In the summer of 2012, I lost my father.
And, in the summer of 2012, a friend lost his grandmother, his job, his house and his fiancé left him.
My sorrow was huge, but everything else in my life was good compared to his, and I wanted to help him go through this difficult period. Maybe I was also doing it to help myself… He liked stories, so to cheer him up, I started to share with him the ones I previously wrote just for myself. The first week of the month, I would email him a page or two daily. This lasted Monday to Friday, once a month, from September 2012 to January 2013. That January, something changed.
At the time, I was living in Bayswater, a stone-throw away from Kensington Park in Central London. I lived in a house with 3 others fun-loving, life-hugging people. We were not family, but we made a good home for each other. My walk to work took 40 minutes, 15 minutes crossing the park. Those 15 minutes were my favourite: I learned Italian on tape, I called my mother or my friends, I took snapshots, I admired the ray of sunshine in the puddle, or … I wondered at the thick fog, that January 2013.
You could not see more than two meters away! The sight grabbed my imagination. It was on a Monday the week a new story was due to send to my friend. His life was back on track by then, but we had got into a routine and I had discovered the pleasure of storytelling.
That evening, he wrote back that he was already hooked. And so was I! I could not stop thinking about all the possibilities of the story. On the following Friday, I had written 20 pages to him and he commented that he loved it, but that something was wrong: it was far from over. I believed I would finish it by the end of the second week and told him so. I was far off the mark. One week later, I had pencilled 30 pages of ideas and had only written the first 40 pages of what would turn out to be a trilogy. It took me a year to draft the whole story. Then after another two years to edit, Gatekeepers was born. It turned out I had more in mind for this story, so Gatekeepers was the first volume of The Fog Chronicles. Now, almost 5 years later, the second volume is almost ready, Horizons.
Because of my father’s sickness, I had switched to working 4 days a week to be able to travel to France more often for the weekend. With my novel writing project, having a shortened week at work took a new significance: I could dedicate my Fridays and Saturdays to The Fog Chronicles. Without those two full days just on my novels, I would never have managed to write in only two years about 2500,000 words for the first draft. Without being aware of it at the time, I was writing the stories of The Fog Chronicles in instalments, sharing them regularly with one then several friends in the old-fashion format of serialised fiction – the way Charles Dickens and so many others did. This approach carries a story in a very specific way, as each instalment needs to intrigue and captivate the reader.
With the help of professionals, I cleaned up the text and published Gatekeepers as one large novel. However, something did not feel right. It took me months to define what: by publishing the novel as a whole, it missed the original spirit of anticipation created by the break between releases. So, less than two years later, I decided to restructure my novel. It was impossible to recreate my original email distribution, so I opted for a serialised novel delivered in three acts: Fogbound, Crisis and Power (Gatekeepers I, II, and III). It was an exciting time to recreate my own work with a passionate professional specialised on book covers and the interior design.
As you have guessed from the settings of my books, elements of my real life and my household inspired me at first, as I only started to write the story for fun. The connection between the housemates and Gatekeepers was similar to the one I felt at home, and many anecdotes really happened, especially Rico’s – though without the Fog (obviously). So many Saturdays I spent in a corner of the living room, typing away new pages of the book, only to hear and observe a dialogue between my Italian housemates or with a very British friend; I often shook my head, wondering if It was real or if my imagination was projecting my book into the room.
Writing The Fog Chronicles was hard work and demanded a lot of time and dedication. The publishing and marketing process were more difficult even, as it is not where my passion lie. However, the brainstorming, creativity, research and freedom inherent to this experience is priceless. I have already started a new novel and have many more ideas I cannot wait to put on paper.
Really, writing is magical. I am so grateful to have a passion that I can fulfil anywhere, anytime, jotting quick notes on a paper napkin at a dinner, with lipstick if needed – whether it is about the death of a character or a kiss, who knows?
Thank you for reading,
Yours, Virginie