Any writerly regrets?
Writing life: 85
Editorial note: Though none of you have raised it, I’ve just realized that I was a week early with my last post. So eager was I to share my exploits in southern B.C. that I hit the “Publish” button a week before I was supposed to. Apologies. In the wake of my unintentional temporal disfunction, we are now back to every two weeks.
I know what you’re thinking. Does this writer’s love of wordplay know no reasonable bounds? I confess, I do love wordplay. And I’ve been looking for an opportunity to trot out this little ornithological gem ever since it somehow popped into my head one morning some years ago. I’m quite sure I’m not the first to come up with it. But it’s time to share it. (Sorry.)
But today’s post is not about graceful white birds with spindly legs. No, it’s about regrets, writerly regrets in particular, and whether I have any?
This post was prompted, not by an egret, but by the many questions I field at book talks, be they at festivals, libraries, book clubs, or writing groups.
Do I regret not leaving my day job sooner to write full-time?
In a theoretical sense, would it have been nice to be a full-time writer earlier than at the age of 62? Sure. But it seems to me that regret is about choices and decisions that I have made, and I do not regret my career in politics and public affairs/communications consulting. I loved my work, my clients, and colleagues. I also learned the discipline required to be a professional writer. And the near-daily writing I did for clients inevitably honed my writing chops. In short, my long and varied career taught me so much and provided many of my novel ideas. Plus, there was the whole “need to earn a living” thing. So, maybe I lament I couldn’t write full-time earlier, but I have no regrets about it.
Do I regret waiting until I was 45 to write my first novel?
Ahhhh… now that’s a good question. I know 45 isn’t exactly geriatric, but most writers do start earlier than I did. If I’m being honest—a practice I recommend—I guess I do wish I’d started my creative writing journey a little earlier, though Nancy and I barely had the bandwidth to juggle the balls we already had in the air back then. Perhaps I’ve had a few wistful moments thinking about what might have been had I turned my mind to writing even a few years earlier. I’ve so enjoyed my life as a writer so the idea that I might have started earlier, and might now have been doing it longer, is appealing. But I’ll never know if I’d have been able to write a novel worthy of anyone’s time earlier in my life. Who knows, if I’d tried to write a novel at 25 and failed, perhaps I’d never have tried again. So the question is moot.
Do I regret the focus on writing funny novels?
Absolutely not—as I recounted in a recent post. It really helped me to separate myself from other writers. Think of the competition I’d be facing if my chosen writerly inclination had been to pen mystery novels. There are far fewer comic novels out there than mysteries, or thrillers, or romances. Besides, I truly believe writers should write with all of ourselves, deploying our full arsenals. So for me to write without using my sense of humour, developed over decades of growing up in my very funny family, would mean suppressing an important part of me. And winning the Leacock Medal, one of Canada’s oldest literary awards utterly changed—gave me—my life as a writer. No regrets.
Do I regret saying “Yes” to so many speaking gigs?
There’s a more complicated and nuanced answer to this question. As a writer, I have no regrets. I firmly believe that my more than 1,100 book talks over 17 years—and the thousands of miles I’ve driven and flown to deliver them—have been critical in any modest success I have had as a writer. While I can’t be certain, I suspect that not all of my novels would have cracked or topped the bestsellers list had I not said “Yes” when invited to speak by festivals, book clubs, libraries, schools, community organizations, and even a maximum security prison. Word of mouth remains the most powerful marketing force we have. No regrets as a writer.
However, as a parent and a spouse, I do have some regrets about all the evenings I missed at home at a time when our two sons were younger. It put a heavier load on Nancy’s shoulders at a time when the demands of her own amazing career were heavy. In 2014, I did 142 book talks. That was a lot of evenings away. So, yes, I do regret being away so much.
Do I regret any of the novels I’ve written?
No… at least not yet. Each one offered me growth as a writer as I tried to do something just a little bit different with every next book. Sometimes those changes were imperceptible to the reader (let’s face it, there are clear similarities among at least my first five novels) but even the incremental growth was important to me. Lately, I’ve strayed a little further from the comic approach found in my earlier novels—A New Season is a case in point—as I try to keep the novels fresh, and continue to grow as a writer. No regrets.
Do I regret initially self-publishing my first novel?
This is another question that gives rise to mixed feelings. I’ve written here before that I didn’t really know what I was doing when I tried to get my first manuscript published. After a year of diligent efforts to land a literary agent and/or a publisher, I had been greeted by a deafening silence from the traditional publishing establishment. So I reluctantly moved on to self-publish The Best Laid Plans. What I didn’t know then was that waiting for a year isn’t actually that long in the publishing world. So in hindsight, that might be cause for regret. But in my rare and utterly fortuitous case, self-publishing somehow worked for me. That self-published novel, was miraculously shortlisted for, and then won, the 2008 Leacock Medal for Humour, changing my life as a writer in an instant. Within days I had landed a literary agent and had signed with McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House, where I’ve been for all ten of my novels with an eleventh under contract (and written). So, no regrets, just unbridled gratitude.
In the end, after more than 20 years since first sitting down to write The Best Laid Plans, I have surprisingly few regrets. And for that, I am grateful.
Over to you
What about the writers among you, dear readers? Any regrets?
Wrapping up…
Many thanks for taking a gander at this. Here’s hoping you’ll consider subscribing—it’s free and easy—so you won’t miss any future posts. See you in two weeks.
Thank not that!
My regret is that I did not take your humour workshop (with Rod Carley) at least a year or two earlier! It was from you I learned about the Public Lending Rights Program, which eventually gave me about a 1000% return on what I paid for the workshop. The pressure is really on you guys if I take that workshop again.
(Have been wanting to that you for that…)