Being a writer in the Fraser Valley informs my creativity, but that’s not because I have a large writerly community here or, really, any community at all. While there are opportunities for writers to meet and discuss work where I live, I have a hard time participating because of everything else I do, including working, taking care of kids, keeping my home clean, grocery shopping, and the list goes on.
It makes me wonder. What does it mean to be a writer in the Fraser Valley? When I was younger and lived in Metro Vancouver, I met up with lots of writers, attended readings, and felt generally quite connected. Since those days, my life has changed very much. The changes occurred slowly, but now as I look back I see all those changes amounted in a substantial shift in who I am. Moving, children, living through a pandemic, and a general change in how my free time is being spent—it has all contributed to my current existence and understanding of being a writer in this moment of my life.
After many years living in the Fraser Valley, I’ve noticed that elements of the lifestyle and environment have crept into my work.
This is most true with my current work-in-progress, a novel about a woman who survives something catastrophic in her rural home. I won’t get into more details than that as I am deep into the initial drafting stage.
When the initial seeds of an idea rooted in my mind, it was clear that the setting of this work would most resemble in some ways the Fraser Valley. While the actual setting of the book is not the Fraser Valley, I find myself describing elements of the natural environment here as element of setting in this new work. I’ve enjoyed taking the time to add descriptive details to my work that is fresh, relevant and personal to my own life.
I’m excited to see how the first draft will go. There is a lot to go, as I’m only half way through. More to come on this…
The term “indie” author means different things to different people. In this post, I’m thinking of indie author as someone who publishes with smaller, independent presses, otherwise known as indie presses.
Last week I prepared a few graphics for social media to share the cover of my debut novel, The Very Good Best Friend. It was an exciting moment to post this cover, which I adore, and to share a few words about the premise of the book with my followers, who are mostly friends, family, and people who know me personally.
Social media post sharing the cover of my debut novel, The Very Good Best Friend.
The experience got me reflecting about my journey as a writer who has had the opportunity and good fortune to publish with independent presses in Canada.
Here is what I’ve learned so far about writing as an indie author:
#1: Write (and Edit!) the Weird Thing
My first poetry collection, Desire Path, took many years to write. By the time it was published, I felt like I had been working on those poems for close to a decade. I’m not sure if it was quite that long, but the poems felt like they were a part of me. This is to say that I spent a lot of time with that work. Poems from this collection were with me during different seasons of my life and, yet, I still felt energized by them as I crafted and refined them into a collection. I wasn’t writing what I thought someone should write, I was writing what I wanted to write. In Desire Path, I wrote about my specific experience in a specific community in British Columbia. When I read the poems now, I can still remember parts of my old neighbourhood and my old life, the things I saw, the places I visited, and how I interpreted the environment. As a reader, I like learning about other people’s neighbourhoods in this way. In fact when I travel I will seek out a very local or regional literary book, just to know what the poets are saying about the place (because it’s always much more interesting than any generic tourist pamphlet).
I was lucky to connect with a publisher that regularly publishes local perspectives on place and experience called Talon Books. Independent publishers are vital for their work bringing local and regional culture to a broader audience.
So write the weird thing. Pursue the project that excites and fuels you as a writer and a thinker, as a storyteller, because you will be spending more with those words, in that world time than you realize.
A pretty desire path in my new neighbourhood.
#2: Develop Your Publicity Chops
DIY Publicist? It’s not the first hat you think you’ll need to wear when you become an author, but it doesn’t hurt to start framing your writing through a publicity and marketing lens. In fact, once you have your manuscript in a solid place (don’t rush this and share it with beta readers if you can for feedback), the process of explaining and positioning your work begins and, honestly, it never really ends.
There are several key aspects of publishing with indie presses that will require you to start thinking like your own publicist. The first being your query letter. This is a one-page document that serves as your pitch to the editor where the intention is to pique their interest so they will read your sample pages and ask to see your full manuscript. A key component of the query letter is sharing your book’s hook. A hook grabs a reader’s attention, compelling them to flip page after page. Maybe you have known what your hook is from the moment you hit the keyboard or maybe you need time to really hone in on what it is. Think it through, as the essence of this hook will serve you as you develop and refine your publicity strategy.
Carolyn sets out on a harrowing journey to rescue her best friend from an abandoned, desolate mall in the countryside, only to uncover deeper and darker secrets hidden within its decaying walls.
One-line description of The Very Good Best Friend
Once you have a signed contract with an indie press, one of the first things they will often send you is an “author questionnaire.” This questionnaire is your opportunity to share details about your biography, your platforms, and your book with your publisher. The content you share in this questionnaire is important and serves as the basis for many aspects of your book like cover copy, descriptions, marketing approach, etc. Take the time to fill it out as best you can, but don’t feel bad about not having a huge platform or many industry connections. We all have to start somewhere!
Old parking lot. (photo by Casey Lovegrove)
#3: Bet On Yourself
Indie authors need to bet on themselves. What this looks like is different for everyone. To me, it means finding time to write even though every part of my life is drastically pulling me in the opposite direction. By giving myself the consistency and space for my writing practice, by prioritizing writing, I am betting on myself. Over the last few years, I’ve had a mind shift in how I think about writing. It’s not a hobby. It’s my business. No, I don’t make much money from this business, but I have come to treat it like my business because it’s how I keep myself accountable. I invest in my business by giving it time. I research my business by reading books and following what’s being published. I plan my business by giving myself reasonable deadlines to get my writing projects finished and sticking to them as much as I can. I define my goals to keep my practice on track. No one can do this, but me.
Betting on yourself is more than just believing in yourself, it’s about understanding that no one can do it for you. It’s about understanding that going from initial idea to finished manuscript is not easy, but you will see it through because you need to.
A beautiful pier to clear the head on a break from editing.
#4: Take Time to Celebrate Your Wins
Writing is solitary work. It can take a long time to draft and re-draft and draft and re-draft a work. Taking the time to celebrate a milestone is a good habit. It doesn’t have to be a big celebrationg, maybe it’s a walk in your favourite space or a coffee at your local.
Caffeine and carbs.
#5: Support Indie Presses and Indie Authors
Buy and read books from fellow indie authors to support them and the presses that publish them. Beautiful stores and fantastic stories, it’s a wonderful combination.
Grazie by Lucia Frangione at the Owl and the Cat Bookery.
I love spring and fall, but there is something about summer and, even, winter that urges me to dive into a writing project with earnestness. Maybe it has something to do with the extreme weather common to both these seasons now and July is looking like it will shape up to be a hot month in the Fraser Valley.
In June I submitted edited versions of manuscripts to the publishers of both my upcoming books. It felt good. Both projects took years to write and edit, and both projects were started in the summer. It could be the heat of the summer that inspires me or maybe it’s the fact that the year is half-way through that fills me with the urgency needed to commit to a project consistently.
This summer I am working through the first revision of a new novel project. I started writing the first draft the summer of 2022 thinking that I could have it finished by December 2022, but it ended up taking me until December 2023 with everything going on in my life.
And here I am in the summer of 2024 starting down the path of the first major revision. Instead of being disappointed by how long it has taken me, I’m choosing to see the time away from the work as being helpful. And while I have probably forgotten a few of the aspects I had planned to address in the first revision while I was writing it, that’s probably okay.
There is something both gratifying and overwhelming about approaching a second draft. I have one novel project that I didn’t pursue past the initial messy draft. When I look at the file on my computer, I marvel that I even completed a full draft of that story. I wrote it during my first maternity leave. And while it holds a special place in my heart, there is only so much time I can give to my writing so I need to be working on projects that I truly love. I liked the old book, but didn’t feel I had the energy to give it all the work it needed. It was good practice.
This new revision project, on the other hand, I hope I can get through it this summer. My first novel took eight drafts to get to the shape I was happy with. And there is always more to do on a project, but there comes a time when I need to let it go to make space for a new one.
How I Approach the Second Draft
In the first big revision, i.e. my second draft, I approach it the following way:
Take time away
Print out a copy
Read the copy first, taking notes on overarching themes and big plotholes but doing minimal page edits
Do a ruthless hardcopy edit (i.e. strike A LOT out)
Translate the edits to a new document and generate new writing
Then take another break and maybe start on something else, like an outline for my next project.
I’m curious to see how many edits it will take me this time…
I have been a writer for as long as I can remember, and while I may not be one of those writers who can remember the first book they wrote at five years old about bunnies, I have many memories of working away on my craft through stories, poems, essays, even a couple of monologues. As I got older and a little more confident in the quality of what I was writing, I began submitting some of my work to creative writing journals, local and national. It was a thrill to get that first acceptance. I still remember it: a flash fiction piece. From there, I published in many journals, but I was hesitant to pursue anything longer, anything that could be considered a “book.”
It wasn’t until my daughter was born that I really got serious about writing. Suddenly time didn’t seem like this endless thing, but something finite. Looking back now, taking the plunge to write longer, more focused pieces of writing while in the thralls of first-time motherhood seems very naive, but I’ve always had an all-in kind of attitude.
Give and Take: Motherhood and Creative Practice
Recently I recieved my contributor copy for an anthology called Give & Take: Motherhood and Creative Practice. The collection “explores the diverse ways contemporary artists navigate the unique tensions of motherhood in all its varied stages.” I have a short essay called “On Maternity Leave” in the section of the book called “Motherhood and the Experience of Time.” I was thrilled when I read that section title. I felt like the editors, Tara Carpenter Estrada, Katie Palfreyman, and Hilary Wolfley, displayed a level of insight in the curation of this collection that is such a gift to a writer. In the preface to the section, they included the following analysis of my essay: In “On Maternity Leave,” writer Taryn Hubbard describes how becoming a parent constricted her sense of time…Paradoxically, as some aspects of time compressed for Hubbard, others expanded” (140).
In my essay “On Maternity Leave,” I’m sharing my experience being on maternity and trying to balance a writing life and ultimately feeling insecure about it.
Here are two of my favourite exerpts:
Before I had children, I thought of time differently. Life seemed long, I felt like there would be time to get my ideas together, to produce something I was proud of, to master my craft. I figured it would happen “some day,” that I had the time to get there in my own way. When my daughter was born, those loose ideas of time went out the window. My life was finite. I had mouths to feed, butts to wipe, cookie crumbs to vacuum. I had a sleep schedule and a grocery list. Swimming lessons and ballet. I awoke in the middle of the night on urgent rescue missions because beloved stuffed animals had rolled onto the floor and my daughter wouldn’t stop crying until reunited. My life as a mother, a partner, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a worker, and a community member was finite. Every single aspect of my life took time, sometimes a lot of it. Embodying all those roles alongside being a writer who also actually produced things and attempted to get published? Well, I just wasn’t so sure of all that once I became a mother.
“On Maternity Leave” in Give and Take: Motherhood and Creative Practice.
Later on in the essay, I share a special moment between my daughter and I.
A week ago, my daughter in one of her usual campaigns to draw out bedtime asked me if I “would be the best writer ever.” I was stunned. I asked her to repeat herself; surely, she wasn’t asking me about something like writing, about my writing, about me? So she said it again, and this time I gently pulled her into a hug and I felt a rush of unexpected tears leak down my cheeks. Her comment touched my heart. No, I wouldn’t be the best writer ever, but maybe, with her encouragement, I could write. I could think. I could create. I would write because I had stories to tell and I’d carve out the time away from family to do it. Time for myself. Time for my thoughts. She brushed her teeth and went to bed after a few stories, not understanding how much her comment meant to me. I don’t mention it to her again, but I think about it often.
“On Maternity Leave” in Give and Take: Motherhood and Creative Practice.
I was grateful to receive my contributor copy of the anthology and to have the chance to relive this time in my life. The collection is full of incredible work by writers exploring all angles of motherwood and creativity, from interviews, to essays, to artworks, to poetry. It’s intimate and authentic, immediate and necessary. I recommend checking it out.
