2022: A Year in Review
2022 came and went. I am another year older, and I wish things had gone a little smoother. Broderick Writer LLC shrank for the first time ever, a result of my main client downsizing a few months back. I didn’t lose them, but work became a trickle, and they’ve been treating me less than professionally. As a result, I’ve been looking for new short- and long-term opportunities since summer. It’s been tough, considering the economic circumstances.
Losing work meant tightening my belt. A streaming subscription cancelled, a purchase delayed, a car in desperate need of a wash, etc., etc., etc. Christmas giving was lighter this year, too, though no family member or true friend went without. Fortunately, inflation didn’t bite me as much as it did some people. My overhead is far from high. Heck, I buy gasoline only every six weeks.
What’s also good is that, despite the downturn, I saved enough money to go to Amsterdam in the fall. I needed to get away, remind myself that life is infinitely more than the four walls I inhabit. It was a beautiful place, and getting to soak it all up was life-affirming.
In the creative writing world, I had two short story acceptances in 2022. One was in Nature Futures, and Corner Bar Magazine should publish the other in early 2023. I have another submission at Nature Futures right now, and I think it’s a strong piece. I should hear a response in about 30 days. I also qualified for full membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association this year. It took me a decade, but I did it. I think about that accomplishment when I’m feeling down about other things.
I’m on the fence whether to apply to the Clarion and Clarion West Writers Workshops again. Clarion West will be an online workshop in 2023, which is disappointing news, as I yearn for an in-person experience. My short story submissions to them are about 90% ready to go, and I have plenty of time to make a final decision. We’ll see.
The nicest moment of 2022 was when I received an email from an American college student studying in Paris. She read a LinkedIn post I made about my journey to active membership in SFWA and wanted to interview me. Being a writer, I asked her to send me questions. I’d like to finish the year by sharing my responses. I hope they can bring a little inspiration or encouragement to other writers.
How long have you been a writer and what inspired your career as a storyteller?
I started writing when I was 14, which was odd to take up as a new hobby considering all the standardized tests I took in middle school indicated that English composition was my weakest area. I think I was in the 35th percentile statewide, and I didn’t learn the difference between ‘it’s’ and ‘its’ until 8th grade.
Despite getting a lot of red marks on my papers/essays, I started writing stories because I wanted to expand on those of others – fanfiction. I wrote a ‘book’ of Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction over a year, and I made my first $5 as a writer by selling a copy to a peer. The stories were full of adolescent angst, but they allowed me to play around with characters/plot/setting/etc. See my old blog post on fanfiction for more details about this part of my life.
After a few years of fanfiction, I began creating unique characters and settings. I took two creative writing classes in college, which forced me to write stories under a deadline and accept others’ criticism. A few of those stories later found homes in different publications.
In your opinion, what are some key skills and personality traits needed to succeed in your field?
I don’t know if I’m the right person to talk about success, as the total sum I’ve earned from creative writing in 10 years matches one month’s rent. However, I am a full-time freelance writer, so I guess some of the following advice is transferable.
When it comes to writing, I think having a defined goal is key. For me, I wanted to join SFWA, and once I qualified, I set out to become a full member. Both goals took about five years each. Perhaps I could have achieved them sooner, but in the first half I was a busy high school teacher, in the second half I was trying to establish myself as a freelancer.
Striving toward these goals added a sweetness to my life, something beyond moneymaking and getting through the day to day. In other words, you need to know what you want to get out of writing before committing to it.
How do you come up with your best ideas for a story?
I have to experience something profound and moving. Sometimes the experience is going to a new place, watching a movie, listening to a song, or reading a book. I want to turn my emotions into something that’ll make readers feel the same way. In most cases, the end product is a very different thing than the event that caused the original emotions in me.
Do you believe in writer’s block? What do you do if you find yourself stuck in the middle of a story or experience a mental pause in your creative process?
As the phrase is commonly used, I don’t believe in writer’s block. Writers run into difficulty for a ton of unique reasons, and getting back to into writing takes effort. It’s like getting back into exercising after gaining weight. Most of it boils down to just doing the work.
When it’s been a while since I’ve written something new, I usually go on a reading binge. Reading others’ work gives me new ideas and inspiration, and I find myself wanting to improve my writing.
Here are blog posts I’ve done on a few of my favorite writers, those who’ve helped me get out of slumps in the past:
How have you managed rejection of your creative ideas? What advice do you give young writers and creators in this area?
Receiving 500+ rejections since 2009 hasn’t been the greatest fun, but I always knew it was part of the submission game, especially in an era when people can submit work online. There are so many stories out there trying to find homes, and it’s a buyer’s market for publications looking for material. We’ve certainly come a long way from 100 years ago, when America had only about five major authors and all of them were hanging out in Gertrude Stein’s living room.
I think there’s no better advice than to just keep on submitting in the face of overwhelming, seemingly impossible odds. Work, even your best work, will face rejection. Let’s not forget that Frank Herbert received lots of rejections for Dune before the novel was finally accepted by a publishing company specializing in automotive repair manuals. In other words, someone will publish your best work, even if that someone might not be who you expect.
How do you keep yourself motivated? What inspires your work?
My motivation to write short stories stems from wanting a life worth living. My freelancing pays the bills (and to be fair, some of it has been fun/engaging/inspiring), but 90% of the time it’s not me on the page. It’s my clients’ rules/expectations/etc. Oddly enough, the work that pays the best is the least personal. So, I need a creative outlet. I can’t paint/draw/play an instrument/sing, so I do what I’m good at. I write.
Besides things that cause me to feel strong emotions, I get a lot of inspiration from traveling to new places. In addition to the article I linked in the previous paragraph, my 2018 trip to Moscow inspired a short story Nature Futures published in 2019. The editor let me write a commentary blog post, which I think does a good job explaining how inspiration strikes me. TL;DR, a lot of it has to do with being in the moment.
What is the most challenging aspect of the creative process for you? What is the most rewarding?
The most challenging thing is coming up with a new idea. Once I have an idea, I can run with it.
It might be a cliché, but getting an acceptance is the most rewarding thing in the world. I’ve been chasing that dragon since getting my first taste a decade ago. It’s a great feeling, one you want to have every day of your life. I’m sure more successful writers are chasing other highs, like getting book deals or good write-ups in the Times.
If you were asked not to put your name on your next creative work, what aspects of your writing or approach to storytelling might tell your fans that a piece was uniquely yours?
One of the core ideas that links a lot of my work is that a story should be beautiful, hopeful, and devastating. Hopeful is fairly self-explanatory, but I take liberties with the other two words. Beautiful can mean a beautifully written or an engaging story that leaves the reader thinking/feeling long after they finish. Devastating can mean emotionally devastating or changing readers’ perceptions so suddenly it jars them like slamming a car’s brakes. For example, my latest accepted story, “A Place Where Flowers Bloom,” sets up a narrative where the last line changes everything about the prior 2,000 words. It’s not a unique storytelling technique, and some rejection letters called it a cliché. However, it’s what I think the story needed and would make my work stand out in a compilation.
If you had to put one of your favorite or best works in a time capsule, which one would it be and why?
It would be “In All Her Volumes Vast.” First off, apologies to Bryon for misquoting him. The line from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is actually “And history, with all her volumes vast, hath but one page.” Too bad my editor and I didn’t catch that before going to publication.
I would choose this story as one of my best works because I, in fewer than 500 words, discuss universal human themes that transcend time – the relationship between fathers and sons, the hunt, and death. Also, it gets as close as I’ve come so far to achieving my goal of writing beautiful, hopeful, and devastating fiction.
What is your best advice to aspiring writers and what traps do you urge them to avoid?
My best advice is to recognize that there’s a lot of competition out there, and no matter what you do, how many stories you publish, or awards you win, there’s always someone better. In other words, have a well-developed sense of humility when you start submitting your work. Learn from the best (and worst) writers out there. And realize, too, that even the greats have written some truly awful stuff. I’m looking at you, Philip K. Dick.
I think the following advice applies to a lot of creative endeavors, but the worst trap new writers should avoid is creating a timeline for success. Setting goals is fine, but saying by when they must be achieved leads to disappointment. I made this mistake as a younger writer, and it sure was frustrating/disheartening when my self-imposed deadline passed. Fortunately, people can break into writing at any age. You don’t hear of many rock stars doing that at 40/50/60, do you?