Coronavirus - stay home (and write)

Hi everyone.

It's been a very long time.

With the coronavirus – Covid-19 – outbreak, here in UK we are confined to our homes.  For the past 10 days I have been unable to leave my home, but luckily, apart from the symptoms of a severe cold and cough, I have been keeping well. My family is scattered across the UK, but all seem fit and well with the notable exception of my husband.

He has the virus (although we are not testing in UK so I cant say with medical certainty). I have never seen him this ill, not even when as an adult he got chicken pox. He has been ill for 11 days. His temperature spikes over 38.4 and the pain is unmanageable. He constantly coughs and that wreaks havoc on his headaches. I’m a huge Terry Goodkind fan and read the Sword of Truth novels with a passion (obsessively some might say!). In those stories the hero, Richard, suffers from headaches so severe they will kill him. Terry’s description of how they affect his character could have been written from life – the life of my husband. It’s terrifying.

All I can do is provide drinks, a little food and pain relief. I cant hug him or stroke his face. Not because I’m heartless but because I am in a high risk category. I suffer with a blood-clotting problem and have had clots on my lungs and this is a  respiratory virus. I daren’t do anything that means I may get it.

What am I doing to keep sane? I decided to go back to my writing, which had been on pause whilst I settled into a new job and recovered from major surgery. I promised myself I’d write at least a few words everyday. I did that through January. Then the  virus began to take hold around the globe and things began to change. 

So, today, 10 days into my house confinement I have picked up my lap top, cleared a work space and begun writing again.

As you may recall, I tend to write multiple projects at the same time. Not sure why, but that’s me! The work I picked up this morning was “Mergers and Acquisitions” a sci-fi novel I began several years ago and have never really been happy with. The characters seemed unreal to me and the scenario flipped from trite to too far-fetched (is that even possible for sci-fi?). The theme? How a hidden cabal of corporate interests cashes-in on a word-wide pandemic to take control of our planet. Now,  I can re-write portions of that with real life experience. Not what I would have wanted by a long way, but, writers should write from experience as well as imagination.

In between sneezes, coughing and aching limbs I will set my self the task of completing and publishing this short novel. I will let you know when its available.

Stay well. stay safe, and stay indoors.

Time Flies...

Well it's been a very long time since I last posted any news here.
In that time I have continued to write but not as frequently as I wanted. Now I have taken the plunge and changed jobs, after 28 years with my previous employer! It's been a bit of an upheaval all round, but I work a 4 day week in my new job to free up time for writing. I have just been given a new laptop by my husband - one that actually works! - and now I'm hitting the keyboard with renewed zeal.

1000 words this evening and two new outlines for short stories. Finally the old me is back.

The power of reviews

There I was, actively avoiding writing more of the sequel to Loyalty; wandering around the internet, reading tweets I would normally skim over. You know the drill! Then I came across a review of Loyalty on the US Amazon site. "Could not put it down" they wrote. Wow! It is so wonderful to know someone enjoyed my work. I'm still smiling. Better still, I have several paragraphs of Legacy completed.
From now on I'm going to make sure I review the books I read, hopefully I'll make a struggling Author smile 😀

Quotations

Ocassionaly I find a quote that resonates with me. I was staying in Bloomsbury recently and the following came to mind:

Virginia Woolf

Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband.

She also wrote:

A woman needs money and a room if her own if she is to write fiction

I try to write about the 'real' women. I'm still working on the money and the room!

Making progress?

Two hectic weeks on and I've edited out almost as much as I've written. Legacy is beginning to shape up but I'm still struggling to get the 'feel' of it right. In my head it's there but when I read it out loud, I'm not convinced. The woes of being a writer eh?
I tried putting it aside and focussing on two other projects. First my novel about women transported to the American colonies in 1730s - Maryland. I asked for comments from my writers group. Best thing I could have done. I got a whole new perspective and I think I know how to get this going again. So, thanks to Ron, Eden and Karen.
My sci-fi story also got a dusting off. A big decision has been made. It's going to be two short stories, unless if course, I change my mind. Again!
Today I'm finalising the torture scenes in Legacy. Just got to go practice on the Sunday chicken before it goes in the oven.....

The Muse descended

After struggling for several weeks to find both the time and the inspiration to continue with my two main works in progress, this past few days I haven't stopped! Every spare minute I've been typing or scribbling notes.
Why did this happen? I was welcomed into a writer's circle and my new friends offered honest and thoughtful critiques of my work. A whole new perspective and a revelation on how to improve my work. It's reinvigorated my desire to write.
So, what did I write this week?
I have added to my sci-fi novel, Mergers and Acquisitions, and more importantly I've added 5000 words to Legacy.
This week I'm concentrating on a torture scene. Put myself off my tea!
Can't wait to finish today's chores so I can get writing. And I've booked tomorrow off work.....

*Distractions abound*

Having got back into writing more of Legacy, book 2 in my trilogy following the life and times of the Tregarthin, Wadham and Wyndham families, I was distracted again!
This time there were two culprits: an on-line learning course and a trip to Cornwall.
First the on-line course. This is a FutureLearn course run by the University of Basle on Reading in the digital age. Fascinating academic analysis of modern reading theories. Very engaging, but it's like having a new baby: you find a whole afternoon has gone by with you just looking (in this case looking at words on a page and on a screen and attempting to determine a difference in meaning/understanding).
Second, the trip. A much needed trip to Cornwall. It's cold and windy, ideal for blowing away the cobwebs. But, and there always seems to be a but, I went to Little Dennis in Falmouth, an outpost of Pendennis castle. It's a fantastic little spot but very evocative. I've now got the outline of at least two new stories in my head - getting the notebook out once I finish this - and I've sketched out a few chapters for book 3. Great. But I haven't finished book 2 yet!!!!
Fingers crossed for writing time tonight...