What the Aurora Remembers

I have a website! With pictures! Of my book! Which will be out in the world soon holy crap. What the Aurora Remembers

I’m pretty excited about it. It’s all excitement, right now. All potential, all anticipation.

It’ll be available for sale this summer! Because I’m publishing it myself through Friesen Press, pre-orders aren’t really a thing, but I promise I’ll let you know when and where you can buy it :)

Someone might say “but Loretta, didn’t you just retire? How did you write a book so fast??” Well, I did just retire from a 30 year career with the Canadian government 9 months ago. But no, I didn’t write this book in 9 months. I wrote this book several years ago, and it took me about 4 years to write and revise and polish it. I finished it around 2019 and then I tried to do the traditional publishing thing - meaning, I did the exercise called “querying literary agents”. In the “traditional” publishing mode, you get an agent first, and then they shop your book around to the Penguin Random Houses and the Harper Collinses and so on. And then the publisher gives you a big fat advance (hahaha) and then the publisher promotes the hell out of your book and you go on a book tour and you end up on best-seller lists and short-listed for lots of awards.

Ahem. Anyway. So after I finished writing the book, I talked to my then-manager and did the formal conflict-of-interest check (cause you gotta do that before publishing a book, when you’re a government employee), and then I agonized over my pitch to agents (called a “query letter”) and then over the next 2 years I sent something like 25 letters to agents in Canada and the US.

And nobody nibbled. At all. Not even a little.

And by then it was 2020, it was pandemic, my work life got stupid busy, I had the perimenopause and then the instant menopause (due to complete hysterectomy) and I was too tired and kind of discouraged and I put the book away. I had been trying to start a new book, or new short stories, or new creative non-fiction, and couldn’t get into anything. I decided I needed to put the book away, have a little closure, so I could move on and hopefully get writing again.

A few folks suggested self-publishing, but I knew that was not something I could do while still working. Even though I had put the book in the drawer, I was really proud of it. If I decided to put this book out into the world, I did not want to be half-assing it.

(To be clear: I am actually a fan of half-assing many things. Some things just won’t get done at all unless you do them half-assed. There were many, many individual writing stages of this book that I half-assed, just to get to the next stage. But not when it comes to putting it out into the world. I am putting my WHOLE ass into that work.)

I had no energy for anything but the job, and really, not even the energy for that. I kept trying, and failing, to write every so often. So the countdown to retirement got very specific and clear. And the thought of self-publishing occasionally popped up and then fizzed away again. When it popped up, I would do some googling and thinking and it would seem a little more possible that when the time was right, I might want to do this. When I had the capacity. When I was done working.

And then, a few weeks before the actual day of my retirement party, I was at a gathering at my friend K’s house. We got talking about what I was gonna do with all my free time, and I joked about lots of naps (oh, I was not joking), and someone asked about writing, and I said yes, that too, and then I said “I’m thinking about self-publishing this book I finished a few years ago” and one of the other folks at the party said “Oh! I’ve published some stuff. Here’s the publishing company I used. I’m happy with them. You totally should!”

And my friend and I sat down and chatted (his name is Don Dickie and he’s awesome and here are his books ) and then I had some chats with the fine people at Friesen Press and I plunked down my credit card and now IT’S HAPPENING! IT’S HAPPENING! (pretend I put that Office GIF in here. I’m too lazy and old to figure out how to do that right now except with a link, sigh: It’s happening! ).

I’m learning my way around the publishing process which is cool. It’s a good thing I really like this book, because I’ve had to read through it a dozen more times. (not really a dozen. But maybe 6? ) and the first few times the editors tightened and clarified and improved. And then that cover! I love it. And now I’m starting to learn the promotions piece. It’s mostly a task list, but I’m starting to tackle the things. Like this substack post! This is me promoting my new book.

So I’m still retired, but I have a new job now. Writer. Still gives me chills.