I never specifically planned to write The Murder of Norman Ware. In fact, I didn't intend starting my third novel until 2013. There was a very logical reason for this: I was (and still am) busy completing the last year of my Diploma in Family Medicine, and studying while also trying to raise two boys, work, and train to run Comrades does not leave ample time in which to write a novel. And so I had set aside my aspirations to write a third novel until the completion of my studies. 

I didn't bank on being diagnosed with cancer.
 
I'm not a big fan of looking for the silver lining to things. Pollyanna-types irritate me. If something horrible happens, I'm not going to go digging around looking for a good reason for it to have happened. It's feels too much like a justification. However, I cannot deny that my illness was the catalyst that sparked my writing The Murder of Norman Ware and so I am forced in this case to acknowledge some sort of silver lining. 
 
 In the middle of October last year, after running a hundred-kilometer trail run with a sore stomach, I was admitted to hospital. What I had thought was a gastroenteritis was, in fact, appendicitis and I went straight to theatre for an appendicectomy. Two weeks later I was back in theatre having my womb removed. Through a complicated series of events, the appendicitis had led to the diagnosis of cervical cancer. The management was an immediate hysterectomy.
 
The first two weeks after my hysterectomy were really tough. I was weak from two general anesthetics and my abdomen ached. As well as this, I was trying to come to terms not only with having faced my mortality, but also with the fact that I was now barren. I felt as though the essence of my femininity had been torn from me. And so I did what I always do when I'm stressed: I started writing.

Usually I am a careful writer. By the time I sit down to write my novel, I have most of the chapters mapped out. All of my characters have been extensively profiled. The walls of my study are covered with sheets of paper and flash cards detailing every aspect of the novel.  This time was different. This time, I just wrote. I immersed myself in the words and the language, using them to forget what I was experiencing. I had no plan to publish what I wrote and so there was no pressure on me to create a perfectly complete manuscript. I allowed myself the luxury of playing with language and concepts. And I had fun.

I completed two-thirds of the novel in the six weeks that I was recovering from surgery. Later on, once my mind was in a better place, I went back and fine-tuned the manuscript. I did retrospective planning and character profiling, but I think that the essence of the novel, the spontaneity and enjoyment, are still evident in the final product. 

Ironically, The Murder of Norman Ware, is the novel that I have most enjoyed writing. And I believe that it's my best work yet. I wonder if it didn't become, in those six weeks, a surrogate for the third child that I will never have.