In 2019 I completed the first draft of my book, The ‘Starting Out’ Years, and sent it to an editing service for a manuscript evaluation.

The book is about the years in the lives of girls in six generations of my family when they finish school and plan their careers.

My grandmother’s adventures during the years 1898–1904 are the basis of the first story. The story of my mother’s starting out years begins in 1925, mine in 1958, and subsequent generations’ stories begin in 1987, 2017 and 2042.

The first four stories hadn’t changed since that first draft. But the fifth story looked like it might. It is about my partly-fictional Generation Z granddaughter, Fiona, during the years she finishes school and goes on to university.

2020, the year she graduates from high school, unfolded smoothly in that first draft. It was the most exciting year in Fiona’s life.

And then 2020 actually happened.

Before sending the revised draft to the publishing service in mid-March, I inserted a couple of references to COVID-19 in the fifth story.

While I was at it, I made some adjustments to the sixth story, which covers the same starting out years in the life of my completely fictional great-granddaughter, Alexandra — as she and her friends in the high school graduating class of 2045 make their plans and reflect on the weird situation in which their parents found themselves back in 2020.

I have been rewriting the fifth and sixth stories ever since. As fast as I can.

At the time I sent the second draft to the editors, I had mentioned COVID-19. But the narrative in the fifth story still jumped directly from a December 2019 high school dance in Edmonton to Fiona’s arrival at McGill University in Montreal in September 2020 .

Then things really started to fall apart!

No sooner did the out-of-town students leave Edmonton after the first Provincial Robotics Competition of the year, when word went out that it would be the last Provincial Robotics competition of the year.

In fact there would be no more competitions of any sort between high schools even within Edmonton, until further notice.

Travel for Spring Break, set to begin March 19, was discouraged. In a few weeks, they came to realize that the timing of the Spring Break in western Canadian provinces was very lucky. Ontario and Quebec students had an earlier break that wasn’t cancelled. A lot of families headed south and brought back the virus.

Classes switched to online after that ‘lucky’ break. Also no band, orchestra or choir concerts.

No summer jobs.

Final exams not compulsory. Except APs.

No Grad. No limousine. No fun.

I added about 1000 words to the fifth story of my book, about the effects of COVID-19 on life in 2020, then began trying to guess what else would happen. I still hoped to have the book published in time for Christmas, so I couldn’t put off the final edit much longer.

Back in February, the ‘before time’, I had told the book publisher that the picture above was to be placed part way through the fifth story. But shortly after shutting down and switching to online classes in April, McGill, along with most Canadian universities, announced that the Fall term classes would also be on line, and that residences might not reopen.

The main character in the fifth story, my partly fictional granddaughter Fiona, had her heart set on going to university right after high school, but actually considered a gap year — for about five minutes a couple of times during the rewriting time.

The possibilities for travel were limited. I didn’t want to have her go to Europe just yet, and wandering kids were not particularly welcome in other provinces.

I soon worked out that adding a gap year would add another 1000 words to the fifth story, already much longer than all the others. So Fiona made up her mind to register at McGill but stay at home in Edmonton for the fall term.

Finally, in the summer, there was some good news! McGill announced that the residence rooms guaranteed to first year students with high marks (including Fiona, of course) would be held until the winter term for any students preferring to study online for the fall term.

In addition to the problems in the ‘real’ year 2020, there was a complication in the part of my book that was dealing with 2020. The painting of Montreal I had placed in the manuscript was way too orange to work well labelled “Montreal, January 2021.”

Turns out I’m not the only writer with lots of time to finish a book. During the most frenzied weeks of rewriting The ‘Starting Out’ Years, I sent a lot of emails to my publisher. The following auto-replied form letter arrived immediately after each one:

“As our collective author community has suddenly found themselves with more time to engage in their production process, we are finding it challenging to reply to all emails with the speed we normally expect.”

I really wanted to have my book published in time for the all-important Christmas Market. But delays I caused by my constant rewriting of the fifth story, combined with the huge backlog of completed manuscripts the publisher was coping with made that possibility look less and less likely.

I began to wonder about the chances of a pandemic second wave turning into a second spike following last-gasp-of-summer parties and school reopenings. I decided I’d better just take a guess at what might happen and get the obligatory rewrite over with, rather than waiting to see exactly how the second, or even third, wave would affect poor old Fiona.

And then something else occurred to me — she might also have to deal with the outcome of the fast-approaching American election! By which I mean I would have to deal with it, as Fiona and her friends, though not directly affected, would likely be at least talking about it a lot. It’s well known that anything that stirs things up in the U.S. is going to affect Canada as well. And this event was looking to do more stirring than most.

Waiting until after the election on November 3 would eliminate any possibility of hitting the Christmas market, so I decided to predict the result.

All across Canada parents and kids were learning to deal with the widely varying results of the school reopenings in August and September. Adjustments in distancing and masking rules were made and a few places even managed to introduce quick weekly home-testing.

Some provinces had staggered starts for different grade levels, and that worked out quite a bit better than the word “staggered” had parents believing it would. The rare temporary shutdowns were all very short and the nationwide return to school went much more smoothly than most Canadians expected.

A few cities in the United States also got the kids back to school without major incidents. But antagonism in some states about how the pandemic had been handled compounded the divisiveness that was exploding as their presidential election loomed.

Fear was building on both sides, Republican and Democrat, that if their guy didn’t win, American democracy was doomed.

Although very few people anywhere were totally thrilled with the outcome, the relief of just getting that horrific election over with was huge. November 3 came and went and the world did not end.

1. If your story includes a little forecasting of future events, you might want to steer clear of the immediate future.

What’s going to happen in, say, twenty years can be envisioned in very general terms, with a chance of being quite accurate in a big picture sort of way.

But predicting what will happen in the next few weeks requires some precision, and is much less likely to be accurate.

This could very well be the case even if your story doesn’t happen to run into a pandemic.

2. Record and date everything you read and hear, both fact and evolving opinion. Don’t attempt to remember all the details, or summarize or edit as the situation evolves.

Again, this may be a good thing to remember even if the evolving situation you’re dealing with isn’t a pandemic.

3. If you have painted your storyline into that little corner in time where you are going to have to predict the immediate future, you must be flexible, capable of last minute changes, and agile with alternate outcomes.

It is possible to change embedded images after the Final Manuscript Sign-off, an example of being agile with alternate outcomes

4. Trying to stay on top of developments during the pandemic has made me realize that having to rewrite parts of a book a few times is nothing compared to the life-disrupting effects the pandemic has had on so many people.

I think perhaps we are all seeing things in a new light, and that one of the changes taking place in 2020 is a widespread shift toward kindness and understanding. I have added this to the conditions I’ve already mentioned that have shifted the plans of the main characters “starting out” in each of the six stories.

5. Shaunta Grimes suggests you look at the market and ask yourself if there is already a ton of books out there that are very similar to your idea and if you are just following a trend.

The unplanned catastrophe in the fifth story, taking place as I am finalizing the book, has got to be making the whole thing completely original. Not only has the pandemic altered that story at least once a week throughout the spring and summer of 2020, it’s forced me to make ongoing adjustments in the sixth story conversation about the bad old days back in 2020. So — no, I do not appear to be chasing a trend.