The true grit of a self-taught writer

Writer Cindy Howland is a genuine native of Thetford. Her parents once owned a farm on Potato Hill Road, though by the time Cindy was born they had relocated to Tucker Hill Road. She lives there still, apart from a stint of employment in Boston for seven or eight years. Her father became a worker at the Elizabeth copper mine in Strafford.

The family was by no means wealthy, and they were also reclusive, never inviting people into their home. That retiring nature may have rubbed off. Cindy recalls that both she and her sister were very shy and preferred to go unnoticed "like wallpaper." As a child she dreamed about becoming a singer, though she was mainly a compulsive reader. Even then, Cindy developed opinions about the books she read, in some instances thinking that she could have done a better job herself. In her senior year at Thetford Academy, her English teacher, Sue Rump, was full of praise for Cindy's writings. 

Encouraged, she took college preparation courses and, unbidden, filled out all the paperwork for financial aid. Her family's economic status would have qualified her for a full scholarship. It was a crushing defeat of her college aspirations when her parents refused to sign the paperwork.

Nevertheless, she forged her own way and went from high school to studying computer maintenance. She landed a job in Boston with Raytheon Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of advanced electronics for airborne, naval, and ground-based military uses. In the early 1980s this was an overwhelmingly male-dominated environment. She was the only woman in an office with 35 male colleagues. Her job was to fix the mainframe computers, and it entailed being on call to tackle computer problems in the middle of the night, as needed. She recalls an incident when she plucked up the courage to ask her boss for a raise. His reply was that, of course, he would like to give her a raise but "he had guys with families who need it more." At the time she was young and naive and didn't see she was being used. She believed that Raytheon, a multinational defense conglomerate, somehow didn't have the money.

After seven or eight years she moved back to Tucker Hill Road in Thetford. There was no employer like Raytheon in the area. However, she found that her skills could be applied to banking, and she took a night job as a bank computer operator. From here, she worked her way up into loans and finance. Some years later she was recruited by the Aloha Foundation headquartered in Fairlee, Vermont, and spent the next 21 years, until 2022, as their payroll manager. It was a heavy workload for one person, 12-15 hour days for 8 months of the year, managing payroll for 500 employees. To get up to speed, she took night courses in accounting at the now defunct Lebanon College; the rest was learning on the job. 

In fact "learning by doing" has been the story of Cynthia's development as a writer and on other fronts too. Her family was too poor to afford extracurricular classes for her, so when she developed an interest in knitting and quilting, she taught herself from books. She still runs an on-line business offering quilts and bags. 

She attributes her unique voice to lack of exposure to other influences as she has never taken a writing class. She taught herself the art of writing, grammar, punctuation, and editing all from books. There was simply no internet when she was growing up. Cut off from any writing peers, she wrote in isolation for about 25 years, never showing anyone her work. Sometimes she would falter at a certain point in the plot and not know how to continue, resulting in a stack of 30 unfinished manuscripts in a drawer. Eventually the internet arrived, and she found a coaching partner on-line who encouraged her to publish. 

Her upbringing had failed to instill any self-esteem; rather it had left her feeling "uneducated." So she assumed that her writing was not good enough to be read by anyone else. It was a major act of courage to send off her first manuscript. To her amazement, the publisher offered her a 5-year contract.  But it was not all rosy. She found out that writers were being exploited by the publisher who sold books at a price that dwarfed the meager sum paid to writers. It took a year of legal wrangling to nullify her contract. Since then, she has settled for a small publisher in California who allows her a lot of freedom, including doing all her own final editing.

Cynthia does not consider herself to be a "typical" writer and does not have any defined work habits. Nor does she focus on any one genre. She writes "when it moves her." Strangely, she was very productive in the Aloha years, writing at night and on weekends when she already had an enormous workload. Perhaps it was that very stress that encouraged "the mental voice" that is her writing muse.

In fact, she describes her process as akin to watching a movie in her mind. All the characters, the dialogue, and the plot unfold before her, and she writes it as it appears. Sometimes that mental image won't reveal itself, and she finds herself in the dark. That's when she has to press on regardless or wait to "get back in the zone" when the images re-emerge, which can take a couple of days. When they do, it is imperative to sit down and immediately start to write. New ideas that could lead to stories or characters come to her all the time, even while standing in line at WalMart. It's impossible to predict when some tidbit of life or encounter with a new person will generate an idea. She jokes that she “forgets more story ideas in one night than some writers have in a lifetime." 

Some of her published books, like the pair set in the fictitious Vermont town of Northam, incorporate autobiographical elements. Others are built on historical events. One such novel starts with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the aftermath for civilians, including a young girl, whose lives are shattered in the conflict. Another revolves around what happened when WWII Italian prisoners-of-war captured in Africa were interned in a camp in New Jersey, where a large Italian immigrant population rallied around them.

Keeping up her writing practice is very important — akin to exercising a muscle to keep it in top condition. To reinforce her skills, she also engages with "critique partners" online. Some work out better than others. She believes in doing a thorough job of critiquing; after all, that's the whole point. But she finds some writers seek praise rather than concrete suggestions for improvement and disappoint her with a paltry "That's great" in lieu of any meaningful analysis. Eventually she found two partners, one adept at line editing, the other with concepts. 

After retiring from her job at Aloha, Cynthia noticed boredom creeping in. That's in spite of her quilting business and crafting, with her husband, beeswax-based skin cream and candles from their beehives. So she has gone back to work as a part-time bookkeeper for River Bend Technical Center. She's found that interacting with kids is very rewarding. She sees them grasping the opportunity to learn auto mechanics, cosmetology, building construction, maple sugaring, and more. She's also expecting that working will energize her writing. At the moment she is simultaneously writing three books. It seems daunting, but to her it is "a natural process." If she feels blocked on one story she switches to working on another for a while.

Recalling her life-changing breakthrough into publication, Cindy describes a photo she took of her then 6-year old granddaughter. The girl is bravely jumping off a dock into water over her head. Cindy had the photo enlarged into a poster. The caption at the bottom reads "Just Jump."

Howland has published five books, which can be found on Amazon.