Writing My Novel on My Phone (and Through Grief)
Author Ros Hill shares his experience of using the Notes app on his phone to write his debut novel.
People ask me: “Did you really write your first novel, Sketch, entirely using your iPhone’s Notes app with only your right thumb?”
To that, I answer, “Yes. All 87,000-plus words.” But there’s a bit more to that. Let me explain.
I was reading Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, when an idea came to me about creating a superhero named Sketch. My laptop’s touch pad was acting up, so I opened my Notes app on my iPhone and began writing the opening scene, which led to finishing the first chapter, which led to writing three more.
My thoughts were fresh. The writing had come easy, and I was excited to unveil the story. There was something about writing on the phone that appealed to me, most notably its immediate accessibility. Stop lights, traffic jams, clients running late, me running on a wooded trail, walking the dog. You name it, my phone—my story—was always there. Even if it were just a couple of sentences, whatever I wrote was contributing to the story, fresh out of the think tank.
And then came the fumble.
As a personal trainer at a local retirement community, one Saturday morning I was instructing a water aerobics class. I had an older generation iPhone 6 and had now written five chapters of Sketch in the Notes app. I kept my phone in my right hand so I could work the volume control buttons for the class’s music. As I was demonstrating an arm movement, my phone broke free from my grip. I’ll never forget it sailing end-over-end in slow motion, well beyond my reach. As it fell into the pool, I screamed inside my head, “NOOOO!! SKETCH!!” I dropped to the pool deck, plunging my arm deep into the water, grabbing my phone.
It was too late, though. My phone’s protective case was old and battered. Water leaked in immediately. My Notes weren’t backed up. My five chapters were gone. My phone had died.
However, only two hours after the swimming pool fiasco, I had a new iPhone in hand. I wasquickly back in the rhythm of writing. Within a couple of weeks, I caught up to where I had left off. Within the fictitious world I was creating, Sketch, my superhero, was taking shape!
And then, a few months later, in this real world, my creativity abruptly stopped. My daughter, Brookney, suffered a tragic death. She had a seizure and suffocated in her pillow. She was 32. Everything became insignificant, including my writing.
To this day, three and a half years later, disbelief is as present today as the day she passed. There was no one to blame, but epilepsy. Blaming gets you nowhere. Blaming doesn’t turn back the clock and make things right. Blaming doesn’t give her life.
As the months passed, grief and sadness swallowed me up. All my life, I’ve been able to conjure up an abundance of creativity. It’s been a natural for me. But when she died, I had nothing to tap into. Nor did I have any desire to write.
I was approached by people I didn’t know, who had heard about my loss. These were people who had also lost a child and who, unanimously, said that at some point, my life would come back to me.
Years ago, a friend of mine lost a seven-month-old son, Sterling, to SIDS. Moved by his obituary, I wrote a story commemorating his short life. When Brookney died, I called my friend, asking her for some grieving advice. She told me about what she called “markers”—signs or opportunities that should be embraced and paid attention to. Such as laughter: “If something’s funny, then laugh. Don’t feel guilty for doing so.”
Check out Ros Hill's Sketch here:
As time passed I would, on occasion, think about Sketch, but nothing sparked any true interest to write. Nothing, until my motivation to write had changed. It was my first “marker.”
I had an idea: What if I started writing to Brookney? What if I opened my Notes app and started writing to her about anything, even if just keeping her informed? The idea excited me. I felt connected to her. It felt good to write!
This is from my first entry in “Dear Brookney”:
“It’s so sad, this loss. But I must keep writing to keep you close. To stop writing, would be an injustice to you. So, these letters will never end.”
The more letters I wrote, the more I felt her presence, as if she were sitting next to me, encouraging me to continue. I knew the last thing Brookney would want me to do would be to abandon my writing. I had read the early chapters to her. I had told her about the supervillain—the Finger Gunman—explaining just who Sketch was up against.
Then, one day, it happened: I began thinking about the story again. I envisioned an airplane scene that was in no way connected to the first five chapters I had written. It opened up an entirely different direction for my story to take. I saw plot twists I hadn’t thought of before. Sketch was now becoming a far more involved and original superhero story than it had initially set out to be.
The story required me to write a tragic scene, which is integral to the book. I’m not going to spoil what transpires, but I did shed some tears as I wrote. All the while, Brookney was there, by my side, helping me tap into my grief.
Writing letters to Brookney had freed my mind. My creativity was back! I opened up my Notes app and resumed writing Sketch.
