What does a typical Thursday look like for you, starting from when you wake up – to heading to bed?

Thursday is my favourite day of the week. I get up, yell at the alarm clock, negotiate with the alarm clock, hit the alarm clock, have a shower, eat something without checking its expiry date, leave my apartment partially clothed, walk deliberately to my day job (which is awesome – I work at CANFAR, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research, and the people and office environment make it a really fun, bearable “real” job), do my “real” job, leave the office, go home, have a cup of coffee, roll up my sleeves (figuratively – I mean who actually rolls up their sleeves?),  and start my second job, my work as a “writer”. That day involves a lot of cat petting, coffee drinking, and work. 

What was your first job out of school?

I worked at Emblem, an upscale florist in downtown Toronto. They were nice to me, and tolerant of my “artistic temperament”. I got to stand around in a beautiful, fragrant environment and cut thorns off roses all day. At night, I had dreams about taking thorns off roses. Once, we got this crazy insect from a faraway land in one of our shipments, and it followed me around all day. I think it was a scarab.  Anyway, that job was one of those highly repetitive, physical tasks that sort of imprints on your body. It was the kind of job that is ideal for young writers: low responsibility, physical (as a counterpoint to writing), and repetitive.

What are the 3 skills you require most to do your job well?

Writers have to be pretty peppy until they get crazy famous. They have to be peppy because they have to have a “real job” – their day job, that thing that they have to do in order to survive, which may or may not involve writing at all – along with their actual work, their writing. That’s a lot of hours, and doesn’t leave lots of space for chilling out looking glamourous and writerly in coffee houses, much to my personal chagrin. I guess I’d say that a sense of wonder comes second, followed by the ability to absorb rejection without actually feeling it. Does that sound depressing?

What do you love most about your career?

Attention. I crave it. That, and writing. I love writing, I love the actual act of sitting down and typing.

Do you have any warnings?

Don’t become a writer unless you have to.  If you have to be a writer, do it urgently and completely.

If you could try a different career on for a year, what would it be?

President, or maybe an aesthetician. Just kidding. Probably a farmer. I’m serious.