How I Found Time, Space & Emotional Bandwidth To Write The Secessionist's Wife

Sometimes You Have To Skip a Week or Three

I started writing The Secessionist’s Wife around the beginning of 2021, back when our local schools were online due to the pandemic. It was only a few months after I had just published my second thriller Source of Deceit, and I was eager to get back into the fun of dreaming up characters and scenarios, rather than dealing with the logistics of the publication process.

As a mom who still had a kid at home, I had no idea how long it would take to write another book, and I didn’t give myself a deadline. While many authors commit to writing every day, I have never found that possible. There have been months at a time when I was unable to write at all, usually due to this or that family situation, not necessarily a crisis, just something that needed my undivided attention. During the pandemic, things were even more complicated, as we all know.

Often, I took advantage of my “mobile office” (minivan), particularly while waiting outside my daughter’s dance studio. You’d be surprised how comfortable it is to crack the windows, sit in the middle of the middle—the model I have has a middle row, not two bucket seats—stretch your legs out straight, and type away on a laptop. You just have to make sure it’s not too hot outside, and your laptop battery is up to par. In the winter, it’s great as long as you bring a couple blankets and warm shoes. In my favorite spot, I could observe everything going on in the parking lot, but the view into my windshield was more or less obscured by a giant for-lease sign on posts, so most people never realized I was there. If you get sleepy, you can slouch down and steal a nap.

There was a period in 2022 when I found myself deeply upset about the state of the world. The escalation of Russia’s attack on Ukraine really got to me, such that I was unable to bear routinely envisioning any sort of terrorist attack, particularly one at home, even a fictional one. I had to put down The Secessionist’s Wife for a while. I didn’t want to stop writing, just stop writing this particular story. Craving levity, I decided to work with our schnoodle Lola, who had been barking about producing an inspirational self-help book for a while. With me as my dog’s ghostwriter, and she as my spiritual guide, we came out with a fun little treatise called Lola’s Rules. The process brought joy back to my life, and I was eventually able to get back on track with the novel.

I keep writing, because for me, writing is really fun. It’s a creative outlet that works for me. A way to cope. A distraction. A method for examining the world. A constant education. I love the whole process—all the little pieces from envisioning, to crafting a message, to choosing a word that has just the right ring to it.

By June of last year, I had a really solid version of The Secessionist’s Wife, but I didn’t end up signing a contract with FriesenPress until late fall. Though I worked hard to publish the book as quickly as possible, there is just a lot of back-and-forth to get a book out—everything from substantive edits to copy edits, font choices, and cover art. My manager at FriesenPress assured me it would happen in due time, when all the pieces were in place. I was nevertheless disappointed, when my self-imposed May 1 deadline passed by. As spring proceeded, I worried that I wouldn’t have the chance to spend the whole summer marketing the book. Then it hit me that the July 4^th holiday was a great time to release a book, and everything fell into place.