National Post (National Edition)
IT GETS BETTER
About midway through I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better, Monica Heisey’s collection of essays, short stories and drawings, the author includes a section called Female Sharing Evenings: A Sacred Rite. In it, Heisey observes that “one of the most bewildering rites of female life is the amount of things we are supposed to keep to ourselves” — it’s a truism that the Toronto-born author and humorist spends the duration of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better contradicting, with utterly candid, sparklingly funny anecdotes, poems and quizzes about sex, anxiety, fashion and food. The Post’s Rebecca Tucker asked Heisey a few questions about the book.
Q This is a book that has some advice in it, but it’s not exactly self-help. I actually found it very affirmative.
A The self-help angle is pretty tenuous. I think it was more to contextualize presenting how I look at the world and being alive, and maybe putting a glossy sheen on it.
Q How did you determine what sort of anecdotes you wanted to include?
A When I was faced with the task of categorizing it, I had about 30 per cent of the material already from my column with (Toronto website) She Does The City. When I was trying to think of what else I was going to include and put down, I had this long list of topics about what I talk about with my friends and what is important to us, and a lot of the book involves food because, honestly, 60 per cent of my conversations with friends revolve around food.
Q You discuss your issues with anxiety in the book, and describe falling into a “worry hole.” You’re a practised writer but, with putting together something as potentially daunting as a whole book, did you find that anxiety amplified at all?
A I think the issue with my anxiety, when I’m feeling anxious, one of the things I get worried about is that I’m not going to achieve anything. So starting the ball rolling by achieving one thing, which is maybe I’m going to shower and go for a walk — it isn’t a huge achievement but it might be on a day when you’re stressing and having a hard time getting up. I really like to-do lists. Anything I can put on a list and can cross off, I feel good. I had “write a book” on the bottom of my list for two months, and I finally got to cross it off.
Q A lot of your own stories reach back years. Do you journal? Are there personal archives of yours that you mined?
A I’m a repeat storyteller. I feel like if there’s a story that I really love or really stuck with me, I keep repeating it until it goes somewhere useful. I don’t journal, but I do verbally … I ruminate out loud. I make sure that my jokes have purpose and a reason to be told before I tell them. I feel like the book is about what’s important to me, and that’s something that I think about a lot. I try to live my life based on things that are important to me, which is sometimes pizza and sometimes talking about abortions.
Q You speak in the book about the reactions you get online to some of your writing, particularly in regards to sex. Are you concerned at all about similar reactions, now that you’re publishing a whole book?
A Men don’t read, do they? (laughs) I think any time you do anything that makes you more visible, you’re going to get more problem people popping up. I just think commenters and people who spend their day getting angry on Twitter matter so little. They impact you so little.