Leah Lindeman's Blog, page 4

5 Tips for Writing a Book Review That Readers Will Enjoy

Today’s post is a guest post from Desiree Villena, a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects self-publishing authors with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. In her spare time, Desiree enjoys reading contemporary fiction and writing short stories — as well as the occasional book review!

When it comes to reviewing books, there are some essential steps that you should be taking. But if you’re already doing those things, perhaps you’re wondering how to ensure your readers stay entertained? Providing a summary, presenting your evaluation, and giving your additional recommendations is an excellent start, but it’s time to start thinking about enhancing your review with some above-and-beyond thoughts and insights to really captivate your audience. 

That may sound daunting, but if you’ve followed Leah’s advice, you know that there are limitless adventures out there if you let go of your fears. To that end, I’ve outlined five steps below that will help you tap into your originality and make your reviews stand out.   

1. Read actively 

Just like Leah’s hinted, the key to great writing is knowing your stuff! This starts long before you’re ready to put pen to paper. Indeed, you should begin thinking about your book review as you’re still reading. 

Plan your review like you would plan a novel and start by breaking the parts down into manageable chunks. This is probably the most time-consuming step but, assuming you love reading as much as I do, also the most fun. Here are a couple action points to get you going: 

Note down your thoughts and reactions and think about how you could formulate them in a review. Some people choose to write in the books, but if you think that’s a deadly sin, you can also invest in some sticky-notes or keep a notebook with you. Pay attention to things like quotes that speak to you or say something about the writing style. You might also make a note of strong literary devices or main themes to comment on in your review. 

You can take notes about literally anything, pun intended. There’s no right or wrong answer! Take this chance to engage with the book on a personal level so it will be easier to add your signature style to the review later. 

2. Consider your platform 

Next think about the platform to which you’re uploading the review. This step is often overlooked, but it deserves some attention as it will influence the format, content, and presentation of your review. Remember to put yourself in your readers’ shoes and think about what they want to see on a particular platform. 

Start by checking out reviews on some popular review sites to get a feel for what is expected. Take inspiration from other reviews while also thinking about how you can put your own spin on it. Keep it short and snappy if you’re reviewing on #bookstagram to fit the word limit — and pay extra attention to the picture. Goodreads? Spread your wings and write a longer piece. Submitting to a journal? Limit the jokes and write in a more professional tone. 

3. Start strong 

Now that you’ve taken plenty of notes and understand your platform, it’s time to convert this knowledge into a page-turning review. Use your opening sentence to draw the reader in and keep them guessing, then dive into the essential information and plot summary. 

If you find yourself stuck, think of it like writing a book, but on a way smaller scale! And like with books, it’s true what they say — first impressions matter. On that note: 

Make your first sentence(s) count. Something unexpected is great but if you feel like you’re forcing yourself to be witty or outlandish, keeping it simple works too. You can even start with a quote or a question for the reader that is relevant to the plot or main theme, such as “is all really fair in love and war?” Convey some essential information about the book, preferably early on. Title, author, publication date, as well as an enticing plot summary (without spoilers, or at least with spoilers marked or hidden, as on Goodreads) are expected. You might also want to comment on the genre or on whether it’s a debut. Play around with how you introduce these elements to add a personal touch and avoid simply listing them. Use your notes to contribute interpretations that keep your review fresh and interesting. 

4. Praise and critique the book 

While giving your evaluation, present your reasons for liking or not liking the book. Your experience of a given book will be unique to you, and that makes for an enjoyable review! Just make sure to validate your reflections with evidence from step 1. For instance: 

Use quotes to show the reader why you thought the writing was superb (or not-so-superb). Did you think the characters were flat or round? Explain why, with examples. Were you bored or confused at any point? Comment on how this could be the result of this book’s specific narrative arc. Try to present both praise and critique of the book, even if you’re writing a rave review, because it shows that you’ve considered it from all angles — and again, back your claims up with textual evidence. 

5. End with confidence 

Your review should ultimately address the question: who is this book for? Give a confident answer by placing it in conversation with other books, both to lend this book some context and to make your review more engaging. After discussing the finer details of the novel itself, conclude your review by zooming back out again and giving your recommendations. 

By this point, make sure it’s clear whether you enjoyed the book or not. If not, you can still recommend it to “fans of so-and-so.” Show that you understand the difference between your personal preferences and bad writing. Also show that you know what you’re talking about by comparing the book to others in the genre overall. This gives more weight to your review and can help clarify any questions your readers might still have. For example, since writing nonfiction is very different from fiction, you might comment on the specific aspects of the genre when reviewing a nonfiction book and compare it to others you liked, noting stylistic or thematic similarities.   Add a final sentence which ties back to your first sentence for a cohesive end product. Perhaps answer the question that you opened with. Finally, make sure to go back and edit to streamline your structure and catch any stray misspellings. 

By following these steps, you’ll be a pro reviewer in no time. You can even take your new skills to new and different reviewing platforms, like Reedsy Discovery. 

In the end, when it comes to writing an enjoyable review, nothing beats knowing the material well and conveying your thoughts on it with original examples. A solid review will give you the good, the bad, and the ugly, but a great review will offer your own thoughtfully considered reflections. 

7 Building Blocks for a Solid Marriage

In honour of this past Valentines Day, I’m sharing the 7 building blocks my husband and I have used to solidify our marriage these past 10 years. Our marriage through highs and lows has stood unbroken, like a rocky cliff buffeted by storm-tossed waves that the ocean has thrown our way—living with in laws and siblings (13 other people) for a year and a half within the first two years of our marriage, the startup of a new business which led to us not having enough money to buy diapers at one point, a miscarriage, and a myriad of other lows that are a part of life.

Though our marriage isn’t perfect (whose is?), it is strong because of these 7 principles we live by.

A Higher Ideal

My specific higher ideal may not apply to you because you believe differently. Yet this isn’t something I can leave out of the equation of the success of our marriage. From the very beginning of our relationship, my husband and I have always strived to put God first in our own lives so that His love could help us grow in our love for each other. Our vertical relationship to God enables, empowers, and strengthens the horizontal foundation of our relationship to each other.

If you believe differently, selflessness should be the higher goal that you should strive for. True love is selfless and humble. These most important aspects of love is the life blood of all the following principles. Believing in an ideal higher than and outside ourselves helps keep our focus on what is really important, not allowing petty grievances to cloud our emotions and judgment.

2. What’s Important to Me Is Important to You

Chances are you and your spouse won’t have the exact same interests. You may have 1 or 2 that you share. You’ll probably also both be passionate about things that don’t interest the other in the least. That’s okay! You didn’t go out looking to marry yourself. Don’t let your differences pull you part. Instead, make what’s important to them important to you. That doesn’t mean you have to be as knowledgeable as they are in the topic, dedicating hours of your day to it.

It means eagerly listening to them explain something to you because they are excited about it, or being the sounding board they need to cement an idea. It means being their cheerleader when they embark on a new exciting project or when they are just trying to plod through a difficult one. It means being proud of them and sharing their achievements with loved ones.

3. Disagreements Are Healthy; Disrespect Isn’t

Expect to have disagreements. They are natural when you have two different people living in close quarters with each other and sharing their minds and bodies on a constant basis. How do we handle ourselves when we come against an opposing opinion? Do you talk it out like a sensible adult? Or do you thrash around like a child because your spouse won’t let you win? Please remember this isn’t a battle. Don’t start your argument with that mindset. Because if you do, your disagreement is going to reach the boiling over point where disrespect reigns. Shouting, pointing fingers, and crying are the only trophies you’ll get from this exhausting game plan.

Start with the mindset that you guys are a team. In a team, each player has different talents and a helpful, unique perspective on every situation. Find a way to tackle the obstacle using what the other person can bring to score a team win. Before you open your mouth to say what you want to say, let your spouse fully express their view, their concerns without interruptions from you. If something they say isn’t clear, then ask them to clear up a specific point. Once they’ve finished speaking, sum up in your own words what you understood them to say. Then ask, “Am I right in thinking this is what you meant?” If they say yes, then take a few clear moments to think about it. Try to understand where they’re coming from. More often than not, this clears up a lot of wrong assumptions and miscommunications.

4. No Compromise

Sometimes a couple is at an impasse. You’ve talked out both sides thoroughly. You understand where your souse is coming from, and still don’t agree. What do you do?

My husband and I agreed to no compromise at the beginning of our marriage. It has been a great tool to show the other person real love while also keeping oneself humble. What do I mean by no compromise? Think about it. If you compromise a little and the other person compromises a little, you’re both not getting exactly what you want, which can more often than not leave you slightly bitter or dissatisfied. Instead, one of you can give in all the way.

Please don’t misunderstand me and take this as leaving a door open to physical or emotional abuse. Absolutely not. I am not addressing any situation where these are possible elements in a relationship.

“No compromise” can be manifested in something as simple as letting your spouse get to eat at the restaurant they choose. It could also be manifested in something a little more complicated like letting your spouse choose what colour you’re going to paint the living room. Or you know the route they want to drive is going to take longer to reach your destination and you’re going to be late. It will be obvious when you get there. It gives you a chance to be patient and loving.

5. Sex Is An Act of Love

Too often, sex is portrayed as something you are owed. You deserve pleasure; so take it. Approaching the marriage bed with this kind of mentality can lead to devastating consequences such as the following: your spouse feels as if they’re being used and/or your spouse is sexually unfulfilled. These kinds of scenarios bleed into other areas of marriage where their frustration, hurt, or anger starts to infect.

When you have sex, think of it as another amazing opportunity to show your partner love in the way you know pleases them. Every time you do so with the right attitude, their pleasure increases your pleasure. You are both riding the wave of ecstasy without being domineering.

6. Keep In Mind Your Different Love Languages

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman is a must read for any couple! This book gives a practical blueprint to knowing how you and your spouse receive love best. Once you both have established your priority list of what are the best ways someone can show you love, you can share your insights with each other and make the opportunities to stay in love despite life’s everyday challenges that can dull or destroy your love life.

For example, my husband’s top 3 are words of encouragement, physical touch, and quality time. Knowing this, I can intentionally show him love throughout the day using his top 3.

7. Being One But Separate

The last principle that helps our marriage stick and thrive is having lives separate from each other. I have my circle of friends, and he has his. We enjoy different hobbies and interests. Not everything we do has to include the other person. Yet at the end of the day, we always come back to each other and share our experiences and what we have learned.

Instead of losing ourselves in each other, we are interdependent. We are confident in who we are individually and able to work separately. When we come together, we’re stronger together.

If you’ve been married for many years and have some wisdom to share, what are the principles you and your spouse live by? Please share below in the comments!

Murder at Matins Book Review

A faith commune located in the Ontario Highlands seems the least likely setting for a potential homicide. Yet members and visitors alike grappling with shady pasts and gripping present temptations make the possibility a much more likely scenario. Join Inspector Bevyn Jones, former monk, in Davyd Gosselin’s murder mystery Murder at Matins in determining the truth of a priest’s drowning at midnight. I’ve given Davyd’s book 4 out of 5 stars. His weaving of red herrings, dropping of clues, and honest canvassing of the human condition made this an intriguing, beginning of the year read.

Following in the great Agatha Christie’s footsteps and many other murder mystery authors, Davyd arranges a wide variety of personalities and possible motives amongst a large cast of possible suspects. Some of these characters are members of the faith commune, and others are people from the surrounding area who are acquainted or friends with the members. Almost every one of them is suspicious, hence the fun scattering of red herrings throughout the story. Brother Bob and Chad were the first and obvious choices because of their irritability and lack of empathy toward most of the other characters. They were quickly substituted with MacLean and Lena, the couple who run the faith commune, because an undercover Brother Johnathan was looking into MacLean’s underhanded financial dealings. As for Lena, her sexual temptations didn’t paint her in the most trustworthy light. One or two others followed as possible suspects before the finale was finally revealed and the true perpetrator(s) were brought to justice.

Another fun aspect of the book was the way Davyd dropped his clues. At first, it seems erratic without much sense, but the reader soon sees how many of the clues tie together. Slowly, a larger portion of the night in question is unshaded throughout the book while still leaving enough unanswered to surprise the reader when Inspector Bevyn Jones announces who killed the commune priest. The book was well paced because of the craft and care the author took in planting his clues.

Finally, a strong proponent of this book is how colourful much of the supporting cast was. A large part of their colour was due to the histories, motives, and temptations that the author fleshed out. These descriptions weren’t extraneous in the least. They were relevant to the story at hand. They never stole the spotlight from the pacing of the murder mystery. They were always written in short, snappy paragraphs that added depth the moment they were most useful or needed.

Overall, I enjoyed Davyd’s book. It gave me a nostalgic feeling as it brought me back to my teen years when I greedily consumed Agatha Christie’s works. There were a couple of reasons why it didn’t make it to 5 stars. First, they were several times during dialogue when it wasn’t clear which character was speaking. These moments of unclarity didn’t last long. However, there were enough that my confusion sometimes overcame my grasp of the story at hand. Second, though the supporting cast was a delight to dive into, Inspector Bevyn Jones and his ex-fiance detective weren’t as interesting despite their being the main characters. I believe a greater fleshing out of these main characters would make the story even stronger. It could be because I dove into the series starting with the second book instead of the first. A strong supporting cast, crafty red herrings, and good pacing make this an enjoyable, easy to read in one week book. You can purchase a copy on Amazon.

To hear from the author himself about his works and his writer’s process (I also share my own), watch our interview here.

How to Craft Time Travel (aka Historical Fiction)

In my video How to Research for Writing Your Historical Fiction Novel, I pointed out where you could find prime resources to research the time period in which your story is set and what aspects of the certain historical time period you would need to include (which is everything if you want to fully immerse your reader).

Today, I’m going to point out the best ways to incorporate the research you’ve gathered into the actual story that you’ve plotted.

Setting

As with all genres of novels, the setting of your story is heavily crafted usually at the beginning of your story and anytime your scene changes to a different setting. In order to bring that setting to life in a different time period, the following research would be fitting to insert into the description of your settings:

condition, names, and material of your roads era appropriate city landmarksblueprints or overall understanding of certain buildings and their surroundingsthe heartbeat of the setting your characters are inserted into whether that be a country setting or a certain city (what are the smells? what do the people look like? the colours? the transportation? etc.)

Here is an example of how I incorporated the city structure of Victoria in the 1870s to describe the setting around my protagonist:

Five minutes into her walk, the whistles of a steamship rang in her ears. As she turned off Courtney Street and north onto Government Street, she could see bleary-eyed miners a couple blocks ahead lumbering into the Hudson Bay Company, the Royal Bank, and various other shops. Rose eyed a man coming out of the local grocers shop carrying an assortment of mining tools and canned food in a large crate. He swaggered toward the harbour. His eyes burned with a hunger for gold.

Leah Lindeman, Wisps of Gold

2. Characters

The historical research you would incorporate into building your characters would be mostly dialogue and the fashions of the day from clothing to hairstyles if it’s essential to fleshing out your character and/or moving your plot forward.

Let’s first focus on dialogue since it could be almost half of your word count. Depending on what time period your writing is portraying and where you are geographically, the way your characters speak will be determined by these two essential aspects of dialogue.

Modern phrases cannot creep their way into your character’s dialogue since most of them wouldn’t have existed.

To write solidly, you want to stay away from trite expressions as a rule. However, if a character were to use one in dialogue, you would want to make sure that particular phrase was in use during the time period your story is set in. Take for example “jump on the bandwagon.” The expression was only starting to be used in the mid 1800s. So, you wouldn’t want your character to use this phrase if you were writing a story set in the 1600s. It wouldn’t have been spoken at all.

Writing dialogue inclusive of a geographical accent or way of speaking is lots of fun and a colourful and educational way of bringing the past to life in your story. In my latest novella Scathed Bones, Agnus McVee is originally from Scotland. So all her dialogue is written in the Scottish English usage of the day which you can understand for the most part. I’ve included a glossary of the Scottish English words in the back of the book.

3. Plot

Writing a detective thriller set during today compared to writing one set during the Victorian era is quite a different story. Today we’re used to all the available technology to solve a crime. During that time, equipment and technology were limited. In order to be true to the processes of that period, you would need to research how investigations were conducted, how the police worked in conjunction with a detective, and how the prison system operated during that time. You could read Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to get a first hand look from the author of how such a story would play out during that time.

When I wrote my first novel Redeemed From the Ashes, I had to heavily research the medicine of the early 1900s. How did they treat third degree burns? What medical operations were available for those kinds of injuries? How did the health system cope when thousands were injured as the result of the Halifax Explosion of 1917?

Whatever vocation is impacting your plot, you need to research all of its intricacies and its processes.

Conclusion

As you can see, different aspects of your research will be essential to certain aspects of telling your story in a way that will be most effective in engaging your readers and helping them time travel to the destination and time you have chosen.

What are some of your favourite historical fiction novels that you see have incorporated research well into the story the author has created?

How to Keep Your New Year’s Goals

We all needed a reboot from last year with the ringing in of this new year. Although coming up with New Year’s goals/resolutions is a fun activity that solidifies some purpose into our year and gives us some great conversation starters with friends, our goals/resolutions quickly fall to the wayside of broken or lost dreams within 3 weeks of the New Year.

We bemoan our inefficiency, our lack of motivation, and our laziness to carry the burning torches of hope we made out our resolutions to be. Then we fall into the grind of daily life, the hope of permanent change dying on our sighs.

Quite the depressing picture, isn’t it? Are you tired of this routine you’ve set up for yourself every year? I was feeling it 2 years ago. Then I changed the whole way I look at New Year’s resolutions. See, they’re not just some goal to be check marked and you can say, “I did it! What’s next?”

Yes, that’s part of it. Yet, haven’t you noticed that there’s always something else to do on the big TO-DO LIST of life? Looking at it all is OVERWHELMING!

It’s about the journey, not just the destination. It’s about the striving during the good and hard days to attain the satisfaction that comes from a hard day’s work, knowing that it brings you one step closer to a goal that will bring joy and will help serve you, your family, your friends, and your communities.

So let’s get to it! How do we do this?

Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Because excitement buzzes in our veins during the days leading up to New Year’s and the days after the holiday, we look at all the changes we should make and come up with 10-12 resolutions that we promise we’ll keep. Seriously?! Our brain has enough to handle as it is with every day and its demands, let alone 10 new things we’re going to change about ourselves. Give yourself a break! Pick 3-5 goals that you know you can reasonably manage.

2. Think before you promise.

Don’t make idle promises that you know you can’t keep. How do you know if you can keep them or not? Take some time to meditate on the year that has passed and see what practices helped you achieve your goals and which ones didn’t. Did you set aside time to learn more about your business or personal growth either through online courses or books? Did you have a community supporting you in your endeavours? Did you choose key people who you could look up to and mentor you?

Maybe you’re the type of person who needs to write down your goals and post it in a place where you can always see them. What about visualizing your goals coming to pass? Do you see that finished manuscript in your hands? Do you see yourself doing calls with all the people you’re coaching? Visualize all the details and the steps that would lead up to the finished product. Keep them at the forefront of your mind continually.

3. Come up with a game plan.

You’ve come up with a reasonable goal. You can see yourself accomplishing the goal and living out its satisfaction. But how do you get there? It may still seem insurmountable. Too much in one shot! Which it would be if you only had a day or a week to do it. But you don’t. You’ve given yourself 10-12 months to complete it. Reverse engineer how you’re going to reach the destination (while enjoying the lessons of the journey). Set up a system that will propel you to your goal.

For example, in my video of what my writer’s goals are for 2021, I set out to read 50 books this year. There’s about 52 weeks in a year. I’m going to read a book a week with a grace room of 2 weeks. If I’m going to read a book a week, I’m going to divide the number of chapters or pages by 7 and read that particular amount each day. The discipline comes into play when I look at my day and say, “Where will I make this a priority?” Not, “Where can I find the time?” No one can find time, but everyone can make the time. Your goals are a priority. Make the time for your priorities.

4. Keep up the motivation.

Sometimes we don’t reach our goal(s) not because we haven’t done the above steps but because somewhere along the way we’ve lost the drive to make them come to pass. One of the biggest attacks on our motivation is lack of self-esteem due to a temporary failure. For example, you’ve determined that you are going to work out every week day of the year without fail. Well, you’ve already shot yourself in the foot when you determined without fail because you will fail.

Failures are not the end of the road. Failures set you up for future success. What you couldn’t accomplish today you will accomplish tomorrow if you view failures in the proper light. We cannot achieve perfection, but we can achieve a better tomorrow through unfailing practice. And practice guarantees failure.

So, don’t beat yourself up when you do fail. Learn from it and keep striving. Give yourself grace just, as I hope, you would give to others.

A proactive way to keep up your motivation is to always keep the big picture in your mind which is more visualization throughout the year on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Assess where you are in relation to the big picture and whether you’re hitting your strides when you want to.

5. Reassess if there’s a need.

Just because you’ve set some goals for yourself doesn’t mean you can’t rearrange them if there’s a call for it. Perhaps you did bite off more than you can chew and you realize it during springtime. So rearrange your goal so that you hit the middle mark of it by the end of this year and finish it the year after.

Perhaps, a death in the family or some other major upheaval in your life causes a temporary halt on your progress. It’s okay. Take the time to grieve, to rearrange your life in a way that sets you up in a mentally and physically healthy place.

Or maybe you only think of a certain goal months after New Year’s. It’s important to you and you’ve done all the steps above. Go ahead and incorporate it into your year’s goals. It’s what I did when the lockdown happened last year mid-March. Centr, an exercise program founded by Chris Hemsworth, was giving 6 weeks free to try out the home program. I signed up and loved it so much that I signed up for the whole year ahead of me. It was an incentive to work out daily which I have done mostly faithfully and have continued to do even though I’m now 7 1/2months pregnant.

6. Are you a person of integrity?

Finally, it comes down to your will. If you make a promise to yourself, are you going to keep it? Can you truly say you’re a man or woman of your word? How much does that matter to you?

Striving toward your goals says a lot about your character. Isn’t that what’s one of the most important things at the end of the day? How you relate to others and yourself is more of a legacy than all the money, achievements, and accolades in the world.

You made a promise. Go out and do all you can to keep it. Don’t let your goals become broken remnants of what if’s. Let them be a testament to who you are and your character.

If you’re a writer and want some inspiration for some goals you’d like to hit this year, take a look at the first episode of my relaunched Youtube channel Pen to Paper in which I talk about my well-rounded author goals for 2021.

Is there any other method that helps you keep your New Year’s goals? If so, please share below in the comments so others can benefit from your wisdom:)

Did You Know This Isn’t the First Global Pandemic?

We may think we’re the first to muddle through the complexities of a global pandemic, but we’re not. The first was the Spanish flu in 1918. Due to troops returning home after the end of WWI and increasingly developing means of travel, the world was hit with the first global pandemic. Patrick Bailey, guest blogger for today, shares the similarities and differences between the deadly viruses that are almost a century apart.

How COVID-19 Differs and Varies from the 1918 Flu Pandemic  

As COVID-19 continues its spread, many people are comparing this pandemic to the 1918 Spanish influenza. This frightening pandemic infected 500 million people – a third of the population at the time – and killed anywhere from 17-50 million individuals, a rate that is scary when considering the current widespread nature of COVID-19.

Many questions remain: Will the COVID-19 pandemic be as destructive as the 1918 one was? Also, how are these diseases similar to one another? How are they different? Let’s take a look at how this current problem is affecting many elements of the world, including treatment in medical care centers like alcohol rehab facilities, hospitals, and other treatment areas.

How COVID-19 and the 1918 Flu Pandemic are Similar

First of all, COVID-19 and the 1918 Spanish Flu are similar in how they are spread. Both are transmitted through the air and by contact on surfaces on which the virus lands. Unfortunately, the world did not have hand sanitizer and other types of tools to minimize this spread in 1918. As a result, the virus spread quickly, even though it was no more infectious than the average flu.

And like COVID-19, Spanish Flu was a novel virus—this means that the body didn’t have antibodies to protect against infection. Therefore, these viruses both spread very quickly and in unpredictable ways. During the Spanish Flu pandemic, there were four different waves of this disease over a two-year period before the virus had finally run its deadly course through the population.

Unfortunately, these viruses also share another similarity – the ways that they affect the body. Reports of people with H1N1 in 1918-1919 are eerily similar to those of the modern COVID-19 pandemic. Respiratory failure was common, and the disease was more deadly in those with mitigating conditions. However, these pandemics are also different in many ways that must be addressed properly.

Ways That They Are Different

Let’s state the most apparent fact right away – medical science has expanded exponentially since the Spanish Flu pandemic. As a result, the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 have become more efficient more quickly than during the Spanish Flu pandemic. And the lessons learned when managing the Spanish Flu—such as social distancing and wearing masks, which were practiced in 1918-1920 – are better understood for this pandemic.

As a result, it is likely the death rate from COVID-19 will come nowhere near that of the Spanish Flu. As of this blog’s writing, just under 690,000 people have died from the coronavirus out of around 17,760,000 cases. That’s a death rate of just over 3.8 percent – a fraction of the 10 percent estimated death rate for Spanish Flu. (Rates vary for both pandemics, however. The true death toll for the Spanish influenza of 1918 remains unknown, and COVID’s course is still progressing.) This lower death rate has to do with improved treatment methods, a better understanding of virus care, and differences between the viruses.

COVID-19 and Spanish Flu are very different genetically. First of all, flu viruses have a unique structure that allows them to evolve more quickly. By contrast, COVID-19 seems a much more stable virus, though mutations have been found. This difference is both good and bad – rapid variations may have made the Spanish Flu less deadly but could also have made it worse. And if COVID is more stable, transformations into less deadly strains are not as likely.

How These Pandemics Affect Medical Facilities

COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu alike are hitting (and have hit) medical facilities the hardest. This fact is understandable – hospitals and doctors offices are where people go to get medical care. As a result, these centres would suffer the most. The individuals here often have other conditions that can make the infection worse, such as heart problems or weakened immune systems.

As a result, some experts are saying that COVID-19 could be worse than the Spanish Flu pandemic in many ways. The U.S. death rate of over 157,000 people is already approaching one-fourth of what was experienced during the 1918 epidemic. And while vaccines are being developed at an accelerated rate, they may still not be available for some time, leaving the population vulnerable to this disease.

Those in treatment centers for addiction may experience many health issues as well. For example, many in these facilities may suffer from malnourishment that worsens COVID-19’s impact. The close-knit nature of such communities may also cause this virus to spread more rapidly. Some may even check out of these facilities and end up falling back into drug abuse.

It’s Too Early to Tell

As the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging and the Spanish Flu is long under control, it is hard to compare the two. It is clear, though, that there are some similarities between the two. One disheartening comparison is the fact that many people in both pandemics refused to wear masks or social distance. These actions only worsen the spread of the pandemic and could make it last much longer. However, the fact that the Spanish Flu eventually ended is a reason to see some hope in this situation.

Author Bio: Patrick Bailey is a professional writer mainly in the fields of mental health, addiction, and living in recovery. He attempts to stay on top of the latest news in the addiction and the mental health world and enjoy writing about these topics to break the stigma associated with them. 

Facebook Book Launch Party!

Come celebrate with me! My latest novella Scathed Bones, the sequel to Wisps of Gold, is out July 27! Join the Facebook party on Saturday, August 1, answer trivia, watch a special live reading, and win some prizes! Let’s have some FREE, SAFE online book fun:)

The link to the party is here!

Feel free to invite family and friends who you think would enjoy an event like this:)

My Latest Murder Mystery Novella Is Out NOW!

Today is the release date of the sequel to Wisps of Gold. Rose Wood’s journey picks up a year and a half later in Scathed Bones, featuring British Columbia’s very own legendary serial killer Agnus McVee.

Almost two years after outwitting her blackmailer and her father’s murderer and discovering her father’s gold vein, Rose Wood returns to the Cariboo region in BC to reunite with her fiancé Dave and prepare for her wedding. 

However, missing persons and evil practices upend her happy return. Can she and Dave work together after so much time apart to catch a serial killer?

Get your copy here!

Thrive With Your Family During Covid-19

Don’t Give Power to COVID-19! Power Up Your Writing Instead

As we are now fully steeped in a situation where phrases like social distancing, pandemic, and self-quarantine instil fear and an end of the world as we know it mentality, it’s easy to feed the social media monster that keeps you in a broken cycle of always talking about it, of giving the power of your time and energy to COVID-19.

Find out how to keep your power here.