You Can't Have a Good Time All of the Time
Years ago, when I first moved to Ottawa, one of the first things I did was sign up for quilting lessons. This ended up being a great decision. I was stressed and disoriented from leaving a bad relationship and moving to a new city, and quilting gave me a way to focus my brain and body during the long hours I spent in my dark apartment by myself. It also became very handy in the ensuing years, when I was working a series of low paying service industry and daycare jobs. Because I was in my twenties, friends were getting married and some were even having babies. Making quilts was a way to give a meaningful gift that cost me time, instead of money. I had lots of time.
Anyway, this newsletter is not actually about quilting, but rather about something that my quilting teacher said that I still think about. She told us there were two “highs” in quilting. The first one is the design, when you create something exciting and are in awe of the possibilities. The second one is after you put the final stitch in the project and it’s all done. I liked that she acknowledged that everything between those two highs was kind of, well, work. Reasonably enjoyable work, but still. Work.
I was thinking about this as 2024 started because my big focus this year is, of course, that I have a book coming out in October. You could really simplify the whole experience by saying there are two highs in book writing. One when you get the idea for the book and are first moved to write it (exciting!) and the other when the book is published and you can hold it in your hands (also very exciting!). It’s not untrue. But writing/publishing is more complicated than quilting, so there are a lot of peaks and valleys that come in the middle.
I wrote my first romance novel in 2020. I’d tried to write books before and failed repeatedly. But this one I finished. When I wrote The End it was an incredible feeling. Then came the stress of querying agents which was wonderful and horrible at various moments. The first time an agent requested to read my full manuscript (when you query you send what is basically a cover letter and the first 5-10 pages of your book and you hope an agent wants to read more) I got the email in the middle of a work day. I very politely told the person I was working with that I had to make a call and I stepped outside and then called my best friend and screamed.
That agent didn’t end up offering representation, but several months later another one, my excellent agent Samantha Haywood, did. That email came in when I was sitting at the Dominion Tavern after a comedy show, literally complaining to a friend about how I was sure I would never find an agent. When I had a call with Sam and she talked about how much she liked my book and how excited she was to work with me, I hung up and drove, in a daze, to a bakery and bought myself a slice of cake to eat alone in my car while I contemplated how my life had just changed.
That book was never acquired by publishers, but luckily I was already writing another one and THAT one became Make Me a Mixtape which is the book that Doubleday acquired for publication this year. When THAT email came in, my son was pestering me about exactly what he was going to wear to the theatre that night. My husband had to stop him and say “do you realize what is happening for your mom right now?!”
All that to say, my first two years of this romance novel writing situation were full of dramatic lows and very exciting highs. I went to bed each night either thinking about what I was going to write next or daydreaming about the book cover, the launch party, or who would play the characters in the inevitable movie version.
And then it was 2023. When the year began, my book was still almost two full years away from publication. Because we had such a long time, contact with my editors and agent was infrequent. I worked on the edits that needed to be done, but that was really all that happened. I started to come down from the high of the first few years. I realized how much the writing/publishing part of my life had been one of the main things buoying up my mental health. By the end of the year I was feeling exceedingly blah. I scowled when my alarm went off in the morning and I couldn’t really drum up much enthusiasm about anything. I also got pneumonia and then COVID in the space of a few months and was really ready to be done with the year by the time December arrived.
And then, at the end of the year, two things happened on the internet that made me start to think harder about what I needed to change for myself in 2024. First, the bonkers scandal of Cait Corrain exploded all over book-related social media. It was such a weird and ever-evolving situation, even my husband (who does not use social media and cares little for gossip about people he doesn’t know) started following it and giving me updates whenever he read something new. Second, the writer who inspired me to start writing romance novels in the first place, Jasmine Guillory, invited questions from followers and I asked what advice she had for debut authors. She took the question seriously and consulted writer friends of hers, as well as providing her own answers.
(yes I appreciate that all advice is presented over photos of her dog.)
All of this advice- don’t read your reviews, don’t compare yourself to others, lean on friends and healthy habits, protect your mental health- really emphasized how things could go so wrong for a debut author like Corrain. Publishing is a rough, competitive game. There is always going to be someone who is doing it “better”, getting more complementary reviews, higher follower counts, more lucrative book deals. As with many contemporary markers of conventional success, it’s possible to get led astray, to focus on what isn’t within our control as writers, and to stress out over things that aren’t real indicators of how good or bad our lives actually are.
So, my goal for 2023 is to improve my own mental health. Hopefully that will mean that whatever happens with publication in October, I’ll have a brain that serves me well. It doesn’t mean that I won’t get stressed or despondent or suffer from a lack of confidence, but it does mean I’ll be able to manage those lows and enjoy the highs. The band Martha (who I deeply love) have a great song called “You Can’t Have a Good Time All of the Time” and I find it to be a comforting mantra. The spaces between the highs may not be good times, but I think I can take measures to ensure that they’re not bad times either.
(in this photo you can see me having a good time all of the time watching Martha play in Ottawa in 2018. I’m on the right side of the photo in between Mustache Emmanuel and Muscles Dave.)
January 2024 Songs
If you need to be reminded that you can’t have a good time all of the time, here is Martha. The rest of their catalog is amazing as well.
Sometimes I listen to John Prine on shuffle just in the interest of finding even more songs of his to love, and this one came up when I was driving the dog to the dog park on New Years Day and it really got me right in the heart.
The Chumped song “Something About Lemons” is one of my old favourites for when I need a mental health boost during the drudgery of daily life. Singing along to this loudly while driving is pretty good.
January 2024 Feelings
Ann Napolitano’s book Hello Beautiful has had a lot of press already but allow me to add my voice to the hordes and say I FREAKING LOVED IT. I loved basically every minute of this sad, kind, beautiful family saga. It felt super unique, and yet I have no problems comparing it to other books I’ve loved about families both biological and found by authors like Ann Patchett, Emma Straub, and Gabrille Zevin. I could not recommend this one more.
Heartstopper volume five came out just before Christmas and my oldest kid and I took turns burning through it in one sitting. With a beloved series like this its always a bit worrisome when a new volume comes out because expectations are super high. And this one was delayed while Osman worked on the TV version of the story for Netflix (also excellent). Volume five, thankfully, lived up to the other four, adding more complexity to the existing relationships while still including the usual humour and heart. Charlie and Nick forever.
Thanks for reading! See you next month.
J.W.
Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites
Razorcake columns, reviews, interviews etc
My debut romance novel, MAKE ME A MIXTAPE is coming from Doubleday in 2024.