The End Is Just the Beginning

So having finished the first draft of my novel, and being amazed at how quickly it happened by grabbing onto that fresh, strong energy of a brand-new idea, I can't stop thinking about this process, and about potential.

As the registrations start coming in for the Simmins/Jewell writing workshop on May 26th in Pugwash, it's more and more on my mind. Not merely how can we tap into our creative potential but how do we know what it is? Okay, that's the process -- sit your butt in the chair and write -- but how do we know what we are "meant to" write. After all, I'm a non-fiction writer, aren't I? Why would I write a novel?

Many, many years ago, when I was dating the man who would become my first husband, I took a bartending course then I started guitar lessons.
"What are you going to do with those classes?" he asked. He meant, how are those going to become a job.
"I'm interested in them," I answered.
"You're a flake," he said.

No, dammit, I wasn't a flake, and I'm still not a flake because I have a half-finished hooked rug in my spare room and I took riding lessons for six months and I'm taking part in the poetry cafe in Oxford in April. It's called HAVING A LOT OF INTERESTS. How else do we learn about ourselves and our creative talents, discover hidden talents and untapped potential if we don't try everything that comes our way?

This is the advice of Estella Rushton, after all, the beautiful and wise 93 year old woman I interviewed during Oxford's recent International Women's Day event. She told all the young women in attendance to try everything, to grab every opportunity to learn and do.
That doesn't make you a flake.

Of course, this was the same man who, a couple of years later, after I'd told him about a novel idea I'd come up with, responded by saying, "You couldn't handle the research needed to write that book."

(I know, I know. Another mistake I learned from. That's why I found a new partner who leaves sticky notes on my computer monitor that say, 'You can do it!')

The whole point of this point is this: What if I've always been a novelist? I wrote my first novel ("novel") when I was 12; I wrote three more between the ages of 26 and 34. Now I've written this one at a time when its arrival feels different, more necessary and more time's-a-ticking-away-ish.
What if I've always been a novelist?
Do you know how that question makes me feel? EXCITED. Not regretful, not fearful, not beaten, and definitely NOT FLAKY. Because I'm aware now, I'm still able, and I've done it. I've written the first draft of a book that has as much potential as I do. Being older and wiser (and wrinklier and arthritic) is an awesome stage to arrive at.

You are never, ever too old or too late to discover what you've always been, and always wanted to do.