Ten Questions with Carolyn Huizinga Mills
Carolyn Huizinga Mills is the author of The Good Son, out this month from Cormorant Books.
1. You have said you were inspired to become a writer after reading LM Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon as a child. What was it about that story that sparked something in you?
It’s hard to say exactly, because I read it so long ago, and it is one of the few books I have never reread, because I am afraid that the magic I remember from reading it will be gone. I think it was the image of Emily, up in her aunt’s garret, writing on the backs of envelopes. There was just something so romantic to me about the idea of not having paper and having to scribble down your thoughts on whatever you could. I actually still write lists on the backs of envelopes. I save them, or pull them out of the recycling to make grocery lists, and I always feel a little bit like Emily when I do that.
Also, it was the first long book I ever got. As a kid, I would plow through books really quickly, so for my birthday I asked my mom to buy me the fattest book she could find. When she gave it to me, I thought, She actually did it! She gave me the thickest book in the world! Now when I look at it, I realize it is not that long at all, but compared to what I had been reading before that, it was huge.
2. How did you decide to take the leap into writing professionally? What made it possible? What have been the biggest obstacles?
I don’t know that it was a leap. I had sort of puttered around with writing for years. I would squeeze it in during my kids’ activities, summer holidays, even sometimes on long car trips I would have a notebook in my lap. So, it wasn’t so much a leap as it was a slow immersion.
What made it possible was the support of my family, specifically of [my husband] Scott, who always encouraged me and made sure there was time for it, and my kids, who were willing to entertain themselves quietly when I was writing. I would lock myself in the office, and they would take out stacks of board games or other things to keep them busy for whatever time I needed.
The biggest obstacle is always time, for sure. That’s why I eventually took a year off from work to focus on my writing, because squeezing it into small pockets, while it lets me get little bits done, doesn’t allow for the big, uninterrupted chunks of time I need to get into the rhythm, or the flow.
3. Your protagonist in The Good Son, Zoe, is haunted by her perception of the past in ways that come to inform all of her life choices. It prevents her from believing that she is worthy of love, or from imagining that real happiness is possible for her. Can you speak a little bit about this theme, this idea that our the past can shape our lives in powerful ways?
I’ve always been intrigued by how our pasts, or the beliefs we hold as children, might shape who we become—how they influence our perceptions of ourselves and our self worth, but also how they drive our behaviour. And so I wanted to explore that in the story, but I wanted to complicate it with guilt. Zoe carries this carefully guarded secret with her from childhood into adulthood, so it’s not only her perceptions of the past, but also the layer of guilt that comes with that.
“I’ve always been intrigued by how our pasts, or the beliefs we hold as children, might shape who we become—how they influence our perceptions of ourselves and our self worth, but also how they drive our behaviour. ”
Kate: This story has incredibly high emotional stakes, which is what makes it such a compelling read. Zoe is an deeply conflicted character, living with a very dark secret. Was it difficult to live inside her head for as long as it took you to write the book?
No. And I wonder what that says about me. (laughs)
5. You debuted first as a picture book author, publishing The Little Boy Who Lived Down the Drain with Fitzhenry and Whiteside in 2017. You also have another picture book forthcoming. What drew you to working in that form?
I really wanted to write a novel, and that was daunting. The idea of a picture book, at the time, felt so much more manageable, the scale was so much smaller. So I turned my attention to that. In the end, though, it took almost as much time to write the first picture book as it did to write the novel. I was sort of writing them at the same time, so maybe it wasn’t that it took me that long to write it, it just took me that long to get it published. While I was initially drawn to picture books because of the length, I don’t want anyone to to confuse writing a picture book with being easier—its just shorter!
Kate: But even though picture books are just as difficult to write, I do find them a more manageable form when I don’t have large chunks of time, because I can do a draft and put it away and come back to it later. With a longer-form piece, I need to be in the flow of it, holding all of those plot pieces in my head. If I put it down and walk away from it, it takes much longer to find my way back into the story. Picture books lend themselves better to those times my life when the time I have for writing is more fragmented.
Carolyn: Yes, and when you need to re-write a picture book, even if you are reworking the entire concept, you can do that in one sitting. Whereas, when I need to rework a novel, I need six months.
6. Has your writing process changed as you have moved into writing novels for an adult audience?
With adult novels, I have tons of post-it notes, index cards, notebooks full of information, pictures saved on my computer that I refer to for certain scenes. I have bulletin boards with timelines, chapter outlines, and sometimes even items. For the book I was working on most recently, I have a locket pinned beside my desk, and fabric swatches from the furniture in the character’s house. With picture books, I don’t tend to have nearly as many supports. I still have notes in a notebook, but I don’t have all those other pieces. With a novel, the process of keeping track of all the pieces is so much more involved.
7. What role does your critique group play in your process?
Carolyn: Having a writing group has been on par for me with working with my mentor, Merilyn Simonds. It is so motivating to surround yourself with other writers, people who can celebrate the highs with you, but also commiserate with you on the lows, who understand how frustrating the setbacks are.
Kate: Writing is also like any other solo sport, in the sense that it is helpful to build mechanisms of accountability for yourself if you want to keep showing up, keep pushing yourself. Knowing that I need to send pages to my group for critique on a specific day is sometimes all that keeps me focused.
It’s also having someone else whose judgment you value—someone who has a critical eye—giving you feedback, pointing out the things you couldn’t see, or that you did see but you just wanted to ignore, that forces you to make changes that will make your work better. At the same time, it’s also a really encouraging place to be, because you have people who believe in your work, who propel you forward.
Kate: I often refer to you as The Carolyn Machine, because I feel like all of my picture book manuscripts have to go through you before I can send them out. You are so honest and you have such a good eye. I often have to take your criticism and sit with it for a little while in order to move past my initial defensiveness, but when I give in and try it your way, it almost always becomes clear that you were right.
Carolyn: When I first started working with my mentor Merilyn, I had to learn to receive her critiques and just sit back with them for a bit. My initially instinct was to be defensive, to say, “No, no, no! You just don’t see what I was trying to do here.” So I learned to let it sink in for a bit, and then inevitably I would see that she was right.
7. You are also a middle-grade teacher. Do you think of your work as an educator and your work as a writer as separate? Or are those parts of your identity intertwined?
I would say they are loosely intertwined. I teach writing skills to my students, and often will teach skills that I personally have found helpful, or I’ll teach something I have done at a workshop. I also talk to them a lot about my own process; I’ll show them examples of drafts so they can see how messy they are, to try and help them understand that making edits doesn’t make you a bad writer, that you should be crossing things out and changing your ideas. But when I’m writing, I don’t feel like I do that through the lens of a teacher, so it’s almost like a one-way connection. I take my role as a writer into the classroom, but I don’t necessarily take my role as a teacher into my writing.
Kate: When you’re writing a picture book, do you think about how it could be used in the classroom, opportunities that it would present for curriculum connections extension activities, or is that not really part of your process?
Carolyn: I don’t think about it, and it’s probably because I don’t teach primary grades. My two picture books so far have each grown from an idea that I really liked, and that I felt lent itself to the picture book form.
8. What does a typical day look like for you?
On typical weekday, I get up a little bit before 5 am. That’s my writing time. I make a cup of tea and write until I have to get ready for work. Then, I teach all day. When I come home from work, I do some Duolingo—I am trying to learn Dutch and French because, why not! Sometimes I run, because I am also working towards some running goals. This month I want to run a 10k— that’s hopefully happening next Saturday. After that, I make dinner, hang out with my family, and usually watch a show with Scott. I go to bed early, which is what allows me to get up early. Usually I go to bed with a book and read for 15 or 20 minutes before falling asleep.
On the weekend, I don’t get up as early, which is nice, but I still do all of those same things. I still spend some time writing—actually, I’ll often spend a larger chunk of time writing. I do my longer runs on the weekends, and I like to go on hikes as well. I still do my French and Dutch. Since I am not teaching on the weekends, though, I have a lot more time to spend with my family, plus get to housework, laundry, grocery shopping . . .
9. What food brought you the most joy and comfort as a child? What about these days?
Chocolate. Then, and now.
10. What has been the best moment of your writing life so far?
There are a few contenders! One was holding each of my books for the first time. Another was travelling with One World Schoolhouse to St. Lucia after my picture book came out. It wasn’t even the fact that I got to travel and do all this fun stuff, it was that I was grouped with other authors who were more established—real authors!—and then there was me. I didn’t think of myself as a real author yet. Hearing the organizers refer to us as a group, saying, “the authors will do this next”, or “the authors will sit here”, made me feel like I was a real author. I will never forget that moment, thinking they’re talking about me! Another moment would be that initial moment when you realize that a publisher actually wants to publish something you’ve written. Hearing the news, reading “we would like to acquire your book” on my computer screen, that was a moment that felt surreal.
