Preemptive Retaliation

Yesterday I returned from a weeks holiday abroad. Lots of sun, lots of reading, lots of throwing my kids around in the pool. And, surprisingly, quite a lot of writing. Years ago, during an event hosted by Aye Write, I heard a poet talk about relaxing on a sun lounger in Lanzarote when he was inspired to write a poem by an ant crawling across his condensation beaded cocktail, and he was driven at that moment to write it down. At the time I thought it was the height of pretension. Wanky as fuck.

Well, dear reader, this week that was me. I was that wanky as fuck guy.

Since I can’t take my computer with me I couldn’t continue the redraft of Francine is a Robot, and so took a new notebook gifted to me on my birthday and one of my favourite pens, and started working on a new idea. Well, not new. I’ve had this idea bouncing round my head for a few years now, and when I want to think up new projects to help keep my current one feeling fresh, I keep coming back to it. It’s one of a woman who is playing a city-builder videogame trying to rebuild the city she lives in with painstaking detail in order to reproduce the conditions in which her son died in a car accident, because maybe then she can reassure herself that it was really an accident.

Of course there’s more. As per usual I have to inject my own insecurities in there, and so there’s a wider story about authorial intent, the Author is dead, internet subcultures and parasocial relationships. But that was the seed of the idea – a woman wants to prove her son didn’t end his own life.

And, you know what, so far it fucking slaps. Over the course of the week, shimmering in sun lotion by the pool, I mapped out a general structure to the story. I thought of framing devices and fleshed out some major and minor characters. I came up with quandaries and escalations, a few twists and turns, and even three potential endings that could happen depending on how cruel I want to be. I’ll discover that later I guess.

It’s no surprise that I’m having so much fun with it when I’m so close to finishing Francine is a Robot, and not in a positive “it’s good to line up the next thing” way. More like a marathon runner who’s legs are giving out, shambling along the tarmac, eyeing up the starting line of the next race because surely that one will be easier. Because of course it is! Much easier. I’ve run most of a marathon, I know how it can be, I can run it better this time.

Which is also easier than looking back at the marathon you’re most of the way through, and thinking that maybe you could run this whole thing again, but better. Better routes, easier inclines. Better shoes.

But that’s not how it works. We win by finishing. Finish your race, move onto the next one.

Though, saying that, it’s pretty exciting to have such a good race to move onto next.