So-Called Normal was one of my favourite books I’ve reviewed so far in 2021. I read the whole thing in one sitting - couldn’t put it down! Thank you for giving me this opportunity to chat with you about the process of creating such a powerful, important, and candid memoir.
How did you approach the process of writing such an intimate narrative which gets real, not only about aspects of your own life, but by necessity the life and choices of others in your family and small town as well?
For months, I tried to write it in my spare time, off the side of my desk. It just wasn’t working. It eventually got to a point where the necessity inside me overtook everything else. So I quit my so-called normal job, and dedicated my whole self to the book.
I wrote the entire first draft (which was way too long) over the course of about six weeks while living at a Trappist monastery in the woods. I’m easily distracted, so I needed the right environment. Having that uninterrupted focus is what made all the difference. I couldn’t run away. I just had to face it all, the whole story, every day. I had to walk through it all to get to the other side.
Fortunately, my wonderful editors then helped to carve that story into something more manageable. I went through more than a dozen cover-to-cover edits before letting it go.
What did you find most challenging about the writing process and conversely, most enjoyable?
The most challenging thing for me, initially, was to see the bigger picture. I had a rough outline, but the final product looked nothing at all like it. I was so deep into the trees that it was hard at first to see the shape of the forest. That came eventually, piece by piece, with patience, and distance.
The most enjoyable part of the process for me was the process itself. I loved the routine of it all. On that first draft trip to the monastery, and on the many subsequent trips, I’d follow the same schedule. I’d wake at 3:00am, chant with the monks, write for two hours, chant again, write again, chant, write, chant, write, chant, write. I’d go to bed by about 8:00pm. Then I’d wake up and do it again, the exact same way, every day. Not needing to worry or plan anything about my day unleashed an incredible creativity that I didn’t know I had.
Based on your recent author experiences, do you have any mental health advice specifically for others in the writing community?
There have been few feelings I’ve felt that were more uncomfortable than the feeling that you don’t own your own story. It’s the feeling that everybody else seems to tell your story for you, and you’re defined by everybody and everything outside of you.
Reclaim your story. Whatever it is, it’s yours. As long as you’re honest, you get to do whatever you want with everything you’ve ever thought, felt, or done. There’s an incredible reserve of raw story material inside you and, for some of us, it’s a source of anguish to not express that in some way. So express yourself, work it through, hold it lightly. Then, let it go. That’s when everything else seems to start falling into place.
Since you were a teenager, have you noticed any changes in how the mental health system in Canada supports teenagers seeking help?
It hasn’t changed much. We’re perhaps even more now into a hardline medical model of mental health treatment, despite that fact that it generally speaking isn’t working very well. We know a lot more now about the biology, neurology, and chemistry of mental illnesses – and that’s a good thing – but it hasn’t yet solved for our loneliness. And that’s because, while a scientific lens on suffering is necessary for progress, it’s not sufficient for recovery.
We need to build more holistic systems of support that not only treat brains and bodies, but that also address the social and psychological factors that are often at the root of their suffering.
Similarly, what do you think are the strengths of Canada’s mental health system overall and what most needs to see the most change?
Canada absolutely benefits from partially-government funded healthcare. That helps enormously to ensure that most people don’t experience significant financial barriers to receiving routine healthcare. Money is a top stressor for most people anyway, so that’s a strength that I think we take for granted.
That said, we don’t have universal healthcare in Canada. If we did, effective, evidence-based, medically necessary mental health treatments like psychotherapy would be freely available and accessible to all. That is far from the case, and that needs to change now.
If you had to pick a favourite interview from your So-Called Normal podcast, which would it be and why?
I absolutely loved my conversation with Rosie O’Donnell. She is among the most authentic, supportive, generous people I’ve ever had the privilege to encounter.
Do you have plans for more writing projects? What can we look forward to next?
While I was writing So-Called Normal, I kept a notebook nearby. With so much raw creativity pouring out of me every day, I knew there’d be a lot that wouldn’t be right for the book. So, every time I’d get an idea that could be worth exploring for a book, an article, or a story of its own, I’d scribble it down and move on. Three bubbled to the top, and one in particular has been working its way through my mind.
Directly related to the linear way in which I wrote my memoir, I’m fascinated by the cumulative process through which people “learn” from the most basic stages how to have depression. This is partly a psychological and intellectual process, sure, but it’s also how our thoughts and experiences change our brain. Further, each of our experiences is part of somebody else’s story too – for better or worse.
So, this is the project that I’ve been working on now, a sort of epic journey through the biopsychosocial development of depression, and how by understanding the process, the nature of the beast, we can change our trajectory at many points along the way.
What advice would you give to writers wanting to tell their own memoir or story?
Don’t waste too much time with wanting. You tell your story, or you don’t. Both are valid paths. But if you want to be a writer, then start writing. That’s it. Write every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good. It doesn’t matter if it’ll ever be published. Writing is exercise. Storytelling is recovery. Everything that happens to us is just data. We need to make our stories make sense, and that takes work, it takes persistence, it takes process. Everything outside of process is how you distract yourself from the fact that you’re scared. Write scared.
What novels have had the most influence on your writing and which novels do you recommend as must-reads for either enjoyment or for learning?
I rarely read novels, only for the reason that I’m so fascinated by so much in the world that I’m usually reading something else. From those, not only my writing, but really my entire visual conceptualization of my own recovery was deeply informed by Dante’s Divine Comedy, particularly the Inferno. I first read it about ten years ago and have come back to it many times since.
The work of Joseph Campbell, and especially The Hero With a Thousand Faces, should be required reading for storytellers. And if you want to write memoir, then read a lot of memoir. I love Joan Didion, Anne Lamott, William Zinsser.
I am currently reading, and loving, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
And don’t forget to nurture your soul at least as much as your mind. Mary Oliver has stirred me to my core more times than I can count. Whatever you read, let yourself get lost in it for a while. The world will still be right here where you left it. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll come back a little bit different than you were.
