This summer I’ve been focused on less, in pursuit of more.
It’s been such a relief to declutter my home and yard so I can enjoy the feeling of space.
And in that spaciousness is more room in which to create.
More time, more clarity, as I bring into existence the life I want to live.
The next version of myself I am in the process of becoming.
Last weekend a surprising thing happened.
As I went through my hall closet, boxing up craft supplies for donation, I realized it was time to part ways with the journals I’ve been keeping since I was a tween.
The first six in the series are identical black and red hard cover lined notebooks I bought at London Drugs and numbered the spines... (a rare attempt at organization that emerged from believing I had important enough things going on to write them down).
When I started writing creative nonfiction ten years ago I thought of my journals as references.
A priceless memory vault.
A place where I could fact check memories and mine forgotten details to enrich my stories.
I no longer feel that I need to be so rigid about verifiable truth.
I’ve grown to trust myself and my writing.
I now think of my old journals as workbooks.
A place where I processed the thoughts and feelings and experiences of a work-in-progress—someone in the process of becoming.
I trust my memories whether or not I can recall the weather or the exact date something story-worthy happened.
I trust the images that arise—the details that emerge from my unconscious—and the validity of the emotions I still feel even after decades have passed.
That’s the story.
I’m also in a forward-thinking place right now where the past doesn’t matter so much.
All those old versions of me, forever living their lives between the pages, no longer need me.
It’s time to set them free.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel heavy with sadness as I moved my journals into a box and into the garage until fire season is over.
Why did I feel sad?
I think I still needed grieve the girl who no longer exists in the same way I’d grieve the loss of someone that I knew and loved (and maybe had a difficult relationship with at times).
Like this girl:
Or this one:
Or this one:
Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is about silence and shame but it’s also a celebration of life for the young woman I once was.
By honouring my stories I made space to really see and acknowledge who I was but also who I’d become: a strong woman with a capacious heart, once guarded, now healed.
My ability to love big again after grief and loss was made possible because I told my stories.
That’s why I care so much about writing and teaching writing.
My stories that grieved what needed to be grieved made room for a new life, a rich unfolding story.
From Letter 26:
Now I’m something else. An immense unfolding thing with a heart-shaped centre surrounded by so many intricate folds. Layers and layers of orange and pink and red. This flower is huge, like nothing you’ve ever seen. Think fire and flames. Think so so soft and so so strong. Think of a massive Georgia O’Keefe painting—the view is right up close. Most of the flower, including its stem and leaves, exist far outside the canvas edges. All you know when you look at the painting is there is more and more and more—so much more, expanding, billowing out and out and out.
What story does your younger self need written in order for you to create a new, happier future?
✨ If you’d love some guidance learning how to write the memoir only you can write, I have an invitation for you. ✨
On August 27 join me and multi-award winning author, Rowan McCandless, for our free webinar called How To Write Your Brilliant Memoir (Minus the Fear, Doubt + Overwhelm).Rowan and I have been writing together since 2017, co-teaching creative nonfiction for the past six years and have published short-form memoir in literary journals, won literary awards and each published a book.
It is our passion to share what we know about moving past blocks and finally writing the stories you’re burning to tell with new, emerging and seasoned CNF writers.
So save the date! More details on our August 27th webinar are coming soon…
In the meantime, here are links if you’d like to pre-order Bloom.💐📖
Bloom: Letters on Girlhood is available for pre-order in Canada at this link. Our friends in the US can pre-order
Advance praise for Bloom from some amazing authors:
Bloom is a powerful new addition to the growing list of books that help us understand who we are, especially as women. Through the nostalgic, tender act of letter writing between two powerfully self-aware women, Bloom becomes a balm: fluid, nourishing, and intuitive. Their combined voice reads like a sixth sense—a space where our inner voice is finally safe to ask questions we’ve held onto for a lifetime. In a world where shame and silence crash over us like relentless waves, Bloom offers something rare: a place to pause, reflect, and simply be. Nicole and Claire remind us that identity is never fixed, that our past holds wisdom, and that becoming more is always within reach. Rooted in body wisdom and a fierce desire to grow, Bloom is the calm, grounding guide we all need when navigating life’s biggest transitions because it essentially leads us back to ourselves. Bloom is a book I will come back to again and again.
—Chelene Knight, award-winning author of Dear Current Occupant, Junie, and Let It Go: Free Yourself From Old Beliefs and Find a New Path To JoyHilarious, heartbreaking, intimate, and authentic, Bloom is the conversation you wish you could have risked with your best friend back when you were 13, 15, 17, or 21 — except back then, you didn’t have the insight or the words. Read this book, muse on it, revel in it, share it. Feel your heart unfold along with its stories. —Susan Olding, author of
—Rowan McCandless, finalist for the Governor General's Award in nonfiction with Persephone's Children, CNF editor with The Fiddlehead, First Vice Chair with The Writers' Union of Canada
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