Beating the COVID Blues by Alice Renaud #FearlessFriday #Inspiration #WritersLife

FEARLESS FRIDAY

Please welcome Alice Renaud back to Discover... with an inspirational Fearless Friday. 

The pandemic has turned many people’s lives upside down. Things, habits, beliefs that seemed solid and durable have melted away like snow. Routine activities like going to the shops, riding a bus, attending church, are suddenly fraught with danger.

Have I done something rash recently? Hell, yeah. I went to church and took Communion, then I took the bus back home. Armed with my mask, hand sanitizer, and a six-foot force field around me to stop people coming too close, I felt like Ranulph Fiennes trekking across Antarctica.

COVID has undoubtedly made us a lot more fearful. Yet the more time I spend at home, the more I avoid risks, the more I realize that I do need some excitement in my life. I need to try something new, to push the boundaries, to take a little bit of risk. Otherwise my brain and even my body start to feel… stale. Like a house closed up for too long. I yearn to open a window and let the fresh air in.

So, what to do, when we are deep into our third lockdown, and can’t even sit outside because it’s pelting down with rain? How can we be a little more fearless?

Thank God for writing. My Fearless moments in the past months have come from stretching myself as a writer. Getting out of my comfort zone. Experimenting with new genres, characters, styles.

During the first lockdown, last spring, I wrote my first sci-fi romance story. Appropriately, it’s about a cowboy who goes much further and takes far more risks than I ever could. He goes into space, to another planet. Albastra is a beautiful world, blue and peaceful, but it is ridden with germs, every one of which is deadly to humans. When the cowboy meets the gorgeous alien Melynas, he soon falls for her, but one kiss could be fatal… You won’t be surprised to learn that I got my inspiration from a lockdown dream! The story, Space Cowboy Blues, is included in the BVS romance anthology Cowboy Desire, on pre order now for only $0.99.

Then during the second lockdown, in November, I wrote my very first gay/menage story. It is set in Las Vegas, features a mermaid, a witch and a warlock, and will hopefully be out later this year (if my publisher agrees) in a new BVS anthology, Rainbow Desire.

Whatever our circumstances, stories can help us escape, at least in spirit. I hope you will enjoy this latest offering from BVS and its talented authors, and hope you and your family are safe and well. As Tiny Tim says at the end of A Christmas Carol, “God bless us, everyone!” 

Buy Link for Cowboy Desire: https://amzn.to/2LmdUhD 

Blurb for Cowboy Desire

Cowboy Desire is an eclectic assortment of short stories. Including contemporary, historical, fantasy, and even outer space romance, Cowboy Desire offers fourteen stunning short stories.

These fourteen authors provide a range of sweet to sexy stories all with a cowboy theme. They feature strong men and women battling the weather and dangerous terrain, here on earth and in outer space.

The collection is as diverse as the authors who wrote them. Here’s a chance to discover new talented authors and the characters they create. Within these pages, there are blends of tender, often moving, thought-provoking and downright sexy stories. 

Blurb for Space Cowboy Blues

Josh is a space cowboy. His job? Taming alien species. But on the blue planet Albastra, the beautiful Melynas is more than a match for him. He'd love to get close to her... but everything on Albastra is lethal. Including her...