My lockdown novel
2020 was the year of contradictions. The world was in turmoil AND my childhood dream came true.
I’ve wanted to write a novel for as long as I can remember but saw it how most people see a marathon - impossible. It wasn’t so much the discipline required (I’m an early riser and as an ex lawyer, I’m used to working under pressure to tight deadlines). It was more the self belief. I am a voracious reader. Always have been. Always will be. As a childhood I was forever making up stories in my head. But actually putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), and persevering for 300 odd pages seemed like an insurmountable goal.
For many years I was content for it to remain a pipe dream, reserved for some point in the distant future when I turn old and grey, when my children have grown up and I have vast landscape of time on my hands. But then in 2007 during my second year of university, my first love, my greatest champion, my beautiful mama passed away at the age of 48. All of a sudden, I aged about 20 years. I understood the fragility of life. And perhaps, most crucially, I developed a completely new perspective.
For a number of reasons that I wont go into here, it took me the best part of a decade to heal from trauma and heartache and to look forward to a future without her. Aged 30, I found courage to grieve openly. I free wrote my pain, my guilt, my anger, my regrets. I shared my writing with others and built a community of young grievers. Words became my therapy. Words saved me.
Then in 2020 the pandemic hit and the world was collectively in mourning. I found it tough, like everyone else. But unlike everyone else, it wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to go through. So as my days quietened and the outside swelled with chaos and terror, I returned to my bubble. I escaped my reality through writing another.
I was (and still am) in full time employment. I live in a modest two bedroom flat in North London with my partner, three very demanding dogs and a feral cat. Space is an issue. Time is an issue. But none of that mattered to me. Because from March through to the end of June every spare moment I had, I took to the laptop. Tom Misch in my ears. Several lukewarm cups of tea by my side. And the words just flew out of me. I wrote in bed. I wrote on the sofa. I wrote on a fold up desk. I wrote in the garden. And by the end of June, I (almost) had a novel.
The strangest thing is that I couldn’t finish it. I had two chapters left and a short epilogue so the finishing line was very much in sight, but I couldn’t bring myself to get there. In hindsight I think that was down to nerves and the reality of what the future would hold for my lockdown baby. In July I took a breather. Enjoyed the summer. Largely forgot about the world that I had created from nothing. In mid August through to the end of September, I read through my novel, from start to almost finish with a critical eye. I learnt that red penning your own work doesn’t have the same sense of satisfaction, but I continued and finally wrote THE END.
Then in October when I simply couldn’t look at it any more, I sent my novel out into the wild.*
