Lockdown!

My country is currently enforcing a complete lockdown for citizens, so we’re only allowed out of the house for essential food and medicine shopping, medical appointments or to go to work if you’re classed as a key worker. I’ve actually been home for three weeks now, one of lockdown and two prior to that in self-isolation as I was ill, though it turned out to just be a mild flu.

My uncle is completely self-isolated as he’s diabetic and has heart issues, so I haven’t seen him in weeks now.

In terms of my job, I was working from home anyway, and I’ve actually been busier lately due to the Coronavirus. I work with the University of Edinburgh’s disability services and digital services to provide accessibility features for their online content. With the students and lecturers sent home, classes are being done remotely through various conference platforms, and last week I worked with the School of Education’s postgraduate course on deaf education to figure a way to live subtitle a couple of days’ worth of classes. Together with a woman who works ordinarily as a note-taker for students in lectures, we managed to hold things together pretty well. It felt good to be part of the proceedings rather than just subtitling or transcribing lectures after the fact. It was an exhausting couple of days though. By the time we finished on Friday evening, I had no voice left from using Dragon Dictate.

I’m hoping to use the time in quarantine to get some work done. I’ve managed to finish a custom denim jacket that had been sitting unfinished for weeks if not months, and the next item on my list is to get working on a new draft of my book. I’m figuring out the new outline at the moment (whilst re-watching the entire series of Sherlock and Torchwood). My father is currently working on clearing out one of his many rooms full of stuff that he barely uses so I can have it as a study and workroom, and fingers-crossed I might even be able to move stuff in there before the end of the lockdown period. It’ll be nice to have a dedicated space to work in.

I’ve spent the last couple of days though trying to check in with friends and just make sure everyone’s doing okay. A few are not, unfortunately, and one of the worst things about the lockdown is not being able to help as much as I would normally. You can’t go to people or hug them or even just meet for a coffee, so you have to make do with what’s available – Messenger, WhatsApp, texts etc. and it’s often hard to write down what you want to say or at least to get the emotion of it in writing.

Oh, and very odd thing happened just after I went into self-isolation. I was worried about the unreliable nature of my job with the university, as it depends on there being a demand for videos to be subtitled and I’m only officially contracted until May, when they’re going to reassess the success or otherwise of the project and consider whether to continue or not. So I’d been looking for additional work and, having failed miserably at a couple of job interviews and feeling pretty dejected and useless, my father offered to have a word with his colleagues at Stagecoach and see if there was any chance of my getting a position there, doing the same job as he does, which is conducting vintage buses that are hired out for weddings and events. I met with some extremely lovely people at various depots throughout Fife and Perthshire. I can’t actually remember the last time I dealt with a company where everyone was so helpful and friendly, in fact, and went through my induction and medical check and all and got signed up as a conductor. Then Covid-19 arrived, and the prospects of actually getting any jobs seemed suddenly slim.

Then, one morning, I woke up and checked my phone for messages and found an email from the Scottish government, with a pre-employment contract attached. Scrolling down the message list, there were several other emails, all offering me a role at the National Archives in Edinburgh. Ages ago I had interviewed for a position there, but hadn’t got the job. The email telling me this had mentioned that my CV was going to be kept on file and I’d be in the running for anything suitable that came up within a certain period of time, but to be honest I’d completely forgotten all about that. I have to stress that I haven’t officially got the job yet and have to pass some checks and medicals again, but it was still a very positive surprise in the midst of all this chaos. Now I’m just trying to track down copies of various certificates and evidence I need to send in, which is a little tricky since everyone’s home-working and so many offices are closed. Again though, I have to say how extremely helpful the Scottish Qualification Authority were when I contacted them to try and get copies of my education certificates (which are in Glasgow somewhere, and one set of Higher exam results has been missing for about fifteen years anyway). They actually went out of their way to help even though they were also at home and limited as to what they could access. The majority of people, I think, have really shone under the stress and hassle of the last few weeks.

So, I hope everyone out there is safe and looking after themselves. Look out for each other and check in on your friends. A quick text or message can be the thing that lifts someone from a dark mood right now. It’s a little ray of light, that shows you you’re not alone in all this. I think many people might be needing that right now.

 

I’ve posted about this on my personal page, but thought I’d do a quick write up here as well. I’m just back from an impromptu trip to the Czech Republic this weekend, to the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I went basically because my favourite actor, one who’s been the inspiration for many a main character, announced on Twitter that the new series he’s in for HBO Europe was doing a sneak preview at the festival. Just happens that this show’s premise, which I’d known about for ages as the actor had tweeted about it before and I’d read articles about it, was part of the inspiration for the project I’m about halfway through writing right now.

I’ve wanted to go to the festival for years, ever since I lived in Prague and first found out about it, back in 2012, 2013, but usually I remember about it just as it’s too late to go, so I was doubly excited to go.

Karlovy Vary is a lovely place, although a bit hard-going for someone with a bad back like me, and in 30 degree heat. I kind of overdid it on the first day, choosing to walk up the hillside (mountainside?) to the hotel rather than get a taxi from the station, and I suffered for it the next morning. I spent most of Friday in bed, thinking I was going to die, not that I’m overdramatic or anything.

The other slight downside was, when I arrived and went to check the box office, I was told the one remaining screening of the show was sold out, and the only chance I stood of getting in was to see if there were any last minute returns, which went on sale fifteen minutes before the show started.

I’m not obsessive or anything, but I basically staked out the last minute booking office, waiting for it to hit quarter to seven. About half six though, a guy wandered up asking the people in the queue if they wanted a spare ticket he had, and I heard the name of the show. Never jumped up and run over to someone so fast in my life! So, thanks to a stranger, I got my ticket, jumped in a taxi and headed up the hill to the Hotel Pupp. I had seen a load of pictures of this place on a Facebook page I follow, History of Cafes and Restaurants in Czechoslovakia , which seems to be run by someone based in Karlovy Vary, so it was exciting to see it up close. A lot of ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ vibes from the place.

KV itself is a spa town, known as Carlsbad in German, but it actually felt a lot like Paris to me in places, with some leafy boulevards and pretty buildings. Some pretty awful, concrete ones from the 20th century too, like the Hotel Thermal, where the festival has its sort of epicentre. Apparently it’s pretty bad inside and in serious need of renovation, though all I saw was the lobby, really, and the outside.

There was an amazing atmosphere around the town with the festival going on, more so than I’ve seen when I’ve been in Glasgow when the film festival’s on. Practically everyone you passed had either a t-shirt or bag with the festival logo on. Couldn’t help buying one of the messenger bags myself, as it was a weird little thing I’d always wanted after seeing someone with one from a previous festival once in Prague. I spent a lot of time actually sitting outside the Thermal, watching one of their video screens where they showed interviews with visiting directors and previews of some of their films. To be honest, sitting around was my main activity, as it was too hot to do much else!

As for the TV show itself, it’s called, in English, ‘The Sleepers’, or ‘Bez Vědomi’ in Czech, and is set partly in 1977 and partly in 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution. It’s a spy thriller, scheduled to be broadcast this November, and HBO were giving a preview of the first two episodes at this screening. It was actually quite funny, as several people obviously didn’t know this and actually got up to leave after the first one rolled its credits. But anyway… The first episode, as you’d expect, was a bit slow in getting started, but was having to introduce both a large cast of characters and also the situation and history / background in Czechoslovakia at the time for a non-Czech audience. They did this pretty well, though I found it hard to judge as I have a fair bit of knowledge of that period and so I’m not sure how someone who’d never heard of likes of Vaclav Havel or Charter 77 would keep up with it, or if you’d even need to know about those things to still enjoy it. My guess would be no. I think it’ll stand up on its own. Once the plot gets moving though it actually does become quite engrossing, and the only annoying thing I’m left with now is that I have to wait until November to see the next episode. I think it’s going onto the HBO streaming service in the US, judging from an interview with the director, but I’m not sure about the UK. We seem to be the only country with no dedicated HBO service, and have to rely on Sky Atlantic or Sky in general buying up HBO content if we want to see it.

The really good thing to come out of it though is that, as I said, when I first read interviews with the actor I like, and heard about this project, it sparked off an idea which I started to write, initially just to keep myself occupied while I let my other book sit for a while in between edits, and which is now over 100,000 words long. It had been a bit stuck for a while though, basically because I had added a lot of information, changed a few characters etc and I was a bit overwhelmed by the work I needed to do to get it back on track. I was hoping that both visiting the Czech Republic again and going to see this show would rekindle my enthusiasm for the project, and it has. Going to ČR always feels like going home to me, and for some reason I find it much easier to write either when I’m there or when I’ve recently been there. The WIP is a fantasy, though very low fantasy and set in a vaguely 1940s-ish setting, based very heavily on Czech history in the same sort of way ASOIAF is based on the War of the Roses. The difficulty is ignoring the temptation to add new storylines and characters based on ideas sparked by this last visit, as there is enough to complicate this book as is!

It’s funny, but no matter what tangents I go off on, I always end up coming back to the Czech Republic, figuratively speaking, and especially in my writing. Projects set in Prague and the likes just seem to flow so much better than even those I set in Scotland. I have often thought of that actor I mentioned as my muse, but maybe it’s the country itself. Either way, I’m looking forward to going back to Prague in December, both to see my favourite city again, and also because hopefully by then, the show will be out on DVD!

A Quick Update

It’s been a while since I set this blog up, but I think now there is actually enough going on  to give me something to post about.

On the writing front – I have two projects currently in progress. The first is technically in its first draft, although there were a few false starts. This one has no name of yet. To be honest, it’s the first book for ages where I’ve had no idea even for a working title. It’s a historical crime fiction novel, set in 1821 in the north of France, and has involved an awful lot of research, but having a background in history, that’s part of the appeal for me.

My setting is a small town in the Pas-de-Calais called Montreuil-Sur-Mer, which some might recognise as it’s the setting for part of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. That is, in fact, what made me choose it as a setting. Les Misérables is one of my favourite works of literature and has been since high school. The very first book I ever tried to write, on A4 lined paper in a ring binder in between classes, was based on it. Now, I don’t have that original story any more and I’m kind of glad as it probably would need killed with fire. However, a year or so ago, I had a conversation with a friend about it and thought, well, I’m a little bit more advanced now in terms of writing – could I actually make the idea work?

At the moment, it’s far too long, running at 90,000 words and it’s barely two thirds finished, so editing is going to be fun, to say the least.

The best thing about it, though, has been going to Montreuil for research. The town is beautiful, and you don’t need a lot of imagination to picture Valjean and Javert still wandering around there. Every time I’ve visited, moreover, I’ve had such an amazing welcome. The very first time I went there, I stayed in a small hotel just outside the town, and as soon as the owner found out why I was there, she actually fished out newspaper articles, books and pamphlets on the history of the town.

 

Second project is currently being edited, and is a modern day crime novel set in Paris, New York and Prague. It started off with a random idea I had after reading the premise of a film a friend of mine was making, and ended up going off from there, with no outline or notes. That’s not the usual way I work, and after a while, I set the thing aside thinking it was getting to twisted and not making much sense, because I wasn’t plotting it as meticulously as I would normally. When I fished out the old Scrivener file, though, I found that yes, the plot needed work but I really liked the POV character, enough to go through it again and rewrite large parts so that it made sense. So now I’m going through again to tidy it up.

I’ve actually sent the first 5,000 words off to the Crime Writers’ Association for their critique service, something I’ve never done before, although I have been on the receiving end of feedback from the CWA before. That previous experience has me wondering what I was thinking, actually asking them to tear my work to shreds, but hopefully it’ll prove more useful than hurtful. They say it takes three weeks for them to send their report. I’m a terrible judge of my own work, though, so I need an objective opinion to see whether this project is worth putting more effort into or if it is just drivel.

So that’s that. I’m back on track again now, I think, after a really hard few months over Autumn and Winter last year, so hopefully 2019 will bring some writing success.