Novelist Tim Welsh: The 'f**k it' moment that led to writing Ley Lines

Author of Ley Lines, Tim Welsh

Novelist Tim Welsh was born in Ithaca, New York and raised in Ottawa, Canada, where he completed an MA in English Language and Literature at Carleton University. He now lives in Toronto. Ley Lines is his first novel.

Novelist Tim Welsh

On Creative Writing: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how? Through writing experience? Reading a lot? Writing courses or communities? A combination, or something else?

Tim Welsh: Writing has always been a big part of my creative and professional life, but for a long time, I put off attempting fiction because I felt I needed more life experience, or perhaps to be less shy and connect with people’s deep dark places, to do it properly.

The 'f**k it moment: jumping in and committing to writing

The evolution for me was simply getting to the point where I felt, ‘f*ck it, I can do this’ — jumping in and committing to the project wholeheartedly. Fortunately, my book was accepted for publication, which helped me get over the imposter syndrome aspect of it. And since getting past that, I’ve become more willing to show my work to other people and talk about it publicly. Now I don’t have to dissimulate; I can say, ‘I am a writer, I’m writing a book.’ It’s really that attitude shift — finally taking myself seriously — that has led to a leap in the quality of my writing.

On Creative Writing: Can you trace any common themes across your writing? History; memory; myth. Why the world is the way it is, and what people do as they attempt to carve out a place for themselves in it.

Tim Welsh: When I was writing my debut novel, Ley Lines (Guernica Editions, 2025), I thought a lot about western/frontier narratives in Canadian fiction. The novel is set at the end of the Klondike Gold Rush, but I wanted to avoid some of the more common themes that come up in these settings: the corrupting influence of greed, the struggle for survival in a harsh environment, etc. Instead, I was drawn to this idea of community: what happens when you stick a bunch of people together in the middle of nowhere, at a precipitous moment in history? What happens when that moment passes, and everyone must adjust to a new reality?

On Creative Writing: Which authors and/or types of books do you like to read?

Tim Welsh: Anything ambitious and weird, ideally funny, too. Among the classics: Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Recently I’ve been trying to be a good literary citizen by supporting other indie Canadian authors — ‘my peers,’ now, I suppose. A few titles I’ve enjoyed: Jean Marc Ah-Sen’s Kilworthy Tanner; Suzy Krause’s I Think We’ve Been Here Before; Andrew Forbes’ The Diapause. If a book takes risks, has its own unique style, and shows some personality or humour, I’m probably going to like it.

On Creative Writing: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?

Tim Welsh: Think about what makes the novel unique as a form and commit to understanding that. Most bad writing seems to me like the writer is describing an imaginary movie rather than writing a novel. How do you avoid that? Read a lot and play close attention to the mechanics of how other writers tell the story, rather than the plot points. What do they show, what do they tell? How do they use dialogue? Read out loud and pay close attention to how the rhythm of the sentences build tension.

Book idea fed into ChatGPT produced outline close to author Tim Welsh's

On Creative Writing: Do you see generative AI as a threat or benefit to writers?

Tim Welsh: Generative AI is almost certainly a net negative to humanity for environmental and economic reasons. More narrowly, I think its impact on writing as an artistic and commercial enterprise remains to be seen. I’m not ready to commit to either the fully optimistic (it can only produce slop and will never replace human creativity) or fully pessimistic (there will no longer be a point to writing things the ‘old fashioned’ way) viewpoint.

I will point to one creative use of AI I’ve discovered: ruling out boring ideas. LLMs are great at this because they work by finding the most middle-of-the-road, uncontroversial take on whatever question you feed it. (Probably the correct approach if you are scouring the internet to determine, say, the capital of Iceland; not the best if you want to produce something original or creative.)

I recently had an idea for a book that I fed into ChatGPT and asked to produce a plot outline. The results were very close to what I was thinking. This, to me, was a sign that I needed a more interesting, more creative take on the topic. I ended up abandoning the idea.