It’s been one month since I left for my solo writing retreat at Keuka Lake. Until then, it’d been too long since I had that kind of time to devote to my work-in-progress novel. And while there, I found my way back to a paragraph written a few drafts before. Though it received minor edits, it is something I’ve continued to cling to as I adjust back to writing when time allows.
“You see, there is an art to science. There’s an art to everything you see and touch. It’s the same way with dreaming. Things become art the moment you believe they do.”
In Part Two of this novel, my main character receives the above advice. There have been many times throughout the writing journey when the current draft is messy or elusive, and I find myself needing this reminder. The same was true during my time away as I continued to add more words to the page.
My first day, I arrived to the lake with a plan and too many chapters in need of drafting. I’d made myself a promise that I would follow JuNoWriMo through to the end, which meant writing daily in the hopes of reaching 50,000 words. That day was filled with sunshine and silence and a surge of possibility. I finished Chapter 52 just as the sun set.
On the second day, I started with an iced coffee from a local bakery and Save the Cat Writes a Novel, specifically the chapter on “Rites of Passage,” which felt only right for the coming-of-age story I’m continuing to write. I luxuriated in having the time to devote to the forward motion of the story. And I took my own advice shared as a pep talk for JuNoWriMo this year, refusing to look back as I finished Chapter 53 and began 54.
Through it all, I did take time to sit with my thoughts about my characters and their stories and what I accomplished in the last seven years working on this book. It’s true that books don’t happen overnight. Many of them may only take a few months where others take decades to be completed. I am so grateful that I’ve allowed this book to continue to grow year after year.
As my return date grew closer, a new sense of urgency crept into my writing sessions. I wasn’t writing toward an end point, but the next journey for my characters. All the best stories are more than just a single trajectory, paths veering left and right and back again. But I suppose this is true of life, and too often, I find my truths buried in the writing. Just like the aforementioned line, I needed to write certain things to remember how true they were.
By my last day, I finished drafting Chapter 55 and 56, which left me with a total of five completed chapters and 12,186 words. It felt monumental, but so did the places I brought my characters in that time. It was a much needed break from daily life, granting me the gift of recalling my belief in this story and the work of art it has become since the initial seedling of an idea back in July of 2014.
Now June has passed and I completed 10 chapters in total, ending with a word count of 42,739. While not quite the goal of 50K I endeavored to complete when the month began, I am still immensely proud of all the progress I made within those thirty days. And this is most clear when looking at the color-coded madness of my Trello board for this book.
Amidst this next month of sunshine and celebrations and the seven year mark of this work-in-progress, I am trying to remember daily that this book became art the moment I believed it could exist.
Whether you’re a writer or not, I hope you have a moment of belief like mine. There is so much to appreciate in this world despite the dark days. Find your brightness. Believe in your art. And most importantly, dear reader, believe in yourself.
