Tag Archives: reflection

Birthing a Novel and the Birth of Adventure Birthday

This year for my birthday I gave myself the gift of a writing retreat. 

Four days away from all distractions, with no obligations other than to finally finish the first draft of my novel – the novel I started writing in 2017. Five years ago.

It is a luxury and when the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. I packed up my bags and met my friend Jes (also writing a book) and we spent the past weekend in a cabin in North Carolina, tucked away amongst the trees with a babbling brook alongside the porch. 

Each day and evening we wrote, with a few breaks for movement, rest, food, and one ambitious day, a hike in the mountains. 

Yes, it was idyllic.  But even if we were in less idyllic surroundings, the biggest gift of this writing retreat was to give myself time and space to write. Something I find difficult at home when I’m amid responsibilities that feel more pressing and important. I also find it hard after a workday to motivate myself to pick up my computer when the cozy couch and my spouse are nearby looking much more appealing.

I joked with my family that I felt like Colin Firth’s character in “Love Actually”, typing away in his cottage in France, minus the housekeeper-love interest of course. (And with my laptop instead of a typewriter, I had no need to make copies.)  I wanted this experience for myself – to see if getting away from it all would help me to finish what I started so long ago.

As I shared above, my goal for the weekend was to finish the first draft of a middle grade novel that I have been writing off and on for five years. Even if I’m the only person who ever reads this novel, it means a lot to me, but for many reasons I’d been unable to finish it.

To be fair, I’ve written other things in that time. A little over a year ago, I launched my blog Birth of Adventure, and ran a contest for friends and family to subscribe leading up to my birthday.

The blog came about when I had been feeling restless and anxious about my impending empty nest– reflecting on closing a chapter in my life and the uncertainty of what my next chapter would be like. In the empty space that opened, I wanted to fill it with something I’d be excited for – and I saw traveling and writing as what I wanted to let back into my life.

So, looking back a year later, how did I do? Between November 2021 to March 2022, I published 11 blog posts. Not too bad. I took the dream trip to Scotland I’d been planning for a year. And then I stopped blogging. As I shared in my October post, I got tired. Instead of writing publicly, I turned inward for some quiet. 

In that space, the novel beckoned to me again. I picked it up and dusted it off. And made slow progress. Snail level progress. I joined writing communities with Highlights Foundation. I took writing classes. I worked on story development. I wrote a full outline. And then I enrolled in a class called “Just Do It”, which told me to just do it. 

So my birthday gift to myself was the time and space to finally finish writing the first draft. I was so close I could feel it.  I’d written 150 pages, and felt I was about 15,000 words away, but reaching the finish line was eluding me.

You may wonder why I care so deeply about the story? Part of it is a love letter to my mom who I lost 16 years ago. The novel is about a 13-year-old girl named Charlotte who deals with the grief of losing her mother by casting herself into a self-imposed exile – broken reluctantly by a new neighbor – with friendships and hijinks included. It is set in my neighborhood on the West Side of Buffalo, with a cast of friends inspired by some of our close family friendships. It includes Girl Scouts of course – Charlotte’s troop of friends – and there is plenty of adventure and food, some of my favorite things. I hope that a grieving child might find comfort, recognition and hope in this story, and that others will feel empathy and be reminded about the importance of friendship.

With a story that I care so deeply about, why did I keep stopping? One, I was getting stuck in the middle – I knew the beginning, I knew the end, but I didn’t know how to connect those together. The outline solved that. There was a bigger issue. I felt that if I was a writer, then beautiful, flowing, articulate words should pour out of my fingers like honey. And crappy, hack-ish, meandering words were clunking out of my keyboard. What if I finally finished this novel and learned I’m a terrible writer? What if I’m not like Diana Gabaldon whose first “practice” novel Outlander became a major bestseller and a series?

In the “Just Do It” class, our teacher told us that all that mattered was the words getting on the page. Finishing the draft. The beautiful, articulate words could wait for the second or third or fourth draft. Something in her message sunk in, and I gave myself permission to write a crappy first draft.

That was my birthday gift to myself – the gift of time, and space. The gift to get it done. The gift to finish something that was my dream, even though on most days I acted like it was a task or expectation imposed on me. Writing this novel has been hard. I don’t always like to do things I find hard. 

In our cozy cabin this weekend, I sat in front of the computer. I plodded through, unflinching at the parts that were hack-ish, amateurish, hokey, cheesy, you name it. I embraced it all. I threw the clay down, knowing that ahead of me would the fun part of revising and polishing until it becomes something that I’d be willing to share even if not comfortable to share.

And I’m proud to say …….

I finished it!!!! 

When the weekend started I was at 150 pages, and I finished the weekend with 220 pages. Some of the writing I loved, some made me laugh, some made me cry. A lot made me cringe and was very, very crappy. But it is done!!  Instead of staring down the road at a never ending abyss, I now have a foundation of clay to mold.

After I take a nice long break over the holidays.

Sometimes we follow our dreams, and the dream turns out to be hard. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope you continue to take on the things you’ve been dreaming to do as well.

Best, Alison

Pick up the Glove-Reflections, Completions and Intentions for the New Year

Pick up the Glove – Reflections, Completions and Intentions for the New Year

Twenty years ago on December 30, I was sweating and slightly panicky about my first date with my now husband David. He asked me out for New Year’s Eve, and as I lived in Toronto and he lived just outside of Buffalo, NY, it was a bit complicated. He offered to cook me dinner at his place, and because I didn’t drive he also offered to pick me up at my parent’s house in rural Ontario where I was staying for the holidays. Lest this sound like I was a teenager, I had just celebrated my 27th birthday.

I was surprisingly nervous. Nervous to find out if the feelings we had while talking remotely would still be there when we were together, nervous about navigating a weekend long date, and mostly nervous about my loud chaotic family being part of it. 

It was too late to wish I’d gone to my place in Toronto first – he was already on his way to meet me. My brothers and sisters teased me about all the things they could say and do to embarrass me. I grabbed a glass of wine and practiced breathing.

The snow was coming down hard and David was stuck in a snowstorm – he did finally make it safely but it was a tough drive. When he arrived he gave me a book – “West with the Night”, a memoir by Beryl Markham, a woman adventurer and aviator who was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic from Britain to North America. David said he thought I would like it when he heard I was flying in a small craft airplane with some other students in our course. I loved it.

After a few of my siblings did their best shenanigans, we headed out. A pleasant conversation was cut short when David’s car broke down, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a snowstorm. My sister Abbie kindly drove out to pick us up, and after a few more Wilcox family shenanigans, David spent the night in my brother’s bedroom at my parent’s house. We laughed about it, but this date was definitely not going as planned.

The next day, New Year’s Eve, we spent several freezing hours in a Canadian Tire parking lot while David fixed his car. I kept him company and kept him supplied with hot drinks and snacks. 

I can’t remember why I wasn’t wearing my gloves in that weather, but for some reason I was holding them – either squished between my arm and side, or in my hands. What I do remember is that I kept dropping them. Each time I dropped a glove I became more self-conscious. 

Recently a friend had told me he thought I was “sloppy”, ie., the type of person whose shoelaces would always come untied, and he encouraged me to become more polished. It didn’t help that I was also considered “Awkward Ally” a lot. After about the third time I dropped a glove I made a self-deprecating comment, and tried to laugh it off.

David turned to me and said “Just pick up the glove. That’s all there is.”  

I laughed. It seemed simple. The glove was on the ground and no matter how I felt about it, all there was to do was to pick it up. Beating myself up about dropping it wouldn’t change anything.

I picked it up. And when I stopped worrying about what David thought, and stopped being caught up in an existential crisis about my perceived sloppiness, something else happened. 

I stopped dropping the gloves. It seemed easier to pay attention to them when my mind wasn’t focused on worrying so much.

That was one of the first traditions that lived on after this date – for several years, whenever one of us would get dramatic or make a lot of meaning about something, we would remind each other to just “Pick up the glove”.  

David managed to get his car running, and we made it to his place in Hamburg, NY in time for our New Year’s Eve date. He made me a delicious pasta dinner, and was excited to serve me a dessert of fresh espresso and delectable chocolate truffles his brother had gotten in New York City. David handed me the chocolate, and told me to put it in my mouth and then take a sip of the espresso. The hot coffee melted the chocolate and the taste combination was incredible.

To cap off the evening, we decided to reflect on our past year, and set an intention for the next year. We each wrote a list of what we wanted to highlight from the past year – things we were proud of, things we wanted to complete and leave behind, lessons we had learned.  Then we wrote a list of what we wanted to create for the next year – what we wanted to do, who we wanted to become.  We shared these lists with each other.

That first date led to another date, and then another, and I don’t take for granted after our own histories, that we just celebrated our 20th anniversary of our first New Year’s date together.

Each New Year’s Eve since then, give or take a few days, David and I set aside an evening to enjoy a lovely dinner, and share our reflections and completions from the past year, and our intentions and creations for the next year.  Sometimes we are joined by our kids, sometimes joined by friends, and most times just the two of us.

For the sake of keeping this blog post to a reasonable length, I won’t share everything from my list, and instead share a few personal reflections and completions from 2021:

2021 Reflections and Completions:

Family:

  • We said goodbye to my wonderful grandpa Lloyd Wilcox who passed away in May. Because of the pandemic and border closure, I joined his funeral and celebration of his life on zoom. I am leaving behind the sadness at not being able to be together in person during that time, and bringing with me the joy I felt when I was reunited with many of my family members in July when the border finally reopened. I think of my grandpa often as someone who lived life fully and loved generously.
  • We celebrated Ben turning 18, graduating from high school and looking forward to his next adventure.
  • We welcomed two new babies to the family and two new sets of parents were formed. Sweet baby Bernie was born in February, my youngest brother and sister-in-law’s first child and my niece. And sweet baby Gemma – my stepdaughter Sarah and son-in-law Liam’s first baby was born in October, making David and I proud new grandparents. We haven’t hugged and cuddled these babies enough due to the pandemic, but I’m so glad for each moment that we got and look forward to more to come.
Nana and Gemma

Rediscovering Writing and Adventure:

  • In March I declared an intention to write, to start a blog and to plan an adventure to Scotland in 2022. I attribute the supportive words from friends and family at this time as the boon that gave me the guts to make it happen.
  • In May I became a co-author for “The Rising Sisterhood Book Two“, spent the summer writing and revising my chapter, and was proud to be a published author when the book came out in October. I’ll share more about the wonderful experience that being part of this collective was, but in short, it was a supportive community of women who helped me get through the anxiety of telling my story publicly, in writing and on video, and all that was entailed. Because of this experience and sisterhood, I gained the confidence to push through those feelings and realize I could do it.
  • In October I procrastinated launching the blog by dusting off the middle grade novel I started a few years ago and taking a Highlights Foundation writing class in my spare time to breathe life back into it. I’m nearly 10,000 words in and still going.
  • In November with the tech and design expertise of my talented niece Molly, I launched the Birth of Adventure blog, and I was beyond gratified by the comments and feedback from family and friends. Thank you for reading – I appreciate you and it means a lot.

For 2022, I’ll share a few simple intentions:

  • I will keep writing. I’ll share stories in the Birth of Adventure blog, and finish the first draft of my novel which has characters and a story I love and dreamed of telling 
  • I will plan and take a great adventure in Scotland with David this spring 
  • I will keep exercising and build my strength so that I can actively hike and climb hills in Scotland 
  • I will hug and cuddle the babies whenever I can
  • I will be open to being a yes to adventure
  • I will lead with empathy and courage and help grow leaders around me
  • And last but not least, when I inevitably stumble, I will pick up the glove

If you haven’t spent some time reflecting on the past year and setting an intention for the next year, I invite you to consider doing this in a way that best works for you. If you have done this, are you excited about what you created for yourself?  If not, consider revisiting if it’s something that pulls at you, that you are yearning for, or if it’s something that you think you “should do”.

For 2021, what are you proud of?  What lessons did you learn?  What are you completing and leaving behind?  

For 2022, what are you yearning to do or become? What is your next adventure?  What scares you in a good way? 

I look forward to hearing what you are excited about (and scared in a good way about) so that I can cheer you on and support you. Please share in the comments or in the facebook group.

Cheers to new adventures in 2022, and remember, when you stumble, all there is to do is pick up the glove.