Reflections on writing with Christina Myers….

Reading time: About 2 minutes

Christina Myers says the “one more task first” is the biggest stumbling block she faces with her writing…

Christina Myers is a writer, editor, former journalist, and the author of Halfway Home: Thoughts from Midlife (2024, House of Anansi) and The List of Last Chances (2021, Caitlin Press) which was longlisted for the Leacock Medal and won the Canadian Book Club Award for fiction. She is currently at work editing her second anthology and writing another novel, and she teaches creative writing through SFU’s continuing studies department.

I was excited to talk to Christina about how she approaches writing.

Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?

I try to aim for about an hour, but some days I look up and it’s been several hours. Other days, zero!  

Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?

Reading my work out loud. I always catch more of the awkward phrases, repeated words, or poor structure when I do that.

Q. What interferes with your writing?

The “one more task first” … telling myself: I’ll sit down after I do these dishes, I’ll just finish a load of laundry, then I’ll work, and so on. There’s always another thing and I could do that all day and never come back to the work.

Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?

I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I don’t. If I REALLY don’t want to, there’s a reason. Something is simmering or needs more thought or just isn’t working, or some other part of life is crowding and overwhelming. That’s the best time to go for a walk in the forest.

Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?

I think often of something Nora Roberts said — and I’m paraphrasing here, but this is how I remember it: I can do anything with a page of writing, but I can’t do anything at all with a blank page. A page of bad writing is better than a page of nothing.

Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why? Definitely the writing stage. I love editing and revising OTHER people’s work very much, but my own? Torture!

Q. What’s the best book you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?

I think I’d have to say Moon of the Crusted Snow. I love end-of-the-world stuff to begin with, but it was just so well crafted, such a unique take on the theme. And I particularly loved that we didn’t really know exactly what had happened — the reader was as isolated as the characters.

Q. What book are you reading right now?

I have three books on the go: just about to finish Peacocks of Instagram, and I just started Throne of Glass, and The New Menopause. I often have more than one book on the go because I rotate between print, ebook, and audio.

Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?

That it’s possible to write a draft as perfectly worded as the sentences we crafted in our heads while driving, or going for a walk, or in the shower. It never comes out that well!

 

Scroll to Top