Meet the Author: Amanda Laird

Today's interview is with Amanda Laird, a colleague of mine whose work I have admired for ages! Amanda shares the story of launching her own path to expertise, the turmoil of her book launch, and what it's like to close the book on a topic you've poured your heart and soul into.

​Amanda Laird is the author of Heavy Flow: Breaking the Curse of Menstruation (affiliate link*) published by Dundurn Press in 2019 and nominated for a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. A former registered holistic nutritionist, Amanda was the host of the Heavy Flow Podcast from 2017-2020.

Now, Amanda is the founder of Slow & Steady Studio, where she supports solo, creative entrepreneurs with business and marketing strategy. You can connect with Amanda on LinkedIn.

Tell me about your journey to writing Heavy Flow.

Oh, my journey. Well, being a writer, writing a book was a lifelong dream. For as long as I can remember, I knew that I wanted to write a book.

In 2017, I was a fledgling holistic nutritionist just trying to make my way out in the world, and I had become fascinated with this idea of body literacy and using our menstrual cycle as a vital sign. When I was in nutrition school, that was the first time that I ever learned that painful periods aren't normal just because they're common. I was like, “I'm going to be a period nutritionist.”

Even though 2017 wasn't that long ago—I mean, now it feels like forever, but wasn't that long ago—people did not know these things about menstrual cycles, and people were not actively looking for a period nutritionist.

I found myself having these same conversations over and over and over again with each of my clients, explaining menstrual cycles, talking a lot about the nuts and bolts, why this is important, why you should care.

I decided I was going to start a podcast, and that was the Heavy Flow podcast, which came out in September of 2017. I had put out three or four episodes when I got a DM on Twitter from a publisher that was like, “This could be a book, let's talk.”

I thought it was a bot and I ignored it. Then they sent me an email, and I was like, “Oh shit, this is legit.” I responded, as anybody would, with a big fat lie, which was, “Wow, your timing is impeccable, because I'm just finishing my proposal and I'm about to go on submission with it. I would love to take a meeting to talk about this.”

Then I was Googling how to write a book proposal, because I literally had nothing. So it definitely was not a traditional path to publishing. It was an “all the stars are aligning moment.”

It just so happened that I had a connection in the publishing world. Somebody I knew in my personal life worked in publishing and had shared the podcast with an acquisitions editor who happened to have an 11 year old daughter, and was like, “My daughter's going to get her period any day now, and I don't know what I'm going to tell her.” She saw the podcast, and then the rest, as they say, is history.

What was it like to go from proposal to completed manuscript?

Honestly, that was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I think I am still recovering.

Negotiating a contract was in November of 2017 and then the book came out in February of 2019. After I had that publishing agreement in hand, it's like a dream come true, and then it was like, “Shit, I actually have to write this book.”

I had no idea how to translate that proposal into a book, and so I worked with a literary coach who helped me take that proposal and then create a project, chapter by chapter, section by section. First we expanded the structure of the book, and then we broke it out into chunks of how I was going to write it.

I had Heavy Flow, the podcast, which was growing and becoming successful in its own right. I was doing some freelancing, and I had a toddler who was not in full-time childcare, so I had a couple of days a week, but wasn't full time. I was really only working between nine and three, a couple days a week.

On the guidance of my coach, I basically wrote for one hour a day, Monday to Friday. But I had the benefit of doing the podcast. When I signed that publishing agreement, I would never have called myself an expert in menstruation. Every podcast interview I did, everything I researched for the pod made its way into the book.

I was able to do that concurrently. I would take transcripts, my intros, quotes from people I was already interviewing, and wrap that into the book. As we got closer to the time when I was finishing up my manuscript, I worked at the library on Sundays in addition to my one hour a day.

I actually wrote the first draft of the book by hand. I wrote everything out by hand and then re-typed it. That’s my toxic trait. All of my research that I did, everything was written by hand. I wrote in red pen.

What was it about writing by hand that worked for you?

That is just my age. As an elder millennial who had some access to technology while I was in high school and college but wasn't in a digital-first type of learning environment, that was how I learned how to do research.

I found that it really helped me embody my research and that knowledge in a different way. I would do all of my notetaking, outlines, things like that. If I was getting stuck in a place, I would sit and write by hand and then type it up later.

I do morning pages most days of the week, at least weekdays, which I always write by hand. I have a tendency to toggle between handwriting and working on my computer. For any type of outlines or high-level notes. I always have to write by hand.

Are there other writing strategies or research strategies you used?

I used to smoke weed and research on the internet. I would do that to get hyper-focused. It was legal in Ontario by that time, so I wasn't breaking any rules. I would find a nice, high-CBD strain of cannabis and it would just lock me in so I could fall down those rabbit holes. I would do that quite often when I was researching.

I did some interviews that were just for the book, as well. I spent a really long time at the Toronto Reference Library, which is this beautiful library that has an incredible archive. Now, there are a lot more books written on this topic, but there weren’t in 2017.

A lot of them were old and not in general circulation, so I would have to go to the library. They would get them from the stacks, and I couldn't take them home, so I'd have to go and visit them in the library. When my book was published, I got to go to the library and see my book alongside those books in the Reference Library.

What was it like to publish and launch the book?

You know, that's a great question. As I was getting close to the end of the process, I was so burnt out. I had run myself into the ground trying to do too much.

I got a teeny, tiny book advance from this Canadian publisher of nonfiction. I was making hundreds of dollars on this book, but I still had to work, and I still had to care for my child, and I was making the podcast, and the podcast was making some money, but all of that revenue went back into production.

I was feeling really tired, and I wasn't all that interested in the topic anymore. I had used this experience to become an expert, but then this was also part of my burnout. I started to feel exhausted.

You'd be peeling back the onion, and it's like, “Oh, right. These problems exist because of capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and misogyny.” There's only so much you can do. There are only so many times you can peel back that onion.

My interest started to shift. My interest in what I wanted to do professionally shifted. Then there were these two big moments.

Just after I submitted my manuscript, my father-in-law very suddenly passed away. My book came out on, I think, February 19 of 2019, and on February 11, my grandfather had passed away. My book launch was shadowed by this grief that I did not process until much, much, much later, if I even have at all.

My book came out on a Saturday, which was amazing. These are the things that dreams are made of—and also, there was this real grief around it. The week of my book party, I'm giving a talk and delivering the eulogy at my grandfather's funeral.

Couple that with the burnout I was already experiencing and some real drama with my publisher—nobody loves an author less than their publisher, I swear to God. There had been publicity staff turning over. There was just no continuity, and things were getting missed, and it wasn't what you wanted these things to be.

Luckily, I come from a communications, PR, and marketing background, and I made it work. But all of this led to burning out. I don't think I got as much out of my book as I could have.

What's fascinating to me, too, is that the process of writing a book is so long, and I changed so much as a person through that process—because of that process, and also just because I hope, as humans, we grow.

There's so much that I would never write about now, like, “Eat these foods for period cramp relief.” Any of that nutrition stuff, just burn it, delete it, skip it. I think those are some of the weakest parts of the book.

The strongest parts of the book are really looking at the history and the impacts taboos have had on women's health for generations and that continue to have an impact today. I wish I had put more in there. I wish I had put more effort into having diverse voices represented in my book. I wish I had indigenous perspectives, because their perspectives on menstruation are very different from ours.

There's just so much I would have done differently. I was very proud of having written a book, publishing this book, to go into a store and see your name on the shelf, for my daughter to see that. These were incredible achievements.

At the end of the day, I didn't have the energy to promote the book. I was like, “Oh, it's not that great. I wish I could do this again.” It was challenging to promote the book.

How has your creative practice changed since the book came out?

One thing I will say is that it really did unleash my creativity in other ways. I'm a writer. I have always been a writer. I've always written for pleasure, for sanity, survival. I have stacks and stacks of journals and papers everywhere.

When writing the book, I started to feel a bit untethered. I have zero earth signs in my birth chart, so I am all full of air with a little bit of water and fire. I'm generally untethered on the best of days.

There was something about being so deep into my head and into my mind that I started to have a real, visceral craving to do something with my hands.

That's when I took up pottery. That was the complete opposite of writing and being in my head. I started experimenting with pottery, which I have done off and on ever since. That led to experimenting with painting and drawing, and much more tangible, physical mediums of art and expression, which has been really fun.

I continue to write, but mostly from a work and business perspective, not so much creatively. Every so often I'll do challenges to try and get something started. I would love to write some fiction. It's just time and energy and discipline.

I would also like to write another nonfiction book, more related to business, but I have not done that.

What is the next phase for you, creatively? Is it a novel? A business book?

These are great questions, and the answer is, I want to do all of it. That's maybe part of how my creative projects feel a little bit stalled.

I could make a zine, I could make a podcast, I could write a nonfiction book related to my business. If I had all the time and money in the world, I could just dedicate myself to it.

I would love to write a contemporary women's fiction type of book. Give me your Curtis Sittenfeld, your Emily Henry, your Ashley Audrain. That is the type of book that I love.

I would love to write a book in that genre—but I also like to sleep in until the last possible moment before my child has to go to school, and I run my own business, and it just feels a little impossible to dedicate time to that these days.

In the meantime, I also have my garden, which is my big source of creativity.

(Bailey’s note: Amanda participated in my 30-Day Writing Challenge shortly after this interview and started working on another book! As she told me in a follow-up message, “Our recent chat really helped to reignite my love of writing.” I could not be more excited to see what comes next!)

What advice would you offer another writer?

The biggest, the most valuable piece of advice, the most valuable lesson that I learned, was that you can allow the process be how you become an expert.

You don't have to be an expert before you start writing or as you're embarking on a project. You can allow the writing, the researching, and the unfolding of something be how you master it.

This is a reminder that I need more than anything else: It’s also okay to be done with a subject. The question I hear, even today, all the time, is, “When's the perimenopause book coming out?” Trust me, I am already an expert in that personally; I do not need to become an expert in that professionally. I have no interest in the perimenopause book. No. Thank you. I am done.

A friend of mine who is a PhD and a university professor was like, “I just don't understand how you could dedicate so many years of your life to a subject, and then be like, ‘I'm not interested. I'm done.’” I see how that would definitely horrify her.

For me, I'm like, “Yeah, it's done. That was a chapter. The book is closed.”

What is the best book you've read recently?

Oh, that's an easy one. Margo’s Got Money Trouble, by Rufi Thorpe (affiliate link*). This book was so funny, so much fun to read, and so fresh and different. I had so much fun reading that book. I will recommend it to anybody who listens.

Meet the Author interviews are lightly edited for clarity.

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Amanda's reflections on her writing and publishing experience offer such a clear window into what it's like to become an expert on a topic and endure burnout in the attempt. Her willingness to reassess and close the chapter on a story that no longer sustained her is a powerful model!

I also loved hearing about the ways Amanda has continued infusing creativity into her day-to-day life. What other creative outlets would feed your soul?