Diaspora Dialogues

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Nadja Lubiw-Hazard

Seeing the Big Picture

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The DD mentorship was an empowering experience. I had participated in a six-month mentorship before, through Humber School for Writing, but this mentorship was much more personal and productive for me.

My mentor Andrew Borkowski and I met in person at the beginning of the mentorship. I really appreciated this opportunity, as we were able to get to know each other face-to-face, and I was able to share some specific things that I wanted his feedback on. Andrew suggested that he read the entire novel at once, and then provide me with feedback. I was excited about doing the mentorship in this way, because I wanted to focus on the big picture, and have an overview of what areas were weak and needed attention.

Andrew provided written feedback and then we met again to spend an afternoon reviewing the novel. Again, the in-person meeting was wonderful, as we had a lot of back and forth conversation that helped me see more clearly what needed to be changed in my work, and what was working well. I worked on my re-writes over a period of several weeks and resubmitted the manuscript to Andrew. I am now working on a third draft, incorporating his final feedback, and incorporating some other changes that I feel I discovered needed to be made through the mentorship process.

During the rewriting I made several major changes, including character development of one of the main characters, a rewrite of the last 50 pages of the novel, and a shift in how I portrayed the motel throughout the novel.

The most challenging sections to write in this novel were the ones, especially towards the end of the story, in which my characters were hurt emotionally and suffered. I wanted to write much happier endings then reality dictated. I had the most fun writing from the POV of a five-year old. I hope to spend the next month or two rewriting and polishing the novel, at which point I hope to submit it for publication.

I advise future mentees to be clear about what areas of your work you need help with. Be open to making changes that might not match your vision of the novel. I did so during my mentorship with Andrew, and was able to develop new writing skills, and see my work more objectively. Don’t get too attached to your first draft.

Aside from the novel, I am working on getting some of my short stories published in literary journals. I have plans to take a sci fi/fantasy writing course in the fall. My other writing projects at this point include revising another novel that I’ve written, researching and writing a work of historical fiction based on the life of Ota Benga, and writing a YA fantasy book.

What the Heart Yearns to Tell

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I expect the long-form mentorship will help me to see the strengths and weaknesses of my writing more clearly. I’m hoping the experience will allow me to grow as a writer. My novel The Nap-Away Motel has been alive in my mind for so long now that it is hard to remember how it came into being. Two years ago I wrote a couple of paragraphs about a teenager who was a homeless runaway. That simmered for a while, until I placed her at a run-down Scarborough motel. The novel grew from there. I had some themes that I wanted to explore, including poverty, gender, and mental illness, which all eventually found their way into the novel.

Initially the novel was going to be told from the alternating first-person POV of the two main characters. But then a third character appeared, needing his story to be told as well. I decided at that point to have a single narrator, the motel, tell the story of its occupants. I have always loved stories told by unique narrators or unique perspectives, like death’s narration of The Book Thief. But I wasn’t able to create this narration successfully, so I decided to have the motel become one of the main characters in the novel instead. I think it adds a bit of quirkiness to the novel.

When I write, I usually start by re-reading what I last wrote and doing a quick bit of revising and editing to get me going. When I’m deeply entangled in a writing project I spend a lot of my non-writing time thinking about what I’m going to write next, so I rarely struggle with trying to figure out what to write once I’ve got the time. I started writing seriously when my first daughter was a newborn, and so I tend to write whenever I get an opportunity, whether it ends up being five minutes or two hours.

I think Virginia Woolf had it right when she said that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” In a perfect world, every writer would have the space, time, and money to write what their heart yearns to tell. Some free chocolate and a super comfy writing chair would help too.

I’m not dreaming too big for what I foresee happening ten years from now. I’d love to have at least one published novel. Ok, at least two, maybe even three. I’ve always wanted to write a novel about animals (like The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams, or The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy) so maybe that project will be finished in ten years time. Low point: losing faith in my writing. High point: holding a copy of my published novel for the first time.

Zany fact about me: showing or marked by a lack of good sense or judgment; writing a novel while caring full-time for a newborn and a three year old.

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