Reading time: About 3 minutes
Daily writing habit: why your writing should be like a river, moving a little every day, not a yearly binge followed by guilt.
Is your book or dissertation feeling too big to finish? Join my fr/ee class this Thursday, Oct. 8, at 1 pm Pacific (4 pm Eastern), where I’ll show you how to make steady progress in 15 minutes a day. [Here’s where you can register.] Can’t make it live? Register anyway, and I’ll send you the recording.
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I toured the British Columbia legislative buildings in Victoria several years ago, a tourist in my own province, complete with comfortable shoes and my cellphone camera. While I was there, I read a sign that moved me so much I photographed it.
Here is what it said:
“Reconciliation should not be about an apology nor should it be like a holiday or a birthday when we have a ceremony once a year. Reconciliation should be like a river, continuous and always making changes.”
Those words came from Eddy Charlie, a member of the Cowichan Nation and a survivor of the Kuper Island Residential School. He and Kristin Spray started Victoria’s Orange Shirt Day events in 2015, and he has spent years telling his story in public so that the rest of us might finally understand what happened to him and to so many other children.
I’ve come back to his words many times since I first read them.
What the schools did
For more than a century, the Canadian government and churches took Indigenous children from their families and placed them in residential schools. More than 150,000 children went through those schools, and thousands never came home. The last federally run school didn’t close until 1997, which means many survivors are still our neighbours and colleagues.
Last Wednesday, Canada marked the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which coincides with Orange Shirt Day. Both observances honour the survivors of residential schools. Charlie helped establish Orange Shirt Day in Victoria, yet his message warns us not to limit reconciliation to a single date on the calendar.
When I first read his words, I felt guilt, and I suspect many non-Indigenous people in Canada share that feeling. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which released its final report in 2015, was far more interested in action. It published 94 Calls to Action, covering areas as varied as child welfare, language, health and the training of journalists.
Where writers come in
As writers, we choose words for a living, and those words can either show respect or withhold it.
If you mention Indigenous people, whether in a journal article, a biography, a novel or a grant application, get a copy of Elements of Indigenous Style by Gregory Younging. A member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Younging released it in 2018, and a team led by Warren Cariou updated it in 2025 with new chapters on subjects such as Indigenous citation practices and sensitivity reading.
Younging wrote with Canada in mind, but his principles travel well. Whether you write about Native American nations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Māori or the Sámi, the habits of naming people specifically and asking before you borrow will serve you, though preferred terms vary from country to country.
Here are four of the book’s lessons every writer should know:
Name the Nation
“A First Nations man” is vague, while “A Cowichan Elder” is specific. The second phrase also uses the name people choose for themselves, which is more respectful as well as better writing.
Capitalize with care
Younging points out that, in Canada, we capitalize House of Commons but often not Longhouse, and that choice sends a message about which institutions count. Editors like me will argue to the death over the serial comma, but this capitalization question deserves far more care.
Drop the possessive
“Canada’s Indigenous peoples” implies ownership that Indigenous people don’t recognize, so write “Indigenous peoples in Canada” instead. (The same rule applies to any other country.)
Ask before you borrow
Traditional stories and knowledge don’t automatically become public domain. Some belong to a family or a community, and some may be told only in certain seasons. Seek consent and credit both the person and the community.
The river on your desk
Charlie’s words also made me think about my own work as a writing coach, although I’m not suggesting a stalled manuscript belongs in the same category as residential schools. Still, his image holds a lesson for any long, hard commitment, and writing happens to be mine.
Some writers treat their work like an occasional event. Once or twice a year, often around a birthday or New Year’s Day, they throw themselves a big writing party featuring a three-day binge and a troubling sense of getting older.
Others treat writing like an apology. “Sorry, novel. I’ll get to you right after I reorganize the hall closet.” Then they feel so terrible about the neglected novel that the guilt eats up all the energy they could have spent writing it, and the hall closet, of course, looks fabulous.
A river cuts through rock by moving one grain of sand at a time, every day, without ever stopping to ask whether today’s grain was good enough.
That’s why I tell my clients to write every day, but for a small window. Five to 15 minutes is plenty to start. A short daily stint keeps the water moving, while a heroic annual effort tends to produce a flood, followed by a long drought.
So let your writing be a river, too, moving a little every day and always making changes.
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