I didn’t do a lot of work this summer. This isn’t entirely uncommon for me. I usually try not to be on deadlines over the summer if I can manage it, so that any work I do is creative regeneration. This can range from fanfic to world-building for projects I have no plans to write in the immediate future. Summer is when I grow, I guess. Or at least, that’s what I aim for.

It used to terrify me, those periods of “fallowness”. Yes, I knew that refilling the well is important to creatives, and yes, I knew that I was never going to be a “write every day” writer. But I could never quite manage to silence the voice that said things like “No, those rules are for other people. You aren’t working hard enough, and are therefore a terrible person.” I felt like those days spent reading or thinking or, you know, going outside and looking at trees, were wasted. I took my laptop and multiple notebooks with me on all my vacations. I was a professional.

Then I developed some measure of work-life balance (and, you know, mental health). I learned to read for fun again. I stopped taking my laptop with me all the time. I still fight off fits of “I should be writing!”, but I’ve gotten a lot better at recognizing work when it’s not writing. And I’ve gotten better at not working.

My father moved into the palliative care unit at the end of June. I was kind of relieved. I was worried about my mother taking care of him at home, even with the medical help they had come in. It’s never a fun solution, I promise you that, but as sad as it made us all, it was time. I went to visit on the second or third day, and decided that I was going to spend my summer doing that, as much as possible.

I usually went in the afternoons, because that was when Mum was most likely to go home to rest, and so that I could still go to the gym the morning (which Dad specifically requested). It ended up being three days a week, about six hours (plus the drive time, which is another hour each way) a day. I listen to a local radio station that drops out about halfway to the hospital, and so I made a playlist that was, more or less, the missing length of time. All of them were songs I could sing, because that’s good for emotional regulation. I am still not sure how Olivia Rodrigo breathes in the chorus of “drop dead”, but I got reasonably good at it.

At the beginning of July, I emailed my editor to ask what the last possible day that I could send him a draft and make a 2027 publication date. Because he is also good at work-life balance, he told me we were moving to 2028. Usually that would be kind of a big deal, because authors get paid on publication, but the structure of this book’s contract is different. So now I had official permission to not work over the summer.

And I didn’t. I even hosted two writing retreats. All I did at the first one was vibe (working!), and at the second one, I wrote my dad’s obituary, and then 500 words and a letter so that the obituary wouldn’t be the only thing I wrote. I thought I would get to September and Be Ready, Or Whatever, but that is absolutely not what happened. I didn’t do much work in September, either.

There has been a lot said about creativity and grief, but I think there’s a lot to be said about the “before” part, too. Usually when I am “not working”, my brain is still turning over ideas and spitting out lines of dialogue. When I was still working at the bookstore part time, I wrote whole books. Heck, when I was university and worked at the nursing home, my pocket-notebook was half fanfic and half charting. But this was different. Usually when I am not working, I am at least thinking about work. But I haven’t had an idea in weeks.

So on Monday morning, I wrote a letter. I had been meaning to write the letter since, like, July. I even took the paper with me to Newfoundland at the end of August. It was just a note, a quick two pages because I have a few friends who have agreed to be penpals with me for the thrill of getting actual mail. And about halfway through, I had to stop, grab my notebook, and scribble down something for a book. It was nice.

I’m not back to “normal”, for whatever value that is. The idea of writing a book feels insurmountable right now. So instead we’re here, writing a newsletter. This afternoon, I might write some fanfic. Tomorrow I’ll probably re-write all my book notes by hand, hoping that something shakes loose. Because nothing is easy and nothing is a straight line and I don’t know if my dad finished the audiobook of The Third Period Comeback that Penguin sent me early, but he’ll never read this one.

My friends and colleagues speak frequently about how strange it is to write books in the current political climate. It isn’t just that we know most of our books will have “controversial” subject matter, it’s that it feels like things are on fire, and taking the time write stories feels…weird. I spent the last three months playing videogames and watching Disney cartoons. Because while producing stories seems unnecessary, experiencing them remains crucial.

Dad knew that. He had so many visitors that we had to make a schedule, and all of those people had stories about how Dad impacted their lives. He turned 80 at the beginning of August, and over 100 people came by for ice cream. Mum thought it would be an open house, but everyone stayed because the guests were all people who hadn’t seen each other in years or had heard of each other, but never met. No one at the hospital was surprised.

So it’s back to work. Not because it’s what Dad would have wanted (it is), and not because I have a mortgage (I do. Also we would like to remodel the kitchen), but because stories are my thing. We’ll start with this, a promise to keep going, because the only way out is through, but we get to carry things with us along the way.