I live in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I hate that phrase. Even if it does apply to where I am (going to the shops is, by necessity, a ‘once in a fortnight’ thing; going to the cafe, the same), I am not in the middle of nowhere. I am not on the edge of the world or in a remote place. I am just where I am. And while there may not be people around - not in winter, not here on the Montana-Alberta border - there are plenty of beings around.
Twice this week, there have been cougar tracks in the morning snow outside the door. And there are many trees. I am attuning myself to the trees and the lions, but maybe it would be good for me to try and connect with people more. Though I am not so good at sharing things. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a famous writer who does not have to publish anything but books. To be Karl Ove Knausgaard or Rachel Cusk would be so nice. But I am not famous. There are no professional photos of me in a Paris attic or standing by a Swedish shed. So maybe I do need a Substack*. It might even be nice.
I think that, in this space, I will just post sentences and pictures. Little things. Nothing too much. The sort of thing I’d email to a friend, while pretending to work on a Wednesday afternoon in February.
*Why maybe I do need a Substack
I am writing my first novel for Strange Light at Penguin Random House. Actually I am finished writing. Now I am working on changing little things with my editor Haley Cullingham, who I have not met in real life – she is in Toronto and I am living further west in the Badlands – but who I already like so much.
The book is not auto fiction, the character is not me, though in order to see how to make a familiar world unfamiliar, it is true I did a lot of the things the narrator does. I did sit next to train tracks for a long time and try to love the sounds of a train. I did stroke some dew in summer and try to love every mosquito landing on both ankles, on my wrists.
Writing is not so romantic. I imagine it causes sore eyes, sore wrists, for many who are at their computers, forming 60,000 words into a pattern. I wrote by computer. But when it was hot, I tried to write, or play with my notes, or read Schopenhauer – who is a small part of the story – by the creek, or on top of the cliff above the river near Jasper. I think being in those places shaped my words.
Now I am writing from my bed, because it is winter. I like writing here. Outside it is snowing.