Lynn Jatania's Blog

Letting the cat out of the bag

If you follow me on any social media, you probably know this already, but I got the cover to my book this week. It’s really happening!

Yes, it’s a book about a band I like, BTS. I take a lot of flack for liking this band. Aren’t you too old for that? people ask. Aren’t you embarrassed about liking a boy band? people say (not really a question, more of a flat suggestion I re-examine my life).

That’s a subject for another day, but the short answer is: no, I am not. There is no limit in the this world to joy. There are no rules about what is appropriate when it comes to happiness. Find your bliss wherever it may come.

Anyway. It’s coming out in October 2025. More info coming soon – if you want to be alerted about updates, please sign up for my newsletter in the box at the top of the page.

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The Secret to a Meaningful Life

Recently I took a long road trip with my youngest daughter, who is 17. We had with us a pack of cards that are “conversation starter questions” and we often whip these out on car rides for a little fun chit chat while driving (are we weird? Probably, but I don’t mind).

One of the questions on this trip was “What do you think is the secret to a meaningful life?”

Tough question. We can’t be here forever, and that’s something I think more and more about as I enter my 50s. I go to more funerals than weddings these days, that’s for sure.

But I was very pleased with my answer: “To create something.”

It doesn’t mean you have to be a world-class artist or composer, or even have a hobby that is traditionally creative or artistic. What I mean is: don’t just consume other people’s work. Learn new stuff, and use that learning to make something new to add to this world, no matter how small, no matter how unnoticed.

Keep a diary of life as you see it. Tweak every recipe for pancakes you find until you have your own perfect ingredients and cooking style. Write a beautiful piece of code that powers some obscure part of the internet. Make a scrapbook of your child’s first year. Use LEGO to build a replica of your home town. Invent a new at-home filing system for all tax receipts that makes doing your taxes easier. (Please, I beg you, do this and then tell me all about it.)

I think this is one reason people don’t understand people who don’t want to have children. For a lot of people, having a child is their Creative Thing. No matter how it turns out, you made a whole other person! And invested uncountable hours in shaping that person’s worldview and personality and style! And built a family out of literally nothing! That’s creativity, but it’s just one way to be creative.

You don’t have to change the entire world, but build something for yourself. Share it if you can, but if you can’t, know that you still made something that no one else did or ever could. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have enough time and space in your life to do this many times, to create over and over, to try your hand at this and that and the other thing, leaving a trail of creative breadcrumbs behind you for future generations to follow.

That’s not just a meaningful life, in my opinion; that’s a happy life.

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You Can’t Edit a Blank Page

I mean, the title is the post.

It’s the best writing advice I’ve ever read. I don’t know where I came across it – writers read, writers research, and writers, perhaps all else, read and research the craft of writing. I googled and apparently it traces back to author Jodi Picoult, and while I am not really a fan of her writing, I’m a big fan of her life advice, it seems.

I’m working on two new creative writing projects at once. Plus I’m still cranking out thousands of words a day for my actual job. I’ve never really had a problem getting words to flow but lately I’ve felt that old nagging feeling that everything I pump out is not good enough. I’m too scattered, unfocused, and nothing is getting the love it needs. A mother with too many children, and not enough attention to go around, it seems.

On mornings like this I sit in front of my computer feeling overwhelmed and think, “You can’t edit a blank page.” Get the crap out. Force words from my fingertips. Throw ideas against the wall like half-cooked spaghetti and see what sticks.

There will be time later to polish these ugly rocks into gemstones, it seems.

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On a Train to Somewhere

I need quiet to write. It’s hard for me to write in places that are bustling with people, like coffee shops, and I can’t even write in my own home if one of my kids is awake and wandering about. I definitely can’t write with music on, especially when I’m writing about music, which I’m doing a lot of these days.

But at the same time, I can’t write in silence. I need at least a little something going on – it’s strange, but having something to tune out actually helps me concentrate better.

I like something like the gentle hum of a fan, or perhaps birds chirping away outside my door on spring mornings. I like the sound of the kettle boiling or a fireplace crackling.

Recently I wanted to put something on the TV while writing, even though I knew it was absolutely not the productive choice. Where was I going to find a peaceful background video that ideally went on for hours?

Like-minded people, I give you the Norway Train Video. It is 10 hours of real-time footage filmed from the front of a train as it travels across Norway in wintertime. It is the most perfect writing tool I have ever discovered. It’s so cozy and so gentle and so calming. My TV is huge and I can almost believe, while watching it, that I actually am on a train in Norway. No obligations, nothing to do but relax and let someone else drive, let your mind get dreamy, let your fingers type away and capture those dreams.

You probably don’t want to know how many times I have watched this video. It’s a common source of gentle mockery from my TikTok loving kids. But honestly, the makers of this video should be thanked in the acknowledgements of everything I’ve ever written.

Do you have a favourite slow-watch video to recommend for my next writing session?

If you queue this up, don’t panic, it’s not frozen – it just takes several minutes for the train to leave the station. There’s no rush; we’ve got time.

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On To The Next Thing

I’m having some trouble moving on to the next thing, now that my book has been submitted to the publisher.

The issue for me is that the actual publishing of that book is now out of my hands. I assumed that after I submitted it, it’d be out in bookstores within a few months.

But I’ve clearly been spoiled by the fast turnaround of self-publishing. I write a blog post, and then hit the publish button immediately. Short stories written for contests are submitted, and the results are usually back within a couple of months. For my self-published book of stories, as soon as the text was edited and finalized, I had formatted it, uploaded it, and it was available for sale on Amazon within a week.

As a result, I’m very used to working on one project a a time. But my book is going through a traditional publisher, and that’s a much slower moving engine. The current estimated time for the publisher to move my book through the process and get it into stores is a year.

A year.

There’s things I can be doing in the meantime: building social media buzz, creating some marketing materials, reaching out to potential collaborators for promotion.

What I really need to do, though, is let it go. Move this project off of the frenzied front burner and let it simmer away on the back burner until it demands a quick stir.

So what to bring to the front? It’s hard to focus on something new, when I’m not quite done with the something old.

I’ll be spending the next month or so playing with a few different ideas to see if anything pops. This past year has been crazy intense with writing, but I’ve had enough of a break now. I don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve built up of making writing a part of my daily life.

So it’s time to cook something new. We’ll see what feeds my hunger best. Any requests?

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It’s Over But It’s Not Over

I submitted my book to the publisher this morning.

I was editing it literally up until the last minute. I proofread it twice, and I was feeling good about it. Then my friend Jen proofread it and found like 30 more typos. Then I imported it into Word (I wrote it in Google Docs; more on that in a future post). Word found like 30 more typos.

This last week before it was due was supposed to be “simmer week” where the manuscript sat there, complete, just chilling like a lemon meringue pie taking time to set. But I kept waking up in the middle of night thinking of a cool fact I’d left out, or a turn of phrase I realized I’d overused and needed to fix. Just two days ago I found out about a whole other incident that coloured part of the book and required some fresh edits.

It became clear to me this week that I could sit on this manuscript for a year, and re-read it 10 more times, and there would still be errors and slips and little things I’d regret.

So the only thing to really do was to bundle it up and hit send. Adios, my lemon meringue friend! May you gel up nicely and travel well!

This is the end of one part of the journey (A BIG PART, I am going to sleep in SO HARD this coming week), but it’s the start of another. What happens now is marketing work, putting together promotional material, creating some supporting pieces to hand out as freebies. Working the socials, reaching out to bookstores, walking the beat. There’s also proofreading the layout when it’s ready, answering questions for my publisher, and fretting, so much fretting. So there’s still a lot left to do.

But for this weekend, at least, I plan to take a deeeeeeep breath, put my laptop away and not even think about looking at it, and maybe get some pie.

(Want to know when it’s published? You can sign up to my newsletter in the box on my author site to get notified directly.)

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Letting Go

My book is due in two weeks. I’m on track to finish; this week will be formatting (the publisher requires the text in a very specific format) and final proofread. Then it’s time to let this baby go.

I continue to go back and forth between thinking it’s fantastic, and thinking it’s utter crap that no one is ever going to read. Perhaps its both: how many brilliant books exist that no one has ever read? I guess in both ways, this is just what being a writer is all about – self-doubt and words falling on deaf ears. It’s a hard business to be in.

The one thing I’ve learned through this process is this: if I want to write a book, I can actually write a book.

I know some authors feel like they must write, that they cannot live without writing, but for me the pain of creation is real. The horror of the blank page is real. I have to force myself to do it, and that usually means everything else in life takes precedence. Why torture myself when there is laundry to be done, dinner to make, Christmas gifts to knit?

These past six months, I’ve done nothing else but work and write. I’ll be happy to have some time back for seeing friends, evenings spent flaking in front of the TV, sleeping in; I’m not in any rush to go back to the all-writing, all-the-time lifestyle.

But at least I know this: it is possible.

I can, if I make it a priority, actually write stuff, good stuff (well, maybe?). I can, if I spend the hours with my butt in a chair, complete a whole 88000 words, and get it into fighting shape. It is possible to make space for this in my life and to make it happen.

So what will I do next? Will I miss this writing life, will it become a new habit? Or will I run screaming? Or something in the middle?

I’ll let you know in January, after a nice long string of sleeping in.

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Living the Dream

Last year, I bought a set of tarot cards. One of my favourite books is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and tarot cards play a part in the story; she recently released her self-designed deck, The Phantomwise Tarot, and I bought it because it isn’t enough to own hundreds of books, one needs to own all tangentially-related book merch as well. I know you get me.

The deck is beautiful and made for telling stories of wonder and magic, and it seemed a shame to leave them in the box, so I started giving myself a three-card reading each morning over breakfast tea. I don’t believe that the cards tell your future or have mystical powers, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed having a focus to my day’s thoughts. The cards make gentle suggestions to perhaps pay attention to nagging fears and concerns in the back of your head, and give kind encouragement about how to push through them. It was fun and, I think, helpful.

A few months ago I gave myself a reading and the overall vibe was this: you’re living your dream. Right now, in 2024, this is it – what you wanted all along.

And you know what? They were right.

A few years ago, I got into Kpop and the band BTS. When I have an exciting new obsession, I have to write about it, because that’s who I am. So I created a fansite as a fun side project, a place to dump all my thoughts so I wouldn’t overwhelm literally every conversation I ever had again with talk of BTS.

The site did well and got a lot of hits.

And that drew the attention of a publisher.

And that publisher asked me to turn the website into a book.

And I said yes.

It’s the dream, isn’t it? Plucked from obscurity by a real publisher to write a book on a subject near and dear to your heart. Offered exactly when I started to have some free time for writing again – my kids are grown, work is cruising along, and I’d finally finished cleaning out the basement storage room.

So these past several months, I’ve been writing up a storm, basically every waking moment that I wasn’t working. It’s been grueling but fabulous. I almost quit 100 times. I wrote 1000 terrible sentences. I wrote at least 10 perfect ones that gave me goosebumps.

I wish I had another year to make it perfect, but I don’t. I’m almost ready for the final proofread before submitting it next month, and then I’ll have to make my peace with the fact that it is what it is.

But what it is, truly, is my dream. My name on a published book. The cards don’t lie.

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Fruitcake

In the very back of the fridge, there’s a shiny silver object. It’s wrapped in tin foil, crinkled all over from multiple wrappings and unwrappings, catching on the fridge light like a disco ball. Although the inside is hidden, I know there’s another layer of wax paper, then a sizeable chunk of fruitcake, solid and unyielding to squeezes. If you’re brave enough to pick it up and sniff, there’s still the sweetness of candied fruit and nuts. It’s not rotten yet.

The recipe is old. There is a dark version, rum-soaked and rich, but this is the lighter version, faster to make, easier on old hands and tired muscles. Mixed in the biggest bowl in the kitchen, weighty and solid, used only for this purpose. Baked in a pan gone dark with use, then bundled into pieces and frozen, ready for holidays, guests, Christmas and joy.

It’s a December tradition. I visit my mother’s house, the same one I grew up in, with its fading familiar furniture and smell of history. We laugh and visit and eat. I sleep on a fold-out futon in a black basement. Heading out, my mother will always say, “oh, your fruitcake!” and send a random grandchild or nephew to the big boxy basement freezer to pull out a tin foil wrapped treasure. “This is for you,” she says, pressing the cold packet into my hand as we hug goodbye, a piece of the whole to take home, now that home means somewhere else.

The piece in the fridge is this year’s cake. It is the last one. There are times, I admit, I have not actually eaten the annual fruitcake piece, maybe nibbling on it a bit before tossing it into the compost bin in summer. This one though, I can neither eat nor toss. As long as it sparkles uncomfortably at the back of the fridge, nothing is final. It cannot hang on forever, I know this, but my heart cannot believe it. There will always be fruitcake, and farewell hugs at the door, and unspoken, tin-foil-wrapped love.

In my kitchen now, I have a giant, heavy, ceramic bowl. A blackened pan. A recipe card stained with vanilla, notes added in pencil. But no one else likes fruitcake, it’s too sweet and oddly textured and only for those who eat outside the lines. Perhaps someday I will take out the card and mix fruit and nuts in an enormous bowl and wrap my awkward and prickly work in wax paper and foil, and place it in the freezer, just for myself, just to know it’s there.

Christmas cake. Fruitcake. Natural wooden background. Top view.

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A Memory

I think I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was visiting my grandparents, and Papa found a music box in his workshed. It wasn’t a proper box – just the mechanical insert that made the tinkly sounds, a spinning metal drum plinking away at metal strips to make a song.

Separated from its original box, it was silent. My Papa couldn’t even remember where it had come from, or what it was for. I was interested though, I wanted to see how it worked, and wanted to hear the music. So he dug around in the kitchen trash until he found a small tin can – the kind individual servings of canned fruit salad used to come in, I preferred the very cherry kind – and gave it a quick wash, removing the label. Then he drilled a small hole in the bottom of the can and inset the music box inside – this was to create an amplifier for the sound, the hole to allow the winding mechanism to stick out.

The winding post was a thick and square stub of metal, not delicate in the slightest. It couldn’t be turned by hand, was too tough and strong to give up its music so easily. My Papa dug around in his workshed some more and came up with a key, the kind used to tighten old fashioned roller skates, the kind that fit over your shoes and screwed into place. He used some tools to adjust the end of the key, making it square and wide so it fit the music box winding post.

Then he gave it a crank, and a plinky song came out. (Clair de Lune, although I couldn’t name it at the time.).

My Nana was horrified later when she saw me enthusiastically cranking and listening. 

An old can! She said. It smells! (She wasn’t wrong. It never did quite lose the scent of rancid fruit salad).

Such an ugly way to make music. But I loved it.

Over the years I lost the key, and then eventually lost the music box too. What happened to the music it used to make, I wonder?

I wish I had it still, not to hold the memory in my hand, but to be able to pass it to someone new. I’d like to imagine this memory morphing and growing and latching on to new ears in a new mind. Without the object, it becomes ethereal – I will hold it as long as I can, but it ends with me.

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