Category Indie Author

Superfat Seven

freyathewriter 2 Comments

Yesterday I was having a chat with one of my writer friends about putting your face online. He has just launched the second novel in his series about Ardamin, a clone inhabiting a dystopian future (check the series out here on Amazon) and he has been promoting the latest novel on Instagram, including showing himself with his book.

So far, so normal. Unless you’re me, or someone like me. I’ve been running this blog since April 2013 (with some gaps for life events) and I’ve never put my face, let alone my body, on view. Over on my Instagram account there are maybe three instances where I’ve revealed myself as an adult. That’s out of 581 posts I’ve put up over there. And… to be honest I fight every day not to take them down. I may yet do that.

Why?

Superfat Seven.

When I was nine, we moved house, from a big city to a village. I was The New Girl. And some boys in the class below me immediately started calling me Superfat Seven. Until this point, I don’t think I’d ever thought about how I compared to other kids in my class. I was just me. That name would follow me everywhere I went, and I dreaded walking home from school if they were on the same street (which they often were) because the name calling would follow me home. I’ve seen photos of myself at that age and I can’t see why they chose that name, looking at it objectively. I had pudgy cheeks, but I wasn’t the huge lump that I very quickly saw myself as due to this name. Looking back, I guess the sole reason I was bullied was because I was The New Girl. That was it. But, the name had life-changing consequences.

I’ve never been diagnosed (I’ve never sought it out), but I’m almost certain I have Body Dysmorphia. I will do almost anything to avoid having my photograph taken. Even with family photos as I was growing up, I desperately wanted to grab the camera and throw it to the floor. But I was a well-behaved kid and knew that cameras were expensive so… I didn’t. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror. The only thing I focus on when doing my hair in the morning is the hair itself. When going somewhere where I have to be presentable, I focus on the neatness and cleanliness of the clothes themselves and whether what I have chosen is objectively ‘good enough’, not how I look in what I am wearing, because I will never accept how I look.

I have learned to mask the depression and anxiety that this has caused, but it has become entangled in other issues over the years. Unravelling it all seems like another lifetime’s work. Masking is what we do to get by in life, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t for one minute think that anyone else is bothered by how I look, nor do I think I am the focus of their attention. This is all about my inability to accept myself.

Superfat Seven.

What has this got to do with writing, with being an author? A hell of a lot, actually. Marketing your novel when the perceived wisdom is that you will be more approachable, more memorable, more relatable (I hate that word so much!) if you show your face, is a huge problem for someone like me. I know so many other authors who have their Instagram account filled with themselves. Their posts are bright and engaging and… relatable.

The upside is that I used this crushing mental health issue (because it is a mental health issue, let’s be honest) to my advantage when writing Callie, the main character in Anti-Virus. The cause of her situation is very different and entirely more violent than childhood bullying, but I was able to build on my personal experiences to create her story. So, there is that.

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It may be true. Sometimes though, it would be such a relief to be strong without having to go via Superfat Seven Highway to get there.

Pull up a seat, I have news…

freyathewriter 3 Comments

It’s been a while…

I aim to write weekly bog posts, but unlike Olympic and Paralympic archers, my aim is not always true. So, I’m sorry about that.

The truth be told, I’ve been having some down time. And thinking about where my writing journey will take me next. It has taken me to… a sequel to Anti-Virus. Which *cough cough* maybe, might, perhaps, is likely to become a trilogy. Put it this way, not only do I have the title for the sequel organised, I also have the title for the third book in the series. You know, thinking ahead.

It’s how I roll.

I can’t remember if I confessed this on here as well as over on my Instagram account, but I had been toying with the idea of a spin-off to Anti-Virus, so you didn’t have to read the first novel to read the second. A bit like those series on Sky Witness where they have crossovers, you know? However… a couple of lovely people who have read Anti-Virus (how many times can I write ‘Anti-Virus’ I wonder?) have wanted to know ‘what happens next’. To be fair, I did leave the ending open for that a little, just in case I had the drive to pick up the threads of the story and continue, although it was by no means a cliffhanger.

I have to say, by the time I’d finished the editing, I didn’t want to do this. I was kind of ‘done’. I was all ready to switch genres to my already drafted dark fantasy novel. But… those reader requests, the fact that Callie and Jak kept on bothering me to continue their story, plus some time and space away from their dark and dangerous world… it got me sucked back in to dystopia and the future of these strong, feisty women.

I seem to be addicted. I already have the first two chapters in the bag. Or rather, drafted in Scrivener. You get my drift.

What’s that you say? What’s the new title? You want to know?

This is the here and now. The future is ENDEMIC.

I can’t wait to keep you updated on where this next journey will take me, Callie Hannigan and Jak Hartwood. And some new characters, one of whom is… nope, I’m not sharing yet. You’ll have to wait!

Blood. Sweat. Tears.

freyathewriter 3 Comments

Happy Unleashing Day!

If that has piqued your interest, then yay, I’m a better marketer than I thought!

Seriously though, today is launch day over on Amazon of my debut novel, Anti-Virus. I can’t quite believe it! I wrote an actual whole book that people in the world can buy and read. I also wrote a book that has had 5 star reviews on Goodreads! Writing a novel has been a dream of mine (sometimes buried for many years) since I was a little girl (my mum probably still has some of my handwritten stories in the Sideboard of Doom in the lounge). Just a few decades later and I have achieved!

Why blood, sweat and tears? Hmmm, well.

There was no actual blood let in the creation of my novel, but lots of red pen was used, that’s for sure. There comes a point when I need to use paper and print off my writing and read it in a different format. That’s where the bad things that have been hiding on screen tend to come into the light (and boy, were there some bad things!). So yes, red pen made a huge appearance at the editing stage (twice).

Sweat? Definitely. I began writing the germ of this novel years ago and then Life happened. I picked it up again pre-pandemic and finished the first full draft at the end of 2019. I was in edit mode and then doubt set in as the pandemic raged. It didn’t feel appropriate to write a dystopian fiction when dystopian fact was consuming the world. However – Anti-Virus isn’t really about a pandemic, not in the way your typical pandemic novels and films go. So I got over that a few months later and set to work. Sweating receded, and here we are.

Tears? For sure. Of frustration at first because I had wanted this novel to be worthy, to mean something, to honour my dad (I’ve written about that before). But then, as the saying goes, you should write the book you want to read. Using an imaginary force to push something that I wasn’t really feeling (and to be honest, I think it would have come across as a diatribe given the mindset I was in at the time) was a good way of stopping me in my tracks. So after that I got on with the novel that really wanted to be written, and Anti-Virus was born.

And so, here we are. It was hard work. It needed discipline, it needed attention, it needed focus. it was both harder and easier than I imagined it would be.

And it was so much fun.

And I’m going to do it again.

My name is Freya and I’m a write-aholic.