Covid and My Work In Progress

Despite still being in lockdown, 2021 seems to be rushing along at a breakneck speed. I can’t believe that this weekend the clocks went forward and the nights are lighter. (Let’s hope the weather continues to improve).  

I’ve been working hard on my writing so far this year and one of my goals was to get one of my long standing works in progress to a stage where I can submit it to agents. But I’ve realised there’s a major snag in my plot – and it’s all thanks to Covid – the gift that keeps on giving.

 

My work is a contemporary novel based around a professional woman who is desperately trying to balance her marriage, being a mother to young children and her career. 

 

My heroine is the breadwinner of the family as her husband has recently become a full-time student to retrain. On her return to work from maternity leave after having her second child, she finds that her lovely boss has been replaced with the boss from hell. He’s a bully and seems intent on pushing her out of her job, something she absolutely cannot allow to happen. 

 

And here’s my dilemma. On her return to work she asks if she can be allowed to work flexibly so that some of her hours can be worked from home. Of course her boss flatly refuses believing that working from home is a euphemism for watching daytime TV. Now that Covid has put paid to that kind of attitude, the premise that she wouldn’t be allowed to work from home is redundant. 

 

So now I’m a bit stumped about what to do to fix this. Covid has changed our way of life so much that the dilemma is how do we reflect this in our writing? Do we set our stories before 2020 at the risk of them being automatically outdated, do we ignore the impact Covid has had on our lives or do we try to imagine a life post Covid where we hope that life will return to something that resembles the life we used to know? Bearing in mind the length of time it takes to get anything published, I’m tempted to move it forward to a life post Covid, keeping it similar to how we used to live but adding in the change in people’s perceptions. In doing this I can only hope that I get it right. Or at least close to it so that a further edit isn’t too onerous. So now another major edit is needed. Thanks Covid.

21 Years Today

 Today is my 21st wedding anniversary. I can't believe I've been married so long!

Like any marriage, we've had our ups and downs and life hasn't always been easy, but thankfully the hard times have brought us even closer together and we are still very much happily married.

This is our second wedding anniversary in lockdown, so a takeaway meal and not having to cook will be the biggest part of our celebration! But hopefully these strange times will all be over soon and we will all be able to go out and celebrate everything we've missed in the last year.

We also missed celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary but by some kind of strange premonition we went all out for our 19th and spent a lovely weekend in London. We'd done the same for our 10th anniversary and were looking to repeat it for our 20th, but after my illness I decided that life was short and we wouldn't wait for the next year. So spooky!

Although only March I remember having a mini spring heatwave in the run up to our big day. We were married in Chester Town Hall, had our photographs taken in the gardens of Chester Cathedral and then travelled round Chester in an open topped vintage car to the Guildhall where we celebrated until the early hours of the morning with all our family and friends. 

So today I'm feeling very grateful for my lovely husband, my two boys and all the family and friends who make my life so special.

Book Review - Shiver – Allie Reynolds

Before I review this book I’ll come clean. I 'met' Allie several years ago through an online writing group, writing short stories for womags.

The group grew to be very large and we drifted off to a smaller groups. The group I stayed in touch with, and am still part of today, currently has five members including myself.

 

Finding the right writers’ group is not an easy task. I have been to a couple of physical groups but never found other writers who were on the same wavelength as myself and my writing until I met these girls.  Over the years we have come to know each other really well and provide constructive criticism and support. I know that I wouldn’t have had the stories published that I have without their help and advice. It’s just a pity that we can’t meet up in the flesh as geographically we are just too far apart, especially as Allie lives in Australia. 

 

Allie has recently had her first novel, Shiver, published in hardback and on Kindle.  Right from the beginning of her submission to agents, Allie has had brilliant success, with several agents wanting to represent her, followed by a bidding war by publishers. The book has sold internationally and she even has an option on a film.  Not bad for a first novel!

 

And it is deservedly so. I’ve just finished reading the complete novel and I have to say that I couldn’t put it down. I’m not just saying that because I know her. If I didn’t like the book, I would just keep my mouth shut.

 

Shiver is set in French resort of Le Roche, where five friends are invited back for a reunion, ten years after they were last there. They were all competitive snowboarders competing in the ‘half pipe’ which seems to me to a be a truly dangerous sport and something I would never have the guts to attempt. 

 

There is tension from the beginning as no one knows who has sent the invitations and there is also an atmosphere of mistrust as the last time they were together, one of their friends, Saskia, went missing, presumed to have become buried in one of the treacherous crevices which form on the mountain. No one really knows how much each person was involved in Saskia’s disappearance.

 

An “icebreaker” game turns sinister and then they realise that they are trapped in the out of season ski lodge. Everyone begins to doubt the other as they try to work out who has trapped them here and why?

 

The story alternates between the past and the present as we gradually learn that each of the friends has secrets they would rather keep hidden. The tension never lets up as we are drip fed information and try to solve the mystery as we read.

 

Allie was former competitive snowboarder herself and she uses this to bring the atmosphere of both the setting and the sport alive. 

 

If you like page turning thrillers, I would definitely give this book a go.

 

Well done Allie, and good luck with next book. Can’t wait to read it.