"You have a lifetime of conditioning to fight, which will keep telling you that you are wasting your time putting hundreds of hours into something you may never get paid for," wrote Jim Munroe in this dazzling essay about writing."Another [voice] will tell you that the very stuff of your being is unworthy, your soul too thin and your brain too thick. These voices are not yours -- they're the echoes of the status quo, ground in by endless repetition."
Besides the fact that he inspired plenty of fledgling writers with that writing manifesto, Munroe has published four popular novels by himself and built a stunning web community over at No Media Kings.
That's why I picked him this week for for my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
You left HarperCollins to strike out on your own a few years ago. Would you advise other writers to follow your example in these troubling days for the publishing industry? What would you do differently? Can you point me towards writers with similar careers
now?
Jim Munroe:
I don't think it's that terribly different now than it was six years ago. It really has more to do with the energy you have: does doing it along excite and motivate you more than doing it via the traditional models? For me, the answer was (and is) yes.
Joe Meno, a pal of mine and author of Hairstyles of the Damned, requested that Judith Regan of HarperCollins "suck it" when he left corporate publishing for Punk Planet Books.
Jason Boog:
Out of all your work, my favorite project is the Choose Your Own Adventure-style podcast. How did this come about? How have people responded?
Jim Munroe:
Thanks Jason, glad you liked it! It's received a couple of mentions, but not too much of a reaction, honestly.
Much like my text adventure game, Punk Points, it has an intense but small following. It came about due to my interest in audio dramas from the 40s and my realization that the tracks in mp3 players could be used as a primitive interactive medium.
» It's Interview Week at Know More Media from Know More Media
We have invited our Authors to reach out and interview someone this week. We are calling it "King for a Week" in recognition of Larry King, one of the legendary media interviewers over the past few decades. So far we... [Read More]
Tracked on: May 31, 2006 12:42 AM | Permalink to Trackback