Links Mentioned in This Episode:

The Instrument Must Not Matter (Novel)

Christine Fisher’s website

The Resilient Writers Radio Show: Interview with Christine Fischer Guy – Full Episode Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. So I'm here today with Christine Fischer Guy. She is a Toronto writer and journalist. She's a 2024 VCCA fellow and the author of The Umbrella Mender, which came out from Wolsak & Wynn in 2014. A book called “a terrifically entertaining read” that keeps the reader interested because she avoids setting up stereotypical opposites.

And her second novel, The Instrument Must Not Matter, is a coming-of-age story about a classical pianist. And it is out in spring 2026, so round about now. And she was awarded a National Magazine Award and contributes criticism and interviews to literary journals. You can find out more at ChristineFischerGuy.com. I'll put a link in the chat. Welcome, Christine.

Christine:

Thank you very much.

Rhonda:

So where did this, where did The Instrument Must Not Matter start from? Are you yourself a pianist or have you been obsessed with classical music? Is that where it came from or is there another start to it?

Christine:

Pretty much every story and both of these novels that I've written start with a character for me.

Rhonda:

Oh okay.

Christine:

So I think the genesis of the novel was walking by that, you know, the statue of Glenn Gould in front of the CBC building on Front Street in Toronto. I think it started there. I just walked by it one too many times and I knew a little bit about him and a little bit about his eccentric reputation. But I didn't really know very much about him then, so I picked up a biography and then eight biographies later, um realized that my next novel was going to be about music.

So although I'm not, I'm not, it's really not a classically trained pianist. I did study, I did have a little bit of piano lessons as a kid and then during the course of writing this book. uh I took a year of piano lessons and went back to the start and I ended up being able to play a Bach Partita in C, which I played over and over and over again as my family will attest.

Rhonda:

So good. So this is a gifted young pianist, Lila, who wins a competition, but it means she's got to move to New York.

Christine:

She has to, um there's a competition in the sense that ah this particular mentor who's very prestigious only takes on one mentee every year. So you go to audition and you hope that he'll take you on. And he's getting on in his years.

So there aren't too many years left that he'll do this. So she is the one who he chooses to work with for the year, but it means that she has to leave Toronto. And she's 21. She has to leave Toronto and everything she knows and move to New York City.

Rhonda:

Right. And that's a challenging process. I mean, it's I imagine it's both like exciting and terrifying. There's something a little bit intimidating about New York in a way that Toronto maybe isn't. I don't know.

Christine:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been there. It's a whole different thing. Yeah.

Rhonda:

Different vibe but for sure. So this has also the story has a um there's a backstory here right with her um her family which has suffered what's known as artistic silencing under the Soviet regime. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Christine:

So Lila's grandmother was a violinist in Prague in 1968 when the tanks rolled in after the Prague Spring and the Soviet tanks Soviets got sort of a little bit nervous about the amount of freedom that was going on in Prague. So the tanks rolled in and that was the end of the Prague Spring and they occupied Prague.

And um Lila's grandmother was uh a violinist who was supposed to have her debut the following day. And she was also young and she decided she was going to in an act of resistance, she was going to go out after curfew and play the piece of music that she was meant to play for her debut in the following day.

And she did that and then she was arrested So she managed to get that piece of music out, but then she was arrested and she didn't play music for the rest of her life.

Rhonda:

So there's some dark history there. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of research did you did you do? That must have been fun.

Christine:

It was really I mean, I love research you say that like, you know how much fun research is.

Rhonda:

I totally know. Yes I have been up until like 2 a.m. reading the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Medicine like.

Christine:

Yeah, I can go down a rabbit hole just like that. And so I did lots of reading um in the area of uh the Prague, the invasion of Prague after the Prague Spring. And also I read a lot of Václav Havel, who enacted over 20 years the Velvet Revolution. So it was very interesting to be reading about that revolution from the perspective of an artist who became the reluctant president.

He didn't intend to become president, but everyone told him he should be president, which is frankly, I think the way it should happen. Not the person who their hand up the highest and shouts the loudest. ah So there was more than a little Havel in my research, but yes.

Rhonda:

Oh yeah. Nice. So um I'd be interested in hearing about how you thought about music in relation to sort of the presence of music in the novel as a whole.

Christine:

That's such an interesting question. I think my challenge was to try to express something that was essentially nonverbal and functions outside of language and using the tools of language. So I think for me, the way it ended up coming out in the novel is with Lila's synesthesia.

So synesthesia, um it just means one sense is crossing over another sense. And there are quite a few different types of them, but she has the sound and color type of synesthesia.

Rhonda:

Oh I love that. So she hears something and she also experiences it as a color.

Christine:

I think it's called chromesthesia. And so when she hears a certain note, like the D minor, she sees kind of like a uh fog of like a blue, purple fog and they're quite automatic. And I have talked to different musicians who have synesthesia. Some of them see it like a fog, others see like actually like three dimensional shapes coming kind of toward them.

And so it's interesting because the people that have the research around that I read around this question with people who discovered like they that's how they were. That's how they you're wired. You're born like that.

And there's a moment where you find out, oh everyone else doesn't experience the world this way. And so they kind of split into two categories. One is like, there's something seriously wrong with me. And the other category is like, huh, sucks to be you, man. You don't get to have this because this is really great.

Rhonda:

So I think I'd be in the latter category. It sounds amazing. I would love to experience music in color. That would be me. Yeah.

Christine:

Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's a color text. There’s one like people who have that one, they see individual letters of the alphabet always in the same color. like there are dozens of different kinds of synesthesia. It's just, just one sense that kind of overlaps the other.

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. Love that. Can I ask you about your process for writing a novel? So are you the kind of person who like has a character and then just does a really quick draft and then does all the work in revision? Or are you someone who you know, writes 10 pages and reworks the 10 pages until you feel like those 10 pages are singing to you and then you move to the next 10 pages. What's your process?

Christine:

My first draft is always about discovery. So it's really the pace of the discovery really varies. But I'm not I'm not a writer that can make an outline. I like from the start, I make my outline later after I have a whole big, messy, shapeless draft. And but em the energy for the first draft comes from me finding out what happens, you know, that's what keeps me coming back, like, what's gonna happen now?

And then there's a lot of revision, a lot, a lot, a lot of revision. So this is a novel that took 10 years and it's, it's partly, it's partly because that's why my last one was 2014. It's partly because music, mean, trying to write about music is like dancing about architecture many people stage.

But actually, I'd like to see a dance about architecture. So umm that was part of the challenge. um yeah, so it just, it's messy and it's lengthy to do it the way I do it. But I can't, I have actually tried to write to an outline and it just, there's no energy there for me to-

Rhonda:

It doesn’t work for you.

Christine:

Yeah, doesn't work for me.

Rhonda:

I also do a discovery draft and then do an outline when I'm in revision and I may end up with two or three outlines. mean, who knows? Revision five at the moment. you know.

Christine:

Oh, wow.

Rhonda:

So how many revisions do you think you do count your revisions or just not really?

Christine:

Well, there's large and small ones. I mean, really. So I think there were at least 10 revisions. Wow. Major revisions, like big ones. And then, you know, the incremental ones that you make. And when you open up your thing in the morning and go, Oh, I think I want that comma over there.

Rhonda:

Yeah. The fun of adding a comma in the morning and deleting it the afternoon. What are, what are some of the major revisions that this one went through? Like when you think of like the big things that you had to do, what, what were the big revisions that you had to do for this?

Christine:

Well, the biggest, I think the biggest one that I did was in the very first draft, the pianist was a man. Oh, yeah. And then I, and yeah. And then I can't remember exactly why it changed, but when it changed, that's when the story really took off for me.

Rhonda:

Okay, so you're really connected with the idea of a young woman protagonist.

Christine:

Yeah, and women are extremely underrepresented in classical music. And, you know, so, so that brought a lot of different kinds of energy to the book as well. But yeah, they were, as in all and many other disciplines not thought to have the correct intellectual equipment for such an endeavor, you know.

Rhonda:

And then when Lila's in New York, she has a uh romantic encounter with another woman. And how did you approach the romantic side of the novel? Because uh it's not a romance. It's a work of literary fiction, but it has a little bit of romance in there. So was there ever a point where you thought, oh, this is getting too romance-y? I've got to pull back on this.

Christine:

I mean, I don't have anything against romance, the novel, I mean, all of Lila's relationships are mediated through music. So if you look at all of her relationships, with probably the extension of her mother and her brother, I guess that's the exception of those two, all of her relationships are kind of um extensions of the music.

So she has two romantic encounters in the book and they're both extensions of the music intersection between her and another person. So, um, so she doesn't really, she's not really a classic, um, example of someone, you know, trying to find their mates or like trying to find a hot date for Saturday night.

You know, it's just, it's kind of a, she thinks of it like a coda, like a musical coda, like after the music, then there's, there is a, romance, like a little bit of romance. And then I'm going to get back to the music because that's really the main relationship in my life is music, right? Is, is, is Lila. Yeah.

Rhonda:

I'd love to ask you about the title, The Instrument Must Not Matter. I can't make it land for me. The instrument must not matter. I think the instrument should matter. So help me, help me understand that.

Christine:

So this is a piece of advice that Lila is given by one of her early teachers.

Rhonda:

Okay.

Christine:

So, it's kind of, he intends it to be, to stop her from being fussy about which piano she plays on. So you have so and not only the piano but also lack of a piano because Lila can play music in her mind which is not unusual in classical musicians of a certain kind.

Rhonda:

Really?

Christine:

Yeah they practice in their minds and there's actually so interesting this there's some research that shows that the practice of you know closing your eyes and like thinking about your fingers on the keys and going through the notes from your brain's perspective, it's the same as actually putting your hand.

Rhonda:

I heard that about sports. Yeah. So yes, I guess I can see it.

Christine:

Yeah. Yeah. One of the pianists that was very useful in like her memoir and her art, her artistry was very influential for me was Hélène Grimaud. She's a French pianist and in her memoir, she talks about going outside to practice. also has a kind of an affinity for wolves. And she had established this big Wolf Conservation Center in upstate New York. She's but she's French. But anyway, she lives in here.

And um at night, she goes out as one does and lays on the ground and all the wolves make a protective circle around her. And that's where she practices music a lot. It's like, it's just such a different kind of view.

Rhonda:

On the keyboard or just with her hands?

Christine:

In her mind.

Rhonda:

In her mind with her. My gosh. Wow. Amazing.

Christine:

Yeah, so that's where the phrase originates. And I think it also, the instrument must not matter, it has a nice little double entendre too, right? Because the instrument must not matter. Right. Yeah. Right. So I think it was a title, we went through many titles, and my editor was strongly in favor of this one, and I eventually came to realize he was correct.

Rhonda:

Can I ask you about your publishing experience? You're with Wolsak & Wynn and you were with them for your last novel as well. um I'm a fan of that particular press. I got a lot of their books on my shelf here. Probably heavily weighted towards poetry, I would say. But um what was your editorial experience like with them?

Christine:

For both books, I had really...great, um my favorite kind of editing, is when an author, when an editor says, that's not working right there. And I know you can fix it rather than like rewriting it for me. Yeah. I don't, and don't rewrite it.

I mean, I've been a journalist for 35 years and I have had my, my journalism rewritten and I don't like it very much. I would rather have someone say that's really not working right there or there's a hole over here. And I just trust you to fix it, go fix it.

So that's kind of, I've had two different, Paul Vermeersch edited the first book and Jonathan Bennett edited the second. And they were both editors that trusted me to be to whatever problems that were in there. And there always are problems, so you have to solve them, but yeah.

Rhonda:

So I think that's really interesting for maybe writers that haven't worked um with the press, uh that are still kind of in the process to realize that the book isn't done when you think it's done. The book, you send it off and yay, you got a publishing contract. But now there's still a lot of work. How much work was involved for you in the process of, okay, great, we have a contract and now we're going to publishing?

Christine:

A couple more drafts. I mean, there were some big parts that in this book that Jonathan was like, that's not really working in this book. And frankly, I actually want an editor who wants the work to be its best self.

Rhonda:

Right.

Christine:

So if I'm getting advice that I can agree with, that I can say, oh yeah, you're right. You know that then I'm all for it. I mean, I don't actually want to be patted on the head and say, it's really good. You don't have to change a word.

I've been a journalist too long to know that that's not even really a real thing. That's, know, there's always room for improvement and, and, and, and if you get a good editor, that editor will be as invested as you are, um, in making the work become its best self.

Rhonda:

Right. Did you ever have a moment where they said that's not working and you were like, I don't even know what to do with that right now?

Christine:

I don't think so. I don't think there was one like that. No, there were some that I just, there were some. Was there ever like once in a while, but they were always small. They were like small things. And then I felt that if it was a disagreement, there would be certain things that I would just draw my line in the sand and say, nope, not doing that. Um, but they were always pretty minor things and I pretty comfortable saying, no, I'm going to, it's going to be like this. So, yeah.

Rhonda:

There's, there's a point where you have to protect your own vision of the work because when it comes out, it's you, you've got to stand behind it. Yeah.

Christine:

That's right.

Rhonda:

So good. So um this one took a while. um Do you have a pattern to how you work that, like, do think the next one will take this long? Like, how do you feel about I'm kind of the mindset that the book takes the time it takes, you know? But did you feel impatient at any point? Did you just think, oh, I need this to be done. I need to have another book out there. Or were you just, the book needs to be the book that it is. And so I'm going to work with it until it is what it needs to be.

Christine:

I mean, I think it's probably true for every author to say that you get really sick of a book at a certain point and you just think, I can't look at it anymore.

Rhonda:

Thank you for saying that. Put it on fire. Yes.

Christine:

But, sometimes the answer for that is like, send it out. And sometimes the answer is, it aside for a while and then see what you see when you come back. And so there was some of both of that in this process for this book.

So I, and I don't, don't think I have one like really consistent or predictable pattern. Cause the first book was, this is only my second book, but the first book was my first book and I was just discovering everything. And then this book had, had, you know, some, a few major changes that from first draft to subsequent drafts.

And then the third one, which is already underway, it started life as what I thought was a short story, but then a few people, including my former agent, said, no, it's another book.So it's developing in a much different pace because I actually know quite a lot about that world, which isn't typical for a first draft for the other two books.

Rhonda:

So you don't have to stop and go down to research rabbit

Christine:

I mean, you still do, but I really think research, research is such a it gives me so much energy, you know, so I research as I go.

Rhonda:

It's unfortunately a lot of fun.

Christine:

You do have to figure out how to put a lid on it.

Rhonda:

Yeah. At some point you have to go like “I don't need to know anymore. I'm good. But it's hard.” Yeah.

Well, thanks so much for talking to me about your book today, Christine. I really appreciate it.

Christine:

It was such a pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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