30 | Discovering my voice in old writing

“Summer 2000: Cinematic Suckfest”

Samantha Garner
October 15, 2024

Deadmedia shares monthly peeks behind the scenes, writing updates, and creativity thoughts from SF/F author Samantha Garner. Learn more here.

Me as literally a baby (20)

Hi everyone,

I’m happy to say that writing has been going well since my last message. I’m well into the second half of the second novella in the Project Awakened trilogy. This is the part that always feels the most exciting and also the most terrifying. I know I have a whole other novella to write with its own arc after this, but overall I feel like I’m sliding down the hill towards the end now, the mist breaking apart only seconds before I hurtle through. See? Exciting and terrifying.

The more things change, etc.

One thing I’ve always found fascinating about writers and other creative types is the way their work always has some essence of them, even in its earliest form. It’s interesting, for example, to listen to the Cure’s first album. Despite Robert Smith being literally a baby (19) you can hear his distinctive voice and style shining through even then.

And, oh god, please don’t read anything into how I’m about to transition from Robert Smith to me, but I found myself similarly comforted by some old web writing of mine I uncovered a few days ago.

When I was 20, I fractured my pelvis skydiving and was mostly immobile that summer. To stave off madness (and maybe in response to how I felt my life was going nowhere at the time) I thought I’d try getting paid for writing something. I started contributing to a website that published lightly humourous articles about general interest topics. Humour isn’t something I get to use a lot in my writing now but I do consider myself a fairly funny person. So it was nice to see that at one point in my life, I got paid to indulge. And I made crotchety old 44-year-old me laugh, so that’s got to count for something.

From an article entitled “Summer 2000: Cinematic Suckfest,” here referencing Coyote Ugly:

This movie was my mortal enemy. The Anti-Me. I even made an impassioned speech to my friend Simon about how, as his friend, I cared for him so much that to let him see this movie would kill me inside, somewhere deep. He looked at me funny and gave me an "okay" which was the verbal equivalent of patting me on the head and injecting horse tranquilizers into my veins.

A day or two later Simon called me up, and the following exchange ensued:

Simon: Dave and I are going to see Coyote Ugly. Want to come?
Me: [painful groan] Whyyyyy?
Simon: Because we're bored, and we've seen all the other movies.
Me: ... Okay, why not.

Hear that? That's the sound of my convictions packing and moving to Florida.

From an article about my first job (Tim Horton’s):

Back in the wacky, zany days of high school, we all said the following, "Man, I need to get a job." And when we got that job, we were so excited. We called our friends and shrieked over the phone. Finally, we had money (which, as we all know, leads to power and respect, something every sixteen-year old needs).

From an article about my friends going to university, which is essentially creative non-fiction inspired by the healthy chip on my shoulder I’d had then about higher education:

What was peculiar about my possibly overly laidback approach to higher education was that everyone else around me was going nuts. Most of my friends were starting their first year at a university and freaking out. The whole idea of university started out innocently enough, with casual trips to our high school's guidance office during lunch, "out of curiousity." We'd lazily leaf through different schools' brochures, exclaiming over the trees of this campus, the buildings of that. The next week someone would idly wonder aloud, "Do you think my Physics grades are good enough for Queen's?" A couple of weeks later, it got a bit more intense.

I'd run into one of my friends in the cafeteria, reading what looked to be a nice hefty copy of War and Peace. But no! My friend cared not for this epic tale of love and loss, tragedy and triumph during the Napoleonic Wars. Concealed amongst its pages was a pamphlet for a Scottish arts school.

This outright deception might seem bad enough, but oh no. It just got worse from there. My friends' obsessions over universities bubbled over until I couldn't even take them out in public. I remember one balmy spring evening toward the end of Grade 12. We were sitting in a restaurant, enjoying the fun and frolic of casual family dining and discussing the inherent evilness of Richard Simmons. During a lull in the conversation, one friend threw his napkin down onto his plate, shot out of his seat and screamed, "I know the University of Toronto is closer, but McGill has a better theatre program, okay?!"

Look, none of this is Pulitzer-worthy. I was a sarcastic little edgelord who felt her life was going nowhere and was kinda bitter about it. I was probably also on a lot of Tylenol-3s that summer. But it warms my heart to see that in the roughness of all of that is me, my voice, my sense of humour, my love of commas—for better or for worse. These articles aren’t the sort of thing I write now, but some elements really feel foundational to my writing.

I hope I have a writing career that extends further than one book. I hope one day I’ll be able to look back and identify the little early thumbprints of whatever I end up becoming. I wonder what will persist, what’ll be really me.

Thank you for being here! Join to get monthly updates and to support my work.

PS, miscellaneous cool things:

New-to-me discovery: Cities and Memory. It consists of user-submitted sounds from all over the world, whether it’s forest birds in northern Finland, a daily market in Uganda, or “chip shop chatter” in the UK. There are “memory” remixes of these sounds, but the base “city” sounds are my favourite. It scratches my ever-present itch for the daily lives of regular people, and it’s also ideal for filling out fictional worlds.
Augur Society, creator of a literary magazine publishing dreamy realism & SFF content, as well as a literary festival I was honoured to appear at in 2022, recently met their Kickstarter goal to fund their next two years. I’m excited because I love Augur and their people and all they do, BUT - I’m most excited about the SFF press they’re going to start. Not only are SFF presses devastatingly few and far between, but we really do need more of them in Canada specifically. You can read more about their small press plans here and get excited like I am!
A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to a Genesis tribute band concert. The band (The Musical Box) recreates Genesis shows from the ‘70s, and takes great effort to be accurate in things like costumes, setlists, even the equipment. I’m still collecting my thoughts about the experience, but I have to say that as a writer inspired by history, I was impressed by their commitment to getting things right. It felt almost like historical reenactment.
In case you missed it, my Open Book column for September was a fun one: Four Weird Tricks for Maintaining Writing Momentum. In it I share my favourite practical tips for making sure you don’t lose your writing flow even if your session is over.

Thanks for reading Deadmedia today, and leave a comment to let me know what you thought!

Talk soon,
-Sg.

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