I was skeptical - I hadn't needed any kind of specialized space up until now - but he pointed to the shredded chair with its sad towel pillow and refused to let the matter drop.Īdvance reader copies of Hench in Natalie Zina Walschots's old apartment. While I was settling in to have a nice nervous breakdown about it, my partner, much more reasonably, said that the first thing we were going to do while my life turned itself inside out was redo my entire office.
Suddenly, I could place my writing in the very centre of my life - not work for clients, not freelance gigs, but my own. When the book sold, to my immense surprise, I got to find out. I wondered if this was what it would feel like if I could do this all of the time. During one of the final pushes to get Hench ready to send to my agent and then off to publishers, my partner rented an Airbnb for a long weekend so I could work uninterrupted there was a window right in front of me, and being able to look up and see light and snow felt like an incredible indulgence. On the very rare occasions I could, I'd spend a few brief, intense days to finish something or begin. More often than not, I wrote standing at the kitchen counter, or perched on the edge of the couch, or propped up in bed, bending my wrists into whatever terrible configuration was necessary to squeeze in a few lines before, or after, or between.ĭespite it being a core part of my identity, an axis my life turned on, the time and space I could carve out for writing remained liminal. I used a random side chair, the grey material of the cushion shredded in one corner by cat claws, with a small cushion or towel rolled up and shoved to the back in a pitiful attempt at lumbar support. For a long time, I didn't even have a desk in my tiny basement apartment I eventually found one abandoned by the side of the road and carried it home, squeezing it in right next to my bed even though it was too low to be comfortable. My writing space, or lack of it, reflected this. I wrote the first words of my novel Hench at a game jam, while my friends were working on bug fixes and I found myself with a few moments to spare. I wrote on planes and subways and in coffee shops. At the end of the day, with whatever scraps of energy I managed to hoard for myself. On my lunch break, hiding in the back of the break room. In the back of a car at night with a notebook in my lap, my handwriting smearing with every bump, getting spurts of words down in the brief gasps of light as we passed streetlights.
This edition features Hench author Natalie Zina Walschots.įor most of my life I wrote in the spaces between. Leading up to Canada Reads, CBC Arts is bringing you daily essays about where this year's authors write.
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