Writing "Beginnings" Q&A

Q&A With Shay Every Other Sunday

Well, it’s taken me a little while to return for my 2021 Q&As, but I’m finally back and want to first say: Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday and great start to the year. It’s been a busy start for me, but I’m enjoying the feeling of reset and already getting some progress underway.

A new year means new beginnings, and this year especially! So, in the spirit of the first month of the year and my first blog post of the year I’ll talk about some of my beginnings with writing.

Q: How did you first become interested in the writing industry?

A: I don’t have a ton of other stand-out strengths. I dedicated most of my life to tennis and never gave thought to what I would do once my tennis career was over. When I was a junior in college I had to declare my major. I had gone through two years of college still having no clue which career path I was headed for. Other than English, the two majors I considered were communications and business. Both pretty funny when I think about it now. Even though I was trying to be “practical” I still felt the pull toward English because I always loved reading and writing, but I knew I wouldn’t want to be a teacher and I always thought: What else do you do with an English degree? I took a creative writing class after declaring my major and it brought back memories to the stories I used to write when I was younger, which I had mostly forgotten about. I grew up selective mute (I’ll definitely be including more blog posts about that this year) and writing was the one way I could truly express myself. So, in that creative writing class, it felt like that permission had returned, or I found it all over again. I pretty much threw myself into the writing world from that point on and started the [awful] first draft of my first novel during my senior year of college.

Q: Did you have any experience before you started?

A: Yes, lots, but it needed refining, and can always continue to be refined. I wrote many stories and poems when I was much younger, and wrote out a lot of my thoughts in general due to the difficulty I have always had speaking. I started gaining some experience with writing in college, though I had only taken the one creative writing class so most of my college writing consisted of essays. Once I entered the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, that’s where a lot of my early experience came from, especially in workshopping other students’ work and having my own writing workshopped. My experience continued after graduating as I continued to work on my own writing, read writing craft books, attend a summer conference. Mostly now, TONS of my experience has come from starting my editing career. I have been editing for about five years now. I didn’t really feel that all of these experiences were making me a better writer in the moment because I couldn’t see it at the time, but when I look back at how much has accumulated and the mistakes I made in the past that are cringeworthy to me now, plus the greater clarity I have, I’d say I’m experienced. And I’m glad I waited to publish my first novel so that some of this experience could build up first. One of the cool things is that writing is a field where you can always learn and improve—forever! That often brings me both comfort and dread.

Q: Why did you start blogging about writing?

A: Honestly, I started blogging in an attempt to build my platform. I had heard for years before I started that you have to have a blog or video blog or something to that effect if you want to be *known* as a successful writer. I didn’t want a blog for a long time because I don’t particularly like writing about myself and my own experiences. I like to give glimpses of things I have experienced through fiction or poetry, but writing it out in this form always felt self-important and unnecessary—not that it actually is—when I would rather just write for my projects. Once I got used to blogging, though, I think it helped me just as another form of expression. I used to mull over my blog posts for way too long, trying to perfect them, and now I have loosened that grasp a bit to get content out there. But, at the same time it’s why I have decreased my production of blogs in the last year, because I don’t want the quality to go down or to be reaching for something to post about simply to put something out there. So, it has helped me let go a little bit and maybe even let go of some of my cares about how I’m perceived. People are always going to have an opinion about what you’re doing (or writing), and that’s one thing that has been difficult for me. So, in some way, however small, blogging has been a way for me to give up some of those cares. It’s still, in essence, just writing, and if other people enjoy it, connect with it, or learn anything then that’s an added bonus! But writing has to be for yourself before it can be for anyone else. I also liked the idea of helping beginning writers learn more about the writing industry through my experience, and things I have learned over the years, because it can be very daunting to navigate. There is so much information out there and we might not even always understand exactly what it means. So, if I can offer any insight to others in the industry, or hoping to break into the industry, I’m always happy to do that.

Q: What was it like publishing your first book?

A: I have mentioned a few times that I have trouble enjoying the process of things and am usually focusing on the outcome. The process of publishing my first novel was not always—or usually—very enjoyable, and it didn’t always go as expected. I was mostly stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and overthinking. I’m relieved and happy that my book is now out in the world to stay, but getting it to that point was wearing. I hope now that my experience gives me more insight for the next time I publish and makes things a bit easier in that I’ll know somewhat what to expect! I still have to be able to learn how to enjoy the process, though, that’s a really important aspect of the writing industry as a whole.

Tell me about your beginnings in your industry, writing or otherwise, and let me know if you have any blog topics you’d like to see explored this year!

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