Showing all posts tagged writing

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

A Dormant Season

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

In my workshops at teachers’ conferences, libraries and for writers, I often speak about building in a dormant season for creativity and rest. A period of time where we are intentional about doing nothing, so we can replenish our spent energies and allow our creative impulses to regenerate.

This sounds wonderful in theory, but I realised recently how difficult I find a dormant season in practice. When I’m writing a new manuscript, I try to maintain a steady rhythm, where I work for a little bit each day so I don’t get too far away from the characters and the story. But sometimes dormancy is forced upon us, due to vacations or the needs of others or health concerns or simply life being life, and interrupting us from our best-laid plans.

This happened to me in August. And I struggled against it. I find it frustrating that even when I’m teaching about certain skills and strategies, like taking a dormant season, I can still be ridiculously slow to recognise it in my own existence. We had a couple of trips planned, and then an unplanned trip to the island late in the month to help our kids move into their first basement suite off campus for the upcoming university year, and by early September I recognised how far away I felt from the novel I was writing.

I wish I could say that I was calm about this. But I wasn’t. I got pissed off, at myself for not progressing on my book when I had planned to write all summer, and then irritated by my family members who kept me from writing. I didn’t enjoy how this resentment made me feel, but I stewed in it for more than a week before suddenly remembering what I tell others: for a dormant season to be effective, we have to surrender to it. To enjoy our lives without feeling guilty that we aren’t working on a creative project.

I had completely missed this part of the process. So I reached for my journal, and reflected on this season of dormancy I’d been in, and why I felt myself longing to get back into the writing of my murder mystery novel. I remembered my Ruby Finch Books tagline: Intuitive Courage. Somewhere along the line, I had once again lost myself and my sense of identity and purpose. I’d been at the mercy of circumstances and other people and life itself without recognising or claiming my own agency.

It felt so good to realise that I can always choose my response. I could be angry about not writing, or I could acknowledge that I had been in a period of creative dormancy, which meant that a new burst of creative energy could bloom in me if I allowed it to. In the four seasons of nature, winter is the dormant season. It’s followed by spring, the explosion of growth and vitality, but we only get the beauty of spring because the trees have been dormant in the winter.

I truly believe that the same seasons are necessary in our own lives. And sure enough, once I stopped having a temper tantrum about my writing rhythms and progress being disrupted for a month, I began to feel the slow, gathering momentum of fresh insight for my book. I would lay in bed at night, ready to drop off to sleep, and my intuition would connect one storyline with another in a way I hadn’t considered before. I would realise something in one of my character’s backstories that informed their current choices and motivations.

Writers live for those moments of insight. I suppose I’ll never know if I would’ve had them anyway, if I’d been writing during August and into early September, but they came to me so insistently and yet gently when I wasn’t writing, so I have to hope the brief dormant season made a difference. Now I’m back into the story, writing nearly every day, and the work has a fresh energy behind it.

I’m working with a new counsellor this month, and one of our goals is to help me identify these patterns in my life faster. I don’t like to feel lost and annoyed for weeks on end when I could simply choose a better response. Believing that a dormant season will help my creativity flourish is a healthier choice to make than stewing in frustration about being unproductive.

What are some ways you’ve seen a dormant season lead to fresh insights and replenished energy in your life?

In Books, Identity, Movies/TV, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, University, Writing

3 Words for 2025

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Last month, I wrote a post reflecting on 2024, and as I usually do every January, now I’m sharing the three words I’ve chosen to focus on in 2025. I know a lot of people choose one word, but I find that too narrow. Maybe I’m just a slow learner, but I like to see how my three chosen words work together over the course of the year to change me.

For this year, I picked these 3 words: Deeper. Simpler. Quieter.

I’ve decided that 2025 is a year to turn inward. To create, to dream, to plan for the future. I’m working on stillness right now, and building in more space for myself. I can feel myself longing for deeper roots, both within myself and in my relationships and my career.

I love the agricultural concept of allowing the soil to lie fallow in order to regenerate. When I got quiet at the end of 2024 to imagine what my next year would look like, I realised I wanted a period of quiet and simple depth. I longed for a year where I focused more on writing than on publishing.

I returned to university in 2017 as a mature student, and after I finished my BA in Creative Writing I continued on for a master’s degree, graduating in spring 2023. I started my publishing company Ruby Finch Books immediately after this, learning the indie publishing world so I could release two novels (Jamesy Harper’s Big Break in 2023 and Post Civ in 2024). At the same time, both of my kids were finishing high school and moving out of our house and into university, which required me to practice my skills in letting go (and in general, I prefer to hang on rather than let go).

For 2025, I want to slow down and catch my breath. I’ve also decided to live into my longest-held dream of adapting my books into screenplays and TV scripts to try to get them made. I wrote about this in my January Substack newsletter, and I’m calling this adventure Ruby Finch Pictures even though I don’t know exactly what form this will take yet.

It’s important to keep our dreams alive. I didn’t know how to indie publish a novel before I learned that process, and now I’ve done it twice and I’m thrilled to have these books out in the world and available through many libraries. This work will continue, and it’s good work. But I also want to form a production company and see my stories come to life on the screen. This dream is going to take some time, but it’s worth pursuing.

I’m loving settling into this year, our first one as empty-nesters, and prioritising quiet, simplicity, and depth. I’m working on my first murder mystery novel, A Body at the Fair, and I’m adapting two of my books for the screen. I’m teaching writing and nurture, both online and in person at conferences and through libraries, and Jason and I are creating a new routine and existence that’s just for us as a married couple and not for us as a family of four.

This year feels like a completely fresh start already, and we’re only a month into it. How about you? What words are you hoping to live into this year?

In Books, Nurture, Personal Growth, Speaking, Writing

Trying and Failing

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I released Post Civ into the world this month. I’m incredibly proud of this novel, as it’s the book of my heart, the one I longed to write but would’ve been too afraid to attempt before this point in my life.

It’s the second book I indie-published under my new company imprint Ruby Finch Books. I took everything I learned from publishing my YA novel, Jamesy Harper’s Big Break, and applied it to Post Civ, which made the whole process seem easier and smoother the second time around.

Except for the launch events. With Jamesy Harper, I created a discussion around identity and the big dreams many of us have for our lives when we are young, as these themes are in the novel. I had a presentation ready, and I felt both nervous and excited to try it at libraries and schools.

But no one came. My writing and wellness classes at libraries were well attended, but I had no one show up for any of the discussion events for the book. I wasn’t exactly sure why these hour-long discussions didn’t draw any readers, but after the launch events last fall I put it out of my mind and started to focus on the long process of publishing Post Civ.

When I began planning for Post Civ’s launch, I remembered that no one came to the Jamesy discussions. I even looked back at my end of the year review that I did for Ruby Finch Books, where I wrote, “I tried to build a discussion event for Jamesy Harper, to appeal to readers who might not be interested in attending my writing classes, but it didn’t seem to work for some reason.”

My intuition was telling me that I should focus on what was working well and choose not to pursue more reader events. But I ignored this for Post Civ, thinking that the themes of climate and equity in this adult novel might draw more people who would be interested in discussing these topics together.

So I created a no-tech discussion, to mimic the way the characters in the post-apocalyptic book sit around the campfire and talk together. I told libraries about the discussion and booked a few of them.

You might be able to guess where this is going. No one came (except my lovely friend and editor which was kind of her, and we had a catch-up visit during the hour allotted for the Post Civ discussion).

I wasn’t particularly bothered by how these discussions failed. Most authors, at one point or another in their career, struggle to draw a crowd. I’ve never been interested in book readings or signings, which is why I thought I’d try something more inclusive, where the themes in the book are only a springboard for discussion about key issues that might interest a lot of people.

I try not to take this personally. In life, we try a lot of different things, and many of those things will fail. What bothers me is that I didn’t listen to my own intuition. But I’m working on speaking more gently to myself, as part of offering nurture and care to me instead of just to other people. The key is to hold loosely and not to expect too much, of myself or of others.

I have a few more of these events scheduled in November. Maybe they will work, and maybe they won’t. I figure I’ll show up, and whatever happens was meant to happen. I’ll listen closer to my intuition when I’m planning for future books and releases and events. Things will continue to change. And trying and failing is all part of succeeding.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, University, Writing

Graduation!

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’ve done it. I made it to the end of my full-time, in-person MFA in Creative Writing graduate program at UBC. I graduate later this month, in a cap and gown (something I missed out on when graduating from KPU with my BA in spring 2021 due to Covid protocols), and I’m excited and proud of this milestone achievement.

There were many times over the last two years that I doubted myself. I felt old, compared to my younger peers, and I worried that my style of writing wasn’t literary enough or avant-garde like the work others were producing. I experienced several moments of personal crisis, where I actively considered not writing at all.

Two things pulled me out of this tailspin. The first was my thesis process. I had a kick-ass advisor, and he gave me permission to write the book I longed to write. He told me to push aside any thoughts of grades, or critiques, or publishing, and simply WRITE for the pure joy of it. After a hard first year of grad classes, his encouragement and belief in my abilities saved me. It set me free from thinking about other people’s opinions and what might sell in the future or not sell. He let me write what was in my heart, and as a result the novel poured out of me. Writing that book made me feel like a writer again.

The second thing that restored my faith in myself was returning to creative nonfiction. Memoir is my first love (other than screenplays), but during my four years of undergrad and the first year of my MFA, I wrote mostly fiction. I didn’t know it, but I was slowly becoming disconnected from my own literary voice. Taking classes in CNF gave me back my voice. It restored my confidence. One woman went so far as to write me a letter after my workshop, saying how much my writing had meant to her, and she urged me to bank on myself. Her encouragement was like an outstretched hand, offering to pull me up and out of the quicksand I’d been sinking in. She helped me to breathe again.

During my last term in the program, I taught a third-year seminar creative writing class, while taking a graduate class in teaching and pedagogy, and I realised that I’m ready to take a new step in my career. I had a series of meetings with professors from both undergrad and grad school, and a fresh vision for my future began to emerge. I’m not quite ready to share all those details yet, because they are still in the early stages, but I’m excited and hopeful about what’s ahead. I have dreamed it, and begun to put a solid foundation under it, and I’ve stopped allowing others to define success for me. I’m now doing that for myself.

In a few weeks, I’ll cross a stage at UBC and receive my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. I’ve worked hard, achieving an A+ grade average over both of my degrees. I’ve learned a lot, met some fascinating and talented people, and grown and changed in ways I couldn’t begin to conceive of when I returned to university as a mature student in 2017.

It’s time to celebrate, and the future looks bright.

In Books, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Speaking, Uncategorized, University, Writing

3 Words for 2023

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Every year, I choose 3 words to focus on. Last year, I picked Process, not Product, and it was fun to learn to live into the concept of enjoying writing and teaching for the act itself, not for the end product of completing the project. Slowly but surely, my mindset changed over the course of twelve months.

This year, I chose Bank on Yourself. The phrase itself came from a new friend in my MFA program who took the time to write me a letter when I felt discouraged after one of my workshops. She said, “You know who you are and what it is you want to say. Your writing is beautiful. Bank on yourself.” What a precious gift of encouragement she gave to me that day, and beyond, for I’ve thought of her words often.

For quite awhile now, I’ve been trying to build up my own sense of competency. I worked with two different counsellors on this, and like all personal growth, I felt like I was floundering until one day I wasn’t. One day, I came to my feet, and found that I was once again standing on firm ground.

I could look back and prove to myself just how far I’ve come. That evidence helped me believe in myself again. For too long, I’d had so many other voices in my ear. Voices saying, “Not quite good enough” or “No one wants to read your work” or “You aren’t qualified to teach this or say this.” But it turns out I am qualified. I am good enough. And I’ve connected with a number of people who have kindly told me they do want to read what I’m writing.

That moment when a new puzzle piece of understanding clicks into place is a sensual experience. It involves all of the senses, making us feel like we are wide awake instead of half asleep. Suddenly, we can see new possibilities that were invisible to us before. It’s magic. For me, it never gets old or boring. It’s fresh and exciting every single time it happens.

In 2023, I’m graduating with my MFA in Creative Writing. I returned to university in 2017, hoping to graduate with my BA in ten years, so I could finish what I started thirty-two years ago. Instead of a decade, it took me 6 years to complete two degrees, and somewhere along the way I discovered a new dream of teaching young writers at the undergrad level. I’m so close now. And my publishing dreams are shifting and changing and taking on new and thrilling proportions.

I’m banking on myself, and it feels fucking amazing. I turned 50, and decided to stop waiting around. The time is now to step up and do all the things we’ve always wanted to do.

What are your three words for 2023?