How to Finish a Novel in 25 Years or Less
A guest post by Robyn Burnett
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Today, a close work colleague of mine shared that she was three months pregnant with her fourth child. I hadn’t seen her all summer, so I also shared the news that I finally published my first YA fictional book over the summer.
“Not quite the same news as having a baby,” I said.
“Not true,” she said. “Your birth just happened to take 25 years.”
A couple of Creativity Guild newsletters ago, I shared with Geoff that I had finally published The East Hill Boys, a novel that I had started 25 years ago. I had written it in a place of emotion. It wasn’t a piece that was carefully planned or plotted in advance. It was something that just needed to artistically “vomit” out of me. I use the word “vomit” intentionally because it literally felt like it was pouring out of me on so many ugly and therapeutic emotional levels. So apologies for the graphic imagery, but it was true.
As a teenager, writing was my escape: my joy. It was how I managed to function. I loved it because it was mine: I controlled it. I escaped into it. It helped me to navigate a challenging social and family life. I ended up getting my university degree in Creative Writing from UBC. After graduating, I imagined that I would be a playwright or a screenwriter. I loved writing short fiction, but I had never imagined that I would write a novel.
The urge to start The East Hill Boys came after an evening out with a group of boys from high school in my early 20s. I had plans to explore another story, but this particular night triggered something and I found myself writing. It was a purge from so many high school emotions that I was trying to navigate as a young adult. It was Easter Sunday when I finished the last chapter just before my family came over. The novel had taken just under two years to write.
The novel draft sat for a while. I was very eager to share it because I wanted thoughts - notes - and feedback - on this thing that I had finally gotten out of my system. I knew that it needed work, but I wasn’t ready to do a rewrite. I didn’t have any clue what it should look like and the notion of trying to shape it after finally getting it out of my system was daunting.
I remembered what a colleague of mine from university once said: “If you have a story to write that has a personal connection to it, you'll feel it when it's time to truly birth it." He was right. I realized that I was still too emotionally connected to it to see the story that could come from the first draft. So I put it on a shelf in a blue binder. I worked on other projects - non-fiction novels, articles, screenplays - I focused on writing to make money. Not an easy life to live. I also lived off of other jobs in the meantime. Writing became less of something I loved and more like sitting at a slot machine and throwing money into hoping to win the lottery. The players around me were unsavoury, and the world just started to get ugly.
In that timeframe, my husband and I had two babies. The film projects we had collaborated on that almost hit that promising point suddenly shut down. My brother, who had struggled with brain tumours since he was 19, finally lost the fight. My heart was broken in a second way. At this point, writing and I had landed in the abusive relationship category. I felt panicked and nauseous whenever I sat down at the computer to finish freelance articles. I had given up on writing anything for myself. Our relationship was broken. My creativity window felt shattered, and I was lost.
Still, the blue binder stood on the shelf, waiting for me to open it.
My other passions are photography and design. I was blessed to land a job where I had incredible artistic freedom. I was able to heal creatively through a different outlet. Then, about seven years ago, I realized I missed writing - the relationship with writing that I had had as a teenager. As well, I'm a task person; I need to complete tasks to feel satisfied and this book in the blue binder was a task that I had abandoned. It had moved from one shelf to another, but I hadn’t packed it away. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
When my daughter hit Junior High and started having her own social challenges, I suddenly felt the urge to pick up this very dense, very messy first draft. Enough time had passed. I was ready to give birth to something different.
I read it. I started a rewrite. Then another. Then another.
That took a couple of years.
And then I got stuck. I had rewritten it so many times, but I needed someone else’s opinion. I wasn’t sure how to ask. I wasn’t sure who to ask. I finally reached out to my brilliant editor friend, Jen Hale.
“Can you just read like, 50 pages or less and tell me if this is worth me spending any more time on?” That was a hard thing to ask. What if she said: “Let this one go. Move on.”
She came back and said: “I read 100 pages. Yes.”
After her editing expertise and more edits on my part, I once again found things on pause. What next? Finding an agent or a publishing house at my age that accepts unsolicited manuscripts (without Netflix knocking at my door) is akin to agreeing to a 10-hour vertical hike with no water. In sandals.
It was shelved (this time on Google Drive) again.
For Christmas of 2023, my daughter wanted a Kindle. In purchasing this, I noticed that Amazon had open publishing options for people who wanted to self-publish. This was something that I hadn’t even considered back in my 20s. It would have been a personal financial endeavor that I never could have taken. I really wanted my daughter to read my book. This was a huge gift for me. So I formatted it, and suddenly, it was there: online!
Then, I saw that I could add a paperback version. I could realize my vision of having a hard copy of The East Hill Boys (that had lived in a blue binder for so long) in a physical form. I could hold it in my hands. I could complete the task and put a whole new book on the shelf. It was surprisingly easy - I encourage anyone reading this to explore it if it applies and am happy to offer advice (as best I can).
The book in the blue binder had been a compilation of personal stories attempting to form into a story. I needed to see it outside of myself. It needed the proverbial nine-month gestation to form into something I could give birth to - only this birth happened after 25 years, and over the course of a nine-year labour process (the first two years of labour count too).
As far as The East Hill Boys, I am so grateful for its completion. I’m grateful to Geoff for reading it! I don’t know what happens next. This is a new journey for me. I have fallen in love with writing again. Now I get to explore a whole new task. My daughter is a science nerd - while she loves reading, writing has never been her thing. She has already insisted on the sequel to The East Hill Boys, however, and is helping me map it out. To have my 16-year-old girl hang out with me to do this because she wants to - well that’s priceless.
What I learned the most from this whole journey is that life happens; more often than not, we have to shelve things that we want to complete but aren’t quite ready or able to finish. Sometimes it’s for a short period, and other times it’s a longer one - but that blue binder will always be there waiting to be opened. It’s never too late. And when we open it, a whole new adventure begins.
What’s your blue binder? I’d love to know.
(*Ed note: Robyn’s book is genuinely a great read. Highly recommend checking it out!)
Creative Prompts
Is there a project sitting on your shelf somewhere you’d like to dust off and take a stab at finishing?
What’s a creative outlet that you used to have, now miss, that you’d love to return to?
Geoff’s Music Pick: Jordan Woods
Jordan is an amazing TV editor. He’s also a heck of a musician who has started releasing these ethereal tracks on Spotify that we can’t get enough of. They are all created in a beautiful DIY style the screams passion project (which we obviously love!). Definitely worth listening to as well as worth checking out his behind the scenes videos of him putting them all together.
Steve’s Music Pick: Cuff the Duke
Between my time at MuchMusic and CBC Radio 3, I’ve come to love many Canadian artists. Cuff the Duke has always been a standout favourite for me. Wayne Petti’s voice is instantly recognizable, and so is the band’s sound… but they haven’t had a new album since 2012. I was very pleasantly shocked and surprised to get a notification from Spotify that the band has a brand new album, Breaking Dawn, out this week. I already love it and you enjoy it, too!
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Very cool to have that experience with your daughter. ❤️
I am dipping my toe back into painting after 16 or so years.