Pandemic stories

Coronavirus Helped me Write a Novel

Or … My demons got together and wrote a long story. Now they want me to finish

When June started, I would have laughed if someone told me I would have a novel written by Mid-September. I would have howled if you said it was about wife-sharing. Yet here we are.

I am not a novel writer. I prefer essays and shorter works. When June started I had no thought of writing a novel. I wrote a short story on June 4 about a man’s fantasy and continued writing a couple of days later.

Here is the short story that ended up being the first chapter

https://readmedium.com/the-dance-24c9094eed5a

There was the Coronavirus, pandemonium in the streets with rioting, and my day job cranked to 12-hours a day six days a week. Also, because of the virus, my freelancing clients dried up. So what else did I have to do but write a novel? Everything else was shut down too.

By the middle of July, I had 45,000 words, and the story was told. I have revised it a few times already and re-written some parts. One day I wrote all day, and it had 1,000 words less than when I started, but I felt good about that day. Some plot holes were fixed up and progress was made. There have been a few days where I wrote 5,000 words.

The story itself is written. I decided to add the perspective of another person, so it now has two main characters. It got up to 60,000 words and now is around 45,000.

It needs some flesh put on the bones, and some parts need adjusting. It is rough, but the first draft is done. It will get longer, but the essential story may not change. I had two endings in mind, but have since combined them into one. I’m not really happy with the current ending but I am content with it for now.

My subject matter is touchy. It involves cuckoldry and alternative lifestyles. It won’t appeal to mass audiences. It has its moments, but it is not porn by any stretch. Well to be completely transparent, there are now two versions. One is PG-13 and the other pulls out all the stops and is porn pretty much.

Overcoming my own mind

I have had to overcome personal barriers. Wanting to write a novel, and giving myself permission, were two things I had to work through even before the actual struggle of writing began.

I was a journalist for 30 years. I have been a freelancer for the last five or so years, and am near retirement. I’m no beginner to the writing world, but I have not written much fiction. I have always had a place to put my writing or a place to have it published. Writing with no one in mind — with no publisher or plan to publish — always seemed strange to me.

The idea of spending a month or two writing a few hundred pages that might not sell and never be published was too big of an obstacle for me for many years. Why put in that effort?

The idea of spending a month or two writing a few hundred pages that might not sell and never be published was too big of an obstacle for me for many years. Why put in that effort? I have written some non-fiction e-books that were long, but even then I was sure of what would happen to it when I finished. That was my first obstacle, and maybe it was the easiest.

I need structure. Having no one out there expecting me to deliver it by a certain date is not a good recipe for me and writing. I had no writing projects going on. It did not look like any were coming my way, so it was a good time to try this out. My day job was providing lots of overtime pay, so not writing for money was not an issue. I am able to write some at work with my employer’s blessing, so I had that advantage. Lack of structure was an issue, but it seemed to be fixing itself.

The greater obstacle

Those obstacles were obstacles all writers face. They were not that tough to overcome. The hardest thing was giving myself permission to tackle this subject matter.

This has been about self-discovery, which is what writing is supposed to be in some ways. As I write about the main character’s feelings and struggles, indeed I am writing about my own. It is a bit difficult to honestly put your emotions out there. The main character has his flaws, and alas, they are my flaws as well. Still, he is honest and real.

Writing about the unspeakable

Another obstacle was my brand. I’ve always balked at the idea of a niche, or brand, but I have to admit I have one. I write about writing and self-confidence a lot on Medium. I also write a lot of religious or spiritual material. That is my brand. My topic seems to fly in the face of that brand. I am still thinking about a pen name if I were to publish.

As a journalist using a pen name is a heresy of the highest order. Ok, but a religious writer writing about alternative — — — -sexual lifestyles is too. Do you see my angst?

I had already decided it was ok to write something that might not ever get published. That also provides some cover for going outside my brand.

The touchy subject matter of cuckoldry

The topic is touchy. Alternative sexual lifestyles have always been a topic of interest to me. Open marriages, polyamory, swinging, and such are things I like to read about and discuss. There is some really interesting history out there … just saying. My favorite alternative or kink is the cuckold or hotwife lifestyle.

For the uninitiated, cuckoldry happens when the wife has lovers despite her husband’s objection, and he is powerless to stop her. He may even raise children his wife has conceived with other men. In the other option the husband — called a stag — approves of, encourages, and even celebrates, his wife’s affairs with other men. The wife in this scenario is called a “hotwife.”

I was more interested in the hotwife aspect and wanted to explore the emotions and psychology of the husband in question. At first, he was the only main character and everything was through his eyes. I have now added the wife’s viewpoint, a second main character. They have very different motives.

That led to more decisions about what I would do. I could go the more pornographic route and have a lot more sex. This would be real erotica. My other option was to explore the emotions of the man having the fantasies.

I still have to decide how graphic to get. In 40,000 words that cover more than a year, there are only two sex scenes and only one of them involves body parts. The folks who want to read porn will get bored, and people who don’t like porn may be put off by the subject matter. Are there people out there who want to know about the emotion and psychology of this kinky lifestyle? Will I have to put a disclaimer on the cover?

There I go again, worrying about how it will be received. I wanted to write this for myself, and not worry about who may or may not read it. That is the struggle I face in the writing. It is hard to dance like no one is watching — and it’s hard to write like no one is reading.

Setting myself free to write about a man’s struggle with wanting his wife to have sex with other men in a very positive way, has been difficult. That has been more of a struggle than the actual story. I am halfway there, so I would not want to stop now. I will continue. It may or may not be published, and that is OK too.

About the novel

The novel is built around a young upper-middle-class couple in suburbia. The wife is a very pretty woman. The husband sees other men looking at her lustfully, and finds himself enjoying it instead of feeling jealous or threatened. He innocently introduces her to his friends at work and in other places. It takes a turn when they go to a dance and she meets Dave. She and Dave were great dancers in college and both gave it up after entering the work world. It is a passion they share. They are more passionate about dance than sex, to the chagrin of the husband.

One of my favorite Medium writers is Jessica Wildfire. In one of her stories about fantasies, she said it is not always fulfilling, and not necessary, to actually do your fantasy. The important thing is to understand why you have a fantasy. That is the purpose of my novel.

Maybe my book will help people understand their own fantasies.

James Jordan is a freelance writer in the Midwest. I always want to hear your comments. You may also contact me at [email protected]