Reading time: About 2 minutes
Writer Tara McGuire loves revising, which she calls “collaging” and finds that writing a first draft is “the worst”…
Tara McGuire’s first book, Holden After & Before — Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose, a hybrid work in memoir and fiction (Arsenal Pulp Press), was a finalist for the 2023 City of Vancouver Book Award and one of The Walrus’s “Favourite Books of 2022.”
Her personal essays have appeared in Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, Geist, Room, Montecristo, The Tyee, and CBC Radio. Tara lives with her family in North Vancouver, BC.
I was excited to talk to Tara about how she approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
I’ve been at Sage Hill Writing this summer and am inspired by a new project, so it’s been several hours. But normally, not as much. I’m sporadic.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Reading 100%. Also, walking my dog.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
Walking my dog. Social media is very distracting. Wordle and Connections.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
Snacks, tea, and I get to sit in my groovy orange crushed velvet chair. This summer, I started a word count chart and have been trying to reach 1,000 words per day. I don’t always make it, but it’s encouraging to see the numbers rise.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
“You can’t revise a blank page.” I don’t know who said it first, but Frances Peck reminded me of it lately.
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
Definitely revising, or collaging as I like to think of it. I love the little flashes of character or dialogue that spring to mind and being able to drop them in. Drafting is the worst.
Q. What’s the best book you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
An impossible question to answer.
Q. What book are you reading right now?
I have three on the go at the moment (thank you, ADHD): Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva, My Friends by Hisham Matar, and Watch How We Walk by Jennifer LoveGrove. Wait, actually four, I also try to read one chapter a day of The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rich Rubin.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
That it gets easier.
