Before taking the course, I’d finished a novel draft and was working on a second project. I was excited about my ideas. What I didn’t know was whether I could write. Close friends and family had read for me, but blindly trusting their opinions struck me as foolhardy.

What I wanted, of course, was feedback from people who weren’t invested in me.

I was working on U of T’s campus in Media Relations at the time. As a staff member, I only had to pay the tax to take a course through Continuing Studies. To this day, I deeply appreciate that benefit.

Hopkinson is an award-winning speculative fiction author. She happened to be teaching creative writing at U of T the semester I signed up in 2005.

Through that course, I met my writing group. Hopkinson’s feedback sessions set the rules for our meetings over the next seven years. It was a transformational period in my life.

Diana continues to read my drafts. I named Anna and Malcolm’s son Tim to remember T. J. O’Neill, our late colleague.

Taking my School of Continuing Studies journey full circle

When I published Chaos Calling earlier this spring, I reached out to the school to thank them for the opportunity all those years ago. I told them about our writing group’s success. They were kind enough to post this piece about my experience and downstream success.

Thank you to the School of Continuing Studies’ Marketing team for featuring my work.

You can read the article on their website.

Curious about taking a course? You’ll find more information on their website.

The post Chaos Calling featured by U of T’s School of Continuing Studies appeared first on E.M. Williams - Fantasy Author.

Editor’s note about “Don’t Stop Believing”: I originally published this essay on Medium. But their analytics are getting increasingly weird, so I’m giving it a permanent home here.

* * *

It was raining that night. The kind of chilly, damp rain you get in North Toronto in late November or early March.

Transition weather.

I was coming home from the gym. Rain was pounding on the car roof as I pulled into the driveway. The radio was on. Steve Perry was belting out the chorus to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” as I turned off the engine.

I sat and watched the rain fall on the windshield. And in that moment, I realized that I had stopped believing I was capable of writing and publishing a book.

I realized that the story I’d been telling myself about what my life would be was a complete and utter lie.

And I burst into tears.

From childhood, I always wanted to write

Writing is the only dream I’ve ever had, and it caught me young.

I used to sit at an old-fashioned desk (the kind with a steel beam connecting the wooden chair to the table) in my Scarborough bedroom and copy out stories I was reading in little notebooks. I was five at the time. Maybe six.

I was eight when my dad brought a desktop computer home in the mid ’80s. I used it to write a short story about Megan and Sundance from My Little Pony. I remember liking the yellow letters on the black screen.

At 12, I caught another flash of inspiration during a bus ride to school. It prompted me to write a science fiction novella for my Grade 8 independent study project, this time using the world’s heaviest laptop that my dad no longer needed for work.

The story kept growing. I kept writing. When I was 18 and in OAC (Ontario’s former Grade 13) I finally finished a full, novel-length draft for my English class. Mr. Whelan encouraged me to “do something with it.”

I didn’t. An alternate historical fantasy series had already put its claws into me as I was finishing that draft. It didn’t let go until I was in my early 30s.

Life didn’t wait for me

I sought more feedback on my work. I took a writing class with the great Nalo Hopkinson via the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Studies. I met a wonderful writing group through that class and made a couple of lifelong friends.

Our kids were born. My career became busier than it had ever been. And as Elizabeth Gilbert notes in Big Magic, sometimes if you wait too long to see a creative idea through, that fiery nugget of inspiration dies on you.

That’s what was happening in the car.

My novel had died, and I had finally noticed.

Don’t Stop Believing: What happens if you do?

When I say that I cried, I don’t mean I shed a few artful tears. I was devastated. I turned off the radio, put my head in my hands, and sobbed like my heart was breaking. Because it was.

After 15 minutes or so, I dried my face, took the key out of the ignition and went on with my life.

I told myself that it would be okay — I had changed careers, if not disciplines. I was still a writer.

Our children were at that joyful age between tantrums and curiosity. I was working for a non-profit in Toronto’s startup space. The work was interesting. My colleagues were fascinating. I made more lifelong friends. And I regularly wrote web copy and other collateral.

But it wasn’t the same. And I knew it.

As I’ve written before:

“Thinking about writing during that time was like touching an empty tooth socket with my tongue. I knew what was supposed to be there but was surprised and disappointed and sad when it wasn’t.”

The longing never let go.

Inspiration is a funny fish

In March 2014, we sold our townhouse in North York. At the time, my husband and I were both working downtown. The long commutes were brutal. We wanted to be closer to work. We got lucky with a house listing, and things fell into place.

Complications with the sale meant that, from April to early June, we moved in with my parents. They still live in the house where I was a teenager in Greater Toronto. While we stayed with them, my commuting time doubled from two hours each day to four.

During those long hours in the car, something strange happened to me.

I’d seen Edge of Tomorrow and Captain America: Winter Soldier that spring. Parts of both stories kept echoing in my head while simultaneously mixing with other bits and pieces to ricochet off in an entirely new direction.

I couldn’t leave it alone. While driving, I found myself acting out bits of dialogue. Sometimes I made myself laugh. Sometimes I cried, blinking furiously to keep clear eyes on the road.

Honestly, the whole thing was embarrassing. I’ve always had a rich interior life, but I hadn’t daydreamed this intensely since I was a teenager. I told no one, but I thought about my secret world constantly.

The move came. We settled the children into our new house. That fall, Caitlin Moran gave a talk at the Toronto Public Library that I attended. And she said something that made me sit upright in my seat.

I’m paraphrasing, but it was essentially:

“Whatever you feel most taboo about, whatever feels too strange or bizarre to share with anyone else, that’s the universe’s special content gift to you.”

What if what was happening during those commutes wasn’t just a diversion to keep me from losing my mind out of sheer boredom?

What if it was another book?

How do you recognize inspiration?

The next night, I had a dinner date with my friend K-Town. She’s a writer, too, and had generously been one of my beta readers for that dead-in-its tracks fantasy epic.

Giddy with the question of whether I’d latched onto a viable idea, I told her this new story as though vomiting up my very guts. It took a long time. My cheeks grew hot and my voice grew thin, the way it gets when I’m trying to talk but I’m too excited to do it properly.

When I’d finished, K-Town looked at me for a long minute. Then she said, “That’s the most commercial thing you’ve ever come up with. GO. WRITE IT.”

So I did.

Without endless evenings and weekends to spend at a desktop computer, I had to get crafty. Eventually, I realized that I could use Wattpad to write during my subway commute. By standing in the doors that never opened until I reached my stop, I could put my headphones in, pull out my phone, and get in 25 to 40 minutes of writing each way.

Getting out of my own way

Using this method, I wrote a first draft of 135,000 words in 15 months.

In the beginning, I thought the story was a standalone book. As it turns out, that draft was the highlight reel for a five-book contemporary fantasy action series.

I wrote five more drafts between 2014 and 2022, refining my world-building, characters, and villains, while interlacing the plot as I went. I got feedback from 26 beta readers, a structural/line editor who works for a major publishing house, two sensitivity readers, a copyeditor, and a proofreader.

It’s been a labour of love, but Chaos Calling: Book 1 of The Xenthian Cycle is now available for pre-order as an ebook.

Don’t Stop Believing: What I wish I’d known

Why tell you this story?

In part to share my book’s origin story and perhaps inspire you to read it, sure.

But there’s something deeper at play.

When I got out of that car carrying a dead dream, I was between 33 and 35 years old. I thought I’d missed my shot. I thought I was a failure. I thought I’d lied to my family and myself about what my life would be.

I’ve never been so wrong.

And the kicker?

I built Chaos Calling in the wreckage of that earlier novel. Wrestling with my slow-paced, ridiculously flawed fantasy epic taught me more about craft and persistence than any class ever could. I just needed time, both to finish becoming the adult I needed to be, and for this new idea to emerge.

And so, as I think about that distraught young parent sobbing out her heart in that car, I want to ask you one small question:

What might you be wrong about?

* * *

Chaos Calling: Book 1 of The Xenthian Cycle is available as an ebook and paperback. It’s about three childhood friends who don’t know they’re on standby for the end of the world. Slowly, they realize that their unusual adolescence was training for what to do should an ancient enemy appear in their lifetime.

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