Kim Neville

Look at my cat. He is the picture of serenity, is he not? I’m envious.

I’m having a scattered week. My daughter’s out of school. There are day camps and playdates to fill the time but it feels strange forcing structure onto a season that resists routines, that begs for porch-sitting and lemonade and books and swimming and sand between my toes. Woven into this summerlust are little threads of sorrow coming from several outside sources; as much as I try to pull them free they keep getting tangled up in my brain.

All of this adds up to one thing: I don’t feel like writing. I’m unfocused, bouncing from task to task but accomplishing nothing. I’ve half-written four different blog posts. I’ve started and abandoned a first chapter for a new novel. I’ve created a spreadsheet outlining all the final edits I need to do to get The Glass Doll ready to query, but I haven’t started the work yet.

It’s the last one that’s really getting me. That’s what keeps me from tapping into what Oberon’s got going on. The other stuff — disrupted schedules, the lure of sunshine, worries about friends and family — will always be there. I write despite them and I always have. I think it’s fear of finishing, truly finishing, that’s holding me back.

In fact, to test that theory I opened my tidy little revision spreadsheet just now. Yep. Even looking at it puts my stomach in knots. And if I’ve learned anything in 38 years, it’s that there’s no serenity in avoiding the things that scare you. So I’m going to go finish. I’m going to do it right now. Wish me luck?

“Perhaps your intention for today will be to practice awareness without judgment.”

My yoga instructor said those words to the class a couple of weeks ago and they’ve been running through my head ever since. Kind of like — sorry, I have to say it — a mantra.

I am one chapter away from finishing revisions on The Glass Doll. Finished. I can hardly believe I’m almost there. Sure, this week I’ll send the manuscript off to beta readers, and inevitably there will be more changes to make. But it’s fully formed; it’s become the shape of itself and I can honestly call it complete.

In some ways it’s better than I ever imagined it could be. In other ways I know it’s flawed. But that’s the nature of writing fiction. Is there such a thing as a perfect novel? All I know is I’ve done the best I can with the tools I have. I’ve made this novel as good as I know how, right now.

That’s where “awareness without judgement” comes in. Over the last couple of weeks, as I shaped up the final chapters and wrapped up the last few loose ends, I worked on identifying problems without getting all judgey on myself for making so many mistakes. It helped. It was MUCH easier to fix stuff when I skipped the feeling crappy part.

Now that I’m at the end, I find I’m looking at the final product differently, too. I tend to be so self-critical that I only see the things that are wrong with my work. Awareness works both ways, though, and with that in mind, I’m making a point to look at my novel from all sides. What I see is this: it may have flaws, but in many ways it’s also beautiful.

With all due respect to my yoga teacher, I’m going to allow myself to feel a little pride in that.

Spent the afternoon ploughing through the latest round of revisions on The Glass Doll (which needs a new title as the reference doesn’t quite fit anymore). It’s going well, but I have to confess I’m getting tired. A year is a long time to do nothing but revise. Sure, I rewrote most the novel from scratch, but same characters, same setting. I haven’t written any fresh story in forever.

Obviously the remedy to this problem is to begin something new. All last year I was so focused on getting The Glass Doll finished that I refused to work on anything else. But I don’t want fatigue to turn into burnout. I don’t want writing to feel like a grind. It’s time to get my creative sparkle back. So. I’m officially giving myself permission to start thinking about what comes next.

I feel better already.

It’s now been a full year since we moved our family from East Coast to West and settled into a new life in the city where we started it all. Here’s what’s happened since then:

1) I took a horrendously messy first draft and rewrote it until it resembled a novel. I just spent the last three days reading it from start to finish. It’s come a long way. It took a lot of work, but I can honestly say that it’s become a story that I will soon be able to query to agents with confidence and pride.

2) I had my first short story published by a semi-pro magazine. You can find Meriel’s Brownie in the current issue of Leading Edge.

3) I took my reborn love for my city and turned it into a weekly article for my favourite Vancouver website. It was so much fun writing for Vancouver is Awesome, and I was sad to leave my role as editor of The Playground, but once I started working again I knew I had to let something go if I was ever going to finish my novel.

4) I went back to work. This wasn’t part of the plan, but I’m glad I decided to do it. As it turns out, I am much happier when I’m making a financial contribution to our family (even if, as a half-time employee, it’s a small contribution). I hadn’t worked since I was pregnant with Cassandra in 2007; it’s a part of my life that I didn’t realize I missed. It means I didn’t get as much writing done as I’d planned, but overall, I feel I’ve created a good balance between a job I enjoy, writing and time with my family.

My goals for next year are simple: get my current novel finished and out to agents, and write the next one. See you in 2011.

Today I printed out the second draft of The Glass Doll. Yay! It only took eight months longer than I’d originally planned. I was beginning to think I’d never finish. Bet some of you thought the same. On Boxing Day I will read it through and begin the final revisions before it goes out to beta readers. But first, some feasting and merriment.