Hey Patrons! It’s been quite some time since I last made an exclusive post and for that I am sorry. It’s been a busy few months of writing and I’ve had nothing to gloat about. But alas, I realize that I still need to continue on with the exclusive posts. I do plan on scheduling these things but life is still pretty hectic and I need to go easy on myself. But here I am with a bit of time to write something fun, and with the 1 year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down the world passing, I figured I’d make A LOOK BACK post about my Covid story, “Coping Mechanisms”.
A Look Back
Covid hit right before I was set to return to work after my year-long maternity leave. British Columbia locked down in mid-March. I was supposed to go back to work in April. Honestly, the lockdown was nice at first because it meant I could spend a bit more time with the kids. I didn’t want to go back to work. But, well, those endless days quickly became grating. And, well, because my sleep schedule was rightly fucked, I stayed up late into every night writing. It was both a gift and a curse. I felt productive but sleep quickly eluded me, and dare I say, drove me a bit mad?
I definitely had myself several Covid crying spells, which is strange to look back on now, just how much this change affected me, considering that for an entire year beforehand, I stayed at home with the kids.
It was being forced to stay in that killed me.
At the time I was writing exclusive Patreon stories each month. I had a lot of extra time to write, and so I decided to write a free story for everyone to reach. Because why not? I was very much intrigued with that feeling of a “break in reality”. The toilet paper crisis was the peak story at the time, and I couldn’t not stay up every night looking for video footage of people clamoring over each other for TP.
At the time, I also missed work. Of course, I didn’t want to go back, but I felt weird missing out on the experience when working retail had been my entire adult life experience for nearly 14 years. I cared about the essential worker experience, and so I decided to write a story about it. But of course, I had to make it sexy, because Covid was a lot.
Inspiration
Like I mentioned, I was really into the whole toilet paper story that came out of the early days of covid. Costco definitely seemed like the hub of the pandemic at the time, with people stocking on supplies. I scoured the odd Reddit thread for posts from actual Costco employees to get some real-life experiences, but it was truly the toilet paper videos that really got me. Specifically this one:
The toilet paper buyers reminded me of Black Friday shoppers (of which I am also fascinated with). Black Friday, however, also has a reputation for being dangerous for retail workers. Like, people have literally been trampled to death during Black Friday openings, which is absolutely frightening to me, that rabid shoppers hungry for discounts could literally kill you en masse.
Anyway, I wanted to make a violent incident the opening of my story, because that just seemed appropriate considering the circumstances at the time. So of course I went with a toilet paper theme, which felt really ridiculous to write, but after reading it over on the first draft, I was like, “Holy shit, I can write a fucking toilet paper action scene!” I thought it was super compelling, and from then on the rest of the story just slipped from me.
Personal Aspects
I mentioned already that I work retail. While I do like to keep my workplace unnamed, I will admit that I work in a store not deemed “essential”, which was why Covid basically gave me an extended maternity leave. I did, however, use as much of my retail knowledge as I could for this story. Oddly enough, this was also my very first story that I’ve written in uh, my “line of work”, if one can call it that.
I try not to be too ashamed of my job, because it is what it is. I like the freedom of working retail. As a mom, I can admit that it’s an easy job to leave and return to. While stressful and considered “uneducated work”, it still does take some skill and proper experience to do well. Retail often gets looked down on but I honestly can’t see myself working any other kind of labour job. There are things I dislike, but one thing that I always appreciate about my job is visual merchandising. I fucking LOVE building displays for holidays and stuff. I love it when people see my displays and get excited about the merchandise.
Which gets us to a little thing called CAPITALISM…
You see, I consider myself a leftist, which means that I also have issues with how capitalism has affected the world we live in, as well as our own culture. Sure, I like making pretty displays, but the idea that my job is literally to get people to spend money on shit they don’t need is also a bit problematic for me. Which is where my protagonist, Jamie, comes in.
Jamie’s just a hopeless woman living at home with her parents. No job prospects. No plan of a future. Just a deep hatred for the economic landscape she lives in. She’s definitely inspired by some of my innermost thoughts, especially the ones that I don’t express publicly.
Over the years I’ve come to terms with some of my anti-capitalist sentiment. Most of it has expressed itself through my fiction. “Coping Mechanisms” was probably the first story it came out in, but since then I’ve tackled a few economic issues through fiction and it’s been a fun ride thus far.
Pandemic “Erotica”
Originally, “Coping Mechanisms” was meant to be erotica. I failed to really hold that premise while writing. I got too deep into character, which isn’t really a problem.
My work has always been pretty salacious. I thrive on that salaciousness. I’ve tried to write more straightforward erotica a lot in my past, only to give up because I really do prefer looking into character depth instead of writing really detailed sex scenes. Striking that balance is hard, and there were several occasions while writing “Coping Mechanisms” where I struggled with changing the plot for the sake of adding more sex.
I chose not to.
I think the story is better for it because it’s still hot. It’s called “Coping Mechanisms” and is ultimately about how two co-workers with little in common manage to cope their way through the early stages of the pandemic.
A Little About Brendan
One of my main qualms with erotica is the standard trope of the male lead. I mean, you know it. We all know it. I hate how erotica focuses so much on appearance when it would really focus on intimacy. I like my characters to jive. They need to understand each other. And when they do fuck, it needs to be carnal and raw and releasing.
I wrote Brendan to be a bit of a break from the “super sexy dominant male” stereotype. He’s lean, slim, a bit petite. One wouldn’t assume him to be a romantic interest to Jamie. BUT, he’s calculated. He thrives on managing situations, but finds himself unable to handle the toilet paper incident. Then, when he sees Jamie losing her cool in the aftermath, he sees an opportunity to “tame” her a bit. First, with her excessive use of profanity. He comes off as a bit of a prude, constantly asking her to watch her mouth, but Jamie’s also a bit of a brat and she plays off this, which creates tension between them.
Honestly, I see Brendan as more of a toy-er in terms of his “dominant personality”. It’s not so much about the sex or as it is him playing with Jamie, who see as a “bratty type”. He tries to control her by making her control herself. Which was a ridiculous amount of fun to write because Jamie didn’t see him as attractive at the story’s beginning, but then the bruise she sustains during the opening incident attaches her to him, and throughout the story, she uses it to connect herself to him.
A true power exchange happens between both Jamie and Brendan that works in both their best interests. And I really like that they seem like honest real people here.
SPOILERS!
Brendan originally made an appearance in a WIP that became what is the workings of my 2nd novel. “Coping Mechanisms” serves are a prequel for his character’s, uh, emerging dominant tendencies. Sadly, despite the happy ending in this story, Jamie and Brendan do not remain a couple, as Brendan finishes his coding schooling and eventually gets a job in the gaming industry.
Fun Tidbits
- My very first manager at my workplace was named Gary.
- My sister has eczema so I used a bit of her experience with the condition to inspire Jamie’s hand-washing woes. Not to mention that I fucking hate having dry hands.
- Jamie’s worry about her father was inspired by my own worry about my parents not taking the pandemic seriously at first. My dad had surgery just before the pandemic got serious. It was frustrating because they went to Costco ALL THE TIME and I kept telling them not to.
- Brendan and Jamie both listen to Nine Inch Nails and OF COURSE, I had to mention the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts albums that came out in April 2020. I really did think that the mention of NIN helped give this story some credit with my fanbase, anyway.
- The “Happy Birthday” hand-washing graphic meme killed me. We all did it, right? We all sang it twice? I thought it was a bit hysterical, and honestly, I friggin’ loved signing “Happy Birthday” while I was writing this story. I also wasn’t gonna not make a reference to the washyourlyrics.com poster generator.
Here’s the poster that Brendan hangs in the break room:
What “Coping Mechanisms” Means to Me
“Coping Mechanisms” became a coping mechanism for me. I blended so many facets of my life into this story through news stories and life experiences. It proved a fruitful exercise with what I could do just to write a “fun” story.
Since writing it, I have found myself gravitating toward other “anti-capitalist” stories, one of which is called BodiBag, which is currently unpublished and takes place during the California summer fires and as all about the gig economy.
Extras
As with every story I now write, I did produce a playlist for “Coping Mechanisms”. This one contains some of the Nine Inch Nails songs referenced in the story, plus some fun extras, including everyone’s favourite maybe-a-socialist? hero, Britney Spears.
I also did put “Coping Mechanisms” on Wattpad. For while it was like the 4th most-read story about retail, which was a stupid thing to be proud of, but I was mighty proud of it at the time. The story gets like no reads now because I guess there’s more frequently updated stuff on there, but I figured it was worth tossing the story to more eyes on the platform.
Am I Proud of “Coping Mechanisms”?
Heck yes, I am. It was probably the most fun I ever had writing a story, and I did it in a really trying time. It was exactly what I needed. I would have loved it if more people read it, but seemed EVERY writer was giving out some sort of free reading material in those early days. Not to mention that I doubt many people wanted to read about the pandemic during the pandemic.
For some reason, I was one of those people who wanted pandemic fiction. Perhaps it wasn’t to my advantage, but I was really geared up in the mindset that writing pandemic stuff in a time of primary sources was really important. I find it funny reading the story now, just how much of the paranoia I forgot about.
I’m happy that I wrote it. I really am.
