Spring

Spring is here. The season of new growth. We shed our winter layers and emerge out of internal hibernation to external.

At one point there was 3 feet of snow in our state and the world stopped for three days. Back to back blizzards.

I went in and finally finished "final" draft of novel. It took a month, I've been working on this book for a long time and it needed to be done.

Haiti
My fiction is about Haiti. This last month I kept my news gathering to almost nothing. I used to need to stay plugged in to what was happening every single day in Haiti. 

Working on this draft stopped me from doing that because I was the most disciplined I have been. It's like the pushing stage of childbirth but longer. The physical feelings of working on draft is mostly exhilaration and there's fear and foreboding and a little bit of guilt cause "shh mommy needs to finish typing this sentence." And sleepy cause staying up all night. Watching day rise before your eyes.

I'm back reading about Haiti and it's the same thing. The people suffer. Billions go into the country and families live in ditches with only sticks and sheets to protect them from the rain. The hurricane, the thunder storms, the lightening. No shelter from the robbers, the crazies, the mosquitoes, the rats, the dogs. 

The fiction saves me. I write about Haiti in the "glory" days. Who knew that there was a lower it could all go? Folks had nothing. It got worse.

On twitter and on NPR I am hearing news about Haiti. The world has not totally forgotten the country but the deep well that is corruption will take the money and the people will continue to suffer. The hopeful thing is folks are still going to Haiti to help. 

NGO's are still sprouting and growing. That's good and has it's issues. One issue is a person who is not Christian being denied aid on the basis of their religion.