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fiction Stories Writing

A LOCK DOWN NOVEL: 4

(a snippet of)

Chapter 4 Erin

Of course, I worried a little initially about the horror stories I had heard. The trolls, the glamorous accounts of false lives to make me feel awful about my own, the mass of uneducated opinions, the dangerously fast addiction and everything else in between, but I never thought much about it all. Besides being sixteen in 2019 meant that I had a firm grasp of what lay before me and I felt strong enough to cope with life on social media.

At the beginning I tried to remain strong anyway. It was more to prove a point to my mum but a fraction of it was fear of the inevitable. I could feel instantly the addiction looming. After two days of having access to the virtual social world, my phone was the first thing I went to pick up in the morning and the last thing that I put down at night. I spent hours scrolling and still do, but I don’t know why because after doing so I have never gained anything more or lost anything, my life remains exactly as it was.

On days when I feel bad about my own image, Instagram strengthens this sad emotion when I witness the accounts not of celebrities but of my own friends looking like celebrities. Their accounts fill my newsfeed with perfection and no flaws. The perfect brunch, the most exotic holiday venues, the prettiest new haircuts that look better than I looked that time when I had my hair and all my makeup done by a professional for a family wedding back in Ireland.

At the weekend I see friends and acquaintances out having fun. I always think to myself how they are doing the things that I should be doing when I am visiting Mummy or at work. Friends who have gone to places without even asking me so of course I feel totally left out and forgotten. Acquaintances who I don’t even care about doing things that make my Saturday night look so boring and suddenly I am deeply involved with care for the comparison.

On a more distant level, I see opinions all the time that I completely disagree with or that make me so angry that I can feel my face going red. I see people being horrible openly in their statuses or indirect Tweets and I laugh a little inside in agreement, but never would I say it to their face. I don’t wish to be involved with that kind of negative behavior, but it is too easy to get sucked in.

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fiction Writing

A LOCK DOWN NOVEL: 3

(a snippet of)

Chapter 3, Mary

I went to the park, to the café, to the pond and took in nature. I walked up the high street and looked into the windows of shops but didn’t buy anything. I passed many pubs but didn’t venture in and smelt the soothing smell of active cigarettes and didn’t break my eight-month streak of no smoking, not even a vape.

I even went for an early evening stroll which has frequently saved my days in the past when I have found myself in the same mood as this one, but it just felt weird. I felt as if I could have walked aimlessly for miles and miles with no change, yet usually it only takes until the bench by the river, two miles from the start, to begin to feel the benefits.

This time however, I was walking along and felt as if the whole world was spinning too fast around me. I passed a lady with a Jack Russel puppy who was walking rather slow paced but everyone else was on fast forward. She didn’t acknowledge me behind her until I got right up close. It was one of those situations where it’s difficult to gauge when to cough loudly or politely say excuse me so that the person in question will hear and precious time won’t be wasted with you remaining stuck behind them for longer. I had my earphones in so wasn’t so embarrassed as half of my attention was on the beautiful music gently seeping into my eardrums and taking me briefly out of the moment, but as I got creepily closer to her shoulder I hoped more for her to notice me and shift to the left slightly so that I could pass.

The cars seemed to be speeding, the light seemed to be darkening more rapidly than normal, the electric gates were closing fast on the big house just up the road and even objects that shouldn’t be moving appeared to have some element of momentum to them. The trees, houses, grass, roads, fences – everything. I felt as if I was high on drugs and hallucinating like I was in a dream. It didn’t feel as though my feet were capable of being firmly placed on the ground I was walking on, so quite frankly the experience was disturbing and uncomfortable as opposed to having the benefits that Dr Knoll frequently harped on about.

I had to stop moving myself to firmly place my feet on the earth and slap my face to make sure that it was reality that I was walking through and my coffee hadn’t been spiked in the café I had been in earlier in the day. I did think the man behind me in the queue looked a little dodgy and was casting his eyes on my movements for longer than I felt comfortable about. Yet I know how cynical my thoughts can be sometimes, particularly when I am alone.

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fiction Writing

A LOCK DOWN NOVEL: 2

(a snippet of)

Chapter 2, Erin

Erin struggled to place Flo’s harness over her head and attach the lead because she was so overexcited for the fact that they would be leaving the house but once she had a treat in her hand and gave firm commands, Flo obeyed and they were ready to go.

Erin desperately hoped that nobody would see her because she was worried that they would judge her for taking the dog out like normal after finding out such dreadfully upsetting news about a friend. Despite her dog walk being part of the process of grieving and trying to come to terms with what had happened, she feared anybody looking on wouldn’t see it that way and instead would view it as her moving on with normality after just half a day. Part of her brain stopped her briefly claiming that her thoughts were nonsense, and nobody would be so judgemental, but a strong part kept the thoughts coming so she constantly looked around and walked at a faster pace until she reached the field.

She particularly liked the route they were taking because not many people knew the walk after the field so it was often empty and free from people so Erin’s thoughts could go wild, freely with no judgement. As the sun shone on her barber jacket, she almost wanted to remove it because it gave her such warmth, but it was the kind of weather where she was too hot with a coat on but too cool with the coat off so for now she left her outfit as it was.

She realised that her pace hadn’t slowed to normal after speed walking while on the street because she got to her special place much quicker than she usually would, but she was thankful for that as she was ready to release some emotions. That was the good thing about Erin’s special spot, it allowed her to release anything and then gave her the option to leave that emotion behind and move forward once she walked back.

She had first discovered the place when she needed to vent about the loss of her dad at such a young age. She had been fairly open about her upset to her mother but never expressed the anger she felt towards it all. The fact that they were left behind, that he was taken too early and how much impact it had on her mother, so she wasn’t strong enough to support Erin and Jack properly, which wasn’t her fault at all, they had been told that often. The special place gave her room to scream at the top of her lungs, to let it all out without anyone around to hear her or give an opinion that she didn’t welcome anyway.

It was a simple place. Just a large tree trunk on its side facing an expanse of open field with a large bush behind it so that there was no worry of anybody hiding and seeing her. As soon as she placed her backside on the wood each time an instant feeling of relief came over her. It was the same feeling she had after the two hypnosis sessions that aunt Eileen took her to and it felt amazing. This time was no exception and Erin sat, breathed in deeply and for a single moment she forgot about everything.

Categories
Non-fiction Observations Writing

For a moment I forgot I am a writer…

For a moment I forgot that I am a writer and that writing is, in a sense, work as well.

Each day I find time to write in between working busy shifts and I thoroughly enjoy to do so. Whether it is at five o’clock in the morning before I start work. It might be at half past one in the day time when I am on my break from work. Or occasionally I write in the evenings if I have chosen not to have a glass of wine. This is very occasional.

It’s therapy. It’s freedom. It’s time to myself. It’s development. It is all of those things but it is also jolly hard work.

A novel contains a huge amount of words and those words take a lot of time to edit. Getting them down in the first place is a job well done but that is also only the beginning. I didn’t realise myself how many times I would go over my manuscript before it went to print. I certainly didn’t realise how many other eyes would read and scrutinise it as well. It is a big task.

In fact, it wasn’t until the other day when I was driving with a friend on the way to a coastal retreat for the weekend in order to get more work done when I noticed that I have forgotten to consider writing as hard work for a while.

I have neglected to notice that it makes me tired. I have failed to count it as my working hours. I have disregarded the time and effort needed to make my work as good as it can be.

We were working out rotas and my friend said how she fully realises that my breaks are not always breaks and I use that time ‘off’ to write. I returned from the coast and felt worryingly tired considering I’d spent the weekend away at my happy place, a place of relaxation and recharge. Then another friend pointed out that I had in fact been WORKING and that reading and editing is tiring.

Suddenly I felt something needs to change. I’ll never stop loving writing and I’ll always see it as a fun, enjoyable, soul strengthening thing to do but I need to start seeing it as work and to stop beating my twenty-four-year-old self up for being too tired for a youngster because a writer is a job title.

Creative work is work. Reading and editing makes you tired. Painting, drawing, sketching, whatever it is your talent is in, it is still worthy to be called work. People buy it for a reason. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Hear it from me.