How Dogs Led to my Emergence As a Novelist

How Dogs Led to my Emergence As a Novelist

Unless you are totally outside of the mainstream of popular culture, you know that these days, much is made of being In the Moment. Like many humans, I have found this hard to do. But I started my quest to get better at it long before it became a theme in popular culture. My precocious focus was attributable to my dogs. For years, I admired the way they seem to revel in whatever they do. I wanted to be like that – to not need to look at my watch or to read or in some other way to “be productive” when I was in leisure mode.

 At least 20 years ago, I started to try to become more dog-like.  I called my quest Finding Mindlessness. In pursuing this goal, I started tuning in far more into my senses – my body and its dictates – instead of being dominated by my ever-present, hyperactive, wordy, bossy brain.  For me, Finding Mindlessness and becoming happier were inextricably intertwined.  Yes – now I know that in today’s parlance, I was teaching myself to be Mindful and In the Moment.

At the time that I embarked on this quest, I was already a fairly successful dog-trainer, handler and competitor.  It was in working with my dogs and those of obedience students I coached, that I was first able to successfully apply my burgeoning skills. When I encountered a challenge, I no longer felt compelled to use the same methods I used as a consultant – typically identifying a few options and then, running a lightening fast analysis before deciding which one to try. I junked that and didn’t decide what to do until I had the dog in question in my hands. And then I trusted my hands, my heart, my senses, to know what to do.  With great delight I found that they did, and the result felt magical.  

So, what does this have to do with having written my first novel, Emergence? For 35 years, I was a consultant who specialized in writing projects. But even though I made my living as a writer, what I did was SO NOT what I’d had in mind when in my high school yearbook, I identified Being a Writer as my ambition. What I’d really meant was that I wanted to be a novelist.  And it turns out that the very methods that made me successful as a consultant, crippled me as a nascent novelist.

Early in my consulting career, I meticulously outlined every report and then tried to adhere to that outline. Inevitably, I felt compelled to deviate from my outline when seized by the creative impulse. Then I had to backtrack to rejig my outline to accommodate my deviation.  Over and over again. Tedious. As I became increasingly senior, assured and confident, I ditched the very detailed outlining I used to do, and instead developed far more general and less detailed “plans”, which required less work to reconfigure when the creative impulse sent me somewhere unexpected. But the process of re-aligning the report and my outline was still a fraught and tedious process, though a less time-consuming one. 

When I thought about writing a novel, the enticing aspect of that dream was the way that I got lost in time and space, out of my body, and seemingly out of my mind, when I worked with dogs, and in those moments I allowed myself to write spontaneously. But there was an anticipated negative aspect that was even more powerful. I assumed that in order to write a novel, I’d have to develop a detailed outline which would be arduous and time consuming and would not deliver the high I experience when writing what I’m feeling. I believed that for me, this would not be a happy task, and it would only get worse when I actually got down to writing, and then reconciling the inevitable deviations I already knew were part of my creative process, into that damned outline.

So, I delayed. But as I delayed, my faith in my ability to improvise kept escalating as I experienced the success of interacting with dogs while totally In the Moment. And finally, I challenged myself with this question: What if I try the same approach to writing a book? What if I skip the outlining, and instead just sit down and start writing and see what happens?

And that’s what I did. I had already decided that one of my goals was to present compelling, realistic dogs who were important characters in the plot, not cute accessories. I had my three main human characters in mind, but none of the supporting cast. I knew what kind of mood I wanted to generate, and what the few pivotal events that would drive the plot would be. But how these elements would fall into line, how other characters would appear and what roles they would play, and how all of this would mature into a coherent whole – that was all unknown. 

One day in May, I sat in my cabin and wrote the first chapter in about an hour. The voice of Xavier, who speaks in the first person, came to me like the magic I hoped for.  I had no idea where he came from, because it felt like he visited me, not like I’d created him. And so, the magic began. And remarkably – it didn’t stop.  Emergence was written, start to finish, in three months. The first draft was remarkably like the final product. My panel of beta readers agreed that somehow, I had nailed it pretty well in that first draft.

I owe the realization of my life-long ambition to write a novel to my dogs, who helped me emerge from the constraints I’d so long imposed on myself and my creativity.  

—

An enigmatic “wildchild”, powerful women, realistic dogs, and lethal danger are featured in Emergence, a tale of revenge, fear and hope, by Ellie Beals.  It is her first novel, produced after a lifetime of writing for government clients and it clearly reflects key aspects of her life. Like her protagonist Cass, Ellie was born in the U.S.A. but became a passionate Canadian, and is one of Canada’s top dog-trainers, obedience competitors, and coaches.  She lives with her husband and three Golden Retrievers.  They all split their time between a civilized bungalow in urban Ottawa and a rustic log cabin, perfect for wilderness recreation, in the remote woods of Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/ThrillerEmergence

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BealsEllie

EMERGENCE

“A slow-burn thriller. Emergence …. makes for a deliciously disquieting ride…”—4.5 star IndieReader Approved Review

“Cass has many moments in the woods when the hair on the back of her neck rises and she cannot identify why, and the reader shares that sensation…” —Front and Finish Journal

It starts with Just Watching. But danger emerges when Just Watching ends.

When the “wild child” Xavier first encounters Cass Harwood and her dogs in the woods of West Quebec, he is enthralled. Unknown to them, he Just Watches them in a lengthy ongoing surveillance, before finally staging a meeting. His motives are uncertain-even to him.

The intersection of the lives of Cass, a competitive dog handler; her dogs; her cousin Lori; and the complex and enigmatic Xavier leads them all into a spiral of danger. It starts when Just Watching ends-when Cass and her crew encounter tragedy in the bush. Xavier’s involvement in the tragedy, unknown to Cass, sets off a chain of potentially lethal events that begin in the dark woods of Lac Rouge, when hiking, skiing, hunting, trapping, marijuana grow-ops, and pedophilia collide. It matures in the suburbs of both Ottawa and Baltimore, and culminates back in Lac Rouge, when Lori’s spurned and abusive lover arrives uninvited at Cass’ isolated cabin in the woods. In the night. In the cold. In the heavily falling snow. His arrival is observed by Xavier, whose motives are again uncertain, but whose propensity for action is not.

Join Xavier, Lori, Cass, and the realistic and compelling dogs that are essential players in this dark drama as their fates converge in a deadly loop of revenge, fear, guilt, and hope.

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