Write me at the lake: How Carley Fortune reclaimed her creativity from the edge of burnout
The Meet Me at the Lake author has learned to work through every condition a mother who writes must face
Leading up to Canada Reads, CBC Arts is bringing you daily essays about where this year's authors write for our series Where I Write. This edition features Meet Me at the Lake author Carley Fortune.
In July 2020, I decided to write a novel. I had been a journalist for 15 years, and writing a book was a dream I didn't think I'd ever accomplish. I was a working mom with a big job and a busy toddler. I was overworked, under-slept and constantly on the edge of burnout. Besides, I didn't know how to write a book. It was never going to happen. Until a phone call changed my life.
It was a terrible call. A work call. I'll remember it always. I was using the landline at the cottage where my husband, son and I were squatting for the summer. I stood in my bare feet, the black receiver pressed to my ear, listening in shock at the bad news I was being given. Working in media, you get used to bad news, but this was different. Sickening. One of the most disappointing and frustrating conversations of my professional life. I slammed the phone down. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. Instead, I decided to write a book.
Nothing seemed more important to me in that moment than doing something for myself. I had given and given and given to my employers. Every ounce of my creativity went to my job. I needed to take a piece of it back. So I did.
I began my first novel, Every Summer After, days later, with the singular goal of finishing it by the end of the year. The book would go on to be a No. 1 bestseller in Canada and sat on the New York Times bestseller list for 13 weeks — but I didn't know that then. In the beginning, I didn't even think about getting it published. I only wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
I made a plan. I set a daily word count goal by dividing the number of words in a completed manuscript by the number of days left in the year, which gave me 388 words a day. Each day, before my husband and son woke up, I'd write. My mornings began in solitude, sitting in a squishy pea green armchair, just my laptop and the sun rising over the water.
I've had the privilege of starting all my books at the lake. (I'm currently working on my fourth.) I feel most creative when I'm near water, but it's not my reality. The cottage is not mine. My home is in Toronto, and it doesn't have an office. Most of the work of writing a book happens in whatever corner of the house I can carve out for myself.
I gave birth to my second child just before beginning my sophomore novel, Meet Me at the Lake, and my husband took parental leave so I could meet the deadline. He and the baby weren't a particularly quiet duo, so I shut myself in our room with noise-cancelling headphones and a writing playlist. I never used to write with music, but it drowned out the infant wails. The room couldn't fit a desk, so I turned our bed into one.
I adapt. I make do. I've written in the car during my son's karate lesson. I've written in airports and on city benches and on the dock. I wrote the bulk of my third book, This Summer Will Be Different (it comes out on May 7), from a slim console table in the living room, protecting it from my two young boys.
I've written through migraines and insomnia and post-partum anxiety. I've written while caring for sick children. I've written everywhere and anywhere and through all sorts of conditions a mother who writes will inevitably face. It's often not ideal. But I believe that's why I'm now writing my fourth book in four years. I don't wait for ideal. I don't wait for a day when I'm feeling inspired. I don't wait for a room of my own — although I'm working on getting one. I wake up, kiss my children goodbye, I sit down and I write.
Read this year's Where I Write essays every day this week on CBC Arts and tune in to Canada Reads March 4th-7th, 2024.
