Author, I Never: An Interview with Sean Easley
Author, I Never is a new segment in which I interview fellow authors about the writing process, breaking into the industry, and breaking rules. I try to mix it up a little and ask some hopefully novel questions along with some of the old standards, and finish it up with a round of I Never (kid friendly version) to find out what cardinal writing rules we've all broken.
Question the first: Sean, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
Great question! My first inkling came when I was in third grade. I was an obnoxious, super-ADHD kid who would always finish his work before the rest of the class and spend all his free time falling out of his chair for attention. My third grade teacher realized that as long as I had something to occupy my mind, I’d stop being such a distraction to everyone else, so she taped a list of projects to my desk—tasks for me to work on when I finished my other work. The list included things like “write a book of poetry about Thanksgiving,” and “write a story about a mean turtle.” Pretty soon I became more focused on those projects than anything else in class, and a writer was born.
Read MoreOriginally posted on my old blog February 14, 2017
The song on my spotify playlist is "Wait for It" from the Broadway play Hamilton, and it's pretty much the theme song of my writing career. And possibly my life. It's a mantra for me. I have extremely severe anxiety that makes commonplace things like standing in line at the grocery store really formidable challenges. Standing still, waiting. People ahead, people behind. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit with my anxiety, with the rush of worries and thoughts and millions of things that could go wrong between point A and point B. If getting groceries is hard, and that's just one random example, setting huge goals like writing a novel and getting it published is like Everest.
Because there are so many opportunities for rejection and for things to go wrong along the way.
And there has been so much rejection. I tried embracing rejection before I began the querying process, and it actually worked out quite well. I spent a year writing and sending out short stories and built up a small resume for myself, and during part of that time, when I was nearing the point when I was going to start querying, I started logging my rejections. I tried to make it into a project and invited others to join me, imagining some great uplifting community event, but it didn't really catch on. It did help me become more comfortable with this everyday part of putting myself out there, which is having the door slammed in my face. Long ago and far away, I was an actor, and I couldn't sustain that. I had to ease myself back into the big, icy pool of NO.
But NO isn't the worst part.
It's waiting.
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