Writing for the joy of it

Barbara here. I know, it’s been a while. More than a while. This fall and winter have been so full of distractions and world craziness that weeks go by without my even thinking about Type M. For this I apologize to both our loyal readers and my fellow bloggers for my neglect. What little focus I have is devoted to my WIP, which is limping along at a snail’s pace, and to all the day to day responsibilities like walking my dogs, keeping them and me fed and my house vaguely clean, etc., etc.

But I do love Type M and all the authors who contribute their thoughts, struggles, triumphs, and expertise every week. I was particularly struck this week by Shelley Burbank’s last post about her liberating change of focus from trying to write books that sell to writing to create the best story she wants to tell.

Most Canadian authors have been dealing with this dilemma for years. The Canadian book market is very small and overpowered by the much larger UK and US markets. Canadian publishers struggle to compete with the larger UK and US promotional budgets and Canadian authors are generally buried in the back of the store, whether online or physical. The "big five" publishers control the market and are interested in big sales figures. Essentially, you can write the kind of books that sell big, or you can write the stories you want to tell and get a "real" job, marry rich, or have a decent pension. Since 2000 I have been published by a successful Canadian publisher, which was created specifically to tell Canadian stories by Canadian writers. Like other authors, I was told early on by several agents that if I wanted to go bigger, I had to set my books in the United States because Americans weren't interested in Canadian settings. One of my writer friends was asked to move his medical thriller series from Montreal to Buffalo. He did, and had a successful run, but seriously? 

Obviously there are exceptions, Louise Penny being an obvious one, but I guess from the big publishers' perspective, not enough readers would pick up something about Canada.

I believe to make a book truly sparkle, a writer has to love the story they are trying to tell. It has to come from the heart, not the business brain. I made the choice early on to tell Canadian stories and to tell the kind of stories I was passionate about. My country, my people, our issues and our perspective. We are not the US or the UK, and the one time I did try to tell an American story, I found I couldn't get inside the characters' heads. And as a writer as well as a psychologist, I always start my stories inside my characters' heads.

Here I am, twenty-five years later, still writing about Ottawa in all its hidden layers, but glad I have a pension that lets me do what I love.