Happy Pub Day, Amaranth!

There’s an easy narrative about writers. So-and-so published their first novel in [fill in year], followed by their latest in [fill in a date often very soon after the first.] Perhaps this makes sense to non-writers, but it’s, at best, a misnomer, at worst an outright fib. Because many, many writers—who do get published—didn’t necessarily publish their “first” novel or story. They may have had the proverbial book in a drawer, the one never to see the light of day (I, ahem, might have one or more of those…) Or, they may have more luck publishing a later novel first, then the first one later. 

This is what happened to me. Evangeline’s Heaven was my first novel published, but my fourth written. Amaranth (OUT TODAY!!) is my second one published but my third one written.

When I first started writing, tales like these from other authors gave me hope. It was a refreshing and inspirational reminder that a life in writing is never linear. 

This holds true as much today as it did all those years ago. You may be working on your first book or your tenth. You may have been published before, or not. For all the structure we like to think exists in our world, it kinda really doesn’t in writing. 🙂 Everyone’s path is their own. 

What matters is practice and perseverance, and ultimately, a chance readers will take on you. For that last one, thank you, thank you, thank you. 

I hope you enjoy Amaranth.

A Piece of Cake

I had to shake my head at my own folly. I had two errands to run: buy a book and buy a cake. Coincidentally, both were the same price, about C$40. I winced at the cost of one and not the other.

Given my profession and how much I appreciate the value of the written word, you would think I blinked at the cost of the cake. 

Nope. I cringed at the cost of the book (hardcover, new release). When, later, I didn’t bat an eye at the cost of the cake (high-end, gourmet bakery), I had to stop and think. 

Books used to cost less. But then, so too did food. Did I wince because I didn’t know the quality of the book but I did know the quality of the cake? Was it because I was sharing the cake with others, but the book was all for me? I buy books all the time, but I don’ t buy gourmet cakes every day; was there no novelty?

Ironically, given my distaste of numbers, it was math that finally that made me see the light. This one cake, divided into eight pieces, would satisfy for the equivalent of, let’s say, 80 minutes (10 min of savory joy per person per piece.) But this book, at  more than 400 pages, would offer me savory joy of at least eight hours or more! And all for me. 🙂

I loved every bite of the cake, but I’m relishing every hour of entertainment even more.

Video Games and Writers

I love talking with teenagers; they have a perspective on the world that is refreshingly different than those of us who are older (and, as a result, perhaps more jaded…). 

My teen daughter: We’re just NPCs in the world.

Me: NPCs?

Teen: Non-player characters, you know?

Me: You mean in a video game?

Teen: Yeah. Characters that you can’t play; they’re part of the game, but they’re just… there.

I don’t play video games, but I know enough to appreciate that NPCs are important to the story but you don’t control them. Sometimes, the slang use of NPCs is to call someone out for being predictable or not thinking for themselves, but in this case, my daughter meant that in the wider world of eight billion plus people, not all of us are going to fundamentally change the world like Newton, Einstein or Shakespeare. 

Me: That sounds depressingly nihilistic.

Teen: (shrugs) Not really; we’re each just one part of the mosaic. 

Then I got it. She didn’t mean we’re all purposeless; she meant that we all play our part, no matter how big or small. It’s a great reminder that we writers most likely won’t become the next Jane Austen—and that’s okay. Our stories, no matter how big or how small, make up our world. 

Because even NPCs have their own backstories.   

It was a Dark and Stormy Night…

One spring day as I stared out at the dreary rainy weather, I reminded myself of the saying “April showers bring May flowers.” And I love May flowers (tulips, especially!) so a part of me told my melancholy self to suck it up, buttercup, because good things come from gloomy days. It’s a great analogy for writing, too, right? We get through the drudgery of whatever writing task we’re doing knowing there are good things to come from our gloomy writing days. 

Only, I got thinking about a friend of mine who loves rainy days. The darker, drearier, gloomier the better. She huffs at sunshine and heat, suggesting it’s because she grew up in a dry, hot, sunny environment where “nice” weather was monotonizingly constant and misty gray days were few. 

Which got me rethinking my own writing metaphor. Yes, gloomy days for me represent the slog of writing, but not for my friend. Which got me thinking how writing is meant to show us different perspectives, and that got me thinking how maybe the weather, should, too. If my friend loves the rain then perhaps I can reframe my own attitude. And if I can reframe my own attitude about dreary weather, then perhaps I can reframe my own attitude about slogging through my writing. Maybe, as they say, the best thing to do when it’s raining is let it rain.

Undiscovered Nuggets of Gold

One time when I was in the car with my daughter, she played clips of songs from Disney movies. I couldn’t see her phone; I could only hear the music. It sounded incredible—only I was surprised to learn they weren’t the professional singers. They were YouTubers, who’d recorded their own versions, and they sounded just as good. I’d never heard their names before, but I was reminded about the tunnel vision we often get when it comes to the arts. 

We admire the professionals—actors, musicians, artists, writers—and rightly so. They work hard with their talent to get where they are, but we often forget they’re not the only ones. Actors, musicians, artists and writers who aren’t household names also have the same drive, ambition and talent. But if they’re “amateurs”, we often dismiss them—oh, they’re not as good. And absolutely, there are not-good amateurs out there, but “amateur” isn’t the same as inept. It simply means they’re not (yet) getting paid for their creativity. 

Pick up a story that hasn’t yet been published, and you could be holding onto a nugget of writing gold. 

Which means, whether you’re published or not, you could be creating that very nugget of gold. 

I look forward to reading it. 🙂

And Other Writing Obstacles

We often throw around the term “writer’s block’. It’s a terrific catch-all phrase for why we’re not writing (when we think we should be writing). I’ve argued before that there’s no such thing as writer’s block—my friend once asked if there’s such a thing as “ditch-digger’s block”. “No! Ditch diggers just get down to it and do their job!” He’s not wrong; we often use the phrase as an excuse to all our writing woes. 

But he’s also not right: writer’s block does exist—but it’s not a creative obstacle. Instead, it’s a message to our creative mind that we’re not on the right track. To get past it, we need to listen to what our creative mind is trying to tell us.

Consider writer’s block like it’s a symptom; it’s the same feeling, but diagnosing the ailment can lead to different treatments. For example, if we’re staring at a blank screen and don’t know what to write, we need to step back and consider our purpose. If we know what we want to write and don’t know how, then we need to brainstorm our meaning before we put pen to paper. If we don’t want to write what we think we should, we can stop and ask why we think we should. 

Digging deeper (ahem, like our ditch digger) is the way out of writer’s block. Find the underlying cause and you’ll cure the frustrating symptom. 

Or, you can go and get yourself another cup of coffee. 🙂

Women in the Writing World

Did you know the first know author in the history of world literature was a woman? 

Seriously. 

Enheduana was a royal princess and high priestess who lived in the 23^rd century BCE in the city of Ur, in what is now southern Iraq. Her poems, which have survived all these millennia, are often hymns to sing the praises of Inana, the Sumerian goddess of sex, war, change, chaos and conflict. (See? Another powerful woman…:))

How did I not know this before? She’s been around for a while, though, obviously less popular and older than, say, Homer. But with a welcome expansion of the literary canon searching for more female, non-Western voices to contrast the male (and white) view of literary history, comes more cultural recognition for Enheduana. This includes museum exhibits, a musical adaptation of her poems and new translations.

I love this fact because it reinforces everything we inherently know about women in the writing world (there is a place and always has been). It’s refreshing evidence that women’s voices may have been silenced before but not silenced forever. 

Oh, and she promotes a nonbinary, gender-fluid perspective of the world, too. 

What else is there to say, but women writers rock? 🙂

A Table for Two: You and Your Writing

I need to walk a fine line as a book coach. I want to support my clients, but I also have to hold them accountable. I offer flexible deadlines because I understand that, well, life can get in the way, but still… deadlines. 

Deadlines help my clients, but how each writer meets those deadlines always fascinates me. One client told me an ingenious idea. 

She moved her computer to her dining room table. 

She’d had it tucked neatly into a cozy corner in her bedroom, a beautiful office nook ready for writing. And then she’d go about steadily ignoring it. Out of sight, and all that. When a moment came that she’d put her computer on the table and left it there, she’d hit on her solution. Every time she walked by her dining room, which was way more than walking by that nook in her bedroom, she’d be reminded of her commitment. Oh yes, I have to write more pages. So she made the time, sat down and completed her submission to me. Early! 

Like all advice I pass on, this may not work for you. (Your dining room table may already be claimed by bills, art projects, junk piles, or, heaven forbid, dinner!) But if the dining room table itself isn’t the solution, then maybe the concept it: put your writing front and centre—literally—so metaphorically, it can be front and centre in your life.

Moving the Goal Posts

I was lamenting to an author friend how hard “traditional” publishing success is to come by. While she agreed, she also cautioned me, not so much about my perspective of “success” (something I’ve learned must be different for each of us) but the dangers of how we always seem to move the goalposts. 

Think about it: at first, you’re happy you’ve made time to write. Success! But it’s not enough; you want more. That’s okay; it’s good to challenge yourself. So you set the bar higher. My goal is to finish my manuscript. And then, with perseverance, effort and hard work, you do. But there’s more. I’ll get it published. Not easy, not by a long shot. When you do, whether it’s traditional publishing, hybrid or self-publishing, there’s a new goal. If I can only sell one copy (to someone not my family or friends!) And then you do. You get more than one sale, maybe even a hundred. But that’s not enough; could you sell a thousand? More? 

Ambition isn’t bad. Strive for the stars! But when you haven’t yet met the ultimate goal (ahem, Stephen King success, or something like it), remember the goals you have met. Instead of moving the goal posts, celebrate the ones you’ve mastered. Then you can add new ones.

Given that most people who say they want to write don’t even get to the point of picking up a pen, I’d say you deserve to celebrate. 

Lessons From Legends

I read an article about the 19^th century English Poet John Keats, who died of tuberculosis at age 25. He’d had a traumatic childhood—his father dying when he was 8, his mother remarrying then abandoning him and his siblings before she, too died when he was 14. Later, his guardian, who mismanaged his money, apprenticed him to a physician. Keats did well in medicine, but he’d started to write poetry by this time. It is no surprise to us writers, that, despite the potential for a steady, respected profession, Keats gave up medicine to focus on writing. 

It didn’t go well. His first efforts at poetry were excoriated by critics, and he was as affected by that rejection as we would be. Still, despite his dire financial situation and failing health, here persevered. 

He died when he was 25. 

He didn’t become a literary icon until long after that. 

It’s common for us to look at the legends and say, they, too, struggled, but look what happened! The resulting, Then it could happen to me! is often what gives us hope. 

I’m not saying give up hope, nor am I saying Keats made the wrong choices, but consider the consequences. It’s okay not to want to be poor, sick and lonely. If you want to write only a few hours a month, but you’re enjoying your life in the meantime? Go for it. If you want to take the financial risk? Go for it. 

Keats’s story is his own. Make your story your own.