finding the plot

outside my window, signs of growth

It's winter, which in this part of the world generally means it's grey outside. But it's not cold, there are buds everywhere. (My pot of snowdrops is blooming at home.) I just went for a long walk to explore the neighbourhood here (I'm in Victoria for a week) and left my winter coat in the closet. It'll be flip-flop weather in no time, hooray.

But I'm not here sight-seeing, honestly. I went for the walk so I could get back to the task I've set myself, doing some writing work free of the usual-life distractions of home. I am the queen of procrastinators, a veritable wizard at creating distractions, so I decided to load up my car with files and folders and binders, and go on retreat. I could have picked a cabin somewhere, but I love Victoria, and it's not so much that I want to be isolated, as I want to leave behind all the stuff that I am so good at distracting myself with. It's a little tricky, as I brought my laptop along, and there is wireless here—but I've been pretty good about keeping on task. What I'm trying to do is find all the bits and pieces of writing that have been started (I'm really good at starting) and then got lost in the general confusion, and never finished.

some serious sorting happening here

I've taken quite a few writing workshops over the years, and in those folders are snippets and scenes and bright ideas, but they're hard to access, as they get buried in the flotsam. If I could just find them, then maybe I could actually finish some stories. There are also a lot of snippets of what is turning out to be a novel lost among those same folders as well as in binders from writing with the Plums (my writing group). So too, in my journals, every now and then a scene presents itself and gets written down. Lately I've had the sense to intentionally use one notebook to write scenes, which makes them easier to find, but they still fall out of my pen in no particular order, and sometimes I don't have that book with me...

My intention is to find these bits, and type them up, and print them out too (and yes, I even brought my printer). Then the idea is to sort the pile of scenes into some kind of timeline, so I can fill in the gaps. In due course, if I keep this up, I can gloat over the existence of a first draft, and then really get down to work. And, while I'm at it, also work on what seem to be some essays, short stories, and poems too (not many, but they seem to be in there). I'm happiest when things are sorted and have a place, and this definitely holds true for my writing. And I haven't managed to get it into an order until now. Always the last thing I get to. (I should remember the danger of saving things too long in anticipation of a treat. I did this once with the mandarin orange out of my xmas stocking. When I finally went to eat it, it had shrivelled and dried out. You'd think I'd learn.)

It's a constant struggle, taking myself seriously as a writer. I hold to the idea that if you write you are a writer, and certainly the record online suggests I'm a blogger, but honestly, it would be a lot easier to declare that I'm a writer, if I had a pile of work to show for it. (I'm kind of contradicting myself aren't I? I consider other bloggers to be writers) I guess if I'm honest, I'll admit what I've been meandering towards for a long time; what I really want is to be a novelist, and till I actually finish writing a novel, I won't be able to claim that, will I? (I'll worry later about whether it's a good novel.) But for some reason I seem to be finding my way to a clearer path these days; I am at least growing confident at saying I'm working on a novel, how's that?

I wonder too whether there's a metaphor in my switching cities. Vancouver is a grid, and Victoria winds all over the place. It's easy to get lost here, but I also find stuff I don't expect. In Vancouver, I always know where I am, and I'm tired of it. Maybe I've just lived there too long.  It's true I'm mulling moving here, so it seemed reasonable to see whether I could write here (and why not, eh? just write, for pete's sake). There's something to be said for freshness, though.

Winding roads help in other ways. When I used to be a runner (before knees and joints suggested doing something else) I liked to run in the woods of Pacific Spirit Park (near where I lived) rather than down by the beach at Spanish Banks (also near). At the beach I could see too far ahead, and it discouraged me. So far! In the woods the path was there, but the end wasn't predictable. It might be around the next bend, it might be a long way off. I could run farther that way. It is true, though, that I had a map in my head of where I was going. And that helped.

So I guess that's what I'm up to now, indulging my clearly ocd impulses in sorting and filing all this paper so I can get to where I'm going with my writing. Just around the bend I'll figure out the plot of this novel. You'll see. Or I will, more to the point.