Reading time: About 2 minutes
Rebecca Morris says the simple activity of walking helps her to pay attention to the sensory details so important to her work…
Rebecca Morris is a Montreal writer who published her debut novel, Other Maps, in September 2024. Her short stories have won the Malahat Review Open Season Award for Fiction and the Humber Literary Review’s Emerging Writers Fiction contest. Rebecca is a Banff Centre alumna, recipient of a Canada Council Arts grant and an active member of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, where she’s taught writing workshops on short fiction and narrative structure.
I was excited to talk to Rebecca about how she approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
That depends what you call writing. I’m currently working on the draft of a novel, so I usually spend 30-60 minutes writing each morning. However, I’m thinking about my project and making notes throughout the whole day.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Walking, for sure. Getting outside for a walk (without headphones!) helps me to feel grounded and pay attention to sensory details, which is really important to my writing work.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
Family commitments. I’m married with three kids (two teenagers and a twenty-year-old daughter who moved out this fall), and it seems like one of them is always asking for me to help with something. I have to work hard to protect my writing time.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
I write first thing in the morning, before I have the chance to get distracted and talk myself out of it. But I also find that rereading my last few pages or my notes on a project helps me to get back into the groove of my work.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
For a long time, I had this quote from E.B. White taped to the wall above my desk: “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
All three stages are pretty great, although they’re all challenging in different ways. At the moment, I’m drafting new work, and I’m really enjoying it. I love surprising myself with tangents that push my characters and scenes in unexpected directions.
Q. What’s the best book you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
This is a really difficult question because I read about eighty books a year! For non-fiction, I’d say it’s a tie between Finding the Mother Tree and Braiding Sweetgrass, which both helped inspire the book I’m currently writing.
Q. What book are you reading right now?
I just started listening to the audiobook of The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. I’m three chapters in and already captivated by the story.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
I’d say the idea that writers need to have a specific plan before they start writing. My best writing happens when I let loose and allow myself to follow my ideas across the page.
You can find Rebecca Morris on Instagram as @bexinmtl.
