Weirdness Journal Entry #3: The Lightning Bottles

Welp, time for another entry in the weirdness journal! 

In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! 

Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about. 

This entry is about the one and only Marissa Stapley. 

So about a month ago I was sitting in a coffee shop staring at my computer screen (I spend so much of my time doing this, much less of it actually typing things). I’d been tasked by my Canadian publisher with the daunting job of finding some Canadian authors to blurb this book (most of the endorsements I’d already obtained were from American authors, because, to this point, most of my author life has been States-centric). I'd been putting it off—I’d already used up all of my bravery on the American authors!—but that day I realized I couldn’t any longer. I needed to just do it, already. I consoled myself: these people don’t know who you are, and if they feel offended by your presence in their email inbox, they can just delete you and will forget about you within five minutes.

One of these emails went to Marissa Stapley, and I felt especially apologetic as I hit send on that one. Authors often talk about how success in the literary world is a moving target, but Marissa is one of those people who has, in my humble opinion, quantifiably achieved it. She was the first Canadian author to have a book selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club! She is critically-acclaimed, she is New York Times-bestselling, she is multiple-times optioned for TV!

I felt sheepish, asking if she wanted to read my book, is what I’m saying. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and this girl did it (applause). Much to my delight, Marissa graciously emailed back quickly and said she’d take a look, so I sent the book over before I could second guess myself anymore. 

Hurdle one, down.

I was even more delighted when Marissa emailed again, only a few days later to say that she was halfway through, was enjoying the book, and wondered if I might read and blurb her upcoming novel(!!!), The Lightning Bottles, set to publish exactly one week before mine. 

I tried, sort of, to feign nonchalance. I said I would love to, with maybe one too many exclamation points (playing it cool is for cool people). 

Okay, so here’s where it gets strange.

Marissa had her publisher send over the ARC and when it arrived I opened it immediately, settled in on my couch with a blanket and a playlist of 90s grunge music. I had only a vague idea of what the book was about; I knew it was set in the 90s and followed the story of a fictitious alt-rock band, which was all I needed to know to be very excited about it (the intersection of literature and music is my happiest place, and the 90s might be my favorite decade). It felt lucky, to get the chance to read this book early.

One page in, I noticed a funny little coincidence: The first chapter of her book was set in Berlin. It caught my eye because the first chapter of my book is also set in Berlin. I laughed to myself. I mean, my book is set only half in Berlin; the other half is set in Canada, alternating back and forth, so it’s not exactly the same, but still. 

Interesting, I thought, that our books come out around the same time and both have Berlin in common.

By the end of the chapter, I’d noticed another little similarity: a major theme in Marissa’s book was, apparently, street art, which is true of my book as well. In both of our novels, there's a central question, a mystery, and street art is a thread woven throughout the entire novel pointing to or hinting at the answer.

Neat-o, I said to myself. And, considering these books are coming out at the same time, we might have been writing some of these scenes at the same time. Wild!

I turned the page—only to find that Chapter Two of Marissa's book, like mine, was set in Canada. Goosebumps! It was at this point that I got out a sticky note and a pen and started keeping track of all the little similarities. 

We both have a character named Petra! I scribbled. We both have… for the sake of keeping this spoiler-free I won’t go into anything else. :)

Our books are nothing alike on the surface—mine's about a rural Saskatchewan family facing the possible end of the world, hers is a portrait of a two-piece alt-rock band facing the possible end of their career/relationship, and yet...it's as though we were both drawing from the same invisible inspiration bucket, interpreting the very specific prompts in ways that would suit our respective novels. 

What does it mean? Don't say nothing. 

I generally don't think anything means nothing, but lately this feels extra true. I mean, I almost didn't reach out to Marissa in the first place. The chances of us writing these sister books at the same time, of them coming out at the same time, of them being this oddly same-but-not-same, of me getting to read an early copy of hers...? 

At the very least, it's weird enough for the weirdness journal.

And in any case, you should preorder Marissa's book. Like I said, it comes out the week before mine, and seems to be somewhat entangled with mine in a nerdy quantum physics kind of way. Plus, I LOVED IT. I've been thinking about it all week, and it's sent me off on several musical rabbit trails. Here, I'll make it easy for you; click on this:

Weirdness Journal Entry #4: The Lightning Bottles Part 2

This blog is turning into a full-time weirdness journal. I think that's okay. 

[In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about.]

Today's entry has to do with Marissa Stapley again! (Refresh your memory here.) The TL;DR is that I asked this writer I admire, Marissa, to blurb ITWBHB and she said yes and then she asked me to blurb her book, The Lightning Bottles, and when I read it I found that there were a number of intriguing similarities between her book and mine—themes, settings, very abstract but particular ideas—and that both books were set to be released this coming fall around the same time. I mentioned this to her as I was reading and we had a delightful conversation about synchronicities. 

Okay, so on Tuesday, at supper, Sully was like, "Hey Mom, you keep saying this word, blurb. What does it mean?" And I was like, "It's um—oh, here..." I was standing next to the bookcase so I reached out and grabbed a random book. I pointed to the blurb on the cover. "This is a blurb," I said. "It's a quote from an author saying how much they liked this book."

He nodded, satisfied, and I went to put the book back on the shelf—but right before I did the name of the author who'd written that blurb on the front caught my eye.

Marissa Stapley strikes again!

How is she doing this??

So I had a little chuckle. Maybe a whole guffaw. My family stared at me blankly. "Marissa, again!" I said. They didn't really get it. 

It's fine. 

But literally one hour later, Marissa emailed me to tell me that her publisher had changed her pub date: The Lightning Bottles is now coming out on September 24, the same day as my book. 

Wacky!

If you're not impressed by any of this, that's okay. I am impressed. That's why I'm keeping track.

Also, this is the book I randomly pulled off the bookshelf.

It's called Mitzi Bytes, by Kerry Clare. And here's a little bonus thing: I became Instagram friends with Kerry just a couple of weeks ago, not connecting her name in my head with this book I've owned for quite some time now (it came out in 2017 or something like that). I think we should all take this as a sign that it's time for us to read (or reread) Mitzi Bytes. 

Okay? Deal.

THE ABCS OF 2024

Well there's another year gone. It flew past, a racecar. 

Or am I the racecar? Or maybe time is the car and the year is the track and I'm in the car? No, I think time is the track. The year is the vehicle that carries us through time. Right? Or is time the vehicle that carries us through the year?

This metaphor is not great. I'm spending too much time on it. 

No, that's it, actually: time is the fuel in the vehicle. The track is the year and the time is the fuel and I'm the bobblehead figure on the dashboard. Who's driving? It seems to be one of those autonomous cars. Terrifying concept, but probably safer than having me behind the wheel.

Anyway.

Once again it's time for the annual ABCs of post. I love writing these; I have done it for many years (since 2016, to be exact). You should do it too. They're fun to read at the end of each year—and helpful. I find that the years have started to literally blur together and I can't always remember which important things belong to which years. 

So! Ahem:

A - Arlo! My sister had another adorable baby. It feels like you should get used to babies, the more of them you meet. You should get used to how tiny and perfect they are, to their impractically-sized nostrils and hilariously small toes, to the way they look like all these other people you know but still manage to be a brand new special-edition never-seen-before human being. But somehow they just get more miraculous, the more of them you meet. 

B - Birthday filling. I went to the dentist on my birthday for a filling. I asked him, before he froze my mouth, if I'd be able to eat right after and he said, "Yes, why?" And I said, "Because I'm a dummy and I made plans for a birthday lunch right after this." And he was like, "It's your birthday?!" And I was like, "Yup!" The hygienist said she thought it was ridiculous that anyone would schedule a filling for their birthday, and I was like, "Well, I was just hoping this place had one of those deals like at Starbucks or Dairy Queen where you get a free filling on your birthday. And she laughed and I laughed but then when I went to pay at the end I found that the dentist had discounted me $300 off the price of the bill (I do not have dental insurance) and the receptionist said, "He said to tell you it's your free birthday filling." And the hygienist said, "Well good, because no one ever comes in here on their birthday." And I said, "Well from now on I am ONLY coming in here on my birthday."

C - Conferences: I got to take part in the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild's annual conference, on a panel with my friends Iryn Tushabe, Rhea McFarlane, and Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye. I also went to a literary conference at the RPL and Talking Fresh in the spring. 

D - Did a lot of interviews—podcasts, TV, radio, internet, in person, and newspaper. I tried to count them up, and I can think of almost 20 but feel like I'm missing some. 

E - Enjoyed my summer. For the most part, this year, I was able to just hang out with the kids and have a real summer (with a few stolen hours here and there to get work done). The summer of 2023, my edits schedules destroyed any semblance of relaxation, so this was loooovely. 

F - First Reads. I Think We've Been Here Before was selected for Amazon's First Reads program in the States, which means that it was available one month early, as an ebook, for anyone who subscribes to Amazon Prime. This was my third time in the program, and it's always such an honor (and a rush).

G - Grant! I got my first ever arts grant from SK Arts to take a book-related trip in 2025—to Denver, Colorado! More on that in next year's ABCs Of post, hopefully.

H - Hiking. People from mountainy places would maybe take issue with this one and say I should move it down to W and just call it walking. But I already have one for W and we did find a few places to "hike" in Saskatchewan this year. Our hills may be tiny but shut up; they count.

I - I Think We've Been Here Before was published, first in Canada in September, and then in the rest of the places in December. I had a party in November and so many wonderful people came out. 

J - Just taught one writing workshop. The people I met that day were so lovely. I don't think teaching is for me, but I'm glad I did it.

K - Kept on doodling on sticky notes to try to keep my brain fresh.

L - Live music: This year, the only live music I saw was at festivals! Cathedral Village Arts Festival (Marissa Burwell, Andy Shauf, Natural Sympathies, lots of other sweet bands), Regina Jazz Festival (my mom's cousin's husband's jazz quartet played a set in a park on a rainy day and that was lovely), Shake the Lake (Steven Page, George Thorogood and the Destroyers). I continue to be sad about how scarce live music has been in my life since about 2020. This year! This is the one! Bring back the music!

M - Met so many author friends IRL—such a treat, for a person who lives in the actual middle of nowhere. Amber Cowie came to Regina in the spring, and then when I went to Toronto I met Samantha Bailey, Marissa Stapley, Kerry Clare, Sherri Vanderveen, and Vikki VanSickle. Robert Penner flew in from Winnipeg to go on tour with me, and I know she's from Weyburn, which isn't very far away, but I met Victoria Koops this year too! 

N - News! My most exciting news in 2024 was probably the thing about my book being optioned. It was very fun to announce that and be excited with everyone. I reeeeealllly hope to have more exciting news on that front in next year's post.

O - On TV! Was pleasantly surprised a few times to hear that my book went on TV without me. This is my preference—not being the one on the screen, but still getting the publicity.

P - Public speaking. Dare I say that this is the year I finally conquered my fear of talking in front of people? This has been on every single ABCs list I've written since V&V first came out and I recognized both my intense fear of public speaking and also the frequency with which I would have to do it if I were to hang out in the author sphere. I had, for a while, begun to believe that my lot in life was just to be perpetually in panic attack mode, but I had an event just the other night and at one point I picked up my book to read from it and realized, with shock and awe and excitement, that it wasn't shaking in my hands. Like, at all. This is a huge deal for me! 

Q - Quantum Entanglement! This was the year of it. And hopefully every year from here on in also is.

R - Read lots of books. I don't know how many. Lots! Not lots compared to some people, but so many compared to others.

Or!

R - Russian copies of Valencia and Valentine landed in my mailbox.

S - Started working, EXTREMELY part time, for Barclay's landscaping company. 

T - Toronto! I still need to do a whole blog post about that trip. What a daydream come true. 

U - UM! The lovely people at Indigo put my books at the front of the store by the cash register. Thrilling, truly.

V - Voted! It felt like there were a lot of elections this year. Three, I guess? We voted in the ones we could vote in and tuned in to hear the results. 

W - Worked on three books. Finished none of them. That's okay! I was busy doing other things.

X - XXXVII (I turned 37) 

and 

 

X - XV (Barclay and I celebrated our 15th anniversary!)

Y - Yes! We started doing Fart Walks with the kids. I saw a lady on Tik-Tok talking about the benefits of a post-supper walk, including steady blood sugar, better mood, increased circulation, and smoother digestion. She and her husband go every night and they call them Fart Walks, because of the digestion thing, I guess. I don't know about noticeable benefits, but I'm sure they're good for us. And like, one time, it was raining when we left and Sully said, "Well. I guess tonight we're going for a wet fart walk," and that was gross and funny and we all laughed and I've heard that laughter is the best medicine. 

Therefore, fart walks are the best medicine.

Z - Zapped my friends in lazer tag, competed against them at that live video game place (the name of which escapes me right now), did an escape room, went to a dance party, and went to the arcade SEVERAL times. Apparently this was the year of acting like a preteen? Wonderful.

Okay! I'm sure there were other notable things about this year, but those are the ones that I thought of today. Tag, you're IT.

Three Stories

Have I ever told you about the time I was invited to an undisclosed location for supper by a complete stranger?

I don't think I've told this story here yet. 

It happened a few years ago. I got an email in my inbox from someone who referred to themselves as 'The Concierge." 

Dear Suzy, the message began, You are cordially invited to participate in The Influencers Dinner. This exclusive dining experience brings together twelve industry leaders ranging from TV/movie stars, Olympians, scientists, and business executives to famed artists, entrepreneurs, and Nobel Laureates for great conversation, food and drink. 

Oh, I thought to myself, spam. 

I read the rest of the email anyway because I nearly never don't. It had a specific date on it, and a time (7:00 PM sharp), and it said that the location would be provided upon RSVP (it did specify that the event might not be in Canada). There was also a bullet point list of what to expect: 

* All attendees help prepare a simple meal together. No cooking experience is necessary.
* Guests do not discuss their careers.
* Once seated the attendees take turns guessing their fellow guest’s professions.
* The expense of the meal is covered by your host, Jon Levy.
* The guest list is kept secret.
* The invitation is non-transferable and only for you.

So then I was intrigued, right, because who wouldn't be? A meal at undisclosed location with quantifiably interesting strangers? It sounded cool, kind of shady, a little And Then There Were None-ish. I googled Jon Levy to see if there was a possibility that this thing might be real. 

Here's what I found: 

This

and this

and THIS.

Oh, I thought to myself, not spam.

I showed the email to Barclay. He said, "You should go."

I stared at him. 

"You think I should?" 

He nodded. "It sounds cool."

I frowned at him. "Doesn't it sound like we're all going to be murdered one by one by a host with a vendetta and I'm going to have to solve the mystery before he picks me off?"

"Well yeah," he said, "but there's a New York Times article saying it's not that. It looks legit."

He wasn't wrong. Still, I RSVPd no. 

Next story:

Did I ever tell you about the time I was invited to the Olympics in Tokyo?

This was a couple of years before the dinner party thing. I got a phone call from a guy I met once back in 2007. He lives in BC and he's a—well. He's a whole bunch of things. Podcaster, musician, studio engineer, etc. We hadn't spoken in years, but we followed each other on Instagram and he read my blog (maybe still does? Hi Jordan! Do you still read my blog?). 

Anyway. He called me up out of the blue and told me that he'd been commissioned by NBC to produce their Olympics podcasts, and he was going to Tokyo to do it, and he wanted me to come along with him as the writer. 

I told him I'd have to think about it. As one does.

Barclay got home from work and I told him about the phone call. I actually can't remember his reaction to that one, but it was probably similar to the dinner party thing. You should go and it sounds cool and all that. Barclay is truly the best, and that's one of the morals of these stories. 

But, once again, I emailed Jordan and said I couldn't go. 

(Side note, I just Googled him to make sure I was remembering correctly that it was NBC who commissioned the podcast and found out that, though the Olympics in Tokyo were kind of blighted by the whole Covid thing, Jordan went to the Olympics in Beijing in 2022 and won an Emmy for that podcast. One of two things is true: 1. I could've been on that team and won an Emmy or 2. I could've been on that team and kept Jordan from winning an Emmy and he's lucky I stayed home.)

So now you're blinking at the screen asking yourself, what is the point of these stories? You might be wishing I was standing in front of you right now so you should grab me by my shoulders and give me a good shake. You might be wanting more of an explanation as to why I said no to such objectively cool opportunities. Maybe you're wondering if I regret my decisions. 

So.

Here's the thing: Sullivan was born almost 11 years ago and in that time, I have never—not once, not one single time—left the city overnight without him. I have done one staycation in a hotel in Regina while he slept at his grandparents' house twelve minutes away. I have, twice, gone for a day trip while he was in school. 

I have watched friends go on trips without their children. Barclay has gone on trips alone. I see these people do this and while I do feel a twinge of envy, mostly I just think, HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING THIS? It feels like watching someone swim with sharks or jump out of an airplane or sit with their legs dangling over the side of a mountain—things I abstractly want to do but cannot comprehend doing. My jealousy toward those who can is tempered with terror. I can't picture myself doing that, just like I can't picture myself stepping off a high diving board.

I know it's not healthy. I know it's objectively kind of silly. But it's my fear, not yours, and if you were right inside my head, you'd get it.

Have you read Valencia and Valentine (it's okay if you haven't, but there are spoilers ahead)? I wrote that book when Sully was a few years old and this terror was new to me. In the book, there's a woman who is terrified of leaving her city. She can't fly, she can't drive. She goes to the airport and eats airport muffins while she watches the planes take off, and she reads travel books from the library and she daydreams, but she doesn't get up the courage to get on a flight herself until <spoiler> she's an elderly woman. 

Lots of people on the internet were big mad about that ending. They said the book was depressing, because this woman spent her whole life afraid to do something and only did it at the very last minute, and even then she only went as far as the airport in New York and then turned around and flew home again. They felt that she didn't conquer her fear. But lots of other people understood the ending, and I think the people who understood it are the people who get that conquering a fear doesn't have to be this huge, extravagant thing, especially when your fear feels so insurmountable, and that there's not really a time limit on it either. To have done something that scares you, even at the last minute, and even if it's something that most people feel is no big deal...is a big deal.  </end spoiler>

All that to say: I said no to Tokyo and to the Mystery Dinner Party because I was afraid. And both times, I thought of the book I had just written and published, and I thought of the scene where Valencia is sitting in the airplane seat looking out the window and thinking I should've done this sooner, and while I felt a tiny bit hypocritical, I didn't feel hopeless or regretful about any of it. I just thought, hm, I'm already working this out subconsciously. I'll get there someday. And wanting to get there is probably half the battle.

Okay, one more story.

When I signed with my Canadian publisher, they asked me to go get blurbs from a few Canadian authors. I already had some American ones, but this was a Canadian book published by a Canadian publisher, so we wanted to have some Canadian authors on the cover of it. One of the authors I reached out to was Marissa Stapley (I've told this part of this story before, here). Long story short (because you can read the long version of it at that link), Marissa read my book and sent along the loveliest blurb.

Then, in June, she also sent an email asking if I would like to do an event with her in Toronto. Just me and her, at a bookstore, talking about our books.

I admit, I dismissed it right away as something that would be amazing, but which would not be happening.  I would allow myself a quick daydream, like I had with the Tokyo and dinner party emails, and then I'd come back to reality, my reality, where I can't leave the kids, and I would send a sad and apologetic email saying thank you so incredibly much, but no. 

I closed the computer and told Barclay about the email, and he did his usual supportive-but-not-pressuring husband bit. And I said, Yeah, yeah, I know. But no.

And he said, But maybe you should actually think about it. Before you say no.

So I did. Being invited to go to Toronto and do an event with a literary superstar was absolutely a dream come true—but even more than that, Marissa and I have become friends, and I really think it would be so fun to actually meet her and go for supper and get to know her IRL. Not to mention the other friends I've made but not met who live in the Toronto area—other authors and people from the blogging world and people from the publishing world and a whole sweet book club of people I've met only on Zoom...

I thought of Valencia on the airplane saying I should've done this sooner and I thought of the angry Goodreads reviewer who said that she couldn't think of anything more depressing than an adult being stuck in a jail cell they've made up in their head (and I mean, this is a terrible perspective on anxiety but I still thought of it). I thought of Tokyo and all of the interesting people I might've met at the mystery dinner party. I thought of the times I travelled on my own before becoming a mother, and about how much fun I had then, and I thought of how often I talk to my kids about anxiety and fear and how I tell them that sometimes it's okay to sit something out if you feel like you need to, but sometimes it's really, really worth it to push yourself and do something that feels scary.

And then I realized that if I kept thinking, I would go in a circle and end up at the beginning, so I stopped thinking and I sent Marissa an email.

I said yes and I hit send before I could change my mind.

And today I'm booking my flights. 

So. If you are in the Toronto area on October 10, you could come to Type Books (Junction)  at 7:30 pm and witness a 37-year-old lady doing something incredibly normal and chill, but you'll know how big of a deal it'll all be inside my head and we can exchange knowing glances. 

THE ABCs of 2025

Oh look, another year. 

Decembers are coming and going like a kid on an old-school metal merry-go-round; if they keep speeding up like this, I'm going to stop being able to tell how many of them have passed. I barely have time to acknowledge them before they've gone all the way around and come back again. I feel existentially dizzy. 

Maybe this annual ABCs Of exercise is becoming more of a grounding thing? A way to notice which things happened in which space in time so that when I'm fifty and it's all even more of a blur than it is now, I'll be able to know for certain where everything was.

So, without further ado:

A - Author friends came to visit! I always say that the best part of being an author and having author friends is that sometimes organizations just fly said author friends in so you can hang out with them (and so they can do events or whatever). In March, the Sask Writers' Guild flew Marissa Stapley in for Talking Fresh and I got to show her around Regina (Lake Fries at the Bar Willow, live music at The Cure, gift shop shopping at the Mackenzie Art Gallery, etc). In July, The Festival of Words flew Jennifer Whiteford in, so we got to hang out in Moose Jaw (I tried to take her for a walk along the river but I accidentally took her to an abandoned train yard instead. She said she still had fun) (We also spent a lot of time at the spa and I think she maybe liked that better than the abandoned train yard). And Adelle Purdham stopped by in April on her book tour; we went for tacos and then I interviewed her at the Everyday Kitchen, which was very fun.

B - Books (shocker). I read maybe 50 books this year? I don't think this is very many, compared to some people. I have seasons where I'll gulp down four books in a week, and then seasons where it takes me literally three months to finish one novel. Some of them were ARCs for upcoming releases, some of them were audiobooks (these were mostly thrillers), some of them were new releases, and some of them were books that have been on my shelf for a while. 

C - College! I was invited to speak at a college creative writing class. It was a really cool little group of folks and we had such a blast (or at least, I did for sure and they definitely appeared to, but maybe they were in acting classes as well?). I hope they all write stuff that I get to read someday. 

D - Denver! I got a grant from Sk Arts to fly to Denver, Colorado to do a couple of book events (Reading Den and an in-conversation at the Center for the Arts in Evergreen). Both of these were so much fun; I met a billion lovely people, but most importantly I finally got to meet some previously-only-online friends: Sarah Ann Noel, a friend I speak with literally every single day but had never met in person (we wrote a little article about our meeting and it was published on Write or Die), Melissa Payne, a fellow Lake Union author, and Eunice Brownlee, a friend from Instagram via Sarah (I think? Right, Eunice?). A very special, slightly surreal week!

E - Extra. In the summer, a friend of mine (Tim Lenko! Hi, Tim!) texted to ask if I would like to be an extra in a film his friend was directing. We shot our scenes at a funeral home, which felt kind of irreverent and hilarious. I wore a dress from my mom's closet from the 70s and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

F - Film Screening. Tim—the same Tim as the one from the letter E—is a filmmaker too, and he screened his award-winning film in Moose Jaw in November. He invited me to come to the premier and be part of an artists' panel, along with another filmmaker and a visual artist. It was a really fun conversation and all of these interactions with Film People are really making me want to be Film People too.

G - Goodreads Choice Awards. I had the shock of my life when I saw that I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award, and then an even bigger shock when it went to the finals. I was relieved of the heavy burden of imposter syndrome for three glorious weeks. What a vacation. (It's back now.)

H - Happy to finally receive the Russian copies of Sorry I Missed You, which was published over there a few years ago.

I - I dyed [some of] my hair purple on a whim. I was dying Scarlett's, and she said, "YOU DO IT TOO, MOM" and it was one of those reflex-without-thought moments. I just...reached up and ran the glove with the dye on it through the ends of my hair, as if I were scratching an itch. Scarlett was delighted, and that was that. Her hair dye faded within a month. My hair is very blonde, so it sucked in that color, and it hasn't completely gone away even now. Glad to see my impulse control is still so lacking at 38.

J - Just spent a lot of hours in my living room this year listening to Sully play the guitar and requesting that he play my favorite songs. 

K - Knorks. I went out for breakfast with Sarah one day, and there was this utensil that was almost like a fork, but not quite, on the table. She picked it up and said, "Hey, so here's something cool. My friend's brother invented this. It's called a Knork. It's like a fork but also a knife." And I used that Knork to eat my bennie, and then when I got home I ordered a set of four Knorks for my family because I liked it so much. 

L - Live Music Challenge. At the beginning of the year, my friend Ashley and I promised each other that we would experience live music at least once per month for the entire year. And we ALMOST did it. In January, we went to an acoustic show at The Mercury. February was open mic night at The Cure. March: Ritchot Textiles, The Moonrunners, and Black Thunder in the basement of The Artesian (maybe my favorite show of the year?). April: Robyn's choir performed at the Knox Met. May: Tiny played at my reading at The Artesian AND I got to see Sully's band perform live for the first time (okay, THIS was my favourite show of the year. Of my LIFE). June: another open mic night at The Cure. July: there was a guy playing his guitar at a restaurant in Vancouver, and also I went to a weird little biker memorial in Grand Coulee where a cover band was playing at the hockey rink. August: Sarah and I went to Nuit Blanche and there was live music in the RPL. September: Ashley and I hit up Swampfest, Regina's finest and most creative DIY music festival on Willow Island. Loved it. Always love it. October: Elliot BROOD & Great Lake Swimmers at Darke Hall. November: fail. December: we'll see if it happens, but I'm hoping to go to Band Swap at the Exchange on the 28th (I'm writing this post early). I'm usually out of town that night, so this is exciting!

M - Meow Wolf. I have always, for as long as I've known of the existence of Meow Wolfs (which is not very long, honestly, but still), wanted to visit one. And this year, I did, in Denver, with Sarah. It was really weird, and I loved it. 

N - New tattoos. I got a cat, in honour of the fact that strangers email me all the time now about the cat in I Think We've Been Here Before. I also got an hourglass and some rosemaling.

O - Okay. So here is a story about scissors: I went to Nuit Blanche with my friend Sarah, and there was a guy there giving out free freezies. I took my freezie and said to the guy, "Thank you. Do you have scissors? To open this freezie?" The guy looked sheepish and said, "No, sorry, I feel really stupid every time someone asks me that. I did not bring scissors. You'll have to take that freezie home, I guess, and open it with your own scissors." It was a hot night, and I was thirsty, and I really wanted to get into this freezie. I tried tearing it open with my teeth, but the plastic was way too strong. I couldn't do it. I carried this thing around with me for a couple of hours, gnawing at it like a rodent. Finally, I'd had enough. Exasperated, I threw the freezie in a garbage can. I could've taken it home, but I was tired of carrying something around that I really wanted but could not have. I sighed as I threw it away and said, "Ugh, my kingdom for a pair of scissors." So here's where the story gets weird and slightly unbelievable, but you'll have to just believe me because why would I make this up? A few minutes later, literally minutes, you guys, minutes after I threw my freezie in the garbage and said my kingdom for a pair of scissors, Sarah and I walked past this table in the park. Just a random table in the middle of Victoria Park. 10:30 PM. And the only thing on this table was, you guessed it, a pair of scissors. Like, I think I manifested them? 

P - Parties—or, to be more precise, galas. In the month of May, Barclay and I attended three galas—one for his work, one for mine, and one fundraiser. We are not gala people, so we had to go out and buy gala clothes and gala shoes and gala makeup (me). It was fun, but a little bit stressful because I'm not a super fancy person.

Q - Quite a lot of public speaking again this year. I thought it would be a quieter one because I didn't have a book release, but that didn't end up being the case. Lots of book clubs, podcast interviews, readings, random other speaking gigs and occasions. I continue to be more and more comfortable in front of people, and this continues to be a thing that makes me really happy, a thing that still surprises me, that a person can be so scared of something but then do it enough that it actually becomes—dare I say it?—enjoyable. 

R - (City of) Regina Writing Award. I did not win this! Courtney Bates-Hardy did! (And she deserved it.) But I was a runner-up, so I got to go to the awards ceremony and read from my [as yet unpublished] novel. I did win a writing retreat at a monastery! Cool!

S - Saskatchewan Book Awards. I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for four Sask Book Awards: The Book of the Year Award, the Fiction Award, the City of Regina Book Award, and the Publishing Award. It even went so far as to win in one category, which was really neat. There was a gala in Saskatoon and Barclay and I made a little weekend out of it. 

T - Toured the Globe Theatre. I got a DM on Instagram one day from an account called Hidden Regina, out of the blue, asking if I'd like to go on a tour of the Globe Theatre here in downtown Regina. I was like, "Well yeah!" So I did that. 

U - Upset about...baseball???!!!?? I, and a whole bunch of other Canadians who normally do not care one iota about sports, got really, super invested in the Toronto Blue Jays this year. It was surprisingly fun, and time will tell, but maybe I'm a sports person now.

V - Vancouver! We hopped on a plane and went to Vancouver in July. It was the first Big Family Vacation we've taken since Scarlett joined our crew, and, therefore, the first time she's ever been on a plane. Barclay's sister lives out there, so we stayed with her for a week. It was really lovely! And now the kids, having had their eyes opened to the possibility of air travel, just want to fly everywhere.

W - Wrote The End on a new book! More on that later!

X - XXXVIII (I turned 38) & XVI (Barclay and I celebrated 16 years of marriage)

Y - Yes! I said yes to every single fruit I saw in the grocery store which I had never tried before. This was the year of rambutan and lychee and prickly pears and and pomelos and a few others I can't think of right now. (This is also the year I discovered I'm mildly allergic to pomelos.)

Z - Zipped off to Medicine Hat for my Grandma's birthday party. Almost the whole extended family on that side was there. That's a LOT of people. It was so good to see all of them again.

One Year!

Today marks one year since I Think We've Been Here Before was published in Canada.

And what a year it's been.

I'm a reflective person by nature, the kind of person who talks about a party the whole way home from the party, who possibly enjoys analyzing things after the fact as much as [or more than] I enjoy the initial experience of them. Maybe it's because I'm so anxious? I find that when I'm living through something, I'm very distracted by my anxieties, by the pressure to do it, whatever it is, right, to have fun, to not say something stupid, to, ironically, enjoy it to the fullest. But in reflection, the pressure is off. I'm just observing. Reliving the nice things without the possibility of disaster or embarrassment or failure. And maybe there's something to be learned there—is this what people talk about when they say they want to be more present?—but I haven't learned it yet. 

The experience of releasing a book is no different; there is so much to reflect on after the fact, and people are constantly asking questions that provoke even more reflection. Questions like, "How did the book do?" And, "Was it successful?" 

Great questions. Surprisingly hard questions! Let me try to answer them.

Something I didn't understand before getting into Publishing World was that there are a million metrics for deciding if a book did well or not. There are sales numbers, obviously. There's reader feedback. Trade reviews and Goodreads reviews and other various internet places where people talk about your book. There are the experiences that come out of publishing said book, both private and communal. Did you earn back your advance? Are the reviews generally positive or negative? And so on, and so forth. There are a LOT of metrics. 

To start, I Think We've Been Here Before has the lowest number of sales out of all of my books—which is funny to me, because I think it's my best. But as of right now, it has sold more than 100,000 fewer copies than Sorry I Missed You, which is (don't tell Sorry I Missed You) my least favorite of my three novels. So by that metric, it didn't do very well. It also didn't get as many trade reviews as V&V or SIMY, nothing in Kirkus or Booklist or Library Journal. It doesn't have nearly as many Goodreads reviews as either of my other books. It didn't sit at the top of any important bestsellers lists.

But! 

This book took me to Toronto and Denver and Evergreen and Saskatoon. It introduced me, through the process of asking for blurbs, to Marissa Stapley, who then invited me into her glorious circle of author friends (and honestly, if this was the only thing that came out of this book's publication, I'd call it a win, because these people are the best and I get to keep them even after the book stuff goes away). It was optioned for television by the incredible Paul Davidson, and found its way into the hands of people I would never have imagined, in my wildest dreams, would ever read my work. It was nominated for four Saskatchewan Book Awards, and won in one category, and that was a completely magical experience, from the longlist announcement to the awards gala, where I sat at a table full of new and extremely talented friends. And it opened up the coolest conversations with strangers in my email inbox; I heard from people who'd recently lost loved ones, palliative care nurses, a very sweet family of Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on (and on and on), and we talked about death and life and quantum entanglement and deja vu and Berlin and music and grief and writing. The reviews, though fewer, were overwhelmingly positive. I even credit this book with helping me get over my fear of public speaking, because it brought about so many podcast interviews and book events.

So, how did the book do? Not well. But was it successful? YES.

So. What's next?

Something I love almost as much as reflecting is daydreaming. However, reflecting is easier, because the material is all there; you just have to, like I said earlier, observe it. Daydreaming in the publishing realm is not quite so easy, especially now that I've been in it for so long. I feel very aware of the fact that nothing is guaranteed, that just because you managed to get a book or two published, that definitely does not mean the journey ahead will be all downhill. 

Or downhill at all. 

Or that there will continue to be a journey. 

It's been an interesting year behind the scenes. I'm not going to go into the whole story just yet, because it feels like a foolish one to tell before it's finished, but I will say that I recently sent a new book to my agent. It's weird, definitely the weirdest one I've ever written. It starts out with a farmer standing in his field looking at a big empty place where not five minutes ago, there was a farm. At first, he thinks the problem is that he's losing his mind, but then he realizes that he's not losing his mind, a whole farm really has vanished in front of his eyes, and that's actually a much bigger problem. 

So my agent is reading it, and hopefully she decides it's something we can sell together. It's is a very nerve-racking thing, sending off a book that has thus far only lived in my head. I mostly trust myself to know when something's worth writing, but sometimes I wonder, yikes, what if this was a really bad idea? What if I just spent two years working on a really bad idea?

I guess we'll see! And I promise, you'll be the first to know if that book becomes, you know, a book.