Introducing: Summer Hours

Can I write a novel between now and September?

Four years ago, I lit a candle that smelled liked sunscreen and stretched out on my faded thrift store couch. It was 10 pm, I was in the middle of grading final projects for the class I was teaching, and there was an unshakeable image stuck in my head that I couldn’t escape.

Without knowing quite what I was writing or where it was going, I began to write. I wrote till five a.m.¹

The next day, I lit the same candle, put on the same playlist, and I did it again.

That summer, I wrote 80,000 words - half of a novel - in a matter of weeks. Characters came to life. They did things that surprised me. In the midst of teaching and dissertation writing and wedding planning and the pandemic, writing a rom com brought me pure joy.

Then life happened. I got married, defended my dissertation, moved, got a job. I put that manuscript away.

Last October, while driving through New Zealand, I mentioned a scene from the book to Jillian, and ended up reading it to her. She asked for another. Page by page, I read her everything I had. She was hooked - and I was too. I realized I wanted to know what happened next for these people. I wanted to write them to their happy ending. “If Kamala wins,” I told her, “I’m going to spend November finishing my book.”

Then, of course, the future I had planned came crumbling down around me. I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, let alone writing fiction.

But now, as another May begins, and the days are getting warmer and brighter, I can’t get that book out of my head.

That’s why I’ve decided that, from now until August, I’m putting Syllabus on “summer hours.” Starting with an issue on May 9, I’ll be sending you issues once every two weeks, instead of weekly, until Labour Day weekend.

With the time that this more relaxed rhythm frees up, I’m going to pick up that manuscript again and work on it in earnest (though, hopefully, not till 5 a.m. on weeknights!)

And my hope is that, when September comes, and people ask me what I did this summer, I’ll be able to answer: I wrote a novel.

Wish me luck! See you next week!

1. One of the best things about being in graduate school was that I could keep the night owl hours I naturally gravitate towards.