Why I am writing a novel by Juniper

Why am I writing a novel? The answer is quite complex. The answer is also partially unclear and may, ultimately, depend on how it goes. I’m going to do my best to overview all of my reasons for doing so in this blog post!

I’ll start with the simplest reason. It’s someone I want to check off on my life’s ‘to do’ list. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in my life but writing a novel has, for a long time, been near the top of that list. Simple, really. But it leads to another question: why now? Another relatively simple question to answer. Because I can! Yo and I have a lot of flexibility to explore what we want right now. Neither of us have had permanent jobs to tie us down. We don’t have kids. We aren’t wrapped up in advancing our educations. We are lucky enough to have enough money to dare not work for a short period of time. Now, all of these things could change in the near future, but for now we are in the privileged position of having time with which to do whatever we want.

I’ve chosen to use a chunk of mine to finish writing a novel.

Seriously though, why! You are probably asking. I am in full agreement with you. I ask myself why nearly every day, in many forms and ways.

Why are you writing a novel when it’s not going to earn you any money?

Chances are very high that writing will be nothing more than a hobby for me. Not working to write at the moment is a risk. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m going to become rich from my writing, although I wouldn’t begrudge that outcome if I’m so fortunate. I’ll likely be back to teaching in January!

Why are you writing a novel when there are more important things you can do with your time? This is one I wrestle with a lot. I know a lot of people who just aren’t that into reading. To them, there may be the odd book that will interest them and be worth their time, but in general reading isn’t as fun, or as entertaining, or as meaningful as all of the other things they do. There is also an argument to be made that in our modern world novels are becoming less and less impactful as we transition further into a world that runs on succinct and efficient information. I, however, am of the opinion that novels are incredibly important, maybe even more so as more and more of our lives are doled out in bite-sized chunks. I have read novels that have shaped who I am and who I want to be, that have lifted me out of dark times, have inspired me to become something better. I have also read plenty that were nothing more than amusing tales to pass the time!

Aren’t you a teacher? I’m pretty sure spending your time doing that will be more important and impactful than being a writer.

Probably! But not for sure. Maybe I’ll be a better writer than I am a teacher. Maybe writing for a while will help me be a better teacher when I come back to it. Maybe I can do both!

Granted, if you are an amazing writer than it’s probably a good idea to write. But are you?

No, I’m not. At least not yet. Will I be? I don’t know. But it’s very important to me to find out. And even if I’m not, there are still stories I want to tell. It would suck to tell them poorly – you’d likely be surprised if you knew how much inner turmoil I experience considering that outcome – but I think I’d rather tell them poorly than not.

That all sounds nice, but are you actually going to follow through with it?

This is the biggest challenge for me at the moment.

For most of my life, I have done well without every really dedicating myself to anything. I love learning new things, and more often than not I am quickly pretty competent at whatever I am learning. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that I have had opportunities and successes far more than I deserve. A curse in that I have often not had the weight of necessity driving me to improve.

A big part of me has never minded this all that much as my natural, insatiable curiosity pairs nicely with learning something competently and then quickly moving on to something else. It has also benefitted me professionally, enabling me to get teaching jobs covering all sorts of different fields when I otherwise may not have found a job at all.

I have often thought there has never been anything that I have deeply desired to master for a long period of time. I love watching hockey and would love to play at an NHL level, but knowing the amount of work it would take to become that often left me satisfied with my own capabilities. I love anything to do with space, but the thought of dedicating myself to decades of exhausting work for merely a chance at a single, short trip there helped my endeavours to become an astronaut dissipate.

I mentioned in a previous post the time about 8 years ago when I recorded in a blog my desire to write a novel. That moment was similar to many I have experienced; a sudden desire to accomplish something grand that soon faded away under the watchful gaze of practicality and realism. And yet among all of those grandiose wonderings, the desire to write a novel has resurfaced time and time again. Perhaps because it is a reasonable goal, perhaps because I interact with books a lot more than hockey players or astronauts, or perhaps, just maybe, could it be, because it is something I deeply desire to do?

I lived with and took care of my grandma in the months leading up to her death. When it was clear her time was short, every goodbye was burdened with finality, I suppose much like it would feel like to make the final edits on a transcript before sending it off to a publisher. There was something that compelled me to tell my grandma two things on what ended up being my penultimate farewell. I told her I was going to marry Yolanda and I told her I was going to become a writer.

Why did I tell her those things? Upon much reflection I think I have an answer. Part of it had to with the fact that she taught me to read and write, and I wanted to honor her with the thought that her efforts would amount to something meaningful in my life. But it was more than that, for I had yet to write anything of real import by then. It had to do with my failings.

Committing myself to another person for life was a daunting thought – still is, really. Yet I knew I had found the person I wanted to make that commitment with. I have skirted true commitment most of my life, perhaps most evidently in how often I jump around in what I am learning and practicing at any given time. I think I told my grandma I was going to marry Yo to, in a way, bind myself to my intentions to propose through that promise. Then, even if I succumbed to my own struggles with commitment, I would be unable to fail to do what, deep down, I knew was right because of what I told my grandma that day.

I think I did the same thing with writing. I am immensely hard on myself, quick to criticize and slow to accept self-praise. In most avenues I find it has helped me maintain my character, work ethic and humility. In writing, that nature is a proven adversary. For a long time, my own criticisms and doubts were impregnable, insurmountable barriers between my desire to write and actually writing. Thus, my statement to my grandma will prove to be one of two things: a broken promise foolishly spoken, or a pristine moment of intuition and wisdom whose promise helped propel me beyond my own insecurities to actually accomplish a dream.

Inspirational! So, uh, why are you writing this blog post and not your novel right now?

Ughhhh I know! If I’m honest, there are a number of reasons…

-I lack discipline

-I am still overly critical and doubt myself constantly

-I have unreasonable expectations for how much I can write or how well I can write at this point in time

-I have deeply ingrained habits of taking little breaks far too often that derail my momentum

-I really lack discipline

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or providence or something in between, but the lessons I feel I need to learn at this juncture of my life line up perfectly with my goal to write a novel. I need to be more disciplined. I need to learn to let go of the expectations that hinder me and start to accomplish my goals. I need to build new, healthier, more productive habits and get them to stick. Writing a novel challenges all of those things and, if I’m successful, may do more than any other activity to accomplish those goals in me.

So why am I writing a novel? Because I desperately need to. Will it be great? Will it be readable? Will it be published? Will it satisfy me? Will it lead me on a different path? Will it fulfill my promise?

Right now, it really doesn’t matter. I just know I need to do it.

Scott