[00:00:01.140] – Rachel Thompson

Hello and welcome to the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast. I’m Rachel Thompson. Today I’m talking with Tamara Jong, a writer and author of Worldly Girls. Tamara and I have known each other through writing community for years. She’s been on the podcast before, and in this conversation we get into the long, real arc of making a book, the stamina it takes to bring it to completion, and what it can mean to tell the truth on the page when you come from a world that did not exactly encourage nuance. We talk about the season after a debut, about learning to say no so you can make space for the work, and about the forms that helped Tamara unlock the book, including containers, braided structure, and the kind of metaphor that can hold what’s too loaded, perhaps, to say straight out. Near the end, Tamara also offers a beautiful prompt about family lore and what you might write if no one was reading over your shoulder. And she reads an excerpt from her memoir, Worldly Girls, including an excerpt from “Triptych: What We Get to Keep.” Let’s get into it.

[00:00:55.000] – Rachel Thompson

So I just want to welcome you, Tamara, back to the podcast, where you’ve been a fixture many times in the past, and a guest in the past as well.

[00:01:18.970] – Rachel Thompson

I’m just wondering if you wanted to share about where you’re calling in from, and one small, concrete thing in your space that’s keeping you company as you write these days.

[00:01:28.990] – Tamara Jong

Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to always be back and to chat with you. I’m coming in from Treaty 3 territory, which is the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabewaki, Attawandarek, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, otherwise known as Guelph, Ontario. And I’m so happy to be here.

I did want to mention though that I came across a book. I was at a panel this weekend, and it’s called A Steady Brightness of Being: Truths, Wisdom, and Love from Celebrated Indigenous Voices, and it’s edited by Sara Sinclair and Stephanie Sinclair. I love letters, and I just want to say I try to make an active time to also look at Indigenous voices. I think it’s really important to look at other books besides my own community and what’s most popular. So a friend of mine had kind of hooked me onto this. We did a launch, and then she was talking about the books that mean something to us right now. And that really means a lot right now. It’s really beautiful and special. So I really highly recommend it. So I just wanted to say that as well, besides doing where I’m coming to you from.

[00:02:26.530] – Rachel Thompson

The cover is gorgeous.

[00:02:27.820] – Tamara Jong

It is, right?

[00:02:28.720] – Rachel Thompson

I’ll make sure to link to it because we don’t post a video of the podcast, but what a gorgeous book. Yeah. An artifact.

[00:02:34.530] – Tamara Jong

If you don’t cry at least once while you’re reading it, I don’t know.

[00:02:37.820] – Rachel Thompson

I can’t help you. Yeah.

No, just one thing I just love is that you are often out at community events. You seem, I was going to say indefatigable, is that the right word? But actually, I think, I’m sure you’re just a human like all of us. But I just know that you share a lot of energy for community, and it’s something I really have always valued about you.

I benefited from you as being someone who really jumped into the writing community that I was creating really early on. So of course Tamara would start with sharing information about another book, and something, an event that you have just been at recently.

So I love that. I’ve been thinking a lot about seasons in writing, and I’ve been writing a bit about that for writers, like sort of where they’re at. And I’m curious because, well, like, when we’re talking about that, it’s usually like, okay, am I in the generating season? Am I in the ready-to-send-work-out season? Am I in the about-to-get-published season? Sort of my milieu of where I’m working with writers a lot of the time.

But now you’re in this season of you have the book out.

[00:03:44.370] – Rachel Thompson

You’ve done most, I think, of the promotion for it, from talking to you a little before we started recording. So my question is, if you could name your current season, artistically or emotionally, where are you at right now?

[00:03:58.030] – Tamara Jong

That’s a great question. So the seasons, I don’t know if you’ve heard, in Canada are becoming less of seasons and more of like very, like, two seasons, and then there’s very short in-between seasons.

And sometimes I would like to describe what’s happening right now as, like, I feel like all of those seasons. Or if I’m gonna have to pick, then I would say most likely it would be spring for me right now, just because I’m heading in from winter and then coming into spring, which I feel like it’s a lot more laid back now. It’s about almost eight months since my book came out, so I’ve had a lot more time for rest and looking back, and about things I’ve done and things I wished I’d done, things I’ve wished I’d said.

So I’m really grateful for all the opportunities I had, but as I mentioned earlier, I am a yes person. It’s really hard for me to say no. And because of Bookhug and the belief they’ve had in my book, I just felt like I needed to be there. And I also wanted to talk to my readers, or people who have found themselves in similar circumstances where they are struggling, and even struggling in the world right now.

[00:04:59.470] – Tamara Jong

Like, who are we as a person, but who are we as a community?

So I would say, yes, the in-between seasons. Like yesterday, for example, for the last couple days, it rained, it snowed, it was cold. You could walk out with a t-shirt. Like there was all those different feelings. And that’s sometimes how it feels like, you know, writing a book and promoting a book and looking back on all of that.

And I also forgot to mention about the concrete thing that I had. Of course, it’s always family and community for me, but it was also, I have a cat. It’s a tortoiseshell, and her name is Junie. I joke that she’s the light and fright of my life. You know, she’s like a little toddler, follows me around. She’s definitely my cat. And she’s kind of this little thing that she’s with me when I come to the door, she comes to the door at the house, she follows me around, and she’s been my little balm, I guess, is what she’s been for me.

I got her later, after I was already doing my editing and stuff like that, but I found it’s been very grounding, because I thought I was allergic to cats.

[00:05:54.680] – Tamara Jong

She’s a shorthair. And so we thought we’d get her instead of a dog, because we live in an apartment. So it’s been really nice having her around, even though she’s very moody. My husband said she’s very much like me. She’s up and down, you know, menopause, you know, she’s up and down. She sleeps, you know, during the day and is up at night, you know, very much like me.

But yeah, I forgot to mention that she’s a little concrete part of my life that means a lot to me, you know.

[00:06:18.540] – Rachel Thompson

Oh my gosh. I hardcore relate to your cat. That’s great.

[00:06:23.620] – Tamara Jong

I was like, “It’s a Junie day today.” That could be a season as well. She will nip at me if I don’t give her treats, you know. She’ll be like, “I want a treat.”

[00:06:34.820] – Rachel Thompson

And I think you were right to point out how the seasons work because I’m very seldom in that part of the world these days, and I didn’t even realize that that was shifting. It feels like things are shifting everywhere that I talk to people, but it’s different to be literally out of the environment and not feel it.

And I like that you’re naming these sort of shoulder seasons almost, that maybe you’re in a transition thing. I want to talk about Worldly Girls, but I also kind of want to talk about your practice right now too. Like, where are you at in your writing at this moment? How’s post-book writing going?

[00:07:09.890] – Tamara Jong

I’m not really writing a lot that wasn’t still for, even though the season’s winding down for Worldly Girls, I’m still doing a little bit of sort of promotional stuff for it. I haven’t really had time to kind of work on my own writing.

Like I did do a stab at something small, which I guess is great. And that was a couple of months ago though. So I’ve really only still been kind of thinking about Worldly Girls.

So I haven’t, like I said, had a lot of free time to do that kind of thing. But I am thinking about at some point doing some of the things that were essays that were not included in Worldly Girls, but we’ll see.

I kind of joke, like I said, if this is the only book I write, I mean, I think I’m okay with that right now. That’s how I feel about it. And I don’t know, ’cause it’s too soon, because I feel like it’s been all-encompassing. I started sort of writing some of the work in 2011, so it has a really long gestation period.

And so to think about a second book is really kind of scary.

[00:08:03.350] – Tamara Jong

Would it take me as long? I hope not, but we’ll see. So my writing, I just kind of view it as like, I’ll give myself grace. It’s been a lot, you know, busyness. And so when I’m ready, I feel like I can jump back into it. Yeah.

[00:08:19.630] – Rachel Thompson

And I was trying to ask that in a way that wasn’t like, okay, so when’s the next book coming out? Like the high pressure of that as well too, because I think that can be really challenging when you’re in the middle of a promotion and your head is all in that too.

And I know Worldly Girls was just such a long-held project. You were working on it before we connected, I suspect. I must have been, because I didn’t live near you in 2011.

But I’m wondering when you first realised this was “the book,” as you’re calling it too. It’s like the book, maybe the only book you need to write. What kept pulling you back to it as a book or the book?

[00:09:06.160] – Tamara Jong

It was probably more like 2012, 2013, 2014, I think, when my teacher Ayelet Tsabari was kind of touching in and saying, “Hey, are you gonna work on your memoir?”

And that felt very daunting to me because I was thinking I only had essays at a time, like a handful. And she said, “You know, you could call it something like Letters to Your Parents or something,” because that’s kind of how I started.

And then I was thinking, “Oh gosh, that’s so scary to think about writing a whole book about your own life.” And I’m like, “Who am I to write a book about my life?”

And I think it also had to do with the religion and ambition, and that things that were not supposed to be mine, I guess, or feel like I could have a life as a writer or I could pursue these things. I’m going to be less modest. I’m talking about my life, you know. I’m talking about very, very personal things in my life.

So it became a book later on when I kept working away at these essays and then taking more and more workshops and courses. And I think again, the community and getting published in magazines like Room, for example, and then Ricepaper as well.

I think getting those little yeses, getting, let’s say, some recommender grants, started making me think maybe this could be a thing.

[00:10:10.580] – Tamara Jong

And then also going to Simon Fraser’s, like, The Writer’s Studio really prepares you for like, “Hey, you know, try to put together a book.” And I’m like, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” You know, I probably never use the stuff that I’m learning.

But then you start to use the stuff that you’re learning and there’s a lot of you in it. So it’s kind of like you kind of encouraging each other.

So I think that’s when it started sort of really rolling, like, more seriously. I’m like, I could do something with this now. And so, you know, that was what, 2018, I think. And it still took a while, maybe three years almost, for me to start submitting my manuscript out to publishers.

So it was a bit of a long haul, but then I kept thinking, you know, I’ll just keep working on it. So it’s not like it was stagnant or not working. I just slowly worked my way at it because I’m a slow writer. So I figured, okay, I’ll just keep going and see what happens.

[00:10:58.220] – Rachel Thompson

You’re reminding me a bit of that time too, because there was a moment for me where I just remember you telling me, actually, I’m stepping back from these things, because you had been also a part of the Collective at Room, I think, at the time too.

Not to call you out on stepping back, I think it was a great, no, no, no. But just to say that I really admired that too, that you were like, okay, actually there’s some things I’m gonna leave behind because I need to write this book. I need to protect these things.

Can you talk more about that instinct and how you protected time, privacy, maybe softness, anger, mess, slowness, all those things to bring this home, and then be able to send it out?

[00:11:42.150] – Tamara Jong

Well, I gained so much experience and I loved working with Room. Like I loved working with you. I loved all those things and helping other writers.

And then what happens is I feel like sometimes part of you is like, well, what about my work? You know, where’s space for me?

And you know, I think if I was single, maybe there would be different free time, you know. But then I still was a wife, I was a mother, and then I was working as well.

And I think I had to start to say no to things. I had that interview with Dr Cheryl Thompson, and I remember Dr Thompson saying something about saying no to things that are not in line with your goal.

And I thought, is that such a bad thing? People say no to me personally, when they can’t do something, and I am totally fine with it. I can accept that.

And I realised that sometimes we have to say no in order to get the yes. So I realised I needed to focus on finishing stuff. And maybe it was my own fear too. If I’m so busy with all this other stuff, I’m like, I don’t have time to do the book, I tell myself, right? Because I’m working on this. But in actuality, it’s fear and procrastination that’s like keeping me away from trying to finish that project.

Also, I remember in The Writer’s Studio, they used to talk about the beginning of a project being way easier than the end of it. We work and work on the beginning and the beginning, but the ending sometimes can be weak because we just don’t spend as much time with it.

And I realised if I wanted to finish this book, I guess I had to put aside time to do it and really kind of make that promise to myself. Because if I didn’t finish it, who’s gonna finish it? Like no one, you know. It’s languishing in a drawer. That’s fine. But then I would always have this feeling that I had to complete it. And I think that would be a regret if I didn’t get back to it.

And of course, you only have so many human years that you can do these things.

So I was thinking, you know, I guess I have to start stepping away from stuff.

[00:13:30.300] – Rachel Thompson

Room was the catalyst in some ways.

[00:13:32.800] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, you can have many interviews, but then sometimes somebody says something and it really clicks, where you’re like, oh wow, thank you. And they don’t even know that they’re kind of leading you along a path that helped you figure out stuff.

[00:13:44.740] – Rachel Thompson

That was a great interview too. I think it’s in the hair issue, is that right, of Room?

[00:13:48.860] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, the hair issue.

[00:13:49.650] – Rachel Thompson

Yeah, everything we mentioned I’ll put in the show notes just to let people know.

[00:13:53.430] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, Dr Thompson was fantastic.

[00:13:55.690] – Rachel Thompson

That interview introduced me to Dr Thompson’s work too. “If I don’t finish this book, who’s going to?” is something that I kind of want to tattoo on myself at some point as well too.

It’s sort of like, this is what Tamara did, and then look at where she’s at right now too. It’s sort of like, this is the saying no that was required for you to do that. So huge admiration and respect for you.

I want to talk about the drive to write the book as well. What was the book asking you about girlhood, family, belonging, and identity that you felt like you couldn’t answer in any other way than in this memoir form?

[00:14:38.000] – Tamara Jong

I think it was asking me to be honest. And sometimes the book takes its form of, like, letters. So sometimes I couldn’t be as honest if I wasn’t writing a letter to someone. There are a couple of letters in there, and I think it helped also show me as, like, a flawed person.

It wasn’t just about how people had done things to me. There’s also things that I really gained and things that I didn’t see. So I think there was an element of forgiveness.

You know, my parents had a hard life, and I actually didn’t see them as fully formed individuals, I think, until I really started writing about them, and then also becoming a parent myself.

Just realising how hard a lot of choices are, and it’s not so black and white.

And the religion did have a lot of things in it that were black and white. Like, it’s either a yes or no. There was no sitting on the fence.

So kind of leaving it as well and examining that leaving and what that meant and figuring out who I was. I think that was also good because it helped me see there is grey areas.

[00:15:31.590] – Tamara Jong

Actually, it is. It’s easy to say that’s right or that’s wrong, but there is that in between. And I think that sometimes, at times, religion cannot make space for that. And I don’t think that’s very healthy. And also, as far as relationships go, I don’t think it helps relationships either.

So I did really feel like nonfiction was the way for me to go. I mean, I could have wrote it in fiction, all of this, and no one would have thought twice about it. They might have said, “Oh, is part of this based on your life?” And I could say, “Yeah, part of it is based on my life,” because people do do that if they want to.

But for me to feel, like, good about it, I felt like the way that I wanted to have it written was it had to be a nonfiction book. It had to be a memoir. That was the way I could only write my truth.

[00:16:12.390] – Rachel Thompson

I am still working my way through the book because it does take a long time for me to collect mail from Canada to here.

I just am noticing that honesty there. And even just in the triptych “What We Get to Keep,” there’s this line that I’ve, I’ve done the thing I don’t do very often, which is to highlight in a book.

But the first part of the piece is about getting a vacuum, and another vacuum after your mother’s vacuum has broken down after her passing, if I’m contextualising that correctly.

And you say, “It would be years before I got another vacuum. When I did, it wasn’t new, just someone else’s second best, which I rightly deserved.”

And I found that there was something so strong in being able to say that thing that the reader is like, “No, that’s not what you really…” Like, we’re already in love with this person as a reader, let alone knowing you, thinking, “Well, of course you deserve so much more than that.” And yet there’s something just so heartbreakingly honest and beautiful about saying, “This is how I felt,” without saying even, “This is how I felt.”

There’s no friction between your thoughts and what you’re sharing with the reader.

[00:17:22.810] – Rachel Thompson

So I just, I’m really already so much in love with these words and I can’t wait to read more.

[00:17:29.350] – Tamara Jong

Thank you.

[00:17:30.560] – Rachel Thompson

I’m wondering about structure and form. It’s a memoir in essays. What decisions did you make about form that unlocked the book for you in terms of structure or point of view? Can you talk a bit about the structure?

[00:17:54.620] – Tamara Jong

I think Chelene Knight’s Dear Current Occupant really made me see things in a different way because I realised, and I heard that in interviews, it originally was supposed to be a book of poetry, I believe. And I think it wasn’t working that way.

And then she realised it wasn’t working that way. And then she did things like, because there’s fragments, there’s like poetry in there, there’s pictures, there’s like essays.

And so I think reading that and then also reading other sort of hybrid memoirs.

And I also took a course that Nicole Breit, like, she has, Chelene Knight calls them containers.

And I know with the first story, the vacuum story, I needed a container to put something in.

And also, Ayelet Tsabari taught me about braided essays and different forms on how to tell a story.

So I think for certain stories, because it couldn’t just be about, let’s say, trauma, you know. Nobody wants to just read about like, a bundle of trauma. I felt it needed to be wrapped around something. And it felt like it was an easier way to tell the story for me.

Even though I know it’s memoir, it’s always hard to put attention just back on yourself, what they call navel-gazing and all that stuff.

[00:18:55.130] – Tamara Jong

Like, I needed to sort of wrap it around something, but it couldn’t just be a random wrapping. It had to be something that resonated with me in the story.

So that’s what I felt I could do with the story. And the vacuum one with Robin, my best friend that wouldn’t come to my wedding, and then we kind of had a bit of a break as far as our friendship went.

That was a very painful story, but I didn’t know how to put it together and it took me years and I tried and I tried and I tried and nothing seemed to work.

And then finally I was like, the vacuum is a perfect metaphor for our relationship breaking down when I had broken her vacuum, and also talking about my mom’s relationship and my relationship.

So it was like sort of layered where people or readers can make the connection. And that’s just one example I felt of how, you know, by reading other writers and then being introduced to different methods of telling a story, that I was able to tell my story.

So I think eventually you find who you need to find at the right time.

[00:19:48.560] – Tamara Jong

Maybe the Robin story wasn’t meant to be done five years ago, ten years ago. It was ready when it was ready. And even mentally and emotionally, I could only handle it. And then it was ready to become what it was. Yeah.

[00:20:00.760] – Rachel Thompson

You really grow into memoir as you write it, don’t you? It’s like you need to mature in that way.

[00:20:07.290] – Tamara Jong

It’s not easy. I think the way that it wants to be told, it kind of will reveal it to you, but you kind of have to be patient.

We can force something into something, but then it doesn’t feel good. It could be perfectly pleasing on the page, you know, aesthetically very nice, but then it has no heart or soul in it.

And I feel like for me to find the heart and soul, I needed to tell it a different way.

[00:20:28.720] – Rachel Thompson

Tell me more about that. Like, I’m wondering even if there were things that you tried that you had to cut. I mean, I think there are pieces that you have put aside that you’re still working with, but is there any section or frame or narrative habit that you unravelled or changed to make the book truer as you were writing?

[00:20:46.850] – Tamara Jong

My editor, who was the amazing Stacey May Fowles, we had essays about my dad. So my dad is in the book, yes, but I feel like it’s a lot about women and mothers and relationships. And of course about your father, but I had like about three different essays that didn’t make it into this book.

And she said to me, you know, “I think that’s a different book.” And I was like, “Oh God.” But you know when somebody says something and you know it’s true? I couldn’t dispute it. I was like, “Yeah.” And she didn’t think I had enough time to process what was happening with those stories. And I agreed. I totally knew. And I said, “Okay, you’re right.” She said, “That’s another book.”

So I agreed with her and we kept those stories out. It didn’t take away from the story at all, I found. But she felt it might lead it off into a different narrative.

You know, you have themes that kind of start to reveal themselves as you’re writing. And because I’m so close to it, sometimes I don’t see it because I’m making all my connections. I already know all my history, even if I forget stuff.

The reader is gonna be like, why are we going out here? You know, maybe it wouldn’t have made sense.

[00:21:42.190] – Tamara Jong

So I, I totally agreed. And so then in that case, yeah, I had to let go a couple of those essays and not have them in the book, which I was fine with. Because I trusted Stacey May, like all of her.

It was very kind. She was really good at like, “Anything you need, let me know.” We had phone calls. I was very fangirly. It was like incredible to be able to work with her, but I could feel her on my shoulder as I was editing, “Oh, you know, maybe you could do this, maybe you could do…” And I feel like that’s nice.

I kind of had to let go of the things that I thought I was going to do with it and then just kind of trust that these decisions were being made for the better of the book.

And it was, you know, I don’t think I could have written it in the way, or edited it in the way that it ended up being without my editor.

[00:22:27.680] – Rachel Thompson

That’s so wonderful to hear, because I was going to ask you about telling the difference between work that needs more, or work that’s done and time to stop touching it. But it sounds also like you had a really great thinking partner, and a legendary editor as well.

[00:22:43.260] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, no, I was really, really grateful. And you know, of course it goes through proofing and things like that, but everyone was very respectful, like, is this okay? If you agree with it, because of course it’s my words, but you have to still edit a book.

It’s not just ready to go into the world as is. Even Jack Kerouac, I’m sure, got edited. You can’t just, here you go, you know, to people. It just still has to be edited properly.

And I don’t have those skills. It’s not the same thing. I feel like the editing and the creative part of it, it feels very different.

So to actually, you know, spew out the work and then to go back with the commas and the periods and the punctuation and the proper spelling and all those things, those are a different brain, I feel like.

[00:23:22.870] – Rachel Thompson

So what part of this process for you required the most stamina, from drafting, revising, waiting, querying/submitting, or editing?

[00:23:35.710] – Tamara Jong

It was less than a year probably to do the revisions. That was a lot because all those stories I had started like so long ago.

I think to do them all in one chunk, we broke it up in halves, but it still was a lot, I feel like, emotionally, to be going through my life in intense chunks. It would be like a month. So we’d work on this for a month.

And then I did come up with some new essays. So I did feel like it was a lot emotionally.

I think looking back, I probably should have had some therapy sessions because I would just kind of bowl through because I had to. I had time limits and constraints and I was working also full-time and I was tired.

So I think I would’ve looked back and maybe it would’ve been a little bit healthier for me to have some discussions about what was happening. It was like instant processing.

Yes, I was several years away from a lot of the situations that happened in the book, but it’s still emotional going through it again, and especially in such large chunks.

[00:24:27.540] – Tamara Jong

Looking back, I would’ve benefited from therapy just to kind of chat it out with a general person that was not connected to the work. Friends and family, of course they help, but I think it’s different, of course, a therapeutic relationship, just talking about what it means.

And also having that fear now of like having it out there, you know, everybody reading it and judging it. Once it’s out there, I can’t control what happens to it or the narrative. It’s gonna have its own life.

And so there is that fear as you’re writing, even though my parents have passed and I have that freedom of not having them read that and going, that’s not true, you know, we were there, we’re the adults.

It’s still scary to have friends and family and strangers read my work. So I think editing was probably the most challenging part of all of it for me.

[00:25:14.640] – Rachel Thompson

We’ve connected through writing community, and I heard you talking about therapy as support.

Maybe are there things that happened in writing community that really kept you going at that time as well though?

[00:25:27.460] – Tamara Jong

I felt like I didn’t have a lot of time to go outside of that little shell as much. Of course, I had my friends from the writing community, so I think just sort of, how are things going? Checking in. I think that did help a lot.

So I wasn’t able to go to as many things during that intense writing period as I would’ve liked. But I did feel like supported, I guess, that way.

And it was always there. What was nice is if I reached out, you know, like Lena or Emily, you know, I feel like they were there for me. So that really does help.

My friend Jagtar too.

So I did have people I could lean on, and non-writing people too. So that did help. And my brother and sister were always really good. And my husband, of course, but I didn’t see a lot of him when I was editing, you know, because I was just like intensely just trying to finish these things.

He’s like, I know, I know you have this stuff to do. And I just said, you know, you get one shot. This is what happens, right? So yeah, it was intense.

[00:26:22.880] – Rachel Thompson

Seems to me this is a big bifurcation, right, for you as a writer. So what’s something you used to believe about your writing life that maybe you don’t believe anymore?

[00:26:32.260] – Tamara Jong

Well, there’s all kinds of advice about like how to keep writing. I think it is a long game. So I didn’t probably realise that at first when I was new and naive, you know, taking my Humber School for Writing that week, I thought I could just pump out a book and it would be pretty easy.

But the more that I knew about writing, the less I felt like I knew about writing. All of a sudden I felt penned in before it was just like creative flow.

And then I realised, you know, hey, there’s structures. Hey, there’s rules, you know, hey, there’s things you need to do in order to make it a story.

So I think that kind of broke down where I realised if you’re writing nonfiction, it just can’t be like, this happened, you know. It has to be a narrative, you know. It has to be a story.

And also about writing every day. I’m not a writer that writes every day.

I listened to Louise Penny and she was saying something like, if you wrote one thousand words a day, my math is terrible, but she was like, if you write one thousand words a day, then you’ll have like 30,000 words in a month or something like that.

[00:27:22.860] – Tamara Jong

But to break that down even further, I thought if I had heard that, at least I could have taken that and said, well, if I wrote 50 words a day, if I wrote 100 words a day, it does make it a little bit better when you think you can actually have a good substantial amount of work if you just even do 500 words a day, which is not terrible and probably doable, 250.

But I mean, Louise Penny’s writing full-time, so it’s different for her.

[00:27:44.500] – Rachel Thompson

Whenever I hear that, it’s always from people writing mystery versus writing memoirs about their parents, right?

It’s sort of been such a more intense process. And sometimes you do need to take a break because of the challenges of it.

I mean, not to disparage her process, and I think anything that creates momentum is great too, but I always bristle at the idea of writing every day because I feel like it’s not accessible to everyone.

We’re working, but also certain materials really don’t work that way, and writers don’t work that way. Like, there are writers who do things more on a retreat versus doing that daily practice.

But I also agree, 250 words a day, sure, why not? That would get you somewhere too.

[00:28:26.530] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. And it’s an individual thing. I think we find our thing, whatever works for us in the day.

And if you don’t feel like writing and if you haven’t written even in a month, maybe that’s your way of like, your body’s just like, hey, let’s just think.

‘Cause we’re in such a world that’s so, everything’s so instantly gratified.

All of us were readers usually before we were writers. And it’s challenging for me to actually sit down for an hour with a book now, you know.

And that wasn’t a thing before, you know. I didn’t mind spending like a whole day or half a day reading a book. And now it’s just not that life anymore.

Like we’re just so busy and social media has changed things.

[00:29:03.020] – Rachel Thompson

Our brains are changing, I think.

[00:29:04.530] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, I agree with that. My attention span is not what it was. And even for writing. And I say this as a writer.

[00:29:10.390] – Rachel Thompson

I’m also relating back to the cat, the midlife stuff as well too, on attention span.

Back to your book. I know the title, you know, that’s established from the get-go. And I’ve, you know, knowing what you’re writing about for some time, known that this carries this double edge too, and it means different things to different communities.

What meanings were you inviting and what misunderstandings were you willing to risk? Not just for the title, but the stories themselves and the approach that you’re taking to, in some ways, disclose things around a religious community that you were a part of, around family, you know.

What meanings were you inviting and what misunderstandings were you willing to risk?

[00:29:56.600] – Tamara Jong

So Worldly Girls, I feel like the name itself, and I’ve had people like send me messages saying they knew right away when they saw the title.

So they knew, like, as a former member of the Witnesses, or even, you know, possibly current, that they recognised right away what that connotation meant.

Because within the organisation, “worldly” usually means, you know, that you’re worldly wise, that you have experiences, you know. It’s quite different in the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

It’s usually somebody that’s either starting to exhibit worldly qualities, but not really Godlike qualities. So things that you wouldn’t want to be.

And usually it’s associated with somebody that’s sort of not exactly an enemy of God, but kind of an enemy of God.

So it’s like opposite of what you would want to be as a Christian Jehovah’s Witness.

So that’s kind of what that title was about. And like I said, if it did its job by somebody recognising what it meant right away, I’m happy with that.

And for people curious, then I’m happy with that as well. So I feel like that title kind of encapsulates that idea.

[00:31:06.510] – Tamara Jong

As far as a prompt for people, and I felt like this has worked before because I did a Guelph Library sort of little workshop, and what I liked is I was like, what is one kind of family secret that is floating around?

You know, some lore that you have heard of, you know. And I think what would it be like to kind of like explore that a little bit more, to write about it, whether it’s true or whether it’s false?

And what about if no one’s going to read it? You’ll have nobody read it. It’s just you write it.

So what would that look like? Because I feel like when you have your parents or your brothers and sisters, your siblings, your cousins, you know, our religious community reading over your shoulder, it can be really hard to be honest about what you’re going to write there.

And so let’s say you never publish it, you’re just going to write it down for you.

I’m always curious about what that means when no one’s watching. So if you do a prompt like that, just start writing and see what comes out of that prompt, what comes out of that sentence.

It could be one, it could be a paragraph, it could be a chapter. It’s like whatever you want it to be.

But I feel like somewhere in there is gonna be a kernel of truth that’s gonna kind of lead you a thread to something that you really wanna say.

[00:31:56.140] – Tamara Jong

And even if it’s beating around the bush for a while, go ahead, you know. Just keep doing it until you give yourself that permission. I think it’s really important.

[00:32:03.600] – Rachel Thompson

To just go for it. Also, maybe gives a little insight too, like, is that how you felt early on in writing as well? It’s like, I’m going to write this and nobody’s going to see it. And then there’s a point where that kind of shifted where you thought, oh, this is something.

[00:32:17.620] – Tamara Jong

Yeah, I think it’s important to just try it. And if it results in, like I said, one sentence, I feel like you’ve done your job.

[00:32:24.670] – Rachel Thompson

So I’ve asked if you would read us a short excerpt from Worldly Girls for us.

[00:32:30.140] – Tamara Jong

I’m going to start from the beginning because I like beginnings, so I feel like that’ll be a nice place to start. So I’ll just read a short little piece. So it’s “Triptych: What We Get to Keep.”

[00:32:37.370] – Rachel Thompson

That was the piece that I had underlined.

[00:32:39.220] – Tamara Jong

Perfect. Yeah, so I’ll just read a little bit.

When I was in kindergarten, I wrote a story about my family. There wasn’t much of a plot. I depicted them as tiny, smiling, round-headed people obsessed with cleaning.

I drew detailed pictures of our plumbing, the car, the oven. Even the coin-operated laundromat in our building, the dryer visibly tumbling clothes round and round.

In the story, my sister sorts the chaos of shoes near the front door of our tiny apartment. I’m at the kitchen counter putting away dishes while Ma, with a drawn-on smile, is vacuuming the rug, little speckles of loose dirt making their way up into her treasured humming beige Electrolux.

I would eventually inherit Ma’s drawn-on smile, among other things. My brother only appeared on the cover, too tiny to contribute. Ma and us girls were in dresses because for those growing up Jehovah’s Witness, the teachings advised that women should adorn themselves in appropriate dress with modesty and soundness of mind, but in the way that is proper for women professing devotion to God, namely through good works.

My father always told us about everything that needed to be cleaned and what needed to be avoided altogether.

Money, shoes, motel rooms, beds, bathrooms, door handles, and my uncles, Ma’s brothers.

“Don’t hug or kiss them,” he would say.

We once saw our Uncle Alec blow his nose into a paper bag and throw the bag under a coffee table.

[00:33:49.570] – Tamara Jong

Alec would play silly card games with me when he visited, which was never really for long. He was probably passing the time before going back to New Waterford.

Ma was always wanting to help her brothers, or anyone really. That was always her way, which may have attracted her to the ministry in the first place.

[00:34:25.240] – Rachel Thompson

So much beautiful words to come, and I’m personally also looking forward to reading more of them. And just, I’m really grateful to you for coming here, sharing your story about your story, and then also sharing these words and sharing the prompt as well too.

[00:34:40.990] – Tamara Jong

Thanks so much.

[00:34:41.490] – Rachel Thompson

As always, it’s always nice to talk to you. Is there anything else that you wanted to share about writing, publishing, and shining as you have been doing?

[00:34:50.390] – Tamara Jong

Just that don’t give up. You know, you’re going to hit some hard times, but please keep going. You know, tell your story, no one else can tell it like you.

It might be hard at first, but just keep going. It’s the long game.

And, you know, find your community. I think that’s what’s always held me up and that’s what will continue to hold me up. But also, you know, let’s hold each other up.

Let’s support each other, you know, how we can, whatever way that is, online, offline.

I think that’s the important thing is, you know, love, and finding our way back to each other.

I’m so grateful for community in whatever ways that they came to me, and maybe they’re not with me now, like people in my community that helped me formally, but I think that’s okay too.

We kind of are changing and we’re always kind of moving forward and sometimes backwards, but in the end, the writing’s important. There’s a reason why you were called to do it. So just continue.

[00:35:37.450] – Rachel Thompson

That’s my hope for you. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Write, Publish, and Shine with Tamara Jong, author of Worldly Girls.

If you’re carrying anything from this conversation, I hope it’s this: the long game is still a game you can win, but you have to protect the work, you have to make room for it, and you get to take your time becoming the person who can write the thing only you can write.

You can find links to Tamara’s book and to the other titles and resources we mentioned in our conversation in the show notes. And if you try Tamara’s prompt, the one that begins with family lore and ends with “what if no one ever read it,” I’d love to hear what it unlocks for you.

The Write, Publish, and Shine podcast is hosted by me, Rachel Thompson, with sound editing by Adam Linder. To learn more about my work supporting writers, visit rachelthompson.co and sign up for my weekly Writerly Love Letters.

By the way, before Tamara and I signed off the call, we chatted a little bit more and she pulled attention to the length of her acknowledgements section, which is a very lengthy one.

[00:36:44.730] – Rachel Thompson

And she encouraged writers to start theirs right away. Make sure you’re noting down those people, those workshops, those places that have supported your writing so that when it’s time for you to put that in your book, it’s ready to go.

Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next time on Write, Publish, and Shine.

And I want to acknowledge the El Muzina Bedouin lands in South Sinai, Egypt, where I recorded this episode.