After four long years, CATALYST, my sixth novel is done!

When I say done, the first draft is done, which is maybe half the work, but it’s the important part, at least for someone like me who discovers the story as I’m writing it.

As always, here are some thoughts about how it went and my whole process writing that story.

The Covid-book

 I had been heavily involved in the IT side of Dublin2019’s Worldcon between 2017 and 2019, and I had somewhat lost my writing habits by that time.

This book started slow and was about a year old when Covid struck. I already had some problems writing this story at that time, being about halfway through. Without Covid, my best guess is that I would have ended the book in another year.

It took me a bit less than three.

Why?

The first reason is that in the first months, my life changed. I switched from someone who went to work every day using public transportation (reading a book all along and coming back home to write) to someone who works from a new home in the countryside.

The net result (aside from not being able to read as much, which is a big problem for a writer) is that my environment changed.

There is always something to do in the house, and most writers (aside from Brandon Sanderson, who writes the books he’s not supposed to write when he’s off), would instead do anything but write.

Let’s say I did many things these last three years.

As a result, the book didn’t advance mainly because I didn’t sit at my desk to write it. Worse, I do some of my writing in my head while going to work. Not much time to think when I have only to walk 10 metres to my office now.

Things have started to stabilise now (for the last six months or so), and I have found a new time slot for writing.

I have always been very productive while on trains. I don’t know why, but when I’m on a train, my mind wanders—it also happens when I’m in a car which is why I can’t drive long distances because I’m too dangerous a driver.

I now have to take trains twice a week, and it’s been fun sitting there writing my story, killing characters off while the scenery passes before my eyes.

The female-problem book

As I wrote a few times, I have what I call my “female character problem”.

As a discovery writer, I’m used to characters taking over the story—it’s their story, after all—and this happens a lot when I write female characters.

It happened in my second book when Neda sort of took over the story. It happened in most of my books, in fact.

This time, I had written the novel’s beginning, thinking that my female character was the antagonist and that she would be the villain. I wrote her this way initially, but she didn’t see it that way. Chapter after chapter, line after line, she rebelled, and her character has done a complete 180. In the end, she’s clearly not the character I had envisioned at the beginning.

This means that I had to fight this character every bit of the way, only to lose. It also means that I’ll have a hell of a time rewriting her character to be coherent.

The Plot-came-after book

It’s not the first time this happened. I started my book on a premise (guy thinks he’s cursed because people around him keep dying: “I have caught Death, but I think I am a safe carrier”) and wrote where it was leading me.

I soon faced a wall because I had started the book from a scientific outlook, and I needed to understand the mechanics underneath that story.

That only happened six months after I had begun to write.

As often, these ideas come by chance, unbidden: a guy in a scooter almost clipped me, and, let’s just say that if thoughts could harm, that man would have gone straight to the ER.

That was my plot opening up right before my eyes.

Now, there were a few problems, the first being that I had written many elements contradicting my shiny new plot. I fixed a few on the fly, but that left me with a lot of work to do on my next draft.

The Real-world book

Research is my weakness.

I love to dig for facts. I watch videos on about any subject (most are science related, which might look right, but I also try to be informed on “obscure” topics like lockpicking, puzzles, law arguments, religion, …).

I do this when I don’t need to. Imagine what happens when I do need to do real research.

It happened in my first book, and it almost derailed it (I had to cut two chapters away, and there are still too many explanations on cyphers in that book).

For some reason, I had decided early on that this book would take place in today’s London.

I love London. It’s my favourite city, and I’ve spent a lot of time there. I know it’s streets, buses, monuments, the whole thing. I also spent a week once going from one suburb to a school in the city centre, so I know a bit about what to expect in the morning rush. It’s all very well, but I haven’t spent years there either.

I don’t think like a real Londoner. I don’t know what they know. I can mimic a bit, but I knew from the start that I would need help from my friend: Research.

I took a great deal of the time I should maybe have spent writing, looking at bus routes and tables, maps—of course—, political aspects, and the inside of monuments (there is a particular chapter inside Westminster).

Most readers wouldn’t know which way to turn to go from one of the chambers inside parliament to the next. Most wouldn’t even care, but as this was the real world, I had to know.

Let’s say it’s an experiment I’m not inclined to repeat. I long to write another book when I don’t have to stop every couple of sentences to check a map.

The Too simple book

Part of my reluctance to write that story is that in my deep insecurity as a writer, I’m convinced that this book is too simple.

If I look back, I even think the title says it all. If you know what the word means, I think you have a good chance to see it all coming and that all the build-up the characters are experiencing will taste bland to these readers.

Maybe this the insecurity talking. I’ll have to wait for the alpha readers to give me their thoughts on the matter.

Conclusion

Yes, that novel is short (a bit shy of 100 000 words, which for someone who usually writes between 130 and 140 thousand word stories is really on the low side).

Yes, it’s late.

It might be too simple.

The real achievement here is that it is done, and for a short time, I can be satisfied with the knowledge I’ve completed a sixth book.

Post-credit Scene

Ideas are starting to boil again inside my head.

The next story screams to get out. I already know what it’s going to be: I surprised myself by coming up with an actual plot, start to finish in my head, which has never happened before, so I want to start writing it.

The only thing is: how will my fragile plot idea fare after first contact with the characters?

The only way to find out is to write one word at a time.