knowing how we work

...is how we get drafts done

If you need a mini pep-talk (don’t we always? isn’t that why we’re here?) the TLDR is at the bottom!

1. I’m writing this a few days before you receive it, while on a plane to my soul home (British Columbia) to work on my second novel. This sign found me in the airport hallway:

2. How do we even write stories? Despite having the advanced copies of my first book now physically in my hands, I don’t really know.

3. This week, I had the opportunity to speak with a writer two decades younger than me. He asked to connect for advice on how to finish his novel draft, because he’s having trouble sitting down at the desk. He goes entire months without touching the work. What I realized as I listened to him:

   Being able to write and get words down on the page is really a function of how deeply we know ourselves and how we work. Why can’t we sit down? What’s getting in the way?

4. I only wrote two scenes this week. This is not optimal writing behaviour (for me). I was busy in my email inbox, busy folding laundry, busy returning random stuff I bought to UPS, busy scrolling instagram. I wasn’t actually too busy to write, though, because I write when I wake up at 5am. I still got up at 5. What was keeping me from it? Was I even asking?

5. I was at the Toronto Public Library Bibliobash on Thursday (with big thanks to Felix co-founder Emma Stern for bringing me along). I met lots of writers, including Don Gillmor who has published 20 books. Twenty! After asking him if he was an introvert (and could I please sit next to him), I asked him how he was so prolific. He told me every day he gets up and writes 1000 words. No matter what anyone says, all that matters is to keep going in the direction of the writing. Over and over and over. I also finally got to meet Nita Prose (she is luminous and kind of a unicorn, as expected) and I asked her for her best writing and publishing advice. She said we have to show up for our readers, because they’re the ones who keep us going. It’s reciprocal. She then said that otherwise, the stories are the most important thing. Everything else is a distraction.

6. I don’t know how we write novels, but what I said to that young writer wanting advice on the phone was:

   If we show up every day—whether we write a single word or one thousand words—eventually that will turn into something. As long as we don’t abandon ship.

TLDR: We keep writing. We move in the direction of the stories. Everything else is distraction. We get to know ourselves deeply and bring ourselves back to the desk. We keep going, over and over and over, until it’s done.

with love from British Columbia,

Kelly

PS - if you’d like to hear me talk about The Wild Beneath (a novel set in British Columbia that I indeed somehow finished writing) HarperCollins Canada released a little video!