Will the World Pull a Madonna?

'When the plague forced Shakespeare into lockdown, he wrote King Lear. You should use the time to be just as creatively worthy!' screamed Twitter a couple of weeks ago. 'Write that symphony, learn conversational Mandarin, now's the time to master the berimbau!' 

I mean I could learn the sax over the
coming weeks. If I wanted to.

It was all a bit much, wasn't it. Whilst people watched their social plans, finances, and careers grind to a shuddering halt, being encouraged to use the abundance of free time brilliantly and intelligently, smacked of 'being a tit'. Perhaps for some, the enforced closure of life has benefitted them. (I am more than happy being actively encouraged not to hug.) But for others, getting up, administering to personal hygiene, and not hitting the gin before tea time is as equally a Herculean task as writing King Lear.

On paper, it should have been piss-easy for me. I mostly worked from home already. I was waist-deep into the editing process. Beyond the lack of non-home-based activities come evening, everything was the same. I could crack on as per.

Well obvs, that was bollocks. Rolling news, Twitter doom and gloom, mixed messages, exercise police, head-frigs all over the place - they all forced my head into shut down. It dawned on me early doors that I would have to give some thought to how I could carry on with the novel. A tweet from Sathnam Sanghera highlighted the nub of the issue. '(A) whole load of novelists out there suddenly realising that their contemporary novels in progress are now in fact period pieces.' Quite.

Any future work of fiction set in the modern day, is going to look very different. I alluded to this worry last year, when I wrote about how Brexit might need to be mentioned in forthcoming contemporary novels. This feels the same. There are a couple of specific issues that mean I'm not sure how to crack on with my book right now. First, it's likely when 'all this' is over, that life will have changed. I don't know how yet. No one does. Will Tilda, Bea, and Stewart, leap back into their routines as normal and by the time the book comes out it'll be business as usual? Or would the idea of characters behaving the way they once would, seem unbelievable and dated? Will COVID get mentioned in every conversation for the rest of our lives? When 'all this' calms down, will the effects on society be so visible that a novelist would have to incorporate them, just for realistic background? That's my first worry. The stupid thing I did with the first book, was to date it. It was set throughout 2016. I decided to be far vaguer with the timeline on this one. It's meant to take place two and a half years later, but it's basically whenever the published date of 'now' ends up being. It will definitely be in a post-Corona world.

This is where my new book is
set, but people are congregating!
That bench will need a wipe down.

The second issue is more specific to my book. My theme is social isolation. I know. What are the odds? Except now I have a much more specific definition of the phrase than I did when I planned the thing. My interpretation of social isolation was how, for varying reasons, the three main characters had moved away from their friendship groups, their social circles, and the support systems they had once known. Whether it was due to divorce, bereavement, or that their friends were busy with families, the three main characters were lonely. The plot allowed that theme to run its course, before giving them opportunities to connect - through risk taking, seeking new experiences, and reaching out. (The actual plot makes all that sounds loads more fun. Promise.) All that's well and good but what now? Can I usher a new novel into the world whose very theme of social isolation doesn't even begin to touch the sides of what we now understand by the term?

You see why my head was overwhelmed? YOU SEE? The good news is I have time to think. There's no rush. I can let this thing run its course and then see where we are. Days later, as I adjusted to the idea that having a break from the book might be useful, Sathnam Sanghera tweeted another pearl of wisdom to make me think. 'Writers: If you're thinking now might be a good time to start a novel on the pandemic, please, for the love of God, don't. When this is over, we'll want other things to think about. Do everyone a favour.' Once again, quite.

My ideal scenario - aside from tasting draft beer in a lively pub again - is that by the start of next year, the lockdown is over, there's a semblance of normality, and this book can enter the world some months later and make sense just as it is. I don't want to have to do a complete overhaul of the plot. I'm not sure it would work, even if I did. I want my book to be the way I planned it. The relatable journeys of likably flawed characters, with humour and emotion thrown in. I really don't want to have them only connect through Zoom. That would be shit. Fingers crossed that the next few months of strangeness comes to an end. I can ride it out and then crack on. That's my hope. We shall see.

Alderman's novel, The Power,
along with dystopian setting.
 

Meanwhile, some more thoughts from others. No, not Sathnam Sanghera for a change. I know. There are other excellent writers out there. First up was this article on the BBC website, where novelist, Anne Tyler, makes clear she won't be including Ms Rona in her novels. 'It would derail the small, private story I want to tell.' I like what she says. I want to copy her stance. I just need to see if, in time, it will be possible.

Finally, there was an interesting chat between journalist Dorian Lynskey and author Naomi Alderman on The Bunker podcast, last week. About seven minutes from the end, Alderman talked about writing novels that deal with global threat*. She said it's best to do it from the perspective of the global threat being over. Lynskey agreed and said how reading books set in the past feels safer because the stressful situation is over and consigned to history.

Dorian Lynskey: What's very stressful about this current period is that we are in the middle. We're like a character in the novel that doesn't have the narrator or doesn't have the appendix, or the footnotes, or anything to say, 'Ah, and actually it turned out six months later yadda yadda yadda...It must quite be therapeutic to sort of fictionally just jump forward.

Naomi Alderman: It's really really nice. That's really one of the things that novels are for, for me, is to leave the present moment. That skill is extremely useful. Because sometimes the present moment is extremely unpleasant.

So, I've gathered the evidence. I've given it some thought. I think, as far as a plan of action is concerned, a continued pause on the book will be useful. I want it to be the same as I planned. I want the society I wrote about to be recognisable to the reader. In the meantime, I will wait and see whether the world reimagines itself - like Madonna with a new album - or whether it's back to the old recognisable ways. Then, if life resumes in a similar way, I won't have to change the plot. However, if the world has changed beyond all recognition, and comes out Vogueing instead of Desperately Seeking Susan, then I'll have another think. Perhaps I can refashion the book as historical whimsy. Either way, I'm glad I've thought it through.

Have a lovely week, folks.

*Global threat was my paraphrasing. Click the link to the podcast and hear her words exactly.