December 11th, 2010

Reverb 10

What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway) (www.reverb10.com)

I’m getting behind with these, so will just try to do one quickly before I run off to Christmas shop!

This is actually a really good question, but it’s tempting to be glib and say it was “admitting I couldn’t drive in a downpour in rural New Brunswick” or something like that. Not that it wasn’t a good decision, but…not the *wisest*…

I think the best decision I made this year wasn’t a conscious big one, but rather a series of little ones that led to me writing my book exactly how I wanted. There wasn’t a tonne of pressure on me to do any one thing, but I think we all have a critical reader living in our heads, saying, “No one cares about this stuff,” or “That’s dumb,” “Don’t be silly,” etc. I was, to a degree that surprises me, able to turn that off and write the book that *I* want to read.

The advantage of this is that I had a good time; writing is hard and sometimes stressful, but if you are writing the thing you love most, it’s a lot better. I liked doing the (small) bits of research I did, I was fascinated by the characters that I invited to live in my brain, I liked the whole process.

Do I want other people to be as enraptured by this world as I am? Of course I do, but that’s impossible; no reader could ever care as much about a book as a writer does. So, failing that, I get to write what I like. And that’s a great joy.

But I still hope other people read and “get” it.

PS–Um…that book that I’m talking about above, *The Big Dream*? It’s, uh, done now. In the main, I mean–there still might be edits, of course. But it’s a complete manuscript, a lurking scary thing on my hard drive. I just find that so weird…