Reading time: About 2 minutes
Rod Baker firmly believes that rewriting is the single most important step of the writing process…
The last full-time job Rod Baker held was as the executive director of a branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association. While he liked the work, he hated writing funding proposals, and decided when he retired to write something more interesting. So, at age 65, he wrote his first book. Constant Traveller, about his life as a young merchant seaman. Following that first writing journey, he decided to write another book about his 20 years of running a boat repair business, I Need My Yacht by Friday. “This was becoming a habit,” he says, and he wrote his next book about a road trip he took to Belize called Where is Belize?
Rod wrote his next book about the career that came after he’d sold his boat repair shop, called Unexpected Treasures. And following that, he wrote about some adventures he had as a youth, The Shilling Thieves. He’s currently writing his sixth memoir, an effort he describes as “one of the only advantages of living so long.”
I was excited to talk to Rod about how he approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
One hour.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Meeting with my critique group.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
Not having a focused mindset.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
Realising I will show up empty-handed at my critique group.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
Writing is about re-writing.
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
Fine-tuning what I’ve written, because the hard work is done, and I’m just polishing/perfecting.
Q. What’s one of the best books you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller.
Q. What book are you reading right now?
The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
That it’s not about re-writing.
