Riding Novel Waves

my hair should be matted

In this newsletter, you’ll find a bit about what I and What the Living Do have been up to and what we will be up to in the next while, workshop and retreat offerings, and a brief recap of some writing challenges. I’ve included a passage from my work in progress, told in the voice of a donor’s heart and lungs. You’ll see.

There will be links.

Also, a rare opportunity to listen to and write with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer this Saturday (tomorrow!)

Because these times require furious writing (and reading) I’m offering opportunities for furious writing (and deep listening).

I’m scheduled for cataract surgery on October 15 and won’t be able to drive or give massages for a couple of weeks. But I can write and I can host online workshops. So I’ve added a batch of them to my regular schedule.

Workshops run from noon to 2 pm (EASTERN); a few from 7 pm to 9 pm, and a couple from 3 pm to 5 pm. You won’t find a repeat of any visual or poem prompts. Every session is unique.

And then, there’s Spain, May 19 to 29

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Because it’s fun, I’m holding tight to the post-publication ride. It’s thrilling, full of surprises, and expensive.

That’s right—expensive. I offer this as a caveat to anyone who might be under the illusion that there is money to be had from publishing one’s novel. I knew going in that having a small publisher meant it would cost, but never in my wildest…

But I have no desire to complain. The other morning, Nav Nanwa interviewed me for CBC Morning, which was brief but thrilling. This was on the heels of the Foreword review and finding out my novel was a finalist for The Canadian Book Club Awards. Those things alone blew my skirt up, a phrase one reviewer used when writing about What the Living Do.

I mean… wow.

At many events and interviews, I’m asked, What is your greatest challenge?

I’m not alone when I say that my greatest challenge is finishing. Writing “The End,” and meaning it. Many of my writing friends have voiced the same dilemma— that of beginning what is intended to be a short story, only to find it expand under our hands such that we have to admit, damn it, we’re writing another novel.

And I don’t know if you’re aware of this next fact, but the sad truth is that writing a novel is not only HARD, but it takes a very long time. I’m not talking months, I’m talking years. And no matter how in love one is with their story, the process can be disheartening, especially when there seems to be no end. Or there’s an end but the entire middle has to be rewritten to accommodate that elegant ending. And once that’s finally done, there’s… REVISION.

Luckily for me, there’s hope (I hope) in Sue Reynolds’ course, Living Revision, based on Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew’s book of the same name. I just started, but I’m finding a reassuring and gentle lens on re-visioning my story. We are going for the deep heart; the real reason we want to write the story we’re writing. Finding that tiny coal burning at the centre is not always so easy. One has to dig a little. Or a lot.

Since my WIP is about identity—beyond gender or enculturation and into the very essence of who we are—I have to ask myself, Why is that such an issue for me? My first jolt happened many years ago when someone I knew suffered a brain aneurysm that swiped away her personality. Aside from the obvious drastic changes for her and those close to her, the question for me was, Where did she go? Who was that person? And finally, Who are any of us, essentially? If dementia, brain injury, or even past life recall can alter or replace a well-crafted personality, then what is identity?

As I dig deeper, I realize that in my case the answer is tied to home and belonging. Perhaps because I’m among the settler tribes of this land, because my family moved from province to province, or because I’ve been gripped with the question of why we’re here at all, the existential notion of self has me in its thrall. For whatever reason, this new novel (begun as a short story, of course) approaches identity in speculative mode.

Here’s a snippet:

I had it figured out. I died. That much was pretty clear by now. I crashed into some trees because of the wind. Because of the wind I didn’t pull up in time. I didn’t pull up in time because I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see because the rain had suddenly gone ballistic again. So my face was a write-off. No eyeballs or whatever, which was maybe why now I couldn’t see a goddamn thing. And the bits of me that were so-called “viable” had been installed, like a rebuilt engine, into this lady. And for whatever reason, I was still knocking around this life. Her life.

I wanted to ask somebody about my brain, because wasn’t that the part that does the thinking? And right then I was thinking myself into a fucking straightjacket. Which was also another way to describe how I felt since I was unable to actually move. I would have started pacing again because I needed to think and I’d always thought clearer if I was moving. There had to be a way to get out. I kinda knew it was weird for a couple of organs sloshing around inside somebody to think about getting out, but that was what had hold of me. I wanted out. 

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Because some of the following have made my life even more wonderful, I need to share some excerpts:

From Foreword Reviews:

“With precise language and bold themes, Susan E. Wadds’s novel What the Living Do twines together the consequences and complications of birth and death… The searing novel What the Living Do makes space for the imperfections of healing with grace and unflinching honesty.”

Reviewed by Luke Sutherland
September 17, 2024 Clarion Rating: 5 out of 5

“…the author breaks your heart with dialogue that feels so real I teared up…”

Martie Nees Reads

Links to interviews

CBC Morning

HOWL

Canada Reads American Style