

I’ve taken liberties with her character just like I always have before, but an awful lot of who Pat Pirard is comes directly from my friend. The real Pat loves bright clothing, jewelry, sunburst yellow Mercedes convertibles and .357 magnums; so does Private Investigator Pat. The real Pat was a law librarian who retired. PI Pat was a law librarian who was downsized. Both are fearless, intuitive, quite clever, and see connections others might overlook.

Pat’s best friend, Syda Gonzales, is a not-very-accomplished artist who thinks she may have found her true artistic medium in writing. She suggests she might become Watson to Pat’s Sherlock Holmes and write stories about their adventures. Any similarities to me are, of course, purely fictional.

**
Nancy Lynn Jarvis finally acknowledged she was having too much fun writing to ever sell another house, so she let her license lapse in May of 2013, after her twenty-fifth anniversary in real estate. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz at UCSC. Real estate details and ideas come from Nancy's own experiences. Be sure and read her essay above about her new series!