Ask the Author: Jason Sechrest
Answered Questions (8)
Jason Sechrest
I'm no expert, but it seems like we're living in an era where one fuels the other. If you've had some success with self-publishing, it makes you much more attractive to a traditional publishing house. When you walk into that meeting with a built-in audience, however small, and a solid, engaged social media following, you're less risk than a new author who is starting from scratch. Of course, being published traditionally could fuel sales of your previously self-published efforts. I don't think it's an either/or. It's a both.
Jason Sechrest
Stephen King's IT taught me the power of metaphor.
I first read IT when I was 10 years old. I don’t think I had ever really thought about metaphor or even knew the word at the time, but you can bet that I knew it, understood it, and internalized it by the time I was finished with the novel’s 1,138 pages. That you could use a character like Pennywise to symbolize something so much greater, that you could use a story to tell a profound human truth is what made me at 10 years old want to become a writer. Never before had I so completely understood the power of the written word to both entertain and teach a lesson, to tell a story and in its very telling shift one’s perspective and make an impact upon one’s life.
I first read IT when I was 10 years old. I don’t think I had ever really thought about metaphor or even knew the word at the time, but you can bet that I knew it, understood it, and internalized it by the time I was finished with the novel’s 1,138 pages. That you could use a character like Pennywise to symbolize something so much greater, that you could use a story to tell a profound human truth is what made me at 10 years old want to become a writer. Never before had I so completely understood the power of the written word to both entertain and teach a lesson, to tell a story and in its very telling shift one’s perspective and make an impact upon one’s life.
Jason Sechrest
Gosh, what a great question! My career in writing started very early. I became a published journalist at 15 years old -- a staff writer for Femme Fatales magazine, interviewing actresses of the horror, science-fiction, and fantasy genre. My career sort of took off from there, so I never went to college. I just kept going!
I think two things informed me as a writer:
1. My favorite toy when I was a very small child was a typewriter that my father would bring home from work. I was just drawn to it. Mesmerized by it. I loved the sounds it made and the idea that you could fill this blank piece of paper with words that made up a story. I was only four or five years old at the time, so I didn't know how to read or write. But there was a collection of books my father would read to me at night before bed. I knew every word of those books by heart because I would have him read them to me again and again. So, somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to type them out, on the typewriter. I'd grab something like Sesame Street's "There's A Monster at the End of This Book" and I'd sit at the typewriter. I'd look at the words in the book and look for the letters on the typewriter and slowly but surely, typed out the entire book on the blank page.
A few months later, I can recall picking up a book I'd never seen before, opening it, and being astonished that I could read most of the words. It was like magic. I had taught myself to read, and didn't know it. And in the process, I suppose I had also taught myself to write.
2. I became a voracious reader at a young age. My step-father used to give me books that were way beyond my reading level. When I was 7, he handed me Ernest Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. I said, "I can't read this. I don't know half of the words in this book." So he handed me a dictionary and said, "If there's a word you don't know, look it up."
As it turns out, I hated THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. But I loved what he gave me next: THE COMPLETE TALES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. And then, Bram Stoker's DRACULA. The more books I read, the more I learned not just about sentence and story structure, but about what works and what doesn't.
I think two things informed me as a writer:
1. My favorite toy when I was a very small child was a typewriter that my father would bring home from work. I was just drawn to it. Mesmerized by it. I loved the sounds it made and the idea that you could fill this blank piece of paper with words that made up a story. I was only four or five years old at the time, so I didn't know how to read or write. But there was a collection of books my father would read to me at night before bed. I knew every word of those books by heart because I would have him read them to me again and again. So, somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to type them out, on the typewriter. I'd grab something like Sesame Street's "There's A Monster at the End of This Book" and I'd sit at the typewriter. I'd look at the words in the book and look for the letters on the typewriter and slowly but surely, typed out the entire book on the blank page.
A few months later, I can recall picking up a book I'd never seen before, opening it, and being astonished that I could read most of the words. It was like magic. I had taught myself to read, and didn't know it. And in the process, I suppose I had also taught myself to write.
2. I became a voracious reader at a young age. My step-father used to give me books that were way beyond my reading level. When I was 7, he handed me Ernest Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. I said, "I can't read this. I don't know half of the words in this book." So he handed me a dictionary and said, "If there's a word you don't know, look it up."
As it turns out, I hated THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. But I loved what he gave me next: THE COMPLETE TALES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. And then, Bram Stoker's DRACULA. The more books I read, the more I learned not just about sentence and story structure, but about what works and what doesn't.
Jason Sechrest
I got the idea for my most recent short story, "Ben at 10 Years Old," during a church service on Easter Sunday. I came home and wrote the whole thing less than an hour.
Jason Sechrest
I'm on the second draft of a new short story for members of my Patreon page. They get a new short horror story from me every month. You can subscribe to that here: https://patreon.com/jasonsechrest
I'm also working on my first novel.
I'm also working on my first novel.
Jason Sechrest
My advice for aspiring writers would be the same advice Stephen King gave me when I was 10 years old. I sent him my first story, and he was kind enough to personally respond with some encouraging words. In his response, he told me, "Never stop writing." So I didn't. And neither should you.
Jason Sechrest
The best thing about being a writer is the ability to touch someone's heart, or even just to entertain them for a spell.
Jason Sechrest
Get rid of your phones, step away from the laptops, and turn off your TVs. Take a long shower or better yet go for a walk. When you disconnect from all the usual distractions, the only thing you have left to connect with is yourself. That's when the words come. You'll find yourself not walking but running back home, or jumping out of the shower dripping wet to write down the words that have popped into your head before you forget them.
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