What if life is a series of thresholds we have to cross?
Like, one thing happens, and then another thing happens.
Or we make one choice and then another.
Things that just happen because, well, life happens.
And things that happen because we choose them and then do them and then, hopefully, celebrate when they’re done. Especially if it was a big deal.
And what of the moment we realise that we are at a threshold, before a threshold, or on a threshold.
The thresholds that just happen slowly, or suddenly, one day, like grown-up children leaving home or going into the menopause, or the death of someone you cared for.
Or the thresholds that are crossed because we choose to do them with all our hearts and minds and bodies and we fly over them into the next new beginning, or new life stage, like, moving home, changing jobs, starting a business, working in a new country.
I think writing a novel or rather making the decision to start writing a novel is like crossing a threshold.
On the one side is the thinking about possibly writing a novel.
On the other side is the flush of ideas pouring out, the tentative notes, the first scene of the first draft, the first chapter in draft, the next one, and then the need to keep ourselves motivated to keep the writing going.
So to start writing a novel, a threshold must be crossed.
From a place of ‘I don’t know if I can’
To a place of ‘I don’t know if I can but I’m going to try this thing out and see what happens’.
Same with crossing into the next scene, the next chapter.
Same with writing any story really.
Writing a novel is a long haul project.
You’re on your own self-created novel writing journey and you take off from a starting point, have a bunch of ideas and then a first scene written with all of your life experiences of writing and so much more woven into those first steps, and onto the next step, and so on.
You show up and you give it a go. Play with it, have fun with it, tinker away with it, the ideas, the words and sentences, the scaffolding of the novel as it builds across the pages.
So with all that said – here’s to us crossing these ‘novel writing’ thresholds together.
All the best, Novel Dreamer,
Cecilia
