For When You Pivot

How I fell into crime (writing, that is!)

This story begins when the world closed down.

The snow was melting, the news was accelerating, and we were on lockdown with four young children, a teenager, her boyfriend and her new baby.

Cravings

I’ve done school visits for years, passionately talking about writing, books and creativity, so homeschooling seemed, well, peachy!

But during those relentless hours and days, I craved my writing life.

A school visit is short. I love them. Teaching all day every day requires skills I don’t have. The teenagers with the baby told me I was running a prison. My children stared out the window, longing for their old lives. I tried to help my grade five boy with his remarkably difficult math and look longingly at the cupboard where we kept the gin.

Because I couldn’t get to the page as a writer, I creatively flatlined.

Not writing begets not writing. With never more than a minute to write, I lost my passion for it, even though I wanted it badly.

In the quiet of the middle of the night, I didn’t sleep. I lived in other people’s books and TV shows. And I discovered I was reading crime. A lot. Mysteries. Murders. Missing people. Not for its horror but for its darkness, the complexities of human relationships, and why people do terrible things.

I wasn’t reading books for children anymore. After our long, strange days all together, I didn’t want to inhabit their creative world any longer.

All this to say, the pivot began.

Reading

Now, as a writing coach at The Novelry, I always ask our writers what books they love to read.

Sometimes, we play Imaginary Book Shop, a game suggested by writer and coach Tasha Suri. In this game, we walk into a bookstore in our minds and wander, thinking about what we most want to pick up and read.

During those long nights throughout COVID, I realised how much I loved to read mystery and crime.

As the COVID restrictions lifted, I began writing in tiny pockets of time.

I wrote a book for adults.

It had a murder.

I showed it to my agent and she made some positive noises. But the book needed a lot of work and I didn’t want to edit. I wanted to write another. I was unleashed.

I began a second novel, which I finished within a year. Again, it was a murder mystery. I showed this to a friend and baulked, again, at the edits I needed to make.

Editing wasn’t my focus. Writing was. Publishing? It seemed like a distant dream.

Keep on keeping on

I wrote a third book, and this time, I wanted to edit it. After I finished the first draft, I drafted again and again. I’m about to start draft eight.

It’s a risk. I’m afraid and I’m in love.

I’ve been writing for many years, publishing for nineteen. I have fourteen books for children and young adults in the world.

But….

xoxox

Alice

Do people keep telling you that you should write a book about your life? I wrote a blog all about the Five Essential Ingredients of Memoir: A great memoir shares an intimate portion of the author’s life with a reader, illuminating a truth.

If you’re new here, my name is Alice Kuipers and I’m a writer, mother and dog & cat-owner transplanted twenty years ago to the Canadian prairies from England. I’ve published fourteen books in 36 countries and my writing has been described as: “For storytellers and story lovers,” by Kirkus Reviews; ‘Gorgeous, heart-ripping, important,” by VOYA; and “Intense and wonderful” by Bif Naked. Join me for coffee breaks, book conversations, and to share my writing life together.

Xoxo