Reflections on writing with Lynda Williams…

Reading time: About 2 minutes

Lynda Williams swears by the contrarian but life-affirming motto that we can do some of our best work on our worst days….

Lynda Williams is a short fiction writer based in Calgary, Alberta. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Grain, The New Quarterly, and the Humber Literary Review, among others. She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, and her debut collection, The Beauty And The Hell Of It and other stories, will be published by Guernica Editions in 2025.

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

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

Full disclosure: there are days when I don’t write. As a short story writer, when I find myself between stories, I give myself permission not to write. When I’m in the middle of a piece, I write for three to four hours, first thing.

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

Reading widely. Reading slowing. Rereading the same stuff over and over to understand how a certain writer does what they are doing.

Q. What interferes with your writing?

The usual suspects: email and the internet. Sometimes I work longhand in a notebook to avoid them. Also, my dog. He puts a paw on my forearm in a perfect bid for attention. I never regret stopping for five minutes to play with him.

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

Depends why I don’t feel like doing it. If it’s a struggle with the piece I’m working on, I journal about it until I’ve written myself back into the story. If it’s something else, I give myself three options: write something new, revise something old, or submit.

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

You can do some of your best work on your worst days. You can write your way through some really dark stuff or craptastic illnesses. Not all work lends itself to that. I have a prize-winning story I wrote one afternoon while whispering to myself, “Don’t puke, don’t puke.”

Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?

Rewriting because that’s when things finally resemble the vision I had in my head. You get to cut words and add layers at the same time and I find that thrilling.

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

Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat. 

Q. What book are you reading right now?

The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978 – 2008 by Louise Erdrich. She’s a master of the short story.

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

That it’s art. Sure, in the sense that the way it’s received is highly subjective, but it’s more craft than anything. Carpenters don’t spend hours chain-smoking next to the toolbox because they get workers’ block, and writers don’t need to agonize that way either.

To learn more about Lynda Williams, visit her website.

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