Didn't we almost have it all...

Sometimes I waste time in a highly symbolic way. Today, for example, I searched online for quotes on motivation, figuring if I put some into a Word document in a really cool font, printed it out and pinned it up in front of me as I tried to get things done, I’d magically stop procrastinating. It didn't work. I’m aware lately that I give off an air of competence. I appear to be a person who gets shit done. I certainly don’t feel like that person. With the MFA complete, I get the same question a lot. How did you do it?

The answer(s)?

1. I don’t know.
2. With a lot of help.
3. I'm a deadline kind of person.
4. It was hard.

The truth is, I’m a bad procrastinator. I get easily overwhelmed. I hate pressure, but I seem to need it in order to finish a task. Really, I’m not quite sure how anything gets done.

The other truth: I find people who have it all together all the time kind of boring. The sort of people who have their Christmas presents wrapped before December is even upon us (I haven’t even started shopping…), who finish essays then stick them in drawers to await their actual due date. How is it even possible to function when you don’t have the fire of panic nipping at your ass?

I don’t want to be hard on myself... I know I’ve accomplished a good amount in my life. I have three healthy kids and I did finish that damn MFA. I occasionally exercise and we eat decently enough in my house. But a lot of that has to do with the people around me. My husband is an insanely patient and hardworking person. My extended family is helpful and supportive. I alone am never on top of things. Ever. That’s never, ever happened. Our house is almost always a mess. I’ve never, ever experienced all the laundry folded and put away at once. The cup holder in my car is disgusting. But, I do my taxes and I stay in touch with friends and my husband and I get out for the odd night. I write. I’m writing. I’m trying. It’s not that bad.

Last year, after my third son was born, we went through a period where things were truly overwhelming. We had three small children, my husband worked full-time and I still had to write because my thesis due date was looming. So how did I do it? Like this: I showed up to my cousin’s wedding with one son in track pants covered in holes and grass stains. My husband sent our oldest to a birthday party with an already-opened Pez dispenser as the gift. Our baby got bathed, but usually by the babysitter who’d notice on Monday that he was wearing the same onesie she’d put him in on Friday. We were forced to let some (many) things go so other things could stay. It felt like we were treading water in a choppy lake. It also felt somehow important not to hide that from people, to polish things up and make it look easy when it wasn't. Facebook already does that for us. Look how awesome my life is! So, I tried to be honest. When asked how are you? I answered truthfully: I’m barely hanging on. How do I do it all? I don’t.

Things are better now, or maybe we’re just used to the chaos. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I pay a price for all the things I want. I want to be a writer, so I’ll never have enough time to exercise. I want to take my kids swimming, so my car will always be a mess. I hire babysitters and I rely heavily on my husband, my parents, my sisters and my friends. I. Can’t. Do. It. All.

I can’t do it all, at all, ever. But I can do some of it, sometimes. That will have to do.

The Next Big Thing

Thank you to the lovely and talented Daniel Perry (who recently finished the first draft of his short fiction collection!) for linking me into this chain. It's always fun to answer questions on stuff you're writing... a good way to pretend it exists outside of your own head/computer.

1. What is the working title of your book?

Still Mine

2.Where did the idea for the book come from?

Nowhere? I'm not sure. When I signed up for the 2010 Muskoka Novel Writing Marathon, a friend of mine suggested I have a go at writing a mystery/thriller. Over that weekend, I tossed out 10000 words (50 pages) of a novel about a missing woman. Who knew I had it in me? Amazingly, the novel won the fiction category in the contest, and the feedback from the judges was very positive. So I figured, keep at it...

3) What genre does it fall under?

Hard to say. Mystery. Literary Thriller.

4) Which actors would you choose to play the characters in a movie version?

Funny you ask! Because I've already got it all figured out. Helps with the visuals as I write.

Jennifer Lawrence as Clare.

Michael Fassbender as Malcolm.

Jessica Chastain as Shayna.

Taylor Kitsch as Jared.

Tommy Lee Jones as Wilfred.

Lena Dunham as Sara.

Julie Christie as Louise.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of the book?

Clare O'Dey arrives in a dying mining town to search for a missing woman she's never met.

6) Will the book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I have an agent - Chris Bucci with Anne McDermid and Associates - so that's a good start. Will it be published? I hope so!

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started the first dabbles in July 2010 at the marathon, and submitted the very first completed draft to my thesis advisor (the book was the thesis for my MFA) in February, 2012. But I had a baby in between, so I wasn't always writing. I'd say a year. But now I've been rewriting it for almost a year, and my crystal ball tells me it isn't nearly done. I'm guessing three years will pass between first word on the page and the day I decide it's done. Most writers will probably agree that the first draft amounts to 40% (if that) of the total work.

8) What other books would you compare yours to?

If my book were published, I would ask Dennis Lehane and Kate Atkinson to read it and hope they didn't find it a piece of s**t.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I had to write something for my MFA. Something book-length. That was a good incentive. In 2000 I did the year-of-travel thing and somewhere in a desert in Australia I sat around a fire with 5 other twenty-somethings and wrote out a bucket list. Number one on that list was to write a book. That was also good incentive. Numbers 2 was to get married and 3, to have kids. Done and done! However, number 18 was to run a marathon and number 32 was to see the Leafs win a Cup -  so I guarantee you the streak will end.

10) What else about your book might pique a reader's interest?

The story has a lot of plot, which is hard to manage as a writer. Writing this book has exponentially increased my respect for mystery and thriller writers. Weaving your way through all the plot and red herrings and false leads, etc... but also making room for characterization and good writing. Too hard.

I'm hoping any reader will keep reading because s/he wants to know how it ends, and then when it ends, s/he won't want to throw the book across a room in disgust.

Also, it's the first book in a series. I plan to write more of them.

Now, go read:

CRG (Chris Graham)

and

Jonathan Mendelsohn

A story of mine in an anthology (where dreams do come true...)

My short story "The Roundness" has been a gift that keeps on giving. It won the 2011 Writers Union short story award, and then a few months later was a finalist for the Exile/Vanderbilt contest. All the finalists for the Vanderbilt have been published in an anthology now available on Amazon right here. If you write short stories, I urge you to enter the Exile/Vanderbilt short fiction contest. If you are chosen a finalist, you will get to go to galas and garden parties, you will get to do readings, you will meet Gloria Vanderbilt and you will be made to feel, however briefly, like a certifiable writer. Here is a picture taken of me with Gloria Vanderbilt at a party at the Callaghan house (as in Morley and Barry) in Toronto last June.

On Writing & Success

A dear friend of mine spent many years as an editor with a large publishing company. Her time there coincided with my own coming-of-age as a writer. We had our kids at the same time and survived our mat leaves tethered to each other. Over the years this friend, we’ll call her K, has given me advice on many things, the writing life included. And it is excellent advice.

This is it: As a writer, you must enjoy the process. You must hinge your sense of success on the writing itself, because the end result is out of your hands. As I see it, no matter how often or how well I write, I can’t really control what happens to my work when (if, I should say – a big if) it gets published and reaches the outside world. I have no control over reviews or the size or reaction of the readership. I can blog and tour and sign books for everyone I meet, but ultimately I can’t really control whether my book rises to the top of the lists or takes a nosedive right off the shelf. If it makes it to the shelf at all.

Every writer knows that the odds of getting published are slim, but as the stigma around self-publishing fades away, we are no longer forced to see that pile of rejection letters as the endnote. If the agents and publishers reject us, we can slap the book up on Amazon ourselves, right? There are the stories of the writers who’ve gone it alone and sold millions of e-books. I saw a documentary about a young woman in the States who bought a mansion with the proceeds from her self-published novels. And then I read that the average self-published book sells fifty copies. The math likely looks like this: For every self-published writer who sells a million books, there are probably a million who sell less than fifty.

And for those who do get the golden ticket, the publishing contract, the statistics aren’t terribly different. Most published books sell less than a thousand copies, and most writers must keep their day jobs. K has told me so many stories of emerging writers in that sweet honeymoon phase – those months before the book is about to be published, where it’s okay to be optimistic because the possibilities are still endless. Of course these writers are hopeful that theirs will be one of the 5% of published books that actually soars, that pays their rent and secures them a writer’s life for the foreseeable future. But most of them won’t be.

Depressing, right? Why bother?

I imagine most of us bother because we must, because it really is about the writing and nothing else. If you think about it, K is actually advocating optimism. She is telling me not to let anyone else dictate my version of writing success. Right now, I am waiting in that void where my book has been drafted and sent out to professionals for their thoughts – my grand dream is still intact. Of course I’m not immune to dreaming big, to picturing myself walking the red carpet at the premiere of the film adaptation. But I understand that beyond my own hard work in writing it, I have no control over what happens once the book leaves the confines of my computer. If it gets published, garners attention, wins awards, becomes a bestseller and a blockbuster movie... well, I'm sure that would be awesome. I'd take it, and I'd redefine my version of success accordingly. But for now, my success comes simply from having written it.

I first started writing the novel two years ago, around the time I got pregnant with my third son. Over that winter, I found little chunks of time to chip away at it, hauling my pregnant self through the snow to the library, and onwards for months and months though I had three small boys at home and a vast life outside of writing to balance. It was really hard, but I found a way to do it. Now, it is a book, 86,000 words, printed out and thick and heavy in my hands. I invented people who now seem very real to me. I made mistakes in the writing and in the story, and then I went back and tried to fix them. I am still working on it, still trying to make it better. I learned a huge lot about the writing process. This is my success. Even if this novel ends up in a drawer, it nonetheless remains a life dream that I’ve accomplished. I wrote a book. I think that book is pretty good. And so I’m a writer, whether the wider world ever knows it or not.

The thesis is done...

This is my fourth baby. My MFA thesis - a novel. The gestation was 26 months. It is a thesis but not yet a fully drafted novel. I am proud of it. And I am thankful to a million people, but mostly to my hubby, for all the things he did so that I could write this book.

But I hate to be alone...

Ferry to Island

Because I fancy myself a writer, I like to think I am an introvert too, a craver of solitude. When the day-to-day of family life is particularly grinding, I’ve often used the evenings hours to google things like “cabin retreat” or “writing escape” with visions of myself alone in the woods with nothing but a calcified kettle and a rickety table for my laptop. Scrolling through the results, I actually deselect options like “WiFi” and “Close to Town” because apparently I’m the sort of person who wants to be alone for days and days so I can write.

But, I’m not. On a windswept weekend in June, I left my gaggle of children with my brave husband and boarded the ferry from downtown for the 10-minute ride to Toronto Island. That I was the lone passenger on the ferry probably wasn’t the best omen, but it felt somehow Victorian, my bags on my lap on the damp bench with all those old red lifejackets tucked into netting overhead. Out the window the rain fell sideways. Victorian and writerly, right? Except I spent most of the ferry ride texting my sister. About my kids.

On the western tip of the islands is Gibraltar Point. This used to be what we born-and-raised Toronto kids called The Island School. It is now an artist retreat/colony/work space run by Artscape, a Toronto non-profit. My lovely and gracious host picked me up at the island terminal then showed me to my private space, an old school portable converted into a studio. I was by myself, no children or obligations aside from writing for 2 whole days. The stuff of dreams. Yet as soon as my host pulled the door closed behind me, I texted my husband to say I’d be on the next ferry home. If it wasn’t for the pelting rain and the 25-minute walk back to the island terminal, I would have left. Stay, my husband wrote. You are not allowed to come home. He knows me well. Next came a walk on the beach with ocean-worthy storm surges. Two ducks sat on the sand with their wings shielding their bills from the wind. Instead of admiring them, I pulled out my Iphone and tried to secure a photograph to text to my husband, sisters, best friend and mother. I wanted to share even the mundane details of this experience with them.

There were other people at the retreat. They seemed happy there, alone with their art. Some of them planned to stay for a month. These are people with the true artist’s temperament. Making art is life, and everything else is waiting for the next chance to make art. When I wandered over to the common space and struck up a conversation, they had trouble looking me in the eye, though they smiled often and asked me many questions about my work. My work. Right. I worked all weekend. In fact, I wrote almost 10000 words – a magnificent tally. But the entire time I longed for those people I so readily left.

In the seven years I have been writing seriously, two things about me have changed. For one, I have developed my own version of the artistic temperament. It allows me to conjure my characters at any time, even when surrounded by the din of my children. I suss out their strengths and flaws by surmising how they might handle a standoff with my 3-year old, the true test of anyone’s character. When I am away from writing for too long, I feel strange, sad, edgy. This is my artsy side. I hide it well from others. The other thing I’ve learned, something I probably should have figured out years ago, is that I am not a solitary writer. I am not a solitary person. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I hate being alone.

 So now, I google a different kind of escape. Somewhere with a house for my family, and then a shed where I can write. The perfect balance. Leave me be when I am writing. But when the writing is done, bring me back to my people.