...SEBASTIAN HETMAN!
One of the most ambitious and active voices in the writing racket, Sebastian Hetman is here to climb the writing mountain twenty-five minutes at a time, and he's ready to take you with him to the ten-thousand hour summit. His insightful writing blog and editing services are online at SebastianHetman.com and on Twitter. Here is his answers to the 7 Questions:
1. What writer/musician/filmmaker/artist first made you want to write?
Not an artist, at least not directly. I had this really thoughtful math teacher in elementary school. She lent me her copy of the Lord of the Rings, then Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and some books by Stanislaw Lem (a Polish sci-fi master). She shared with me the passion for books she had, taught me to be a better person early on in my life, and when, years later, I was reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and thought to myself "Shit, this is how I want to write!" it was because of something she instilled in me.
I never said thank you. I just wrote to the school to find out if she's still around. Thinking about her makes me wonder other things too, she was a middle-aged Hungarian woman who lived in a small Polish town. Back in those days people usually fled to other countries to escape prosecution. I wish I knew her more.
2. Do you have any pre-writing rituals you go through before you put fingers on the keyboard?
As you know I have this messed up goal of reaching 10,000 hours of writing to see what happens along the road. I measure my writing in Pomodoros (25-minute sprints of focused work). Each time I sit down to write and start a new Pomodoro counter, I say to myself "This is how you make your dreams come true." I smile, and then plunge into the depths of despair only writing can bring out in me.
3. What do you like most about writing? What do you like the least?
I wildly enjoy having written, but not so much the actual process of writing. Don't get me wrong— I sit down and beat myself over the head with a keyboard because I absolutely have to get these thoughts and stories out— but dear God! The process can be a chore sometimes. Sometimes it isn't, and the writing flows, which leaves me bemused and a little apprehensive.
4. You’ve fully immersed yourself in Slavic mythology. Meanwhile, Norse mythology is everywhere in pop culture. So to balance the scales, when Thor inevitably gets kicked out of the Avengers for using performance-enhancing drugs, tell us about the Slavic hero you’d replace him with.
I always thought that Slavic mythology didn't survive well to this day because my ancestors were illiterate. Now you asked this question, I'm starting to think it's because we didn't have our heroes and villains. Every god, demigod, titan, vodyanoi, or forest spirit had their place in the world of ancient Slavs. Svarozyc, who was the god-blacksmith sat atop a giant dome over the world and spent all his days whacking at that anvil, creating more and more fantastic weapons for Perun, the all-father. But none of the characters of these myths were really heroes.
The character who fascinates me the most is Veles. He is the dark twin of the first god. Jealous and passionate. He made stories happen. He's not someone of the ass-kicking, fireball-throwing persuasion, but he always went after more than was by right his.
5. Tell us about a fiction project you’re currently working on or have recently finished.
My biggest fiction project at the moment is trying to transition into a full-time writing life. Family and friends tap their foreheads when I tell them what I'm trying to do. As if I didn't know. It threw most of my projects out of the window for the time being. I spent most days building a strong online presence and in search of well-paying writing gigs.
Book and story publishing are one of the least lucrative lines of work out there. I would literally make more money selling hot dogs for a year than from a book deal. So I'm trying to figure out a way to earn a living by being a writing mercenary. As my friend used to say, it's better to be down in the arena, getting stomped on by the bull, than watch from the sidelines.
6. You seem to have a passion, not just for writing, but for helping other writers get better and improve. Tell us about that.
Editing is genuinely the part of writing I enjoy the most. Editing writing is like solving a puzzle, really. A whole day can go by before I notice I've been polishing a piece for ten hours straight. I have tools, rules, and guidelines.
English is my second language so I always felt like I was working at a big disadvantage. It made do the only thing I know how to well, which is studying a topic in depth. I've read countless books on writing, style, and storytelling, attended webinars, completed courses and gained a worthless certificate or two in the process. Fast forward five years and editing became the one aspect of writing I feel most competent about.
7. How can we find what you’ve written?
You can't! Well, almost. Marketing involves such a ridiculously long timeframe that even though I have sold multiple stories last year they are still not in print (and won't be before December 2019). I have some pretty cool stories I sold I can't share yet because they're in my publisher's galactic pipeline. Honestly. The timelines sometimes make me feel like I'm in the whiskey cask maturation business rather than writing.
1. What writer/musician/filmmaker/artist first made you want to write?
Not an artist, at least not directly. I had this really thoughtful math teacher in elementary school. She lent me her copy of the Lord of the Rings, then Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and some books by Stanislaw Lem (a Polish sci-fi master). She shared with me the passion for books she had, taught me to be a better person early on in my life, and when, years later, I was reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and thought to myself "Shit, this is how I want to write!" it was because of something she instilled in me.
I never said thank you. I just wrote to the school to find out if she's still around. Thinking about her makes me wonder other things too, she was a middle-aged Hungarian woman who lived in a small Polish town. Back in those days people usually fled to other countries to escape prosecution. I wish I knew her more.
2. Do you have any pre-writing rituals you go through before you put fingers on the keyboard?
As you know I have this messed up goal of reaching 10,000 hours of writing to see what happens along the road. I measure my writing in Pomodoros (25-minute sprints of focused work). Each time I sit down to write and start a new Pomodoro counter, I say to myself "This is how you make your dreams come true." I smile, and then plunge into the depths of despair only writing can bring out in me.
3. What do you like most about writing? What do you like the least?
I wildly enjoy having written, but not so much the actual process of writing. Don't get me wrong— I sit down and beat myself over the head with a keyboard because I absolutely have to get these thoughts and stories out— but dear God! The process can be a chore sometimes. Sometimes it isn't, and the writing flows, which leaves me bemused and a little apprehensive.
4. You’ve fully immersed yourself in Slavic mythology. Meanwhile, Norse mythology is everywhere in pop culture. So to balance the scales, when Thor inevitably gets kicked out of the Avengers for using performance-enhancing drugs, tell us about the Slavic hero you’d replace him with.
I always thought that Slavic mythology didn't survive well to this day because my ancestors were illiterate. Now you asked this question, I'm starting to think it's because we didn't have our heroes and villains. Every god, demigod, titan, vodyanoi, or forest spirit had their place in the world of ancient Slavs. Svarozyc, who was the god-blacksmith sat atop a giant dome over the world and spent all his days whacking at that anvil, creating more and more fantastic weapons for Perun, the all-father. But none of the characters of these myths were really heroes.
The character who fascinates me the most is Veles. He is the dark twin of the first god. Jealous and passionate. He made stories happen. He's not someone of the ass-kicking, fireball-throwing persuasion, but he always went after more than was by right his.
5. Tell us about a fiction project you’re currently working on or have recently finished.
My biggest fiction project at the moment is trying to transition into a full-time writing life. Family and friends tap their foreheads when I tell them what I'm trying to do. As if I didn't know. It threw most of my projects out of the window for the time being. I spent most days building a strong online presence and in search of well-paying writing gigs.
Book and story publishing are one of the least lucrative lines of work out there. I would literally make more money selling hot dogs for a year than from a book deal. So I'm trying to figure out a way to earn a living by being a writing mercenary. As my friend used to say, it's better to be down in the arena, getting stomped on by the bull, than watch from the sidelines.
6. You seem to have a passion, not just for writing, but for helping other writers get better and improve. Tell us about that.
Editing is genuinely the part of writing I enjoy the most. Editing writing is like solving a puzzle, really. A whole day can go by before I notice I've been polishing a piece for ten hours straight. I have tools, rules, and guidelines.
English is my second language so I always felt like I was working at a big disadvantage. It made do the only thing I know how to well, which is studying a topic in depth. I've read countless books on writing, style, and storytelling, attended webinars, completed courses and gained a worthless certificate or two in the process. Fast forward five years and editing became the one aspect of writing I feel most competent about.
7. How can we find what you’ve written?
You can't! Well, almost. Marketing involves such a ridiculously long timeframe that even though I have sold multiple stories last year they are still not in print (and won't be before December 2019). I have some pretty cool stories I sold I can't share yet because they're in my publisher's galactic pipeline. Honestly. The timelines sometimes make me feel like I'm in the whiskey cask maturation business rather than writing.