With each passing year since the release of my debut novel, A Moment’s Worth, the farther away we move from how life was at the time it was written. Not to say that that wasn’t already expected, but as indicated in past retrospectives, I never expected for the difference to have gotten as vast as it has.
A Moment’s Worth was written from 2012-2013 and was released on July 15, 2014. I was nearing the end of my college education at the time and was already making my first steps out into the larger world. While the world at large wasn’t completely spared of issues, the fact that the United States was guided by one of the most level-headed presidents of modern history and the world wasn’t plagued by a pandemic makes that time period feel more like a dream that is slowly fading the longer we’re awake.
But then as we all know, things started changing for the worst four years ago. To accommodate and also explore the rapidly changing times, I put out a companion short story to my debut novel three years ago today, in the form of “46.”
But now, things are even more different than they were three years ago, as already indicated before. We’re in a pandemic. The fight to undo an oppressive system is at all-time high. International students are being told to leave the United States come this fall. Children are separated from their families and being held in cages. Breath is being collectively held for what might happen come November’s presidential election.
While I have no intention of revisiting the characters I created all those years ago, I do wonder where they would be now in 2020. Dagny would probably have just completed her remaining months of high school online and is probably going to be starting her college education this fall in a similar fashion. Yvonne would be in New Zealand where she is benefiting from the freedom of living in a COVID-19-free society; an experience she would not have had if she stayed in the United States. Justin would message her every other day, while working remotely in a pricey apartment in San Francisco he shares with three roommates. Angelia is pretty much out of work for the remainder of the year due to Broadway being closed, and is spending her days keeping herself busy, so as to not think about the white trucks a few blocks away from where she lives in New York. Life is mostly unchanged for Baleia…
You get the picture. My characters would be going through mostly similar scenarios as everyone else in the world.
It’s been six years since A Moment’s Worth came out. To read the novel now would be a look back into a world that feels like eons ago. My hope for people who decide to pick it up now would be to experience some much needed joy. The novel has a very optimistic, hopeful tone throughout. While there are some scenarios that may be deemed unrealistic, I hope you can look past that blanket of doubt and realize that all is possible. A Moment’s Worth is, without a doubt, very experimental. However, in these trying times, I hope it can be seen as something far more precious than that: I hope it can become a source of escape.
Both A Moment’s Worth and “46” are only available as ebooks and can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords, and other venues and outlets as well.
Lola By The Bay 