My life these days is reviewing manuscripts, cooking, and reading drabbles (stories of exactly a hundred words) submitted to the contest, which mercifully closes tomorrow. About 250 entries, probably ending near 300, based on the last-minute flurry. Obviously, any mention of the number 300 necessitates a reference to the meme below. Don’t look at me; I don’t make the rules. (By the way, 300 is a great movie.)
It’s a weird nonacademic publication time, with absurdist literary fiction, poetry, and historical fiction penned by moi all coming out in the next few days.
Tomorrow I brave the grocery store again.
I have conference calls scheduled all week, some video play dates for the youngest kid, so the work and childcare proceed apace. Next week, the kids’ school goes back in session in an online format, and I dread the ensuing battles with the soon-to-be teen.
I made a loose deal to illustrate a writer friend’s ultrashort (50-word) dialogue-only stories in the form of 3–4 panel comic strips. This might be the incentive I need to finally learn to use digital-art tools. Here’s a character sketch.
How’s your Monday, blogosphere?
Here are some cool links. (The poem “Things” by Lisel Mueller is awesome.)
xykademiqz 
The story about how MB got his cast does give me some trepidation on your behalf about online schooling — yikes. Here’s hoping it’s better than you fear?
I hope your video playdates go better than ours — Smurf is older, so hopefully they will. So far video playdates just seem to make our 4-year-old confused and more upset. At least we’ve got two kiddos to antagonize each other — I wonder what this situation will do to their social development.