Heather McLeod

Writing in a room of my own on Chesterman Beach.

For most of my life I’ve wanted to write Something Grand: something with an impressive word count. A novel. Ideally a well-written, enjoyable-to-read novel that would sell a million copies, get five stars on GoodReads and qualify me as the Great Canadian Writer of my generation.

Yet, despite collecting shelves of dusty, half-filled notebooks, despite a degree in English literature and creative writing, despite investing in some very beautiful ink pens, I could never write more than 4,000 words per project.

I just didn’t have a Story to tell.

But then some wise people in my life said some wise things, and I read some helpful phrases in the (many, many) writing books I’d collected, and magic happened: I wrote a 92,384-word story.

For those of you who feel that same LONGING to create a Grand Something, here is how I tricked myself into writing a novel. Maybe these tricks will help you too:

Step 1: Find your story

Write What You Read

In early 2017, after decades of me angst-ing about NOT yet writing a novel and thereby fulfilling My Writerly Destiny, my mom pointed out I only read mystery books; the only Netflix shows I watch are mystery series.

MOM: “Why don’t you try writing a mystery?”

Her suggestion reminded me of two quotes I’d scribbled down:

“If we didn’t have to worry about being published and being judged, how many more of us might write a novel just for the joy of making one?”
– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

“If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
– Toni Morrison, from her speech at a meeting of the Ohio Arts Council

I was inspired, so I began contemplating murders.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at mysteries where the murderer, once exposed, is revealed as insane: I wanted a murder that was justified. A murderer with whom we could empathize. A logical, necessary death.

Eventually, I imagined a murder scenario that made sense to me, with characters and motives and subplots and themes I was excited to explore. I wanted to write a murder mystery set in the farmers’ market world, which I knew very well, and was excited to expose the “seedy underbelly” of market politics, the contrast between the customers’ wholesome market experience and the farmers’ harried reality.

Finding Myself as a Genre Writer

One of the reasons I’d struggled so much to write a Grand Something in my twenties was because I thought only “literary fiction” was real literature. It was Art, while genre fiction (mysteries, westerns, fantasy, thrillers, romance) was for the less-discerning masses.

At university, we didn’t read or talk about genre fiction unless a (misguided, determined) student submitted those stories to a workshop, or a (rebel) professor (e.g. W.D. Valgardson) added those books to our course reading list (e.g. First Blood).

It was a big step for me to “come out” and accept myself as a mystery writer. Even now I wince and avoid mentioning my chosen genre in conversations, because I carry the shame from my post-secondary days.

Which is just silly.

Step 2: Flesh it out

So: finally I had a story to tell, in a genre I’d been reading (researching!) since my Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew adolescence.

Here is a magical thing about genre fiction: there is an inherent structure to follow. If I wanted a murder to take place, I would need to set the scene, cause the death, show the discovery of the body, show the subsequent investigation, drop in some clues, include some “red herrings” (false clues), kill another character to muddy the waters, create a dramatic crisis, and give a conclusion where Everything Is Revealed. I charted these scenes out using post-it notes on poster board and finally felt confident that I had a big enough story to fill a novel.

This reminded me of another bit o’ wisdom I’d read:

“Writing is about getting something down, not about thinking something up.”
– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

All I had to do was write out the scenes of my story. That didn’t seem too hard.

Step 3: Write the first draft

This confidence nosedived when I learned: a modern murder mystery novel needs to be around 92,000 words, to make a traditional publisher happy. I had never written that many words for a single project before. Once again, I was intimidated and overwhelmed by the sheer number of words.

I shared my fears with Brock, and he did the math:

92,000 words divided by 365 days = 252 words per day.

BROCK: “Can you write 252 words a day for a year?”

ME: “Yes. Easily.”

And so I began to write. I made myself write at least 252 words every day: I wouldn’t let myself go to bed until I met my daily quota. Often, I wrote more. And I found that, if I got my required words written first thing in the morning, I felt calm and fulfilled for the rest of the day.

I coasted along to the 45,000 word mark, loving the writing process. (Mmmm first draft bliss.)

Life vs. Art

When Brock’s cancer progressed to the point where he needed more of my time and attention, I took a break from the book. It was a conscious decision: I knew the story would be waiting for me when I was ready and able to go back to work. I knew I had limited time left with my sweetie.

That break continued through Brock’s death, the next few months of packing and preparing for our planned move, the move itself, and then the Christmas holidays.

“I Need Help.”

By January 2018, I was ready to finish the second half of my manuscript. But I needed help. I needed someone to push me and check in with me, as Brock had done. So I signed up for OneRoom, an online coaching program.

I told my novel-writing coach, Erica Wright, that my goal was to submit my manuscript to three competitions in the fall. She worked backward, did the math, and announced I needed to write 1,000 words a week, with a first draft deadline of July.

FIRST GUT RESPONSE: “YIKES!”

SECOND GUT RESPONSE: “Hell yes.”

I was now motivated to keep writing, and devised a plan to make that possible. Whenever my four-year-old son was in preschool, I would drive to the nearest cafe and write the entire time.

I LOVE the word count pie chart feature in Scrivener.

I used a writing program called Scrivener to manage my increasingly bulky manuscript: the program tracked my word count progress with a delightful pie chart. Having this visual representation of my progress kept me motivated and gave me milestones to celebrate.

I completed my first full draft a little after my deadline, and submitted it to the three writing contests.

Step 4: Revise & polish

The next challenge — and one I’m still facing daily — is tweaking and revising my first draft to make it a strong, readable, polished final version.

My 92,000ish-word first draft was massive. I found it overwhelming to work with and didn’t know where to start with the revision stage.

I deflected this challenge by sending it to other writers for their input. The first chapter went to a reader via Sisters in Crime‘s Mystery Agent service. I emailed the full draft to three different readers. One was Erica, whom I paid to give me detailed comments and suggestions for improvement.

While I waited for these “beta readers'” feedback, I tried to make my 300+ page manuscript more manageable. I summarized the scenes on pieces of paper and glued them in order into a scrapbook. I made big-picture notes to move scene #4, delete scene #13, rewrite scene #32, etc. When my readers’ comments came back, I made notes on or under each scene.

Now all I have to do is refer to my scrapbook as I progress through the book, incorporating the edits scene by scene.

Staying Motivated

In April, during my rewriting stage, I learned the first draft of my novel had made the shortlist for the Crime Writers of Canada’s Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award: my mystery manuscript is one of the five best unpublished mysteries by a first-time author in Canada.

This was fantastic, mind-exploding news … and completely demotivating. Why should I struggle to polish my book if it was already good enough for publication?

Luckily, I didn’t win the award. Now I’m driven to make my story the best it can be.

While I’m still not done the second draft of my book, I know I’ll finish it this summer, and am motivated by my next goal: submitting it to my list of dream agents and publishers, with a lovely “Arthur Ellis Award shortlist” credential on my cover letter.

In other words …

If you dream of writing a novel or a Grand Something, perhaps these lessons I’ve learned will help you too. In short:

Know Thyself. I needed concrete goals, deadlines, some sort of coach, and milestone rewards. I needed to plot my story out in advance, while other writers (“pantsers”) prefer to create as they go. What approach works best for you? What carrots and sticks do you need?
Inspire the Rider; Clear the Path for the Elephant. It’s great that you WANT to write down your story, but you need to clear the path for yourself too: arrange child care, make a writing space, schedule writing time on your calendar, or do whatever you have to do to make it POSSIBLE to write. (For more on the Rider/Elephant analogy, read Switch, by Chip & Dan Heath.)
Let Yourself Be a Writer. Indulge those stationary fetishes, invest in writer-friendly software like Scrivener, and read inspirational writer books like The Right to Write.

Just write, dammit

Once we find our story, make the time to write, and actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), there is often a moment of self-doubt.

SELF: “What if this is shit?”

Here’s one last bite of wisdom that helped me through that anxiety:

“OK, Universe. You take care of the quality. I’ll take care of the quantity.”
– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

Take a breath. Remember your story. Write it down.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you have a Grand Dream? What carrots and sticks work for you? What advice has inspired you? Please comment, share this post online or read more posts on this website.

To join me on this epic adventure of being a writer, subscribe to my email newsletter: click here to sign up.

It’s only in recent years that I’ve realized: I’m a rare bird, when it comes to knowing my PURPOSE in life. I’ve always known I was a writer.

As evidence, I submit to you two of my primary school projects:

From a wee stapled booklet titled “When I Get Bigger.”

I’ve always assumed that everyone had this same strong sense of direction. Maybe a person’s “calling” is hard to define, because they don’t know how to direct their talents and passions into a specific “job,” or because their lives are crowded with other distractions and pressures (“The arts won’t pay the mortgage — go be a dental hygienist instead”), but surely, I thought, in their heart of hearts there is a spark of passion that, if cultivated, would bring them happiness and fulfillment.

But now I’m 39 and meeting all kinds of case studies to the contrary. I have friends who choose their work based on prestige and salary, friends who “lucked” into their “good” jobs and just keep doing those jobs, and many friends who simply need to pay their mortgage and feed their kids, regardless of how happy the parents are at work.

In other words: I know plenty of middle-aged adults who never DECIDED what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Maybe that’s fine. Maybe these people are content with their work, and use their free time to do fun things that make them happy.

But I see so many people being grumpy about their work, counting down until quitting time or their retirement years, and then using their free time to drink, binge-watch Netflix and “recover” from their work week before Monday rolls around again. This pains me.

HEATHER: “How’s your day?”

PERSON AT THEIR WORK: “It’s my Monday, so … you know.”

We only have one life. Why are so many of us wasting our time? Don’t we want a happier life, if that’s possible?

“You can be anything you want to be.”

I blame some of my generation’s aimlessness on the 1990s/Millennial parenting adage: “You can be anything you want to be.”

Specifically, I blame it on the missing disclaimers in that sentence, which should read: “You can be anything you want to be, if you work really hard at it, and adapt your goals when necessary, and accept that achieving one goal might mean not achieving other goals.”

I think most of us aren’t willing to put in the time and work and struggle needed to achieve a lofty “anything” goal.

Or, we’re so overwhelmed by the infinite options available to us that we grasp for direction, and end up holding onto a goal we didn’t choose, because it’s handy and relatively easy to achieve.

Instead of having overwhelming, infinite choice, I wonder if it would be better to be directed toward a single path.

I found this wonderful bit about Victorian-era parenting in Agatha Christie’s autobiography:

The Victorians looked dispassionately at their offspring and made up their minds about their capacities. A. was obviously going to be ‘the pretty one.’ B. was ‘the clever one.’ C. was going to be plain and was definitely not intellectual. Good works would be C.’s best chance. And so on. Sometimes, of course, they were wrong, but on the whole it worked. There is an enormous relief in not being expected to produce something that you haven’t got.
– Agatha Christie

While I’m not advocating for a return to Victorian parenting, my parents always knew I was a writer, and encouraged me to feed that spark. I went to university to study English literature and creative writing. Dad answered all my panicky phone calls with: “Do what makes you happy. It’ll all work out in the end.” (And it has.)

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I would hope, with adults constantly asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, some of us would eventually consider the question.

If you’ve never really thought about it, or if it’s been a few years, why not spend a few minutes now ruminating on these questions:

If you only had one year left to live, what would you do with that time?
If you never had to work again, how would you spend your days?
Of all the things you do, which five things make you happiest? Which make you feel most fulfilled?
If you had the time and energy to volunteer for one cause, what would it be and why?
When do you feel jealous of others? What is it about their lives that makes you envious?

And, with a nod to the Victorian-era parents:

What did your parents think you’d be when you grew up? What strengths did they see in you?

Finding your ikigai

I really do believe every kid has a spark of talent or purpose or meaning inside them. I like to think every adult has that spark still, even if it’s been smothered by “real world” pressures and other choices. Creating a life that feeds that spark can be possible: the first step is to find it.

I don’t know much about the Japanese concept of ikigai — only enough that I had it tattooed on my forearm (ha). But here’s a colourful graphic from the Interwebs that might inspire you:

Ikigai isn’t as simple as “do what you love” or “be employable.” It’s a compromise.

How would you fill in this chart? What do you love, what are you good at, what do you have to offer that you can be paid for, and what can you do that the world needs?

Living with purpose

I’m lucky that I’ve always known what I am, and what I want to do. I know writing brings me the most joy. I know I can make money from it (thank you, Medium.com). I know it’s my ikigai.

But I still struggle daily with myself to make the time to write. It’s still a constant effort to feed that spark. There are always distractions: the laundry, my weedy lawn, sunny mountains to climb.

That’s why I got my latest tattoo: timshel ikigai. A smoosh of Hebrew and Japanese that means (to me, at least) that it’s my choice, at all times, whether I spend my time writing or not. It’s my choice whether I do the thing that fulfils me and gives my life meaning, or not.

This tattoo is an always-visible reminder for me to use my time well. To feed and cultivate that spark inside me. To not waste this life.

So. What are you doing today?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you think we all have a spark or purpose or calling? Is it a bad thing if we don’t follow it? Please comment below, share this post online or read more posts on this website.

To join me on this epic adventure of being a writer, subscribe to my monthly email newsletter: click here to sign up.