Uncategorized

Rejection

/ Damean Mathews, Author / 1 Comment

This is a word that strikes fear and dread in the heart and mind of any artist who wants their work to be viewed and enjoyed (and, honestly, the vast majority of us do. I think it’s King who likes to remind us that writers write so the work can be read!). The mere idea of rejection can discourage more people than exist on the market as a whole. Many of us who aren’t all that scared by the idea of rejection become terrified of what might happen after we actually do receive one. Does it mean we are failures? Does it mean we will never become the master of our particular trade? Does it mean that no one will like our work and we should just go off the grid and never let our faces be seen by another living human again? NO.

Rejection can be the thing that holds aspiring artists back from attempting to get their work out on the market and, for those who do make the attempt and feel the terrible weight of the rejection, it can be the thing that kills their ambition to ever try again. But why? We can look at the wide world of art and literature and see that everything big on the market obviously has some level of following, whether we are particularly fans of it or not. For that matter, how many times have you gotten your friends or family to watch, read or listen to something that you love only to have them tell you it’s not up their alley (whether saying it that nicely or not). Why can’t it be that way with our work?

When looking at the world through our own eyes we often see that we want or like things of a certain type and we think that no one else can possibly see it a different way – until they do. So why can’t our work be a part of this same reflection. There are things we love and things we hate, but no matter how we feel about something, there are countless other people in the world who may feel the exact opposite. We may be absolutely in love with our latest piece of work and feel that there is absolutely no way anyone can feel any different about it, and when we realize they do we think that that’s it. Once we’ve received one rejection it is so easy to imagine that no one will ever like that piece (or, depending on your level of self esteem, any of your work at all), and give up on it.

This is absolutely ridiculous. If we can like something that no one else does – or more so if someone else can like something that we don’t – why do we tell ourselves that one rejection on one piece of work is doom for our whole career? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. The first time I submitted a piece I was 17 years old and I submitted it to a very large publication that I was more excited about than I can describe. The work in question was my very first completed short story (which, despite not being my best piece by far, I was very proud of) and I waited somewhere between three and six months for a response. When I finally got it and tore it open my heart collapsed as I read my very first rejection. It was simple, some would even say cold, saying that they could not use my work in their publication. There was no personal touch, not even an actual signature, just a stamp. I was devastated. I felt like I was wasting my time with the story ideas flowing through my head – at first.

Soon the defiance that makes up a good portion of my character came back full swing and I put the feelings of humiliation behind me, as hard as it was, and kept writing. After all, being a King fan, I knew that when he was first starting out he received so many rejections that he had to put them on his wall with a railroad spike because a nail stopped holding them up. So I wrote more, jotting down my ideas in notebooks, putting them in my phone, even literally writing one or two on napkins while at work one day when I forgot to bring a notepad. But I was still wounded. I didn’t attempt another submission for around two years. I finally broke down and submitted to the Clinch Mountain Review, the literary and arts journal of the college I was attending at the time. I did this in a hurry, submitting a piece that I had written in the span of a few hours (a piece that actually weighed my mind down so much that by the time I could start writing it I was tired of it already) on the last day of the deadline.

I wasn’t thrilled that this piece was the only one I felt ready to try with, but I sucked it up and sent it out, knowing if I didn’t get back on the horse at that point, I may never do so again. Barely two months later (if memory serves) I received the notification that this piece, a piece I felt was unworthy of any recognition, had been accepted into the journal. This piece actually got published, and became my first ever publication. I wasn’t fond of the story at all when I submitted it, feeling that it wasn’t my best work by far. I still feel this way, but imagine the feeling I got when I realized if the piece that I thought may be one of my worst was good enough for publication. Elation doesn’t even cover it. I held on to that feeling with each subsequent attempt I made at publication and, until yesterday, I had only received one other rejection in my writing career.

Earlier this month I went on a bit of a submitting spree, sending pieces out to the wind and hoping to expand my audience and get more recognition, etc… Yesterday I received an email telling me that one of the pieces I felt most confident about had been rejected. The editor told me that he felt humbled to have read the work but couldn’t find a place for it in the Spring edition of the journal. It was that little twist of irony that inspired this post actually (and I’ve since been inspired to write two more for the future; one on personal rejections vs. impersonal and one on works you like vs. ones you don’t. If you’re particularly interested – or uninterested- in either of those posts let me know), because I find it moderately hilarious, if a little frustrating, that my first publication was a story I didn’t like and my first rejection of 2016 was a piece I felt pretty confident in.

One way or the other, I think the point of this post has been made to you all. Opinions are unique to each and every one of us, just as our fingerprints and thought processes are. We can be absolutely in love with something that everyone else we know despises, but that’s fine. There are over seven billion people in the world (as I so love to remind you all) and the chances of every single one of them feeling the same about ANYTHING, particularly your work is just preposterous. Of the people on this planet there are going to be some who adore your work, and there are going to be those who despise it. The goal is to find the right group and let them enjoy your piece, even if it isn’t your favorite. Don’t let the idea of rejection cripple you, and don’t ever give up just because you’ve been rejected. Whenever you feel things aren’t going to get better just remember that a dozen publishers rejected Harry Potter- or do what I do and remind yourself of King’s railroad spike and realize that, if you don’t give up one day it WILL happen for you. You’ve just got to have faith and find your audience.

Finding Ideas

/ Damean Mathews, Author / Leave a comment

It’s been said that the average person passes hundreds, even thousands of story ideas each day- but the lucky ones see five or six of them. In my opinion that’s one of the most accurate quotes about the craft I’ve ever read.

Most writers, after making it big, will say they are often asked where their ideas come from. Speaking from experience, this can be one of the easiest and hardest questions to  answer. For me ideas can come from absolutely anywhere and I usually get bombarded by them at the most unexpected times. The inspiration for this blog actually stems from one such experience that I had earlier today. I was driving through town and glanced up at a street light and then was hit with an idea for a strange but interesting idea that I can’t wait to start working on.

Oddly enough this very occurrence is actually one of the things that tends to put me behind like nobody’s business- but that’s another story.

One of the things that made me feel the most positive about my yearning for the written word came to me during my sophomore (technically senior) year of college. I was taking a literary criticism class and one of the first pieces of material we had to read was an essay in which the author insisted that without art life would be little more than a monotonous cesspool. He didn’t use quite those words, but that’s how the work made me feel. it made me feel like, as a writer, I was contributing to life in a way that broke the monotony and could even give someone an entirely new reason to get up in the morning. The author went on to discuss how, without art, we are trapped in the day to day life with little or no escape from the things that can become habitual background information.

As an example of this he used the experience of driving to work to symbolize a habitual action. We get in our cars, get on the road, typically take the same route every day and go to work without really considering it. Often, if we really think about it, we’ll find that we barely remember the drive itself or anything about it. The action can become so ingrained in our psyche that we don’t even have to think about what we are doing anymore. Now insert the music, talk show, book on tape or news that you listen to on the way to work (and I know not everyone does this, but for those that do you’ll understand).

After introducing this element to our drive, it not only becomes different and more of an actual changing experience, but there will start to be parts that we remember better. Maybe your favorite song comes on the radio a few miles from your house and it puts you in a good mood, causing you to notice more about your surroundings. This wouldn’t have happened without the music. The same goes with gaining the idea for new works.

As the quote says, countless ideas surround us every single day. Sometimes I’m hit with a few a day, sometimes I’m lucky to get a few a week, but no matter how many I get, they come from out of the blue and are typically completely unexpected. If we take the time to examine the world around us, there is no telling what sort of things we can come up with. The ideas that we get can completely change the way we, as artists, look at the thing that inspired them- and this can be passed to those who enjoy the work as well. If someone paints a snowy field that has one lonely, broken tree in it, it can mean ten different things to ten different people. The same goes for music and literature and so much more. Art is truly the thing that brings life a renewed vigor- if we let it.

As an artist of any type we are told that art imitates life, while others argue that life imitates art and everything in between. Regardless of which opinion you think is correct, one thing that can’t be denied by most is that inspiration absolutely comes from life. It can be something as simple as hearing a footstep in a dark alley or contemplating the chemical process that happens each time we breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.

One bit of advice I can definitely give anyone who is seeking the best way to find new ideas is this; keep your head up and your eyes and ears open. Never dismiss anything. The idea for the next international bestseller could slam into your brain from even the most unlikely source. It can come from something we have looked at every single day for years on end before seeing it in a new light, or it can be something we see for the first time five minutes before working on a draft of the idea it inspired. In my opinion, one of the most important things to remember about a new idea is that the source of the idea itself is much less important than what you do with it

The Influence of Doubt

/ Damean Mathews, Author / 1 Comment

As I said in the comments of my last post, doubt can be a very detrimental thing to a writer, but it can also be very powerful. As artists (and human beings in general) one question that is likely going to come up time and time again while we do our work is “why”. It’s a simple enough word, a simple enough question, but the answers to it almost never are. When it comes to something that we are passionate about, asking ourselves why can be the difference between succeeding and failing miserably, achieving a goal and fall short, and happiness or a permanent sense of failure. You might look at that statement and think I’m being a little dramatic, but think about it. How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something just by asking yourself why you would do it, or what good would come of it?

Have you ever attempted to take on a task that you felt strongly about and then gave up on it because you questioned it? I’d be willing to bet we all have.

Whenever we are presented with a thought that develops into a real desire we must consider everything about the possibility before us. Whenever I am getting the idea for a new piece settled down and trying to hammer out the details one thing I try to look at is just how well I think I can develop a piece about the particular topic at hand. When I started writing Maverip (the magnum opus of my budding career) I felt very confident in the work I was doing. Having been a lover of the paranormal my entire life, with a particular interest in vampires, working on that piece just felt RIGHT.

Speaking from the point of view of someone who has completed many other works since the start of that series I can easily say that it doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes you get an idea and you can feel that the idea is just absolutely awesome but once you sit down to actually work on it you question your ability to do it correctly. This is often the case with some people, unfortunately. We will begin a new project, perhaps one that is just outside of our comfort zone or slightly off center from our typical line of work and we will be plagued by the thought that, since it isn’t the same thing we always do, we will be unable to make it work for one reason or another. Often my own bit of doubt is that, upon completing the piece, whomever reads it will absolutely hate it and I will be little more than a failure. In the case of Maverip my doubt has really only kicked in fairly recently, but it is that I won’t be able to make a convincing argument for my piece and that, either in the advertising of the book or with the presentation itself, I will fall short and no one will take the time to check it out. But that is a different post as well.

Regardless of whether or not you feel doubt, the real clincher is how you react to it. So often people will just give up and stop the work the second they get that first hint of doubt. This is one of the most self destructive behaviors I have ever seen. Doubt acts as a cautionary emotion for us, guiding us in the right direction and helping ensure that we don’t take the task at hand too lightly. Unfortunately people don’t always see this. I have spoken to a number of people who have had the desire to do something, be it writing or painting or any number of other things, that have never acted on the desire because they doubted themselves, feeling that they would never be able to perform their desire well enough to suit others or consider themselves a success. This is rubbish. When looking at doubt one must never allow it seep into their psyche to the point that it interrupts the passion that is kindled there. This is such a terrible waste of talent and opportunity. As a matter of fact, for those readers who have a religious background, think back on the parable of the talents that we are told in Matthew 25; 14-30. Three men are given talents and each of them treats the gifts differently. Two of the men use the talents given and get more in return, gaining the favor of their master, while the third buries his, not using it for anything and returns it to his master alone.

The basis of this story is one that can easily be rendered applicable even to those who don’t look at the religious aspect (or choose to adhere to a different belief system). Basically what it says is that when you have something and you don’t use it, you get nothing from it. Would you buy a car just to put it in the garage and never look at it or drive it? Would you buy a house just to let it sit on its plot, never lived in or used? Would you buy food just to let it rot and go to waste with no intention of touching it? The answer to those questions was likely no, right? If not, I’m personally glad someone with such a financial blessing is reading my blog, but I must discourage the behavior! The same mindset should be applied to this. If we are so blessed to have a passion for art (or anything really) we cannot allow ourselves to be discouraged!

Doubt can be one of the scariest things you can experience as an artist of any kind, but it is also well worth the fight. If you give up on a project every time you doubt your ability or the possible outcome of your efforts, chances are you will never know what you are capable of. However, if you push through the mire of this heavy and scary feeling it can be replaced with the satisfaction of completing the work in question and having it taken beyond where you thought it could go.

By pressing through the doubt the weighted me down for the days before sending it, I was able to see my very first piece in print in a small, nonprofit circulation five long years ago, and I haven’t looked back since. Such is the case with many incredible talents. Even the horror master himself, Stephen King, was plagued with such doubt that he threw the manuscript for Carrie in the trash. His wife retrieved it and, after looking through it, convinced him that, rather than giving up, he should trudge on. She recognized the potential in the work (as well as the man himself) before he even did. Carrie went on to become King’s first published novel and has since had three movie adaptations, one spin-off sequel and countless stage performances. And it was literally plucked out of the trash.

The rewards for overcoming doubt often will vastly outweigh even the harshest of situations in which the doubt can be proven to hold even the most minimal amount of truth. In reality, if we finish a work that we have some doubt about and move forward with the process of getting it out there, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone won’t like it? Big deal. There are over seven BILLION people on this (that’s 7,397,799,570 people  at the time of writing this for those of you that want exact numbers). There is bound to be AT LEAST one person out there who likes the work, who is thankful you finished the work and who may even be inspired by the work. The bottom line is, even if your work only truly touches one person, that’s still one person who is better off because you didn’t give up. That’s one person whose life or confidence may be saved because you pushed through your own sense of doubt. And you tell me; isn’t that worth the battle?

Feel free to add your thoughts to this post or send them to me in a message. I love getting to hear all of your thoughts on these blogs! Until next time remember; don’t give up- embrace your doubt. Trust me, it’s worth it.

 

 

How Did I Get Here?

/ Damean Mathews, Author / 6 Comments

One of the things that I have been asked multiple times on my (albeit short) journey as an author is “How did you become interested in writing” or “What inspired you to be a writer”. Now I’ve answered the question a few ways, always trying to keep the answer short and sweet for those who don’t want to hear my whole life story, but I think a good way to help me relate to everyone would be to share a larger bit of the story here. I hope that once you all read it you’ll be inspired to share your stories with me in the comments or through a message so I can know you all better as well.

I barely remember a time when reading and literature weren’t a huge part of my life. I’m actually not sure that was ever the case. I basically was born with a book in my hand. From the time I was old enough to string the letters together in my head and make words out of them I’ve read anything I could get my hands on. I can remember some of the books I had as a child (that I am extremely angry I lost somewhere in the haze that is “growing up”) and the fact that I always had people supporting me in my love of the written word. So much so that I  was reading Stephen King’s “IT” in the third grade, reading on a college level before even nearing puberty. This is very easily something I thank my mother for. She encouraged me in my reading and bought me just about any book I wanted- granted, she wasn’t all that happy that I was a King addict at such a young age, I was a very insistent young man. I can easily say that, without her encouragement, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today.

That’s not to say that I don’t feel God had a hand in my talent and skill, because I do. I do think that, had my mother not played her part and encouraged me to read, that my journey to being an author would have been much more difficult. But from the time I could read well I did it with a passion. This eventually lead me to writing down little short stories and trying to make up characters. I remember at one point that I actually attempted to not only write out a (slightly altered) version of one of my favorite movies but I tried to write a sequel to one of my favorite Stephen King stories. This, of course, was the true beginning of my writing career.

Before too long I was ecstatic to say that I had my first moderately original ideas (although now I would be hard pressed to remember all that much about them) and went into high school with a couple of extra notebooks in my backpack. My first lesson in maintaining my writing in a strong and durable form came when, after a few days of particularly grueling homework that kept me from writing, I pulled out my notebook to find that the pages had rubbed together so much they had literally worn my words into a greasy black mess. My first rookie mistake; I had tried to write a story with a pencil.

I quickly learned how big of a mistake that was and moved on to a pen. I wrote all of my material out by hand because at that time I didn’t really have a computer or a working knowledge of Microsoft Word that would allow me to do anything different. As life went on I kept reading, but eventually the story ideas that had begun fizzled into nothing. This would likely be due to a combination of things, the passing of my grandfather for one, that lead to a bit of a difficult time in my young adult life. I dealt with my issues in my own ways and this lead me down a new path as well, pushing me more in the arms of the books I loved and giving me ideas of travelling all over the world.

As for my writing, I remember the day that things changed for me. I was dealing with a dark day in my life when my brain was suddenly filled with the idea for a novel. I felt the plot run through my mind; the highs, the lows, the whys, the climax and the facts that would bring most of it together. I was somewhat astounded. Without much hesitation I grabbed a notebook from my room and began to write what I knew, outlining parts of the story I had seen and writing the prologue that seemed so vivid it was like I was living it. As I finished the last line in that portion of this new story idea, I realized without a single doubt that this was my purpose. This was what I wanted. I decided on that day that I wanted nothing more out of life than to be a professional author.

This was around the beginning of my junior year of high school, if memory serves. I worked on that novel and developed the story, only letting one or two people know anything about the piece itself, finding the ideas for other stories and novels flickering through my head at the slightest whim, some of them insisting that I drop everything and write them immediately. It was the following Summer that I got the idea for my most loved project (Maverip) and began going down that long road as well- but that is a story for another time.

My life was seriously changed on that day almost ten years ago, and I couldn’t be happier with that. I know now without a doubt that writing is exactly what I was made for. I fully believe that it is God’s purpose for me just as I believe that writing literally saved my life. I have since seen my work published nearly a dozen times in various journals and have even self published some of those works in the form of a short story and poetry collection that is available on Amazon.

The journey to where I am today has been a bit of a long one, and has certainly seen its bumps. I’ve asked myself many times over the years if I was just wasting my time, if my work was good enough, if anybody would ever care what I have to say. This is a bit discouraging at times, but for the most part it is said that every true author goes through that. Everyone, at some point, is going to feel the worry that something is wrong, that they are wasting their time. The difference in success and failure, however, is picking yourself up and going on no matter how hard it seems.

So that’s a part of my journey (I could write for days on my experiences and why I keep going, but I won’t subject you all to that just yet). I hope you all enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll share yours as well. Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t give up, no matter how hard things get, folks. Until next time.

Halloween Collection!!!

/ Damean Mathews, Author / Leave a comment

Just as a reminder on this most epic of holidays, I have been featured in a very awesome Halloween collection of shorts and I would love for everyone to get it and let me know what you think. Below are links for both a paid and free version of the collection (the free one is in PDF format) and I would love it if everyone would get it, share it and read at least my story (because I want you all to love it) and let everyone know about it. There are a lot of authors in here who really deserve the recognition, so let’s help them out!!!

http://writersanarchy.com/press-releases/fwg-presents-halloween-drabbles-free-fiction

End of the Summer Sale

/ Damean Mathews, Author / 1 Comment

Hey there friends and fans, just wanted to give you all an update and an exclusive look at my end of the summer bargain. “The Reaper and Other Tales” is going to be over 50% off from August 1st to the 3rd! Don’t miss your chance to get the discounted price!! Please give reviews and comments and share the opportunity with as many people as possible!! Here is the link, and keep your eyes open for more posts to come soon (I’ve been on hiatus for writing, all to be explained soon).

http://www.amazon.com/Reaper-other-tales-Damean-Mathews-ebook/dp/B00FSJX8DE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406750261&sr=8-1&keywords=The+reaper+and+other+tales