Josh Kear’s advice to young writers
Looking back on yourself as a young writer, what would you tell yourself if you had the chance?
What wisdom would you impart to that kid with his first publishing deal? First of all I would tell myself how good I was not, how many mistakes I still had to make and how that was OK, how much learning I had to do and not to worry about it. It took me a long time. I’m an overnight success story, even though I’ve had a publishing deal for 10 years. My expectations for myself back then were unrealistically high. I also would love to go back to that kid and say that it’s OK to be successful. I had a very strange internal relationship with the idea of success and money and that sort of thing, the whole sell-out mentality. But it was a 10-year internal battle to figure out and come to terms with. It was worth it, but I wish I could sit down with that kid and say being successful doesn’t mean you’re selling out, it just means you wrote something people like, and that’s not a bad thing.
from this interview