Category Anti-Virus

Those plot holes

freyathewriter 3 Comments

In this week’s instalment of my novel writing journey, I’m thinking about those annoying, wake-you-up-at-3am issues. You know, you’re happily writing away, (or in my case, editing) and something just feels a bit off. But you carry on anyway thinking ‘I can edit that later’. And then before you know it you’re wide awake, staring into the abyss, screaming inside your head.

Let’s set the scene. Your protagonist is doing their thing, tracking someone using their security services issue tracing device which is never to be used in anything other than an official capacity (but hey-ho, she’s doing that anyway), and then it all gets a bit shady and so you decide to highlight the paragraph, make a note in the sidebar and move on.

And then a few weeks later another scene links back to that first shady scene, but you decide to highlight the paragraph, make a note in the sidebar and move on. Because it’s not central to the plot, but is a wrinkle. And you can edit that later.

Repeat, until you have eight of those ‘edit that later’ moments.

Ladies and gents, that ‘edit that later’ time is now. Or rather, for me, it was yesterday. In my initial editing phase, I had still skipped gaily over those ‘edit that later’ highlights because, I could still ‘edit that later’. Here’s the back story. I had made an abortive attempt to completely edit my novel at the beginning of this year. And then Covid happened and everything was chaotic and well, you know. Everybody knows. So I stopped editing and put it all to once side until the last day of August.

So where I am now in my super-charged editing phase is that I am in the final third of my manuscript and I haven’t read this part of my novel with an editing hat on since the end of last year. I don’t know about you, but my memories of the previous year are generally really rather vague, even more so now because, well, 2020. Anyway, on Thursday evening another scene popped up, linked to the earlier eight scenes up above and you guessed it, I had, when I first wrote it, highlighted the paragraph, made a note in the sidebar and moved on.

You might be shaking your head by now, quite possibly rolling your eyes so loudly that I can hear you (yes, I can hear you). Well, nobody is perfect, especially me, although I am making an attempt to be better because… I fixed all of these plot holes yesterday in a four hour stint of get your head down serious work. By the time I had reached the final stage of my normal back-up process (save on laptop (and therefore the cloud), save on pen drive, save on Time Machine external hard drive), I felt accomplished. One small step for Freya, one giant leap for Anti-Virus.

Perhaps I could have gone about this in a more efficient way. Perhaps I could have been more of a planner, less of of a pantser*. I’m pretty certain that I’m in that hybrid plantser category – you know, plan a bit and wing the rest of it. My novel started out as a germ of an idea entirely focused on a dis-United Kingdom scrabbling over water and other environmental resources in a climate change situation. That was a long, long time ago. It has evolved. It still does consider the human impact on our planet, it still is set in a dis-United Kingdom (and good heavens I really hope I’m not foreshadowing the future in too much detail), but it is very different from the ‘worthy’ nature of its beginnings and is firmly dystopian because that’s my bread, butter and jam. So, plantser. (I still have the initial handwritten notes I made about this, so I have the proof that I did plan, well, something).

I’m feeling good about where I am with Anti-Virus. Even if it is going to wake me up at 3am again (it probably will). Onwards and upwards!

*For those not in the know, ‘pantser’ as in fly by the seat of your pants. Planning and pantsing is a hot discussion topic in the writing community!

Decay

freyathewriter 1 Comment

As I mentioned last week, the editing process for my work in progress novel came to a halt round about the beginning of lockdown here in the UK. I know I’m not alone in suddenly feeling like I just couldn’t be creative, at least not in a literary way.

I felt like the words had been sucked out of me, also not uncommon in what is now known as ‘these unprecedented times’. However, peculiar to my novel was the oh so ironic title of…

ANTI-VIRUS

Now, whilst my novel is set in the UK and takes place in a pandemic-type setting, the central plot isn’t about the pandemic itself (not really), nor is it about finding a cure (well, maybe it is), nor is about the heroic survival of a selection of characters against the odds (although perhaps it is). There is jeopardy, there is intrigue, there are twists and turns and characters who turn out to be, well, wrong in the head, but

IT’S NOT ABOUT A PANDEMIC! (EVEN THOUGH IT IS, KIND OF)

Sorry for shouting. It’s just that I had to do this to myself (in my head, I don’t actually shout at myself) in order not to let my novel shrivel up and die and become a largely insignificant – in the grand scheme of things – casualty of 2020. As you can probably tell, it’s complicated. I just didn’t have the energy to explain it back in March, April, May when things were really bad here (although not Anti-Virus bad).

That, dear reader, saved my novel, or at least meant that I felt connected enough to return to my literary offspring before the end of the year. It also meant that my pandemic era, government-approved, one hour walks turned into treasure hunts – if you consider treasure to be sinister, ugly broken things that are menacing in monochrome. Luckily I do. Also luckily I live in a city where there are pockets of these places tucked away, if you look hard enough. I am nosey and curious, so I have found them. I also found a new source this morning, a full seven months later, which pleases me immensely.

I know that this post is somewhat a reiteration of last week’s, but it’s important to me. I look to my left and I can see that I have increased my word count in the editing process. That, in this case, is a good thing. I mostly wrote Anti-Virus on my commutes to and from work, so in hour long snippets. This meant the writing was quite spare and my chapters were more like scenes – in-fact it read a bit like a screenplay. The extra 10,000 words (so far) are contextual so that there is more description of the world in which my characters exist. Not so much that there’s no room for imagination, but enough so that it doesn’t read as if everything is happening in an empty space.

I’M EXCITED!

Next week I’ll move on from the ‘thank God I didn’t let my novel die’ phase. But I’ll still be hunting for more photographic treasure, you can be sure of that!

Revamping and revisiting – and some focus

freyathewriter 3 Comments

Well, yet again, its been a while. That’s what a global pandemic does to you, or at least to me. I haven’t been completely absent though, just mostly from here.

It’s a weird old life, being a writer when you’re not actually doing much writing. Imposter syndrome for the win! Thank goodness that I have a day job that pays the bills and that hasn’t suddenly been obliterated by the joy that is 2020. I am very lucky.

When I finished my first draft of my dystopian novel at the end of 2019, the whispers of a potential pandemic were making the news. And then, Happy New Year, it became a reality in all its deadly and devastating force. What a treat.

I had just completed my first draft with the joyous and ridiculously apt title of

ANTI-VIRUS

I have a particularly dark and twisted sense of humour but I felt it was less than appropriate to promote my achievement against the backdrop of a pandemic, even though my book isn’t really focused on a pandemic, not really. Explaining that technicality felt way too complicated and exhausting as we began, country by country, to go into lockdown to save lives. So I put my word-swaddled literary baby to one side. For. Bloody. Months.

Instagram saved me, surprisingly. Posting themed photos hinting at the background to my plot, wrapping up each post with the phrase ‘Welcome to the world of Anti-Virus’ during this time has kept my silently screaming baby alive in my head and also the heads of my followers, who have asked me, quite regularly, ‘When is it due?’. (The baby analogy stops there, you’ll be pleased to know).

I have returned to editing with a vengeance now that the new normal has, because humans are adaptable, become more normal, even if it’s not the old normal. I have set up a dedicated space for editing with a new, surprisingly reasonably priced desk, under the window in my spare bedroom. It helps when you don’t have to keep moving your notebook, sticky notes and other inspirations from one place to another. This is the first time I have written at a desk and boy, does this writing lark feel more ‘real’ now. Environment is important, clearly.

And yesterday’s nudge from one of my Instagram followers has focused my mind on when to aim for publication, and also to promoting my novel, because I am damn proud of it. I have a vision of it, a vision for it and it deserves to be read.

I have added my Instagram feed to my website – do take a look. It will give you a sense of the background to the plot. It will drop some hints, it will give you a photographic insight into how my characters are forced to live in their dystopian world. All the imagery is my own. Oh yes, and I’ve updated my ‘About’ info. It was more than time.

I will be using this platform, my website, to discuss my progress, my trials, my tribulations, my successes and will include some Anti-Virus inspired flash fiction and poetry along the way.

This is when I plan to publish

2021

Fancy joining me for the ride?