Category Fiction

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?

Yes, well…

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15 June 2020

… I haven’t been around.

You know that Buddhist term ‘monkey mind’?  An apt description for that mind that just can’t focus on one thing with any consistency?

You know that goldfish memory that, well, isn’t?

Can you imagine the two combined in some fishbowl-confined underwater jungle where the goldfish leaps over and under tree branches and the monkey runs around and around and around the belly of the bowl, scratching its head and gaping?

That’s me. Or rather, it’s a representation of the inner workings of my brain, and has been for a while. I like to think that I’m not alone. If I am, well I aim to remain in blissful ignorance because there’s enough to worry about at the moment, isn’t there?

BLACK LIVES MATTER

I am anti-racist. I am white. The tiny taster of horrific, brutal racism and the privilege that I have that means that in my daily life I never have to think about the colour of my skin has hit hard. It has forced me to truly take on board the fact that my experience of the past few weeks is as nothing when compared to what people of colour regularly have to deal with, in addition to the normal stresses and strains of every day life. Or the not so normal stresses and strains since CoViD-19 came knocking on the world’s door.

I don’t think that I am ignorant and have experienced enough direct ‘isms’ and ‘obias’ of my own over the past decades to refuse to accept hatred directed at other groups. Making the conscious decision to be anti-racist feels like a heavy, burdensome thing. But the burden is nowhere near as heavy as just letting racism continue, through being silent. I refuse to have that on my conscience.

On this matter, the Black Lives matter, my brain is focused. That monkey mind is more akin to one of those Japanese snow monkeys that bath in hot springs in Japan.

The goldfish? Forget about it.

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