In my strange locked-down and socially-isolated state, I recently made the decision to look at a calendar. And you wouldn’t believe what I noticed. It is now officially July. That’s right, July. More than half of the year has passed us by.

Usually, when I make it past the halfway mark of the year, I like to post a little progress review. I like to make a few notes to let the world know how I’m going with working towards the goals I’ve set myself for the year. But that’s going to be a little different this year, because 2020 surely is a year like no other I’ve experienced.

The first reason it’s difficult to talk about goals is, if you’ll recall from the start of the year, I  didn’t actually set myself any. I left my options open, allowing for fate to take me on whatever trip it chose. In hindsight, that now seems like a pretty good decision.

Because, the other reason it’s hard to discuss goals is the fact that 2020 has turned out to be one messed-up year. Who would have thought things would turn out this way (apart from the hundreds of epidemiologists and virus specialists now waving their fingers at us)? Who would have expected the world to be hit by a massive pandemic, and people forced to go into lockdown, and economies to shut down? Even my crazy imagination never conceived of these possibilities. Not to mention the horrible bushfires at the start of the year, and the global upheavals as people around the world who have been denied rights are making their frustrations clear to the rest of us.

So what does that mean for my mid-year progress report? I suppose I’m doing ok. I still have a job (at least at the time of writing this post) which I am able to perform from home, so I can manage lockdown without too much trouble. And I’m lucky to be living in a country that (so far) has been pretty much unscathed. Still, that doesn’t make me any less concerned, not just for me but for the millions worldwide affected by this. I really hope we can get on top of this soon (whether vaccine or some other breakthrough) and return to some kind of normal.

In the meantime, what about the writing? I think I do have some good news here. I feel like I’m starting to get a rhythm at last and am making some progress. It hasn’t been easy – some nights I’ve pushed myself to the point of insomnia trying to mix work and writing. But I’m starting to get somewhere. I decided it was time to focus on the novel that had been sitting idle for over a year, and am making good progress on the rewrite. I’m currently up to chapter 11, and if I keep this up, I may even have a second draft done by end of the year. But no promises.

So here’s hoping the second half of 2020 is an improvement. Here’s hoping we can say goodbye and good riddance to covid 19. Here’s hoping we can make the changes we need in our societies to make sure everyone is on board. And here’s hoping we can take some steps to safeguard our environment, to prevent incidents like the bushfires.