Olyn Ozbick

Category: Story

How To Be A Writer

July 13, 2020 /

By Olyn Ozbick

1) Take yourself as an author very seriously. To do this, you will have to quit all other work. It’s important to get in touch with the transcendence of your particular creative genius.

You can’t do that standing behind a till, budgeting or planning conferences. Get real about your creativity – embrace your true being. Your manager has never understood your creative abilities, face it, she never will.

2) Now that you have no job, revel in that exciting leap you just took. Celebrate your new literary freedom by sleeping in. Creative genius needs time – particularly morning time. 

3) Don’t bother getting dressed. PJ’s are comfy – that’s why you wear them to bed. Why would you approach your creative endeavours in anything but the most freeing of attire?

4) Drink. No not milk. It could take a little time to get up to speed. Start slowly with a little Bailey’s in your morning coffee, wine at lunch and wine also at dinner. Once you get the hang of it you can start fortifying your wine drinking with a splash of scotch on ice. Soon you will be a true author, quaffing only whiskey morning noon and night. Well done! 

5) If you’ve been taking writing classes, now’s the time to drop them. Don’t call the instructor to explain, you are too serious about your writing to waste time with petty scheduling issues, just stop showing up. If you have writer friends and colleagues, drop them too. You don’t need their annoying input, they are completely wrong about your work – always have been! 

6) Stay in. Now that you are drinking day and night in your PJ’s and have no jobs, friends or commitments, you are a true reclusive writer, well done! Keep it up!

7) Hone impatience. Real writers aren’t patient, writers are driven. Get that first draft of your novel out the door as soon as possible. Don’t wait until it’s finished, it’s brilliant – you know it, and the agent will know it as soon as it hits her in-box. If it needs a little work, she’ll do it. 

8) If the agent doesn’t get back to you immediately, don’t worry, she’s probably trying to tie down your three-book deal first. 

Don’t be afraid to call her and introduce yourself, she’ll be delighted, after all, you are a brilliant writer and her career will skyrocket once she signs you, she’s probably a bit intimidated to approach you first. 

9) Now’s the time to leave the house. Celebrate with dinner at an expensive restaurant. Don’t worry about the cost, put it on your visa! Soon your advance will arrive and later you will be rolling in royalty cheques. 

Congratulations, and welcome to the wonderful world of Authoring!

Pinch Point

May 18, 2020 /

by Olyn Ozbick

Stepping up to the door of my house, my legs could barely heave my slight body up those three small steps. It was 4 pm. I was home from work so early. 

Inside, lights glowed already in the gathering dusk of that northern day, in which the sun still set so terribly early. My daughter was home, ahead of me as usual, and had lit up the house. I smiled. Then stopped. Oh, the electricity bill. 

I slid my hand into the mailbox, a habit. This time an actual letter touched my fingers. It felt rich and tactile – I appreciate good paper.

The letterhead read, CBC.

I whooped and slammed the door behind me so that my daughter’s head popped briefly up over the back of the couch. Waving the letter, I hopped—yes there in the hall with my daughter watching askance I jumped up and down like a kid at a birthday party. I was a finalist. The CBC Short Story Prize. Canada’s premiere short story awards. I whooped again, then sat down and cried. 

Just hours earlier my entire staff had listened in bruised dismay while I told them I was closing business. In a brutal farewell to all our hard work, I sent the small group of dedicated artists and professionals at my very small publishing business stumbling home to tell their families. 

Leaving the geranium-filled planters that I had so carefully placed on each side of the office entry, I staggered away too.

After fifteen years as a journalist and magazine editor. Fifteen successful years filled with ridiculously hard work, but rewarded with success and celebration, international awards and travel, speaking engagements and camaraderie. That day it was all over. 

Magazines were folding across the country as advertisers migrated to ever expanding social media opportunities. Ad sales plummeted. Revenues no longer sustained the expensive publishing processes. Magazines were done. I was done.

At that point in my life, deciding to close my business and taking off my publishing hat was the hardest thing I had ever done. But already—and the day wasn’t even over, I hadn’t even made supper—I had something new. I knew what to do. I would refuse to look back.  

The next morning, I got up and started to write. Fiction. Pure, clean, clear, head-cleansing fiction.

And that’s it. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

The novel I started that morning, ANGELA DRIVEN, is complete and looking for a home. My next novel, BEAUTY IN FRACTURE, is in edits. My short stories are now published in literary magazines, anthologies, digitally, in audio and around the world. I teach creative writing. I talk fiction writing.

Olyn Ozbick Photo

© 2024 Olyn Ozbick

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑