By Malcolm Mulope
My journey with reading and writing was forever changed by one person, Lara Schade. We were both 21 years old when we met on a rainy afternoon on an artificial hockey field. Her’s was a new face I had never seen before, so I approached her, shook her slightly damp hand and introduced myself. It wasn’t very long after that that we became romantically involved. We spent days together talking about hockey, television, politics, and even nothing at all. But the one thing she loved talking to me about was reading.
She’d beam as she spoke about her favourite authors, book series, plotlines and genres. She tried to get me to read her favourite books. I always declined. Back then, I wasn’t much of a deep reader. I read occasionally, but I read comics and Manga instead of books. Every time I told her that, she’d roll her eyes so dramatically that for a moment all I could see were the whites of her eyes. But like many things in my life, she couldn’t stay.
Lara was a foreign exchange student and sports coach, and after three months with her, she had to go back to Germany. She eventually left, leaving a petite, blonde-sized hole in my heart. We stayed in touch as friends, texting almost daily for the next two years. For a long time, it was as if she never left. The banter remained the same, the jokes, the laughs. She was still the same Lara. The way she nagged me to read her favourite books stayed the same, too. And every time I said no, I could hear her eyes doing somersaults.
It was during COVID that my attitude towards reading finally changed. Not because I suddenly saw the light, but because I lost a bet and was bored. I can’t remember the bet, but I am so grateful I lost. Lara had me read A Court of Thorns & Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Within three days, I finished the book. I fell in love with the incredibly bleak, cold and grey world that the humans inhabited. Juxtaposed by a realm of vivid colours, intrigue and fantasy behind a barrier no human had ever crossed before the main character. Like a stubborn child, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of letting her know I loved the book. I knew if I did, I would feel that slow, creeping grin grow across her face. I would never hear the end of it.
Alas, she knew me too well and said, “There are five more books in the series”. And like a bat out of hell, I started furiously reading. I juggled working online during COVID, family obligations, and personal crises to finish those books. In the end, Lara and I couldn’t stop talking about them. We kept spewing out new theories and character biographies until we had a very nondescript conversation about the best book genre. She, unashamedly, said smut. Taken aback by the comment, I asked, “So if you had to write a book, it would need to have smut in it?”
“Yep”, she answered with alarming speed. “We should write a book together, don’t you think?”
And as quickly as that, that’s how my writing started. I had always been involved in writing, whether as the editor at my high school newspaper, a copywriter for a marketing company or in my diary. This, however, was different. This seemed more daunting and somehow more personal. My ideas were on the line. I wanted to say no; I wanted to avoid the bottomless pit forming in my stomach. But I found myself just agreeing. I don’t know why I did. Maybe I wanted to avoid disappointing her.
She didn’t give me much time to figure it out, though. From the day I agreed, we started writing. There were daily calls to figure out what we wanted to write about. What would our characters be and look like? What kind of story did we want to tell, and how would each chapter pan out? We eventually came up with a retelling of the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa.
Instead of the female characters being something men can conquer or claim, they would play a more active role in their own lives. Medusa, the strong-willed protagonist of the story, would journey across the continent, enacting vengeance on males for Poseidon’s crime of raping her and Athena’s cruel curse for losing Medusa’s lost chastity. Ianthe was not a simple sacrifice to the Kraken. She was the Princess of Athiopia, a healer and a benevolent leader willing to risk it all for her people. Perseus, the second protagonist, would be the antithesis of what Medusa thought all men were. He was powerful yet gentle, firm yet caring, and he would never use his powers as a demigod to take advantage of the weak. Instead, he would help them, and in the process, Perseus would join Medusa on her quest, and they would tentatively fall in love. In our retelling, we wanted to make Medusa’s tragic fate a story of love, revenge and atonement, with a little smut sprinkled in.
During the process of writing, editing, scrapping whole chapters and reading what each of us wrote, I realised I wanted to become a novelist. Sadly, I started university a year into writing the book. I did not have the time to finish my chapters, and what I wrote still needed editing. Lara took over the project entirely. And it’s now available for preorder.
That time writing with Lara profoundly changed how I read and what I read. Before, I would only stick to comics and Manga. Things that I could finish within 30 minutes. Now I consume 1000-page books whenever I have the time to spare. I love fiction, especially fiction based on fantasy worlds. But I also read more sci-fi, thrillers and autobiographies, if the person in question is interesting enough. I routinely sit for hours turning through pages or listening to audiobooks, and it’s all because of one person.
I would have never guessed that my chance encounter at weekly hockey practice would have led me so far down this path. But I am so grateful I did. I found a lover, a career, a hobby and most importantly, a life-long friend because of it.
What the future holds from here, I don’t exactly know. What I do know is that it includes writing, reading and Lara.
