Edit or Exorcism?
about being cheated on and other such fuckery
After a brief period of pitching to agents and then hiding from my unwanted manuscript like a coward, I am currently about a third of the way through another edit of my novel Mould. I’m not quite ready to let it go.
I have been working on this book sporadically for the past four years, playing around with form and structure, using the original idea to write a television pilot script, a short story, a weird little novella and eventually the novel draft I’m currently editing.
Despite the many ways I’ve tried to make Mould work, the general storyline has remained consistent;
Katie has two problems; the first is that her boyfriend has packed his bags and left her without explanation and the second is that an otherworldly mould has started growing on her walls and it really wants to talk to her.
The idea for Mould was inspired by a pretty hellish breakup of my own. My boyfriend at the time cited my newly diagnosed mental illness as the catalyst for his decision to end our relationship (except he’d already moved another women into his mother’s house but that’s a story for another day).
Also, at that point in time, I could hardly afford to pay my bills and during that winter I was faced with choosing between food and the heating. I chose food and layered up, waddling around the flat like a sad little penguin.
I didn’t tell anyone how badly I was punishing myself for my newly ex-boyfriend’s leaving, believing that my brain made me unworthy of love, and I definitely didn’t tell anyone that my little flat was so cold and damp that black mould had begun to grow across the walls.
Things were awful for a while. The mould was slowly taking over each of my rooms and I retreated further into myself, feeling too unwell and ashamed to ask for help.
Luckily, I reconnected with someone who, not only did I fall in love with, but made me feel creative again. It was such a relief to be able to escape and express myself in the only way I knew how, through writing, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
I began writing poetry again and scribbled little story ideas down, and it didn’t take long for me to outline the first story that would become Mould. I felt human enough to play around with ideas and the more I wrote the more I began to feel like myself again.
This is an incredibly quick summary of events that doesn’t mention the army of women whose friendship and steadfast patience pulled me out of the deep, self-hating pit I was in, as well as my parents, whose unconditional love saved my life. That story isn’t for today but I would be remiss not to mention it ever so briefly.
In my infinite wisdom, I’ve now decided it would be a good idea to change the entire manuscript from its original first person, multi POV, present tense format to third person and in the past tense. This is a significant change, it’s a hefty job, it’s taking a long time, and although my eyeballs sometimes feel as if they might bleed onto my laptop, the change is good.
The story reads better, there’s a tonal shift that has helped me to really identify what makes Mould speculative fiction and, honestly, this time around, editing has felt like a bit of an emotional exorcism.
I decided to go back through some of my original ideas for Mould, some of the prose I wrote and a really, really bad first chapter that I’m mildly mortified I ever let anyone read, let alone the man I was seeing, who I so wanted to think I was talented and cool. Spoiler: things didn’t work out, I blame the bad writing.
What I noticed, which stirred a roaring swell of emotion in my chest, was how Mould’s evolution showcased just how far I’d come since that dark and desperate winter and how Katie, her character and her story, are no longer just my own.
I think that I poured so much of myself into those first few drafts, those versions of Katie, because it was the only way I knew how to process the fallout of such a tentative time.
Now, working on the latest edit, it feels good to be able to see how Katie has blossomed into her own character, with her own wants and needs, and her own journey. While she’ll always have been born from the soft white underbelly of that time, Katie gets to have her own story and so do I.
It’s been really cathartic to experience some of those familiar emotions through the editing and from a welcome distance. It feels like, with each edit and change, with the progression of the story, I am being exorcised from some of the shitty-boyfriend demons that have stayed clinging on to my self-esteem.
Telling stories will always be my preferred form of catharsis and writing Mould has been both a labour of love and an exorcism. I’m pretty sure it’s not the power of Christ that compels me but something does. Something soft and vulnerable that nudges me further away from giving up.
I often think that all we can really do with our very worst feelings is to create something from them. To make something for ourselves and for others so that we might find a shared experience and feel a little less alone.
I really, really hope that you’ll get a chance one day to read my book. I promise to take it as far as I can and, in the meantime, I’ll remain grateful that you’re here reading this.
I am patiently waiting to read this. The premise alone gives me a little chill.
👏👏👏