October 4, 2024
Later this month, I will be attending (for the eighth year in a row!), the wonderfully inspirational Whistler Writers Festival. It is an autumn highlight on my calendar and an event that combines thought-provoking panels and workshops with an abundance of socialization, laughter and good old down-to-earth merriment (in other words, it’s a few days of hanging out with girlfriends!). Over the years, I have had the privilege of hearing highly astute and beautifully eloquent authors speak not only of their own written works but of their personal perceptions of the world at large. Typically, I attend a wide array of sessions, keen to hone my own writing skills and garner insights into how to elevate my most recent memoir manuscript to a higher level of readability. My schedule is usually chock-a-block-full from Thursday evening through to Sunday afternoon. This year, however, my festival schedule will be different. Very different. Back in June, at the beginning of the summer, I retreated to a log cabin in the Canadian Rockies with the intent to write, write, write. Draft #4 needed polishing into Draft #5. A packed box of previous drafts, copious amounts of notes and several reference books came with me, along with my laptop. When I packed all my belongings back up at the end of the holiday, I had typed out not a single word. Instead, I wrote in my journal, watched the birds, read books, and luxuriated on the deck with either a cup of coffee, a pot of tea or a glass of wine. I had zero interest in tackling my memoir nor its required revisions. That same packed box has sat, unopened, throughout the entire summer. All it did through June, July and August was collect dust. Months went by without me writing a single word. Most of the time I wasn’t even thinking about it. Last month, in a moment of profound acknowledgement, I decided to move that box from my living space onto a dark back shelf of my storage closet. I then closed the door. That day, I literally and figuratively (and emotionally), shelved my memoir. For weeks before, I struggled with the whole notion of whether I actually wanted to continue finessing the manuscript into something a publisher would be keen to publish. I knew the wordcount was too high (over 100,000 words in Draft #4). Perhaps, more importantly, I knew I had not dug down deep enough with my own character. I had not revealed enough of myself on some of the pages. In the earlier chapters, she was still too one-dimensional. Rather than the question being to write, or not to write, I had to ask myself whether or not I had it in me to plunge myself even further into what had already been a lengthy and emotionally gruelling process. Looking at the overall timeline, I endured thirteen years of challenges in my 20-year marriage (and that’s putting it mildly!) and then spent the next ten years healing from that trauma. Coming and going throughout those ten years were the days, weeks and months spent writing about it. Even though I divorced him back in 2016, the trauma he inflicted upon me remained. Fast forward to 2024, and I am simply exhausted from all the time travelling back to the past. Physically, he was out of my life. Mentally and emotionally, he never really left. Well, last month I decided that I didn’t want him to have that kind of presence in my life anymore. Which is why I shelved the book. Also, next year, I turn 60. I want this next decade to be completely about Me and what makes me happy (my children, my parents, my sister, my girlfriends … and I want to finally get my passport back into action!). I do not want to be weighed down by him nor the trauma he caused. He’s taken up enough of my mind space and life space, thank you very much. Now I know I had big dreams for my book. Visions of book tours and speaking engagements and blowing the lid off the topic of domestic abuse drove me forward and kept me focused. Visions of the book being translated onto the screen were also part of the dream. This was going to be my retirement plan. But I have nothing left for any of that. At least not at this moment in time. Perhaps I’ll get reinvigorated and re-enthused at some point. Perhaps I never will. Perhaps the half a million words I’ve already written over the past eight years, over four different manuscripts, were simply meant for me and to help me heal. In that regard, every single word was a stunning success. So even though my writing dreams are on hold, I will still be in Whistler in a couple of weeks to see friends, listen to authors and just kick back and have fun. I think I deserve it. Thanks for reading.
1 Comment
dawn
10/4/2024 12:37:07 pm
Great photos ... 'a picture tells a 1,000 words' (in this case, perhaps the count is one million) ... more to say ( or not say ) .... Looking forward to our catch-up visit xo
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