About Me

I’ve always loved reading. My earliest memories include either cuddling up with my mother and a Dr. Seuss hard cover, or a Golden Book on Tape. I grew up in the military, and those books moved across Canada and back, then ping-ponged between west coast bases until we finally settled in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia where I stayed until I was in my early 20s.

I always went to smaller schools, even when I lived in cities and larger towns. Scholastic Book Fairs were the highlight of every school year because the libraries (such as they were, then) rarely had much of interest to me. When I got to my high school, I felt like I’d stepped into a whole new world. The young adult science fiction and fantasy section was larger than the public library’s entire SF & F section! Since then, of course, my city’s library expanded out of the tiny space they were in and the new facility could fit three of the old locations into it with room to spare. No more squeezing against a rack to let someone pass by, thankfully.

I’d never known anyone who wrote, even as a hobby. To me, writers were magical beings who lived in far away places doing fantastical things. This idea was probably reinforced by reading Anne McCaffrey’s bio at the back of her novels. She was my absolute favourite author in my teen years, and the descriptions I devoured of her home life were, well, magical. They were as foreign to me as Pern was. To be surrounded by creative people who spent their lives creating made-up places might as well have been living with faeries. Which is what I’d secretly thought living in Ireland must be like. Oh, to be so sheltered and naïve!

My parents were good people who worked hard, but they were both survivors of unhappy childhoods. They did the very best they could to set my siblings and I up to be well adjusted adults. They did far better than their parents had done, and they tried to encourage creativity, but neither of them had the tools to be able to guide us toward a creative life. Between that and growing up below the poverty line, it’s easy to understand why my focus as a young adult was on building an economically stable life. Like most people, I vowed to do better by my kids. That journey led me back and forth across the country (again), then bouncing between the three western provinces until we hit a hard stop in Calgary. I’d made a better life for my children than I’d had as a child, but I couldn’t call it fulfilling. My marriage ended and the custody agreement mandated we both stay put. It wasn’t until my eldest was a mid-teen deliberating over her future and what course of studies to follow in senior high that I realized I’d let myself down. I’d let creativity become last on my priority list. I quit my ongoing studies to certify in a profession that, while I was really good at it, I had little interest in going further with it. I’d been halfheartedly continuing because it was all I’d ever known.

By then I’d been dabbling with writing for a few years. I loved creating worlds with people who lived, worked, and struggled in them. I was finally in a position to devote more time to it, but I wasn’t taking it as seriously as I needed to. In order to develop the craft skills to be successful, I had to focus on it more. When a close family member’s health took a serious turn for the worse, I realized just how little time I had left to do something I loved instead of what only put food on the table. My daughter had also finished her first year of acting school, and we knew getting her career off the ground in Calgary would be a near-impossible slog. The obvious choice, despite how terrifying giving up financial stability was, was to move home to the Lower Mainland to be closer to family and make writing my number one priority. It brought the benefit of bringing my daughter to where she had the best career prospects, too. My son followed a year later.

I spent the next few years flailing around, trying to develop my skills as a writer but not really progressing. I couldn’t find a local community of writers serious about improving their craft and getting published. Getting desperate, I scrubbed through Meetup.com every week, hoping to find hobbyists at least. I found one group, but they were a 45 minute drive and not particularly serious. Months later, I found another group, and they were all fabulously supportive and focused on improvement. The downside was that they were a 30 minute drive away, and the format wasn’t helping me where I was weakest. I was nearing the end of my stamina when I stumbled across a writing group match up effort on Twitter during the early days of COVID. It ended up being the closest thing to perfect for me I could have found. We were spread all over Canada and the US (though, really, I was the only Canadian), and all near the same level skills-wise. Our individual weaknesses were offset by someone else’s strengths.

Very early on, we decided as a group to focus on skills development rather than critiquing projects. Each week, someone would present a craft topic and, after we’d discussed the materials presented, they’d propose a writing exercise. The next week we’d review the results. It was an amazing experience. By digging through each person’s ‘homework’, rather than a project they were emotionally attached to, we learned how to write with purpose. We also experienced different ways of expressing character and setting, especially when we had to do an exercise following a specific situational prompt. Just by comparing and contrasting voice between pieces, it cemented in characterization in a way that doing these exercises by ourselves never would have.

Like all things, even good things must end. COVID faded, and getting our schedules to align between all the time zones became an impossible task. There was no way, though, that I was going to let myself go without community again – not after how much impact that 2-1/2 year span had had on my writing skills. There still wasn’t anything available in my town for writers beyond a poetry hobby group, however. Pushing through some serious imposter syndrome, I reached out on local-ish Facebook groups. All I managed was a single connection. As lovely as he is, I needed more than one person – especially with how often he and his wife travel. Frustrated enough to overcome my natural shyness, I bit the bullet and formed my own Meetup group. After a few months, my local public library reached out with an offer to partner with me. I agreed. Since then, the community has grown and working with other writers consistently has given me far greater rewards than I’d hoped for.

Growing communities is hard. It takes courage. Being creative is hard, and it takes courage too. But I’ve learned that courage doesn’t bloom in a vacuum. It needs reinforcement. It needs to be nurtured by more than just yourself. No matter what road you choose to follow, make sure you connect with the people who will nurture your courage – even if it’s only by example.