March 2020, Spain entered lockdown - but what a lockdown. We could leave our homes to buy food, go to the health centre, or visit the pharmacy. An exercise timetable (above), allowing different age groups out at different times, was added after seven weeks (on May 2nd). For our age group we could exercise (walking, jogging, cycling - I guess you could take a basketball with you) between 6am and 10am, and between 8pm and 11pm. That was it. The rest of the time you still stayed at home. My wife popped out to the supermercado at lunchtime one day, but aborted the trip when she saw the crowds inside. On the way home, a Guardia Civil (national police) car pulled up and asked her what she was doing. She said she'd been to the supermarket. So, they asked, not unreasonably, where was her shopping...? They were fine once she explained, but it was clear - lockdown en España was serious.
But not always that serious... it soon became clear (especially to many parents) that keeping children confined and occupied was never going to be an easy task. In some places, the Spanish police stepped in to lend a hand, check out this report of police in Almería entertaining the local children (and adults). It was a surreal experience: https://rb.gy/g8ehh
So, what was I to do? I couldn't spend all my time dancing with the Spanish police and the local tots. My Duolingo Spanish streak began (and is still going) but I needed something else. I'd written a couple of fictionalised memoirs about my time teaching Spanish junior children in English, but I fancied writing a novel. The memoirs didn't have a 'story', they just started in September, then chronicled the madness of an academic year until everybody went on summer holidays in June. I wanted to write a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end - like we teach the children to do. And so was born Hitting the Jackpot.
Except, it wasn't called Hitting the Jackpot, not at the start. I think the first title, after I'd sketched out an early plot, was What Price a Beemer? And then it became What Price a Beemer and an Ibizan Fiddle? - a sort of nod, perhaps, to the long and somewhat oblique title of Four Weddings and a Funeral...? I did toy with the idea of calling it One Divorce and a Lottery Jackpot but that really did seem too obviously derivative. Hitting the Jackpot just seemed better: it was short and snappy, it gave a good clue to what the story might be about - it just sort of... hit the jackpot.
Being 'stuck' inside involuntarily was a spur to write comedy. I wanted something that would be uplifting, amusing: something to help pass the hours that stretched ahead. I'd written comedy before, my first two (non-fiction) books had been comedies, so I was comfortable with the genre. And it was fun. I enjoyed having the time to take my skeleton of a plot and add the flesh and skin to my characters and their actions. The days passed quickly; I was sometimes a little disappointed when 8pm rolled around and I was allowed out - but I always went, rain or not.
Luckily, I'd gone part-time at my school a couple of years earlier, so I only had one day a week of 'online schooling' to organise and deliver to a lively class of Spanish year 6 kids. The rest of the time was mine - except I couldn't go to the beach, or the coffee shop, or for a walk in the mountains, or a cycle ride amongst the orange groves (except during the stipulated times), or any of the other thousand and one things that usually got in the way of my writing. Suddenly, I had a whole load of time, so I started plotting...
My 'idea' was for a story about keeping a lottery win secret: a big win, that is - the jackpot. My mum had done the football 'pools' in the 60s, and always made sure she put a cross in the 'No Publicity' box. Why? Begging letters. She was obsessed that 'begging letters' might come flooding through our letter box if she forgot to choose 'No Publicity'. Well, we never did get any begging letters, but not because of her tick in the box - we never got any begging letters because she never won a bean.
Bounce forward to 1994, and news items of deliriously happy people holding huge (I mean a metre across) cheques and popping bottles of bubbly - the UK National Lottery had been born. But my mind could never concentrate on the happy millionaires - my mind always drifted to the winners who'd put a cross in the 'No Publicity' box. Who were they? Why did they wish to stay in the shadows? But most importantly of all, for me - who were they keeping their win a secret from? Would a husband ever keep his win a secret from his wife (or vice versa)? Would a young couple tell their junior-school children - and hope that they wouldn't tell anyone? This seemed unlikely to me. I'm a primary-school teacher, and I know the two phrases that primary-aged children use more than any others: 'Guess what...?' and 'Don't tell anyone else, but...'
So I ditched the family with young children idea as likely to take my story nearer to fantasy than comedy, and decided to gather a gang of millennial, gig-economy friends to populate the stage of my novel. Coming up with the idea that a wife would be divorcing her husband was the key ingredient that gave me (or gave my 'husband') a plausible rationale for hiding his win from her. I decided my 'hero' would tell one other person, just to add some tension and take away some of his control over the secrecy of his win. So, I gave him a brother, an older brother, and immediately cast doubt on his trustworthiness. And that was enough to set the story flowing, and within a few days I had a pretty good plot outline and was ready to write....
In terms of writing, not being able to leave the flat felt strangely liberating. After the May 2nd introduction of an exercise timetable, I did a morning walk or bike ride. Then, I had nothing else to do except visit the supermarket, the health centre, the pharmacy - or do some writing. That's not quite true - I live in a block of flats, and on the flat roof are the washing lines, so I could always go up there for an extra walk, or a jog. In principle, it was big enough for me to take my bicycle up there - but I worried about what all my (Spanish) neighbours would think if they came up with a basin full of damp washing only to find me cycling like crazy under the lines of T-shirts and pants...
So I kept writing. I wish I'd kept a count of how many words I wrote a day, they just seemed to pour out. Having my plot pretty well 'done' helped a lot - although do see the next post to learn how my planned 'comedy novel' ended up being a romcom as my plans went slightly awry...
El Estado de Alarma (lockdown) ended in mid June, and not long after that my first draft was done. It was very rough, but extremely ready - for me to start editing and refining, tweaking some of the language, adding little bits of character and personality. The sense of relief that the 'story' was written, that I'd managed to turn my plot into a narrative that had a beginning, a middle, and a satisfactory ending, was enormous. Now, all I had to do was refine it, and then find a publisher or an agent who thought it was any good...
Comentários