Dispatches from the Drift: The Summer in Review

16 hours ago

3 min read

A strange summer. A lot of changes.

This summer, I — minor detail — retired from IT after twenty years at La Presse, the Montreal daily, and some thirty years in all since I built my very first website back in 1996. This summer, I chose to write full time.

On the agenda: finishing my novel Seven Drifts, getting clear on my favourite ways to spread the word, and of course, I'm already thinking about what comes next — and there's more than one next. In fact, a dizzying number of ideas are spinning in front of my eyes, enough to keep me up at night. The next novels and short stories, new approaches for the newsletter and the blog, maybe a podcast... It's a whirlwind, and I want to do it all at once.

Seven Drifts — Aboard a space city adrift for two centuries, Anita, a lifelong lover of mystery novels, finds herself reluctantly investigating suspicious deaths while a rebellion builds around her. The novel is in advanced revisions. I'm giving myself a full year to get 7D ready for publication, and probably another to launch it properly.

In August, I told myself I'd ease in slowly, think it all through without pushing too hard.

Three Scrivener windows stacked: the Seven Drifts manuscript in corkboard view, the thematic inventories, and the project notes.

So I used the time to sort through my project notes. A whole month of rereading, grouping, comparing, cutting, reconnecting... I made it through. Hundreds of notes were lying around in the manuscript, at the start and end of scenes, and in the very structure of the Scrivener project. (Scrivener is the software I use to contain my chaos and make sense of it.) I also had whole sections of brainstorming and worldbuilding notes, character sheets, and a long trail of notes following up on my many calls with Courtney Harrell, the developmental editor and coach I've worked with since 2018.

In short, tons of documents, long and short. I didn't count them. I was able to cut a lot of them — ones that repeated each other, or that had lost their relevance as the novel evolved. And above all, I split everything apart: the manuscript on one side, alone in its very own Scrivener project, free of notes; another Scrivener project, a hefty one too, for the notes themselves; and yet another for the thematic inventories that have served me so well these past few months, bringing an enormous amount of coherence to the story.

So much for easing in slowly. But I wasn't about to just sit and wait, spending the rest of the summer imagining what I'd do later, eventually, someday... That would have felt a bit frustrating.

All right. I did take a few breaks too, just to enjoy the summer.

I took up running. I love it. I even asked some specialists for advice, to start off on the right foot. I'm getting better every week.

I've breathed new life into my blog and my newsletter. And we're off!

For my newsletter, expect two emails a month through the end of the year, usually on the first and third Tuesday: Dispatches from the Drift, book reviews, interviews, and more. I'll take stock in January.

I changed my photo on my website and on social media. Thanks to Sarah Latulippe, photographer. That, and a handful of small improvements here and there.

Two works side by side: a grey-and-white painted portrait with dark eyes by Melsa Montagne, and a rusted metal sculpture shaped like an astrolabe beneath arches, by Nathanaël Major.

I discovered two extraordinary artists, whom I told you about earlier this month: Melsa Montagne and Nathanaël Major. They're well worth the detour.

And now, as I start revising the novel's opening scenes — this time carrying everything this long process has given me — everything is ready, or nearly, and I know exactly where to find every piece of information I have, fully up to date, on every element and part of the story.

Now I can bring out the deeper meaning in all of it. This is going to be good!

Of all these ideas swirling around, which one interests you most? Let me know — I read everything.

I write about all of this in my newsletter, Writing Notes. If you'd like to follow along while this book gets built, sign up below — you'll get Cradle, a free story.