Category Life

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.

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?