Tag Fiction

Only A River

freyathewriter 25 Comments

Dogs howl, as is their wont. 

The cold moon rises, her blank face pierced by branches turned naked and brittle. All trees are leafless at this time of year, bark rimed with frost.

My breath hangs, shimmering in the freezing air, and the iridescent image swims through a mirror that flows like liquid silk. I frown at such misplaced fancy. It is only a river reflecting evidence of my vitality. 

A river… A chance.

The bloodhounds remain far distant yet. I brace myself against the cold and step into the freezing depths, gritting my teeth. 

I wade agains the current, skin, muscles, bones aching in protest, my greatcoat sagging, dragging heavy with water. 

Until the wretched creatures lose my scent, here I must remain. I plead, to any great benefactor who might hear my prayers, for clouds, mist, a dense fog. 

For my freedom.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, it’s time for a bit of Prosery, courtesy of Dora. She has asked us to create a piece of prose, fiction or non-fiction, to include the following line from Stanley Kunitz’s most famous poem, King of the River:

“. . . and the iridescent image swims
through a mirror that flows.”

I haven’t written a Prosery for some time, so this is a fun diversion from my usual poetic adventures. it must consist of maximum 144 words, and while the line can include different punctuation, it cannot be otherwise changed. I truly enjoyed incorporating this line into my fiction piece, and I hope it fits well into my narrator’s thoughts.

If you want to join us in this poetry adjacent journey, head on over to dVerse and dive in!

(Image courtesy of Muhammed Zeya on Pexels).

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.