Finally, 2020 is coming to a close. Just a few more days left. Vaccines are in the offing, so there is a reasonable chance that 2021 will be better. I’m counting on it.

Way back in March, when the world went crazy, I sadly – and a bit angrily – slammed the lid back on the box of my sabbatical writing plans and turn my attention back to corporate writing and communications. That worked for a while, as we were insanely busy through until at least September.

But recently, the seal of that box seems to be failing. Ideas keep bubbling up and leaking out like bread dough rising over the edges of its bowl. Bits of dialogue show themselves to me as I hike in the forest. Plot points develop as I walk through my suburban streets taking in the Christmas lights. Characters grow and change while I’m cooking. Location descriptions are painted in my dreams. I keep waking up in the middle of the night with all kinds of things that need to be documented. I’m not been sleeping much!

Some of these ideas are related and are slowly turning into something. Well, a few somethings actually. Before the Christmas tree went up, I even had a timeline taped up on my living room wall, as I tried to tie pieces together and sort them into an order that makes sense.

Until recently, though, all of this has been for me only and I’ve been slightly afraid that the words I’ve been committing to paper might be complete garbage. But this month, I got brave enough to share the first bit– a prologue, really – of what is rapidly turning into a proper-length novel, with a “panel” of my three of my favourite people. I know I can count on my kids for a bit of unvarnished honest feedback. They were kind and all three declared it readable (what a relief!), and gave me some good critique and enough encouragement to keep on going.

Since then, though, something new and completely unrelated knocked the lid totally off the box. A few nights ago, I was woken at two o’clock and couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind was bubbling with new names, descriptions and ideas. I didn’t want to lose them, so I pulled out the laptop and typed desperately until about five. Oddly, the points of this plotline are crystal clear to me, and I know exactly where it’s headed. 

Having the original feedback from my “panel” has made me a little braver. So to end this year, I thought I’d leave you with a VERY raw beginning of what might be something when Sabbatial 2.0 gives me the freedom to focus. Sixty-seven days and counting!

So without further ado, here’s a snippet of one of the things that is occupying my Christmas holidays. Leave me a message below and let me know what you think!

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Linney was the youngest of the four MacDonnell siblings. The baby of the family. Her two older sisters and her big brother teased her calling her Squirt, even now, when she’d grown up to be a five-foot nine inch long-legged beauty. But today she didn’t feel beautiful.

She stood on the verandah of her grandmother’s lake house in a black dress waving goodbye to her siblings and their families. The wind was cold on this late October day and she could see a storm approaching across the lake. For warmth, she’d wrapped herself in a finely knit grey cashmere shawl that her Gran had made many years ago. It was the exact shade of the angry sky. Linney could almost hear the clicking of the steel knitting needles, the shawl was so familiar to her. It seemed appropriate, she thought, that the sky was angry today. She was too.

The last of the cars pulled out of the driveway, gravel crunching under their tires as her brother and sisters took their leave. Linney turned around and opened the screen door, and then the beautiful red wooden door behind it. She stepped inside the house, surveying the remains of the canapes and drinks. She kicked off her high heeled black patent shoes and padded through the front room in her stockinged feet. The mess could wait.

Linney took the ornate key off the shelf. Unlocking the unusual blue interior door it belonged to, she started up the steps. Slowly, as if each step was more painful than the last, Linney made her way up the circular staircase to the study at the top of the turret. As the old family story went, her grandfather had added it onto the cozy little house when their own son was small. It was Gran’s escape from the realities of life. She went there to read, to relax, to create. It had been Linney’s escape too – she shared that with her Gran – and she supposed it was part of the strong bond they had shared. The tiny room was lined with her grandfather’s handmade bookshelves and filled with Gran’s favourite books. Linney ran her fingers along the spines and pulled one out at random. 

When she was born twenty-five years ago, she had been named after her grandmother Lynette. But the diminutive her brother and sisters had used from day one had stuck and everyone called her Linney. She was her parent’s surprise baby, born eleven years after Sarah, her closest sibling. Sarah, John and Eloise were all two years apart, making Ellie fifteen years older than Linney. Ellie had been twenty one when their parents died in a horrific car crash at the hands of a drunk driver. They had both been well-known in the Toronto news world, their mother a national editor at The Globe and Mail and their father a prominent political reporter at CBC Radio. Gran, a widow by then, had taken them all in, but given their ages, it was only Linney who had grown up at the lake, a mere toddler at the time of the accident.

Curling up on the battered old chaise lounge that gave her almost a 270 degree view of the lake in front and the woods to either side, Linney opened the book – an Agatha Christie detective novel it turned out – and tried to read. The wind was getting stronger and she could hear tree branches start to creak and moan as they moved against each other. It was as if they were crying. She shut the book and looked up as the rain came thrashing against the window. It seemed all the elements had come together to mourn as they buried her grandmother today.

Linney wished she could cry. Since receiving the phone call five days ago that her 91-year old grandmother had passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack, she had felt like there was a 50 pound weight on her chest. She had screamed. She had stomped. She had railed. But Linney hadn’t been able to cry.