Writer’s Block: Raymond Beauchemin

All Lit Up: Is there a stand-out moment when it was clear you wanted to be a writer?

Raymond Beauchemin: There’s no one moment that stands out as that Defining ‘Road to Damascus’ Moment when I realized I wanted or needed to be a writer. If anything, there were several, little epiphanies along the way to where I am now.

I remember being in second grade chasing after one of the sisters who taught in a higher grade so that I could show her a poem – I must have known she taught English. She took a look at it and said that something I’d written wasn’t a word. Ahem… even in Grade 2 I had critics!

Later, in Grade 10, I managed to persuade the school administration that I didn’t have to take chemistry the following year (and thus not meet the science requirement to graduate) and instead be allowed to take creative writing, which was being offered for the first time. “I’m not going to need chemistry in what I plan to do with my life,” I said. And they believed me! Joke was on me in the end, I suspect: H2O and CO2 are as far as I go along the periodic table.

All Lit Up: What do you enjoy reading?

Raymond Beauchemin: I don’t know that I would say I enjoy everything, but I am an omnivorous (as opposed to voracious) reader. 

I religiously read the print versions of the New York Times Book Review and the New Yorker, plus the Walrus and Sunday Times. And based on that reading, I’ll borrow books from the library, go online, whatever and… sit down, lie down, stand up, whatever and read.

It’s typically literary fiction because that’s what I claim to write. A fair bit of nonfiction. But I do read some thrillers and even the occasional romcom. And when I begin a new project, knowing there might be something I don’t know much about, there’s research as well. 

All Lit Up: What was your most rewarding moment as a writer? 

Raymond Beauchemin: Getting that first yes. And then years later that second yes.

All Lit Up: What are you working on now?

Raymond Beauchemin: Working on getting that third yes.

There was a long gap between acceptance of my most recent book, The Emptiest Quarter, and its publication. In that time, I wrote two collections. One is rather straightforward, all short fiction; the other collection is a hybrid of poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and alternative-form nonfiction. I’ve been focused on shaping both of those collections, moving some stories from the latter to the former, seeing what works best theme-wise. 

And I’ve got a YA book I wrote a while back that I’ve recently revisited and thought, mmmm, maybe there’s something here… 

All Lit Up: Can you describe your writing style in just a few words?

Raymond Beauchemin: Whatever the story dictates.

All Lit Up: Have you experienced writer’s block? What do you do about it?

Raymond Beauchemin: The folks who say there’s no such thing as writer’s block are sculptors, I guess. Working in ice probably, so whatever issues they’re having just melt away.

Truth is, every writer’s different and with a process of writing that’s unique to them. I’ve gone weeks if not months without writing a word of fiction. Sometimes it’s because of my actual paying job — just no time to devote to fiction. At other times, the story just wasn’t there. And you know what? It’s fine. There’s no reason to beat yourself up about it.

I even started a story this way:

Liza sent me to the market. If I was going to sit around the house, then I ought to make myself useful, she said.

But I wasn’t sitting around the house, I said. I’m writing, I said.

I haven’t seen you write anything except a grocery list in ten years, she said. And I wrote half.

She listed off the items I had supposedly written: tomatoes, shallots, bread, butter.

I remembered the list.

That wasn’t a grocery list, I said. It was the start of a short story.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

What was it about?

A guy whose wife’s always on his case about how his writing doesn’t amount to more than a grocery list.

The store was next to the Republican.

* * *

Raymond Beauchemin was born in Western Massachusetts and has lived in Boston, Montreal and Abu Dhabi. He currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He has worked as an editor for the Boston Herald, Montreal Gazette, The National, and the Toronto Star. He is also the author of Everything I Own, a novel.