This reminds me of something Stephen King mentioned in his book On Writing, in which (and I’m paraphrasing heavily here, and perhaps mistaking what he said entirely as it’s been a decade since reading it, but) he says there’s a lot you can learn in a classroom, but it will only get you so far. Bad could become fair. Fair could become good. But good isn’t going to become great unless there’s that important mix of innate talent and hard, hard, hard work. But I think even fair writers with a lot of hard work can find popular success, yet we all still spot these writers as being “fair” (looking at you, 50 Shades). When you find true inherent greatness, popular or otherwise, honed or raw, it hits you like a rock dropped from on high—like Newton conked on the head with the apple. That kind of moment, when you know you found brilliance, does not come from workshops and classrooms alone. That has to be in-born and self-nurtured, enhanced through schooling and/or guidance. I really don’t think schooling alone can get you up that trail to the Literary Himalayas. 4. How do you use social media to best promote and trademark your true image? Ah, “true image”—does anyone promote that? I’m inclined to think no. In fact, I’ll say for sure that no one does. We all have things we hide or accentuate about ourselves in a social forum. I sure as hell do. Does anyone really think I’m always on the road or hopping boxcars or sleeping under bridges as a literary hobo? No, but it’s an aesthetic I’ve always been intrigued with and it’s where I see my heart when I look to poetry and images and stories, but I think we all do that even in small degrees: see where we’d love to see ourselves in the world and tap into that in ways we might not be able to in the real world. But the best way to promote yourself online is to get offline and do actual human things with actual humans, face-to-face—go read at readings, go to gatherings, attend that party your writer friend is throwing, get to know your bookshop owner, attend literary festivals, etc. This is where you meet people who are also doing things, connecting, publishing, collaborating, and you’ll start seeing them online as you follow each other, and your online connections grow from there.
4) With the increased success you enjoy, have you found it puts an unexpected stress on the sanctity of a private life? Well, my successes haven’t been so great that my private life has been affected at all, perhaps to my chagrin. Although there was a time when Hobo Camp Review first started where a lot more writers I didn’t know reached out asking for critiques and advice and blurbs and such. At first it was flattering, and then it became incessant and sometimes demanding, and that did make me pull back a bit, as I didn’t want to just become a “yes 91 | T h e B l u e M o u n t a i n R e v i e w I s s u e 3