Shufflin’ Along

I have no words to describe what the past few weeks have been for me and my family. Honestly, I don’t even want to try. So allow me to instead show you the one thing that’s been saving my sanity: feverishly making collages on Pinterest Shuffles. (My handle on there is @lydiaallthetime as it is on most social media, in case you want to follow me, and I am collecting my favorite shuffles in a Pinterest Board if you’d like to see a few and would enjoy befriending me there as well.)

I started off with some moodboard-type collages, loosely inspired by the setting of my books.

Then I experimented with a book-specific collage…

I was too busy and too submerged in grief and exhaustion and anxiety to focus much, though, so I started experimenting with different styles and content.

Then all of a sudden all of the funerals (yeah, plural) and masses and family gatherings were over and I was left with a bewildering amount of free time in my hands. And I had work to do. So I went back to creating collages that were similar in tone to the books I was supposed to be writing, which didn’t actually add any words to my manuscripts but at least made me fool myself into thinking I was Getting Work Done.

And I even played around with a collage inspired by A Lifetime for Love, the companion short story to A Summer for Scandal:

We’re halfway through October, and I really can’t keep procrastinating. My schedule, carefully constructed around the chronic fatigue that has kept me home for the past couple of years, is in need of a gigantic overhaul. But I’m still making time every day to play around on Shuffles while I listen to music or podcasts, a luxury I wouldn’t have allowed myself a few months ago.

So anyway, here I am, shuffling along in every sense of the word, trying to move forward even if it’s only a small step at a time.