I Have Always Written
And I Know I Always Will
In creating this blog with my husband, he suggested that we come up with a few basic categories for my blog posts. You’ll see above that they are: Creative Life, Mom Life, Travel Life and Home Life.
Over half of the posts I have created so far fall into the category of Creative Life.
I just can’t help it! And that’s sort of how I feel about how I fell into this path of writing (and creating). Let me tell you how it all went down.
One Honest* Conversation Later...
*Drunk
In December of 2016, Brad and I only had one child at the time, Archer. We pawned him off on our friends for the night and rented a hotel room downtown Vancouver for our anniversary. We went to this cute little tapas place on Davie called Bin 941** and then let our feet guide us in a way that only parents with babysitters or people without kids do. We wandered down Granville Street and found ourselves at various pubs near where both Brad and I used to party in our early twenties, separately, before we knew each other.
Branya, pre-kids at a Mumford & Sons Concert in 2013.
We had both had a few drinks, which helped me tell Brad something that had been on my mind for a little while.
I want to write.
I want to create, using my words.
He was so completely supportive of me right from the very beginning, when my book was still just a longing feeling that there was a story in me that needed to get out. I honestly wouldn’t have written my book if it wasn’t for him. I would still be in a law firm, working as a paralegal, if it wasn’t for him. (More on that another time!)
It took a few months to get my shit together and actually start writing, which I did in May of 2017. I had no idea how to write a book, but I did know how to write to my best friend. I had done it already when I started a journal to her in the fall of 2010. I used that journal as inspiration from my book and I just started writing as if I was talking to her.
Over the next year, I wrote over 80,000 words before I realized that writing words didn’t make them a book. And I knew nothing about how to turn any amount of words into a book.
Then the stars aligned and I and began working with Megan at The Self Publishing Agency. She taught me about the available options for publishing a book in Canada and the steps required for each avenue. I could work with TSPA and still shop my book around to traditional publishing houses, but this project for me wasn’t something that I wanted approval for. I was going to publish it because of what it means to me and because of that, I have chosen to self-publish my memoir.
My intention has been to write my story, which happens to be told in letters written to my best friend. I want to hold my book in my hands one day and know that it was something I created from nothing. (With SO much help along the way, of course!)
I don’t think of this project as being profitable one day. That’s not why I started it. As crazy as it sounds, my story wanted to be told. My book was just waiting to happen.
Every day I get closer to the moment where I have my very first book in front of me. And I can’t wait!
Write on,
Anya
** I just learned that Bin 941 closed at the end of last January!!! This makes me sad! It was one of the first places I went to for drinks and food with friends when I was getting to know Vancouver! It will be missed! And probably already has been for the last year…ha.