Brittney and I initially met at dance, but later reconnected and bonded over our shared loves of writing, photography, and technology. She was such an upbeat and caring person, and I miss her so, so much. She read the original rough draft of 2253 and really liked it. When I told her that the main character was based off of her, she was ecstatic. She had already told me that she really identified with that character, which I took as an honour and proof that I had succeded in my job as a writer.
2253 was written in 2010, five years before Brittney's death, ten years ago this month. I skimmed it the other day to remind myself of some of their personality traits (and some of the character names...), and it was like it had been written by a completely different person. And in a way, it was.
I was still in high school. I was at the apex of my fascination with computers and programming, and there's far more knowledge of that in 2253 than I currently have. Brittney and I were exchanging messages every single day so her voice was fresh in my head.
It's also interesting to note that the premise of the book was that the time-travelers get stuck in the year 2253 with a deadly respiratory virus on the loose. I literally used the words 'this is the next Spanish flu' in the novel. Even though this sequel is not about the virus, reading 2253 back a few days ago was a strange experience, given the current reality. (And I was rather gratified to see that I actually got quite a lot of details right about pandemic life, ten years before I'd live it myself.)
Writing the sequel now is so hard. Reading 2253 again the other day reminded me of so many things that I had forgotten about Brittney. She had been such a huge daily part of my life in 2010 and now, five years after her last breath, it's like I don't even remember her. I swore to never forget... I feel like I wrote this novel too late. I've lost so many details, and I'm scared the Elyssa of the sequel is not the Elyssa of the original.
As far as stats go, I fell behind on day one, but today I had a day off work so I made a big push and now I'm literally exactly at the word count goal for today: 10,002.
I feel like this novel has no plot. I've been sitting on this one-sentence plotline since before I wrote 2253, and only now that I'm 10k in am I realising that it was an extremely thin plotline and I have zero idea how I'm going to milk 50k out of it. I've written ten thousand words of exactly nothing so far because I'm trying to delay the actual exciting bits so I have something to look forward to to keep me moving.
It's hard to trust the process anymore. I think of my old novels, like 2253 or Reuben or Rebecca's World or Chasm, and I remember how nothing fazed me and it all came so easily. I just somehow came up with ideas like drunk Mafia games or 10,000-year old roller rinks or magic teddy bears. I didn't have to work for it, it was just sort of there. And I haven't felt that since before Brittney died. I still maintain that Kyrie (2014) was the best thing I've ever written. I think it's no coincidence that it was the last novel before Brittney died, setting off a chain reaction of death and grief that I still feel to this day.
