Capturing the Magic

I finished the first draft of my novel on Friday, March 9, two weeks ahead of schedule, but this is the earliest moment I've had to sit down and write about that unexpected experience.

What is done is just a first draft. There are inconsistencies, underdeveloped characters and unnecessary exposition (one chapter goes on forever because I couldn't figure out how to end it). There are 22 chapters but they probably need to be shorter, so there will be 40 when the editing is completed. And I might return to my original idea for the ending, which didn't seem plausible at the time I was actually writing it. Fixing all that stuff is hard work but I also think of it as the fun stuff; it's when every character becomes a living entity with their own voice and the story truly takes off -- perhaps even in a direction I hadn't originally considered. 

The truly significant accomplishment, however, isn't finishing a novel in two months; it's learning from my mistakes: those mistakes of not working on an idea as soon as it came to me.
In 2015, Elizabeth Gilbert published Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and in the section on 'Enchantment', she writes about how ideas show up and the ways we can respond when they do. What hit me as an A-ha moment, and encouraged me to say, "Yes, right now!" to my post-Christmas novel idea was what happened to an idea she'd neglected: "The idea had grown tired of waiting, and it had left me."
She'd had the idea, and written it down, but life had intervened and she'd ended up writing another book, and when she finally headed back to the novel she'd been planning - and had a contract for - it was gone. Not only that: It found a home with another author who wrote such a similar novel, Elizabeth knew with whom the idea had found a happy home.

I knew right then what I'd been doing wrong for twenty years because THAT HAPPENED TO ME. While I was living on East 15th Street in Vancouver, I had an idea for a novel that I thought about for weeks as I drove to and from work, but I never did anything with it. I  never even wrote it down. Eventually, I stopped thinking about it, and ten years later, in 2009, Gayle Forman published the idea as a young adult novel entitled "If I Stay".
Yeah, the best-selling book that was made into a movie. The idea I ignored until it went away and found someone who wanted it.

I didn't want to make that mistake again. And let me tell you, I'm haunted by the ideas and opening chapters I've written into notebooks and failed to follow up on. But you can't live in the past, you can't dwell on regrets; you acknowledge the mistake and learn from it in order to keep moving forward in the present, wiser and more determined. (Trust me, you will keep getting the opportunity to learn a lesson until you actually learn it.)

This is what I want to say about this experience of writing a novel in two months: Nothing is impossible. All it takes to accomplish something -- whether it's writing a book or painting a landscape or weaving a blanket or carving a tree spirit -- is doing it. You start and you keep at it until it is completed. Whether it takes two months or six or twelve months, whether it takes one year or ten. I had allotted three months, and thought it would be a push, but this book wanted to be written and it poured out of me because I'd grabbed onto it when it was new and powerful and ready to go.
That's the kind of creative energy -- fresh and bright and sparkly -- that I wish for you.

When it shows up, welcome it. Say hello, say thanks for coming. Ask it to stay awhile. If there is something you want to do, start thinking about it, and when it hears you and responds by showing up, please grab it. Do the thing. Set aside an hour a day to do only that thing. If it's something you want to learn to do, find someone who can teach you. If an idea comes to you, if an urge to create strikes you, please don't ignore it. Forget the grocery shopping (if they want to eat, they'll go), forget the laundry (if they want clean clothes, they'll do a wash), forget the fear and self-doubt masquerading as excuses. Be brave, be courageous.

Ask for help. If someone wants me to do their grocery shopping or their laundry so they can paint or write or dance for an hour, I'LL DO IT. I have my support team who did these things for me for two months; let me do it for you. I even fold fitted sheets! You don't have to do this alone, and you don't have to ignore your creative urge.
[Edit: I realized the flaw in this offer! Create your support team; you deserve it -- just one hour to tap into your potential.]

In the opening chapter of Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then it stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels - that's creative living. The courage to go on that hunt in the first place - that's what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one."

This is what enchantment looks like: Here I am with my manuscript, all 312 pages of mess and mistakes -- and it is such a great feeling to hold it in my hands. I want that feeling for you! I want you to hold in your own hands something you created, even if it's messy and full of mistakes. No one even has to see it. When I told my friend Shelagh that I was done the first draft, she wanted me to email it to her immediately. I laughed and said, "No one sees the first draft." And no one needs to see your first painting or hooked rug or carving or whatever. The only thing that matters is that you start and you complete it and you hold it in your hands knowing you did it, you finally did it.

(But if you want to share your experience with someone, if you want to share your excitement, I'm here for you.)