My fiction of writing fiction?

A friend of mine, whom I haven't seen in a few years, but who I keep in touch with on Facebook, posted a status update last week:

I'm not sure what drew me to offer my friendship in this way...I mean, I do know that I love making goals and I'm good at keeping others accountable, so I know why I'm attracted to the role; but K and I aren't particularly close. But the lack of growth in our friendship is probably more a result of timing and the busyness of life of than compatibility. I've always wanted to know K better. I admire her patience and love and respect for her family. When I think of someone I want to emulate as a mother, and as a wife, I think of K. So I messaged K and said, "You might already have an accountability partner, but if you don't - I'd love to be yours".

We scheduled our first chat for later that evening.

We caught up on life. On friends. On family. Then we got right into it. Talking about our Big Hairy Audacious Goals (or BHAGs).

K knew her big hair audacious goal and had thought up daily objectives to getting herself there. She needed weekly check ups from an accountability partner to motivate her to achieve her daily and weekly objectives and follow the routine she had set for herself to schedule time for her objectives. I was impressed with how thought out her plan was, it reminded me of some of Robert C. Pozen's secrets to productivity I blogged about last year: 

Secret #1: Make sure your daily to-do list is aligned with achieving your highest priority objectives and career goals.

Secret #2: Figure out what the final product needs to be first - and then work towards it. 

Secret #5: Make sure your daily schedule allows you time to think and work on those high-priority objectives. If you don't schedule it, it won't happen. 

We were a partnership, so K was also going to help keep me accountable to my goals. So what were my goals? While K knew her BHAG, I hadn't thought too seriously about mine yet. 

I told K a few things I had on my wish list: 1) Going for a morning walk 2) Stop watching Gilmore Girls re-runs on Netflix 3) Finish the books I have on the go (this week's goal was to finish Malcolm Gladwell's the Tipping Point) and 4) Get back into blogging (see forthcoming posts). 

For my Big Hairy Audacious Goal, I had two in mind. One that I hadn't admitted or told anyone about except my husband, and another one that was kind of haunting me. I told K about the one that is haunting me: my "novel".

For about 8 years, I have had an idea for a historical fiction novel running around in the back of my brain. Inspired by my own experience cleaning out my grandfather's house after his death and learning, through love letters left behind, that my grandmother was his mistress for many years before he divorced his first wife. This initial inspiration has blossomed into hundreds of hours of research on World War II, Calgary between 1940-1950, 50s housewives, feminism, the experiences of veterans, and the Canadian homefront. Hundreds of hours of research turned into weeks of synthesizing and recording the data into a searchable database. And 8 years of work has resulted in about 12 pages of written fiction. Not very much.

I don't really understand why I have little desire to sit down and write the darn thing. All the research is done. The story is planned. Each character has a detailed description of their traits and a story arc they will follow through the novel. The hard part should be done, right?

So for the week, my goal was to sit down and think about my novel and just...look at it again. Not a very audacious goal, but it has led me down a rabbit hole, to say the least (more on this in my forthcoming post on consulting).

I brainstormed what the obstacles might be to writing the fiction I have so carefully planned out:

• "Write a novel" is too big of a goal. I need to break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks
• I struggle with creative fiction writing. I need to learn more about the craft by taking a course or reading more on the subject.
• I've planned it too much. The novel is already written in my head and is therefore no longer exciting to me to write.
• I am afraid it is going to be so terribly written and that I'll feel ashamed of it. I don't want to feel shame.

or the one obstacle that may be the most haunting:

• I don't really enjoy writing fiction.

Is that it? Has this entire exercise to "write a novel" been a "teach Heather that she loves doing research and synthesizing data...but doesn't love writing dialogue?"

And if that is, indeed, what I've learned - is that a reason to give up on it? It is, after all, only a project I've undertaken for fun. If it's not fun anymore, shouldn't I focus on other goals that are?

But then, the thought of quitting on a project that I've worked on so much already makes my stomach tighten. Is saying "I don't like writing fiction" just an excuse for fear of failure? What's a few hundreds more hours of writing to just get it down on paper, anyways? My stomach doesn't loosen with that thought either.

So what to do?

I've been reading Gretchen Rubin's book about habit formation, "Better than Before", and I wonder - maybe if I made an honest effort to schedule daily writing on my novel, (not work...no more research!) like Gretchen does with scheduling meditation, and then documenting my mood afterwards, I could determine if it's that I just don't like writing fiction - or that I'm just too scared to try.

So I'm going to try. I'm going to commit to 40 hours of fiction writing time over the next couple of months. I'm going to see if, after 40 hours, it still feels like pulling teeth, or if I actually enjoy the experience once I'm in the weeds of writing.

And with K, I'm going to explore my other Big Hairy Audacious Goal: a small consulting business. But that's a post for another time.