My 16th year, as I struggled to hold down a job, afford a car, video games and still go to get burgers and slushees, was by far my most memorable time. I was starting to become an adult, starting to form ideas as to what and who I wanted to be. I was also getting attention from some incredibly lovely young women in my classes.
English 20 (grade 11 academic English) filled me with hope of a bright future, and of the faint possibility that one day I could truly become someone. Somehow I had the idea that I could do all this and more through writing.
Our English teacher pushed us hard. We read Shakespeare, we read “The Stone Angel” by Margaret Laurence. We read “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. With our teacher as our guide, we travelled into a different world of human expression through literature that I never knew existed, and it was a new and better world than the world of loneliness and depression I was experiencing.
One of the ironies of that class was that we studied poetry briefly, and I had absolutely no clue about the meaning of many of the poems we studied. I now have published four collections of poetry and am regularly asked to perform my work to audiences. I even had the honour of having two of my poems sandblasted into the sidewalk just two blocks from where I live. Not to mention that I was recently asked to write two poems that were framed and had my picture inserted, which were auctioned off to support United Way. Coming to understand and appreciate poetry is something that paid me back repeatedly, which also happened as I learned about and embraced the many types of writing one can undertake. I’ve been hired at $100 an hour to teach poetry, and I have been paid as much as $1,500.00 for an essay that took me a few hours to write.
The problem: I know I would be so much further along if I had chosen one genre a long time ago and stuck with it. That prescience could have helped secure me a spot in a creative writing program.
Instead I published an opinion article in the paper, and I’m famous for 15 minutes (literally because often when I publish in the newspaper, the radio news interviews me for that exact amount of time). They say everyone is famous for 15 minutes, but the problem is, it takes about 90 days for the checks to roll in. Creative writing training might have made me famous for years.
All I knew for sure as a troubled teen was that I wanted to write. I didn’t have a genre I wanted to focus on because I had far too simple a concept of what writing would take. Now I understand that as a writer you need to be a business person, a negotiator, a salesperson, a fiction and nonfiction writer, and all the while you are doing most of your work isolated in a bubble of words scrolling by on the page in front of you, never knowing if your work is even worth anything until long after you write, re-write, polish and edit it.
I didn’t have the benefit of a mentor or a family member who had tread the path before me. In fact, early on, I thought writing could be an easy road to riches. Being still a young age when I was starting to realize what I wanted out of life, I thought the best plan would be to go off and have some adventures before sitting down to pen my first bestseller. My clearest goal at the time I took grade 11 English was to save up to travel to Australia, buy a motorbike, work odd jobs and see the country. It was the late 80s, and I was blown away by stories I had read, movies that I had seen, from “Breaker Morant” to “Crocodile Dundee.”
When I looked forward in time during my late teens, off in the distant future, I always saw myself as a writer. When my plans were laid out, they were somewhat vague. In some ways I hoped that maybe I would leave school, which from what I understood could easily end up in me not being able to find a job, not being able to afford to go to college.
So I would join the army. Now there would be something to write about. My head was filled with images of the war movies I loved to watch so much I found and absorbed the books they were based on. Maybe, like one of my comic book heroes, I would punch out an officer in the army and end up leaving the country and serving in the French Foreign Legion. Still, despite those grandiose plans, one of my better pipe dreams was to become a high school English and Phys. Ed. teacher. I imagined all the while, as I laboured to support myself during the day, I would go home each night, shine the light of a desk lamp on my typewriter, and somehow write something that moved mountains and inevitably made me a fortune. Damn was I naive.
At one point in my vague efforts to develop into a writer, I read an article about a couple who wrote thriller novels under a pen name and together earned the inconceivable sum of $20 Million USD each year from royalties. I loved reading thrillers, and it all seemed so easy. A little suspense, a bit of humour, some interesting but not too graphic sex scenes, and an explosive ending were all I needed to put into it.
One of my biggest problems, and one that I think plagues a lot of writers, was that I simply didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to write. I kept hearing thriller novelists sold millions of copies, but most of the great writers I knew of had some lived experience. John Grisham was a lawyer before penning legal thrillers. Tom Clancy, whom I absolutely adored, had been in the US Navy. With time, much time, I wrote a few short stories that were meant to be thriller stories. I found that by reading a lot of books about people like the characters I created that I could do a passable job of convincing my readers what intense, driven, single-minded, loyal and aggressive soldiers, pilots, and even professional assassins would be like. But this wasn’t nearly enough for me to truly experience the full boundaries of my literary creativity.
Discovering that aspect of myself was incredible in the way it snuck up on me. It didn’t come all at once. First, I started to notice that I could work for a very long time sitting in one place creating something. Then, as I began to gain knowledge, experience and recognition for my work, I would get even more absorbed in my writing. Now, even as I work on this essay, I can sit down at my computer, and time will simply melt away as language flows through me and onto the page.
I haven’t completed a thriller novel, though I have experimented with a few short stories. I did write a Young Adult novel that had some thrilling aspects to it, but I would call it more of a work of historical fiction than anything else. The reason I haven’t completed a thriller could be the fact that I had never gone to college or university to study the craft and art of writing. For a time, attending a creative writing program had been my sole ambition, but many setbacks kept coming up around school application time, and after years of this I was able to get my foot in the door as a well-known (locally) and respected writer.
After delaying post-secondary for years, it became too difficult and impractical for me to return to full-time studies. I was encouraged for a while by learning that the average age of a university student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where I wanted to study, was 26. I have always felt there is no shame in getting an education at any age. I just didn’t see it as my best option anymore, and I had done so much reading over the years that I felt I almost had enough knowledge to make a success of myself. Little did I know that just by going to a creative writing program would help me make friendships and business relationships with other writers, and that we would help each other through the tough times, share opportunities and more. I do have to admit that writers are one of the few groups I know of who are so helpful and supportive of other people working in their field.
I later took correspondence courses that also didn’t work out for the best, but I am a firm believer that nothing is wasted. As a teenager, I once took out a huge student loan to get my pilots license even though I couldn’t pass the required medical. But the fun and life experience it gave me was worth far more than any loan. Eventually, thankfully, I did find some free courses in the field of writing and publishing called Gale Courses through the Edmonton Public Library that I enjoyed and gained marketable skills from.
Not even three months after taking those free courses, I was offered a position as editor of two magazines about mental health. I had started out simply Google searching places to send writing about mental illness, which led me to meet my future employer. Mental health was my focus at the time, and as I proved myself with the determination of someone who put their whole heart, mind and soul into writing, and I used what I had learned, I was soon offered these jobs.
But I want to emphasize that there were so many roadblocks, pitfalls, things I wish I had better knowledge of. There were even detours regarding everything from promoting my own work, short or long, to formatting e-books, preparing a pitch for an editor or for possible publishers that I could have avoided or easily side-stepped if I had a formal education. People who study creative writing in higher education get so much more of a running start on their careers.
After receiving a paid trip to Toronto to where my sister lives through my new employer, I was hooked on the idea that now I could make it. I could make a living as a writer one way or another. I knew I was not only going to pursue writing as a career finally, but I was also going to do my best to discover what I wrote best, regardless of historical incomes of writers.
One of the biggest influences in my life was my father. I had been his favorite companion and him mine from when I was a toddler. He had even started the early stages of teaching me to play chess as we ate cheese and crackers. I loved him with all my heart, and I believed everything he had to say.
Unfortunately at one point he said some things that hurt me deeply. He would say that only two or three writers in Canada make a living at it, and he was always putting pressure on me to take the needed courses to one day apply for law school. I did like the idea of becoming a lawyer. I was fascinated by the history and traditions still observed in court rooms. I loved the idea of putting together speeches that rally 12 jury members one way or the other.
But I wanted to write. There was something very powerful about it that kept drawing me in.
One idea I thought I had figured out was that a writer’s first book should be about himself. I knew this before I had the apartment, the typewriter, and the time it would take for me to finally sit down to write. I realized that most people like to talk about themselves, that their own story is the one they know best, and I knew I really had something important to say about my life from birth to living on my own. I live with a serious mental illness, and I wanted to write a book about what I went through to redeem myself to those who didn’t understand what happened to me or whom I had hurt.
Unfortunately, though the book did well and continues to do well now, over 30 years after first starting it, I wonder if things may have gone better for me if I had more focus and direction at an earlier age. I am certain things would have gone better with more formal writing training. I did take an aptitude test once, and the findings were interesting. The counsellor who administered the test told me all indications seemed to guide me towards a career as an accountant. The funny thing is, when you look at the two professions, writer and accountant have similarities. Both require writing skills, attention to detail and the ability to work independently for long periods of time, mixed with a broad knowledge of a number of topics.
During those early years of my career, I tried my hand at many aspects of writing. I wrote poems, opinion articles, kept more than one journal and kept going back to short stories. I found one of the best ways to write fiction was to take events that really happened but change the names and the places and even some of the elements of the story, so the stories became my own. I kept thinking of words my grade 11 English teacher said, “Good fiction is not real, but realistic.”
For the first few years as I wrote, there was simply no money coming in. I had to fund everything from books on writing to paper pens and typewriter ribbon on a meagre disability income, and the task soon began to wear me down.
One of the ways I could have had an easier time would have been if I were to focus on one aspect of writing, one I felt I was good at, and then sought out workshops, classes and writer’s groups where I could network and get support and advice. At the time, the internet hadn’t even been thought of, and the city I live in was facing major budget problems, meaning that new library resources such as books on writing were low priority.
Even back when I was first starting, there were courses one could take called “Faculty of Extension Courses” offered at the local university. Looking back, I wish I had gotten a student loan or somehow found a way to get the money to attend these classes, but perhaps the way things eventually worked out served to make me a better, more well-rounded writer and even perhaps a better human being.
A great way to get your feet wet in writing, to practice your skills for an audience, and even to make a little money is to find a blog-hosting service such as Substack, though I used a WordPress website for this for a number of years. One of the things I like about Substack is that, after you write your content, they make it very easy to embed things like YouTube video links, stock photos you can search, and buttons to share or subscribe to the blog. They even make it easy for your readers to get a paid membership and forward you the funds through Stripe.
I feel that all of us have something unique to say. In everyone’s life there are things that stand out for us, situations of injustice or interest or even humour. There are so many genres of writing that we can explore, but perhaps the best way is to take a hard look at what we enjoy learning about, what we enjoy talking about with our friends, or watching on TV or reading about.
When I was younger, I thought only strange people with silly, nerdy ideas about the world were into science fiction. I would look at covers of old sci-fi novels with artist renditions of some muscular and handsome astronaut rescuing a helpless but shapely woman with his laser pistol blasting away. I avoided reading such books and never thought I would write anything in the genre.
Later in my life I realized I had been a science fiction fan for years without knowing it. I was a huge fan of Star Trek and perhaps even more so Star Wars, and I loved telescopes, looking at stars, and I read books like James A. Michener’s “Space” and Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.” What I had to do was to open my mind to many different forms of expression. One of the biggest honors I have experienced was to get a short story published in The Saturday Evening Post called “The Eagle Watch” about a man who discovers a watch that had been exposed to radioactivity can be used to stop time for the holder.
Writing can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, long or short, can come in numerous categories. My method has been to try and expose myself to as many genres as possible. This method has yielded an incredibly time-consuming but worthwhile adventure. After all that effort, I have found what I want to write about. I want to write books and articles about mental health treatment and recovery. I want to use my lived experience to help others. The reason for this decision is not just because I live with a serious mental illness, but also because in work I have done recently, I see how the positive effects working in this field can impact the lives and wellbeing of others.
One of the reasons I held onto the idea of having an international bestseller was, when I was younger, I wrongly believed all adults didn’t like their jobs but did it only to support their families, pay the mortgage and put food on their tables. When I started to look at the entire labour force as unwilling slaves to mortgage and car payments, I wanted to devise a plan to make a million or two overnight and then live off the interest. When mental illness took all my other options away, I felt writing was still a possible way of achieving this goal.
Truthfully though, as I have matured, I have come to realize I don’t want to sit around and pursue leisurely activities all day. I want to work, I want to operate (mentally or physically) at the top of my game, and I want my work to have impact and meaning. Another thing is, as I have been a writer for some time now, I have learned a lot of ways I can make a living that are related to being a writer that not only are personally rewarding, but they are also financially rewarding. I currently have been invited to two conferences in other cities with all expenses paid and at home I give presentations for The Schizophrenia Society of Alberta. I get the incredible joy of busting myths about mental illness, informing people about the human side of a devastating disease, and I also have the respect and friendship of so many people who I only could have hoped understood what I go through before I became a writer. I am paid a reasonable amount for giving these talks, and people I speak to often purchase the books I have written. Added together, those income streams — plus income from writing articles for newspapers and magazines online and in print — allow me to easily meet all my needs and still have room left over to be generous with family and friends. I lead such an enjoyable and fulfilling life that it doesn’t matter to me whether I become wealthy or not someday. In fact, I would see not being able to continue doing the work I now do as something I dread.
Whether you want to write short stories, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or opinion articles, it is best if you focus on just one type of writing at a time and immerse yourself in it. I’m reminded of an old writer’s adage that says all you must do is write is put some paper in your typewriter and sit there until drops of blood form on your forehead. It’s unfortunate, but to really do justice to such a noble art form, you can spend your whole life trying without finding your passion. I am so grateful to have found mine. I love everything about being a journalist, especially after a recent incident when an online company tried to rip me off by claiming I hadn’t cancelled a membership in time. I basically emailed them and said, “I’m a journalist. Google me. If you don’t give me a refund for the amount you put on my credit card, I will see it as my duty to write at length about your company’s sketchy business practices.” I got a refund the next day.
For a time, I went through courses and workshops offered by a foundation in the US called The OpEd Project. They trained me to write opinion articles and pitch them to editors. I managed to write and publish several of them. Not only did I get the satisfaction that thousands of people read my opinions, but my main local news radio station would interview me almost every time I had an article published. I’ve worked in so many fields, except maybe true crime, and I feel that with training and experience in many types of writing and many types of things that surround writing, from teaching to mentoring, all of it can be put to use, but it is best when you focus on one genre, but work in things like the research skills of a reporter, the patience of a teacher, the glorious passion of poetry. All of it is part of you and should be reflected in your work, but life is too short to master every type of writing. There is a thing some tradesmen say about themselves, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” It can be taken as self-deprecating or even as an insult. I prefer: “Jack of all trades, master of some.” It won’t hurt you to write young adult novels and love poems. But as I learned from my book, “Alert and Oriented x3,” you must be careful with how you combine these genres into one book.
One of the most important skills I developed was in high school when we were rigorously trained in how to write essays. I even remember a college instructor explaining how we would be writing essays, but that he knew of no real way you could earn money from an essay. Although I didn’t finish that class, I took another during the pandemic with a California University in essay writing. Then, earlier this year, I entered a mental health essay contest put on by an organization I volunteer for, and I won first prize in the contest, giving me $500 US and publication. The equation to write a good essay was simple. State what you want to say, give as many arguments as you see fit supporting your position, then wrap up by summing up your arguments and the point you were trying to get across. Simple, but the skill can take years to master, but without a doubt the skill has earned me thousands of dollars.
When you sit down and make the decision that you want to be a writer, regardless of your genre, you will have to have one characteristic that is perhaps most important of all: you must have a thick skin. You will have to eventually put something on paper. I hope you work with it from there to make it as good as you possibly can get it, using a knowledgeable friend as a proofreader, putting blood, toil, tears and sweat into your composition. Then you will have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to like it or see things your way. You might get rejected by an editor who will state clearly that they are too busy to give feedback or advice. Then you may seek out resources such as a writer-in-residence, who is a professional writer hired by most major colleges/universities and libraries to assist members of the public with their writing. You may even want to use the same research but re-write your piece from outline to finished project, something called a cold rewrite. Just don’t give up. You may have your article or short story accepted, then receive harsh criticism about it.
I once published an article in a newspaper and when I went to check it there were over 100 comments made on it, half of them being extremely critical. When this happens, in a strange way it can be satisfying because, in this case, I was writing about something that mattered a great deal to me and obviously was sparking new conversations and reactions. It reminds me of putting hydrogen peroxide on a cut. The peroxide will bubble, boil and sting, but that is how you know it is killing any germs or harmful substances in the wound.
I have chosen the path of writing mostly nonfiction about mental health. What I like is that in the 35 years since I was first diagnosed with an illness, much has changed in the world regarding how mental illness is seen and how people with mental health issues are treated. I not only feel I am a part of that positive change, but that my experience can allow me to help the cause of treatment and acceptance of people with mental health issues even further as time goes on and as I grow as a writer.
A woman who worked with me at the Schizophrenia Society often used to say, when she was younger no one talked about cancer. It was a subject not brought up in polite company, it meant black death. Then, as people started to talk more about it, more people went in for cancer screenings, more cancers were discovered earlier. Funding started coming in as well, both for treatment and research. And of course, who can forget Terry Fox, the young Canadian who lost his life while running across Canada to raise money for cancer treatment. This phenomenon, which came about because people were brave enough to push societal norms, is something that could happen with mental illness.
One of the greatest things about being a writer is the impact you can have on the world. I don’t doubt I could write a thriller novel, but will it benefit millions of people who are suffering, or will it simply help increase the number of people volunteering to join the military? Will it help some lonely, frightened young person who doesn’t understand why he or she is going through hell with paranoid thoughts, hallucinations and delusions? Or will it just line my pockets? I choose to have meaningful experiences with real people in my life, and to make a difference on a more personal level than someone who could easily be replaced with AI.
Among my proudest achievements is getting two articles published in The British Journal of Psychiatry. Another is having all three of my memoirs licensed to the Canadian Psychosocial Rehabilitation Library.
When I sit down to write, the feeling I get is similar to medicine. Good poetry or good prose opens our eyes to our emotions. It changes how we look at the world, at times makes us feel better, at other times makes us feel less alone or lonely. For all those who have read this far, I hope you can come to understand the beauty of the written word and the joy of taking pen to paper or fingers to keys and creating something beautiful that only you yourself could ever make. I implore you to put pen to page, to find people who will read what you have to say and give you an honest opinion, and to find what you do best, and do it with your whole heart.
Commitment is hard. Start with this free short story collection.
