I have taken the month of October to pre-plan the novel, working on beat sheets, character bios and a synopsis.
My username on the NaNoWriMo website is YorkshireBelle if anyone wishes to buddy up for mutual writing support and here is a copy of my synopsis/blurb and an extract from the novel to help you find the right NaNo buddy:
Synopsis: Digital Heroin
Medina is searching for her missing son. When she came to the U.K. from China to study, met an English man, married him and started a family, she thought she had given him a better life. She did not expect that when her husband died, her son, Yultuzay, an internet-addicted teenager, would be taken from her home while she and her new second husband, Zhang Wei were at work. Things like that happened to Uighurs in her native China, not here.
Yultuzay has been interred into a re-education camp. He spends his days forced to work as a modern slave and attend classes to become a citizen with a meaningful life. His only hope is that his family will find him and set him free. There are thousands like him in the camp.
Medina's new Chinese husband, Zhang Wei, did not want Yultuzay's internet addiction to turn into a drug addiction like the one that killed his daughter. Back home in his country there are re-education centres for individuals to learn to be useful citizens and he has paid for Yultuzay to be sent to one. So long as they keep making payments, he will be freed in three years and emerge a new man.
When Medina finds out that her kidneys are failing, the health insurance they have to pay, means that they miss a payment of the money they pay for Yultuzay's re-education. Yultuzay's captors now have no reason to keep him safe, he is now a candidate for the advanced programme.
Yultuzay has only just found a reason to go on, a female internee named Lau that he has fallen in love with. Now, he is to be moved and he will never see her again. Moved to a new facility with a hospital on the grounds, he is beaten and tortured. The other internees tell him stories of people going to the hospital and never coming back and now he has seen Lau being led there. She is pregnant, what are they going to do to her?
Medina has a transplant, but it doesn't take and her husband is forced to search for options on the dark web. Will Medina free her son before it is too late and will Yultuzay be able to save the baby before they sell it to childless couples for profit?
Novel excerpt
Medina sank into the soft mattress and picked up the well-worn hoodie, holding it against her face, breathing in the fragrance. Even after all this time, it still smelled of Yultuzay. His room was still the same as the day he was taken and she knew it would stay that way until he was home safe.
Zhang Wei said it was a shrine, but it was all she had left of him. She thought he of all people should understand why she needed this connection with her son.
As though her thoughts had conjured him, the door opened and Zhang Wei joined her on the bed. His thigh pushed up against her and in a way it was more comforting than the arm that he tried tried to put around her. She pulled away from it, preventing him. It wasn't fair, she knew, yet she couldn't forget that last argument.
She rubbed at the hot tears. It was a pointless gesture, more were following.
"When I think back to when I came to England from China to study, I thought it was for a better life. Andrew was a kind and loving man, so I married him and started a family, sure that all of the persecution was over and that our son would be safe."
"He was safe," Zhang Wei started, then shut his mouth which she was grateful for. They both knew that wherever he was, he was not likely to be safe.
"And Andrew died," her voice hitched and Zhang Wei tried again to put his arm around her. She shrugged it off with less thought than before.
"I did not expect that when he, he died, Yultuzay, would be abducted from our house in broad daylight. England was supposed to be safe, he was supposed to be safe."
"You were at work my love, you couldn't have known."
"No-one could have known. Things like that happened to us in China, not here."
"No-one could have known. Things like that happened to us in China, not here."
She swung around, holding her gaze steady with Zhang Wei's.
"Not to us, no, for you are not Uighur."
"It has nothing to do with - "
"You can't know, thousands of people disappear each year and not just Uighurs, Muslims, dissidents, followers of Falun Gong...." her voice trailed off, there were so many.
"But not here Medina, never here. Why would the Chinese government be interested in an internet obsessed English teenager?"
"Half Uighur," she yelled, "Just because I married you and you are Chinese and Andrew was English doesn't water it down enough for them. He is still half Uighur, that is more than enough."
"I promise you this has nothing to do with the government and we will find him. You will get him back."
"Don't make any more promises to me that we both know you can't keep."
Good luck to all of my followers who are taking part.
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