So, an anti-Festivus?
One week ago today I finished the second draft of my novel. It was my goal in 2024 to write one draft, and now I have finished two, right in time to enjoy the holidays and a break before my revising and editing course starts in January. To say I’m pleased with myself would be an understatement. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, write a book, and I did it! My goal in 2025 will be to have a manuscript that I feel comfortable sharing with beta readers, so stay tuned.
In my recent Ask Me Anything, which is still open should you have any burning questions, Pearl (HI PEARL) asked What is the book you’re working on about? In its current evolution, it’s a story about a single mother in her fifties who becomes involved with a widower. Her ex-husband delivers some surprising news that affects their daughter, and our protagonist finds herself navigating a new kind of life.
Years ago when I was in yoga teacher training, I was talking to my friend Jo (HI JO), who was a very established teacher at the time. We were talking about teaching yin and she said something that stayed with me: If you want to teach yin, you really need to have a yin practice. Jo and I were and are both Ashtanga practitioners, and I took that to heart, teaching what I knew.
When I first set out to write this book, I had in mind a romance, but for middle-aged people. The thing is, though, romance comprises only about a tenth of what I read. To paraphrase Jo, If you want to write romance, you really need to read romance, and in that vein I would say my novel veers toward a character-driven literary fiction. I wanted to write the book I would want to read, and I am doing that.
Engie (HI ENGIE) asked What is the best year of your life? As you know, I suffer from recency bias, but I really do think that 2024 was one of the best years in my life, particularly coming on the heels of 2023, which was an absolutely crazy year of wild change and upheaval. I have had many wonderful years in my life, absolutely, but this past year was filled with travel and gardening, friends and family. My sons are both doing well and are establishing themselves, my husband is so relaxed and settled into retirement, everyone is in good health, I have a beautiful home and garden, and I wrote a book! Life is uncertain and things can change on a dime at this stage of the game, so I am living in the present and feeling gratitude for all these incredible gifts.
Another incredible gift in my life is, of course, Rex. When our beloved Barkley died in June 2022, I was extremely vocal about Never Again Having A Dog. Never! My older son gently said to me But Mom, we are a dog family, but no, I said. No no no. Well, we all know how that turned out, when Rex arrived to our home in October of that same year. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked Did Rex come to you named Rex? and the answer is yes. His full name is Tyrannosaurus Rex Stegosaurus, which should tell you a little bit about his original family. I would like to go on the record to reiterate that Rex was NOT a rescue dog. We were chosen by his original family – speaking of gifts, that one was massive – who were incredibly loving and caring but who could no longer keep him. He was a year and a half, and perfectly trained and already full-grown, and some days I cannot even believe my luck that we were chosen to be his family.
Engie (HI ENGIE AGAIN) also asked What’s the best thing about having a dog? I read in a book recently that getting a puppy is a one-way ticket to eventual heartbreak, and while that is technically true, the absolute joy of having a dog far outweighs that. There are so many wonderful things about having a dog, but the best is probably the feeling of love and joy that emanates from them. Dogs are so in the moment, they miss you the second that you are gone and are so happy the second you come back, even if you were just in the shower. They are just happy to go somewhere, as long as they go with you. We are just not worthy of dogs, honestly, they are such incredible creatures and I for one feel so lucky to have not one but two fuzzy balls of love in my life.
Of course one of the best things about having a dog is walking them, although I will say that while I adored and loved my sweet fuzzy Barkley to the moon and back, walking with him wasn’t exactly a joy, even when he was young. He had a terrible tendency to eat tissues that had been dropped on the sidewalk, and as an aside, do you have any idea how many tissues are dropped on a sidewalk in a semi-inner-city neighbourhood? It’s a lot. He knew that tissues were the only thing I wouldn’t remove from his mouth because god, how gross. From the time he was a puppy until the day before he died, I would have to be on the lookout for tissues and redirect him before he snapped them up and ate them, and I was only successful maybe half the time.
While I’m on the topic, once I was walking with him as a puppy – and the boys were little enough to be in the Chariot stroller, this is how long ago it was – and he snarfed up a CONDOM that was on the sidewalk. A condom. I had terrors as to what would happen if he actually swallowed it, because certainly it would be injurious to his little digestive system, and imagine having to tell people that your dog died because he ate a condom. So there I was prying a condom out of my puppy’s mouth while the little boys asked mama whatcha doin wif Barkley’s mouf and I was praying, friends, I was PRAYING that the condom was just used in a silly way by neighbourhood kids, like blowing it up as a balloon, and not for its intended use. I am pretty sure I used up an entire bottle of hand sanitizer after I fished it out of his mouth, as well as a year or two off my lifespan.
I was thinking about this when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) asked her question: I know you go out walking a lot, and I wonder if you’ve ever found anything interesting or strange that was dropped on the side of the road? Well, Michelle, how’s that for an answer? A condom on a busy sidewalk near the elementary school. Oh wait, I just horrified myself anew on a number of levels.
We did come across a dead coyote a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not sure if that counts as “interesting” or “strange” or even “dropped.”
One thing that I always find interesting is when there is a single shoe, which reminds me of a story of long ago. When I was in university, my friends and I were at an on-campus bar listening to live music, and one of my friends had brought her boyfriend, an incredibly nice but dull-witted fellow. The dance floor soon turned morphed into a mosh pit, and shortly after that the extremely inebriated boyfriend stumbled over to us, missing a shoe. Eventually we had to leave, with our one-shoed fellow, but before that I needed to stop in the Economics Society office to pick something up. I was the Economics Society president, hashtag bragging, and while I was in the office our Shoeless Joe drew all over the white board: a number of single shoes, with the caption “Have You Seen Me?”
Since that day, anytime I see a single shoe abandoned on the sidewalk, I think of him, walking home with one shoe on that snowy winter night.
Weekly Reading
The Wedding People. From start to finish, this book was an absolute delight. It was just perfect! It was so smart, and so funny, and so uplifting and life-affirming and heart-warming. The premise sounds a bit off: a woman heads to a hotel to kill herself, and finds that there is a six-day wedding going on at said hotel, and she is the only one there who is not part of the festivities. Themes of friendship, support, and happiness are interspersed with true humour and excellent Mrs Dalloway references. The backdrop is post-Covid, and there are some really interesting thoughts about the pandemic and what it did to all of us, and our relationships. A quote that really hit me: ‘”But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. and so you start to fixate on something else – you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.” Until it is gone, of course.’
The Plot. There is an Alice Munro story called “Family Furnishings,” in which a writer takes details from a relative’s life and creates a story from it. It addresses the question about who can tell a person’s story. I think that most fiction writers take details and experiences from their own lives and the lives around them, and create from them new stories. I was thinking about that Munro story when I was reading The Plot. To whom does a plot belong? This book follows a washed-up writer who is a teacher at a writing residency; one of his students tells him the plot of a book he’s writing, and the plot has an incredible twist. A few years later, he finds out that the student had died without writing the book. So what’s a writer to do? He uses the plot to create a book that becomes a bestseller, optioned for a movie, etc. But, like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he starts to unravel when the heartbeat he hears is a troll on twitter, accusing him of plagiarism. It’s an interesting premise for sure but after a slow start I guessed the twists and could see the “surprise” ending coming, and I found the last couple of chapters terribly explain-y. Still, a solidly diverting read.
Piglet. This book is brilliant from a literary point of view, but whoa, is it ever uncomfortable to read. I think it needs to be interpreted symbolically, as in a woman wanting more, more, more, and never being really satisfied. Of course this is shown as excessive eating, and I will say the food descriptions are Off The Hook. If you, like me, enjoy a good food description, hold onto your hats. Or forks. It’s a very moving story about a woman from humble beginnings whose wealthy fiance tells her about a terrible betrayal by him, only two weeks before their wedding. In case you, like me, find yourself reading this and thinking that you missed something, no, you didn’t. The betrayal is never revealed to the reader, which is a Real Literary Choice. You know that couples therapy scene in Old School, where Frank is talking about fantasizing about a waitress’ panties? “Probably they’re just plain white cotton. But then I thought, what if it’s lace? What if it’s a thong? What if it’s something really cool I don’t even know about?” The Betrayal is like that. Probably it’s just adultery. But what if it’s something really cool we don’t even know about?
Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. Well, you knew this was coming. Heh. Of course I couldn’t let the holiday season pass me by without reading this, after it was mentioned by Bad on Paper. I mean, it’s basically porn, but with Santa. If you have ever wondered what Santa’s dick looks like, this is the book for you! You may be saying to yourself, omg Nicole, of course I haven’t wondered that, NO ONE NORMAL has wondered that, and that is probably true as I myself never thought about Santa in any kind of sexual way before reading this. But what has been seen cannot be unseen, friends. I can never think of Santa in the same way again (tinsel-like pubic hair). To paraphrase Jessica from Drinks With Broads, STOP MAKING SEXY SANTA A THING, HE SHOULD BE COZY. Anyway, the whole thing took me maybe 45 minutes to read and I discovered that a) Mrs Claus is dead, b) Sexy Santa prefers to be called Claus and is maybe Finnish, c) he doesn’t live on the North Pole but instead in some other planet, and d) he has no elves, Sexy Santa is a Lone Wolf. It’s a lot more plot than you might expect from Santa porn, honestly. Quote that sums up the entire book: “I’ve always hated Christmas, but this year will be different, because this year, I’m going to fuck Santa Claus.”
On that very unsettling note, I should end this very long post, which will be my last one until the annual Year in Review. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season! Your readership is a gift to me, and one that I cherish. xo
Hi Nicole , first, congrats on finishing a book! It is indeed quite an achievement and your book sounds interesting – in fact the kind I like to read, about older protagonists. And, I too have been writing about older people. Currently working on a second, and who knows if these will ever have readers, but, it’s something, like you, I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Thanks for indulging my curiosity and answering my question!
I have The Wedding People on hold at the library. Not a book I would normally gravitate towards, but the good reviews make me curious. I’m down the list a ways, so likely won’t have it until the new year. I read The Plot on a friends recommendation, and I did enjoy the twists and turns.
Completing your second book draft – what a satisfying feeling to go into the new year with! Your summary definitely intrigues me.
Enjoy the holiday season and I look forward to more of your book reviews in 2025!
Congrats on finishing the book, Nicole! It’s now a real thing that lives in the world! I would be honored to be a beta reader when the time comes…
I found myself hurrying through your last paragraph here kind of averting my eyes though–haha. I still picked up on the tinsel though, yikes!
Thanks for the pictures of Rex and Barkley… We really just aren’t worthy of dogs. But we’re so lucky we get live with them.
I’m so, so happy for you that you count this as an excellent year. What a gift to move and find yourself happy! Here’s to a cozy Christmas and a happy new year! XOXO
Amazing on the book goal Nicole. I’d love to be a beta reader if you need one as well. I didn’t get much of my book written but I did play around with one a bit so I guess that is something. It is interesting how life works: for some people they can be having the best year of their life, which is awesome, and others, (me) probably one of the more stressful and upsetting. But it is just an example of how life works and a reminder that there is light around the corner. I hope?! Merry Christmas to you and yours and all the readers here – this blog is just a highlight to read each week!
Porn but with Santa! Hubs and I were going to watch Hot Frosty but now that you’ve told me about Santa Porn, we may have to change our plans.
I also read Piglet this week, but it did not land. For some reason I decided to skim it instead of DNF’ing. I adored The Wedding People of course. And I can’t wait until the day that I can click the preorder button in Amazon for your book!!!
My big thing about pets is that I can’t believe that I lived most of my adult life without one due to the fear of the pet dying. It seems so silly now. While of course it was awful to lose Stepdog, it was a few weeks of tears after a decade of joy. I’ve already written about this, but it was a foregone conclusion that we were going to get another dog. Getting Doggo so soon after Steppie’s passing was a case of Hubs seeing her picture on the shelter adoption site and falling in love and me going along with it, but in retrospect TWO MONTHS WAS TOO DAMN LONG NOT TO HAVE A DOG!!!!
Like everyone else I must say congratulations on your book!! Amazing accomplishment!
Pets, man. I’ve had three dogs since I got married (in my youth we were not a dog family so it wasn’t until I met my husband that I was around dogs) and every time one dies my heart breaks and I swear no more dogs, I can’t do it again, etc. and then . . . the universe sends me another dog. I’ve had a plethora of cats my whole life and it never gets any easier when they die and yet I always get others. The inevitable pain is completely eclipsed by the love and joy pets bring (even when they’re say rolling in that dead seagull on the beach or sitting on my freshly cleaned laundry). They are the best.
Hooray for finishing your edit of your book! I would LOVE to be a beta reader if you’d like! I love the description – I’m all about mid-life protagonists these days and there seem to be more and more books w/ them which I am here for!
I wanted to close my eyes and peak before seeing your review of The Wedding People because that was my favorite book of 2024! I thought it was so so good! It covered a lot of hefty topics from marriages to mental health to friendship with a light hand. I haven’t read Piglet yet but am tempted to.
But what I love most of all is that you have had such a wonderful year. I feel like I’m getting a glimpse of what the early retirement years might look like for us in about 10 years… well, 10 years for me, I’m not sure how early Phil would retire, maybe 5 years after me? 2023 was a difficult year for you so I am glad that you had an amazing year to sort of make up for that trying year. I am not sure what the best year of my life was… it wasn’t 2024 which will surprise no one who knows me/reads my blog… And I will be honest and say I don’t have a lot of hope that 2025 will be all that different – although I do hope this flare will be solved and I can get off prednisone, so it should be much better!
OMG the sexy santa book review. Love it so much. I love that your blog goes from dog walking to Santa’s dick. I’m so here for it all!
I’m laughing so hard at your answer to my question, Nicole! I never would have imagined a condom – let alone your dog eating it! I’m also intrigued when I come across one shoe. It seems like a lot of people lose one shoe, which is just hilarious to me. I remember once coming across a bra on the side of the road! In my mind, the lady was overcome and angered by how uncomfortable it was, and she took it off and hurled it out the window! I’ve nearly been at that point myself!
Congratulations on your two book drafts! What a huge accomplishment! The plot sounds awesome. I can’t wait to read it!
Good grief, I have also been unfortunate enough to see a condom on the sidewalk. Also, lots of dead birds and dead mice. Who knew walking could be so gruesome?
You really did have a great year! Finishing the second draft of your book is amazing in itself. I also love character driven books. I’m excited for you! My fave year was 2016. I went on 4 trips (though one was just a two day trip with girlfriends).
Well, you know I didn’t care for The Wedding People. My main beef was that I disliked all the characters and also just found it to be too unrealistic. However, I just finished The Girls of Corona Del Mar and absolutely LOVED it. Now that was a relatable book about friendships and dysfunctional families. I’ve ordered up two more of her books.
Merry Christmas! XO
What a delightful post Nicole. Congrats on the book – that is really impressive. I love your plot line – It sounds really interesting. Yuck that condom – but your retelling made me laugh out loud (your kids’ questions haha). I often walk the various dogs of my kids. One son (currently living with us) has a sweet gentle lab mix. I will pull anything out of her mouth, no problem. Another son has a massive muscular pittie/lab mix that is 17 years old! He is a gentle lumpy old man, but he grabbed some chicken bones left at the side of the road and there was no way I was reaching in that mouth.
Those single shoes always confuse me. When my lovely niece (now a grown mother of 3) was a wild 20 year old she went to outdoor New Years Eve celebrations on a freezing cold night in downtown Toronto. It was crazy crowded and she lost a shoe. The thought of her making it home with one shoe (sidewalks, well below zero, public transit, etc) was horrific. But she lived to tell about it.
Can I be your beta reader? the plot sounds so interesting and I really want to see how you write!!! You read so much, I wonder if you ever took a literary course? how does one start fiction writing?
I enjoyed wedding people but didn’t like the plot too much, as it felt flat to me, lacking the bottom line kind of book.
Congrats on completing your novel! What an accomplishment. You should be proud of yourself!
Have a very Merry Christmas, Nicole! xo