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Mar. 16th, 2023 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatBringing this up briefly in a separate post from the other two.
My Voice cannot be replaced - a writer's journey from teenage dreams to Debut Book
No, I was a woman in my 30s, with two small children and a mortgage. I was working a sensible job in middle management at a national health charity, doing a soul-sucking commute on the QEW every day. I had a great benefits package and a deep sense of boredom with my life. Sometimes I listed “creative writing” as a hobby, even though I hadn’t actually written anything creative in years.
Then one morning, I came into work to find my position had been “eliminated due to restructuring.” I was given a cardboard box in which to pack up my office and was unceremoniously sent home. After having a cry in my car, I got back on the highway, my box of plants and picture frames wedged in between the two car seats in the back. Somewhere along that drive, something inside me snapped.
I came to the harsh realization that I was utterly expendable. No matter what job I took next, I would remain replaceable. So, I asked myself: What is the thing that only I can do? The answer was writing. My voice—for better or worse—cannot be replaced. Even if it was an impractical dream, even if no one would ever read a word I wrote, even if it would never buy me a view of Central Park, I decided to write.
There is something terrifying and freeing in equal measure about putting a pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard). The first story I wrote, about a woman contending with grief and desire, while living two different lives in Toronto and Montreal, was longlisted for a writing prize in a literary magazine. That story was the beginning of a five-year journey that has connected me with inspiring writing classes and workshops, my first publication in a literary journal and many that followed, and most importantly, a Canadian literary community where I have found kind and generous friends, colleagues, and mentors. And as I let all of that in, more and more stories came pouring out.
Dear ghod. This really annoyed me. Some day I'm going to write a story about it.
Of course her voice changed - when it through all those workshops, and courses and editors and marketing folks.
I remember sitting on a train with a man once - who regaled me about his friend, who wrote the Nightingale and the Golem. He told me how she changed her novel completely, along with the voice to meet the publisher's needs.
And then there was the article I read ages ago in the New Yorker - where the editor of John Cheever's short stories, changed whole paragraphs and switched things around.
And oh, my own experiences with the publishing world - where they wanted to change my book into something else. Or my friend who wrote a nice historical - but it got changed into a weak rip-off of Alias.
This woman is niave. Of course they can take your voice from you. The Publishing world is no nicer or safer than any other.
Also, she clearly has another bigger income coming in - since she can afford to raise two small children on the earnings of short stories.
What the woman doesn't seem to comprehend is a lot of writers write on subways, airlines, hotels, and after work. My cousin wrote on vacations and retreat, while raising her kids, and doing a full time job. I wrote on subways.
If you really want to write? You do it whenever and however you can. She could have been writing a lot earlier. In her head "writing" is a job. In mine? It's breathing.
My Voice cannot be replaced - a writer's journey from teenage dreams to Debut Book
No, I was a woman in my 30s, with two small children and a mortgage. I was working a sensible job in middle management at a national health charity, doing a soul-sucking commute on the QEW every day. I had a great benefits package and a deep sense of boredom with my life. Sometimes I listed “creative writing” as a hobby, even though I hadn’t actually written anything creative in years.
Then one morning, I came into work to find my position had been “eliminated due to restructuring.” I was given a cardboard box in which to pack up my office and was unceremoniously sent home. After having a cry in my car, I got back on the highway, my box of plants and picture frames wedged in between the two car seats in the back. Somewhere along that drive, something inside me snapped.
I came to the harsh realization that I was utterly expendable. No matter what job I took next, I would remain replaceable. So, I asked myself: What is the thing that only I can do? The answer was writing. My voice—for better or worse—cannot be replaced. Even if it was an impractical dream, even if no one would ever read a word I wrote, even if it would never buy me a view of Central Park, I decided to write.
There is something terrifying and freeing in equal measure about putting a pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard). The first story I wrote, about a woman contending with grief and desire, while living two different lives in Toronto and Montreal, was longlisted for a writing prize in a literary magazine. That story was the beginning of a five-year journey that has connected me with inspiring writing classes and workshops, my first publication in a literary journal and many that followed, and most importantly, a Canadian literary community where I have found kind and generous friends, colleagues, and mentors. And as I let all of that in, more and more stories came pouring out.
Dear ghod. This really annoyed me. Some day I'm going to write a story about it.
Of course her voice changed - when it through all those workshops, and courses and editors and marketing folks.
I remember sitting on a train with a man once - who regaled me about his friend, who wrote the Nightingale and the Golem. He told me how she changed her novel completely, along with the voice to meet the publisher's needs.
And then there was the article I read ages ago in the New Yorker - where the editor of John Cheever's short stories, changed whole paragraphs and switched things around.
And oh, my own experiences with the publishing world - where they wanted to change my book into something else. Or my friend who wrote a nice historical - but it got changed into a weak rip-off of Alias.
This woman is niave. Of course they can take your voice from you. The Publishing world is no nicer or safer than any other.
Also, she clearly has another bigger income coming in - since she can afford to raise two small children on the earnings of short stories.
What the woman doesn't seem to comprehend is a lot of writers write on subways, airlines, hotels, and after work. My cousin wrote on vacations and retreat, while raising her kids, and doing a full time job. I wrote on subways.
If you really want to write? You do it whenever and however you can. She could have been writing a lot earlier. In her head "writing" is a job. In mine? It's breathing.