Heaven, I'm in Heaven

No surprise, I am REALLY enjoying my quiet work days, alone in an empty house with only the cats for company. I especially love the mornings I spend on my novel . . . writing . . . napping . . . reading . . . writing some more. Bliss. Yes, there are times when writing feels like work, but right now it's pure indulgence, because it means I'm NOT cleaning up potty-training accidents, arbitrating scratching fights, and saying "No, you can't watch TV" a zillion times. I do love my kids but they are intense right now.

I would try to feel guilty for enjoying myself but I just don't have it in me. Plus, Shawn's getting all this lovely bonding time, particularly with Nico, and he actually likes cleaning the house and making dinner (I know! Why didn't we switch roles sooner? I wonder how long before the novelty wears off . . .)

The extra writing time means the novel draft is moving along much more quickly. I'm nearly one-quarter finished, I think (given my estimate of how long the book will be, which is just a total guess). I'm liking the slower pace--about 1000 words a day is what I'm aiming for. I get started during my early-morning session and then pick up later where I left off.

Sadly, this little interlude is over almost before it's begun. I've got full-time contract work for August, so I'll have to drop the novel-writing during the day. All the more reason to keep the early wake-up call.

Another First Day

Tomorrow morning, for the first time since 2006, I will pack a lunch and head out of the house to work.

I had a tour of my new office last week. It's got everything you could wish for: Internet access, a big desk next to a window, a yoga room, a couch for napping, full kitchen, and two cats. I'm just tickled that my friend Natalie is willing to let me use her place during the day. Working from home has its pros and cons but it's completely impossible with a husband and two littlies around, at least for me. So I'll be working from someone else's home. Best of both worlds!

I am trying to remember the lessons I've learned from previous first days. My temptation is to expect that my life will become completely perfect, and not only will I write a novel or two and earn lots of money, but I will also stop eating sugar, revamp my websites, clean out the filing cabinet, and take up ballroom dancing. I would rather not fall into that particular pothole this time down the street. I'm going to take it slow and dial down my expectations.

My intentions for non-parental leave:

• Enjoy myself. No way am I willing to squander this unique time on guilt and procrastination. I have the tools to keep myself relaxed and productive, I just need to use them.
• Set clear, realistic goals. I like Leo Baubata's concept of Most Important Tasks. I'd rather put three items on my day's to-do list and cross them all off, rather than write eight and do three and feel bad.
• Write. The hardest and most important task I have during this leave is to work on my fiction. The paid work will get done (it always does) but I need to do whatever it takes to keep myself writing.

Here's to letting the day be what it is, a monumental first day.

Things I Have in Common with Liz Hay

From Fifty-Five Plus Magazine, June 2009, "Grounded in Place and Time"

Making the break from regular employment to freelance work in 1982, to allow more time to write, is another sign of [Elizabeth Hay's] inner steel.

"It was never hard to decide to do it, but it was always hard to carry out," she says. "I decided a few times that I was going to write full time and stop working in radio, but it's possible to have too much time to write, just as it's possible to have too little time. It took me a long time to learn how to write. I would fill up with frustration. There's still a lot of frustration."

Comforting to know that Giller-award-winning novelists have a learning curve too.

"I always like to be up and at my desk early," says Elizabeth. "When the kids were little, I would set the alarm clock and get up an hour or two before them. Our children were wakeful though. When our daughter was little, she would be up at 5 a.m. My husband would take her for long walks in the neighbourhood and then somewhere for breakfast, so that I could have those two hours to write."

Heh. My solution for early-waking children is to get out of the house. I get a muffin from the 24-hour Hasty Market and then work in the food court of the office building near our house. Then Shawn looks after the kids when they cry at 5 a.m. I wonder if he'd prefer taking them out for a walk and breakfast?

Moving forward in the story of the current work is a daily goal, although Elizabeth does not set herself a specific word count.

"My good intentions tend to fall away," she says, nothing that she worked on Late Nights on Air for close to four years. "For me, a lot of the art is cultivating a sense of urgency but not being in a rush. You urgently try to bring something to life, but you have to take time to develop character and scene and work with detail."

Urgency without rush. That's a perfect way to describe the pace I'm aiming for with my current novel.

And I've got twenty years before they can do MY cover article in Fifty-Five Plus. :-) Thanks for the inspiration, Liz.

Giving Up Depressing Goals

An article in the June 27th Economist makes a link between depression and the willingness to give up unrealistic goals.

"Dr. Nesse's hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones--in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely o be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit--and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism." (from "Mild and bitter", p. 87)

This hypothesis rings true for me. I know there is a connection between my past depression and my unattainable writing goals. Finish a book! Write full time! Blog every day! Start a coaching business! In part these were unattainable because of my fears and neuroses, so I've been working on those. But even if I were totally zen and resistance-free I'm not sure I could have lived up to my own ambitions. I've relaxed my expectations a lot in the last few years (parenthood has made that a necessity) and I'm much happier because of it. Paradoxically, when I'm happier it's easier for me to take action on challenging-but-within-reach goals.

Dr. Nesse believes that persistence is a reason for the exceptional level of clinical depression in America--the county that has the highest depression rate in the world. "Persistence is part of the American way of life," he says. "People here are often driven to pursue overly ambitious goals, which then can lead to depression." He admits that this is still an unproven hypothesis, but it is one worth considering. Depression may turn out to be an inevitable price of living in a dynamic society."

Yeah, my Wrestling-the-Angel genius persistence has its shadow side. I'm slowly learning when it's in my best interest to give something up.

Tonight I went to see the Pixar movie Up (because I had to get out of the house before I went bonkers). One of its themes is not overlooking the adventures you lived because of regret over the one you didn't.

Then, on the way home, a French fellow asked me for directions. "Ou est rue Laurier?" he wanted to know. "Vous etes sur Laurier," I replied, and pointed at the sign on the corner. He laughed at how he had been wandering around looking for the street that he was already on.

For years I have had this habit of looking around in panic, wondering how I can get to rue Laurier (i.e. fulfill my dreams of writing). These days my panic is met with a sigh of relief when I realize I'm already there.

2009, Part 2

It's the first day of the second half of the year! So I decided to celebrate by officially starting work on the first* draft of my kids' novel. I do have a few scenes finished already, where I worked on getting the voice down (it's in first person now).

*I did write a NaNoWriMo manuscript for this book but I'm not going to be able to use much of it; the plot has changed too much.

I love using Scrivener software for writing. It makes it very easy to write a draft non-linearly. Plus it makes outlining and index cards a breeze.

I am trying yet another method of drafting this time around. My first book, Brick and Mortar, was eked out one sentence at a time, with no idea where I was going. Pure torture that led to a severe case of writers' block. Then for several years I wrote short stories and began to structure them better as I learned about plotting (Story by Robert McKee was immensely helpful).

That led me to NaNoWriMo and lightning fast drafts. I was able to generate a lot of material and lose much of the fear of writing I'd acquired doing Brick and Mortar. I wrote Feast of Losses super-fast and very piecemeal. That was great for moving forward but now the revision is a b****. I've finished four drafts and I still may need to take the whole thing apart AGAIN before I can put it back together. Maybe that was the only way to write that book but it sure has been inefficient.

This time I have an outline of the whole book. I know what the three acts look like. I know there will be surprises along the way as I flesh things out, but I think the rough structure is pretty solid. I'm going to go more slowly as I draft each scene, making sure that the voice is right, the characters are rounded and consistent, themes and plot points are carried through.

Of course, I could be deluded and may once again end up with a hot mess on my hands. Only time will tell.

Crikey, I've been at this for fifteen years and I still don't know what I'm doing. That could be discouraging, but on the other hand, I don't think I'll ever get bored or run out of challenges. What more could one ask from a vocation?