Matthew Gilman wrote his first novel only to please himself, but when it sold enough copies to pay off his debts and give him some financial freedom he realized that he’d hit on the real secret.
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“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
― Joseph Campbell
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I spent a good portion of my childhood reading comic books and watching the latest Science fiction shows. I enjoyed dynamic characters and complex stories often wondering how the writers for these tales came up with these stories. I found myself writing stories at a young age. The sad part was that I didn’t do well in English classes, therefore I was not encouraged to follow it as a trade with any serious effort.
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I wrote the book for me and me alone. It was the post-apocalyptic novel that I had wanted to read.
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High school was a lost cause — constantly being pushed in other directions like law enforcement, where I would spend my first year of college. Not being built mentally for that career I didn’t finish and changed my major after seeing an ad for a comics page editor in the school paper. I applied, having a little experience, and got the job. It was a decent gig, and it gave me a paycheck for a few hours of work, paying for my tuition at the community college. I would have this position for two years before the school stopped the funding and it was lost in budget cuts.
I learned a lot from that job and discovered that I could be a writer. I didn’t take it seriously though. During that time in the comic book world the artists were still the rock stars of the industry unless you were Frank Miller or Alan Moore. I took all the art classes that were offered and soon I was simply not returning, having exhausted all the classes that were available.
With no degree, I tinkered with the local self-publishing culture, writing, drawing, and printing my own comic books and selling them at the few local shops that were still around. Surprisingly I learned that I had one of the best-selling comics for an area that was home to 120,000 people. That didn’t mean much. I sold about 50 copies but it was still more than anyone else had ever done. Even with the movies like X-men and Spiderman setting records at the box office the industry was dying and there was no place for me there. It was a hard truth to learn, but art wasn’t my thing. I had some skill, but nothing that I could make a living at.
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I abandoned writing all together and went on with my life. But there was something missing. I wasn’t happy. Things were falling apart between my wife and I. Things didn’t make sense anymore. We separated in 2009 and suddenly I was alone in a big house in the worst neighborhood of the city. Between the gun shots, fist fights and police lights waking me up in the middle of the night I had trouble making sense of things.
I bought a laptop, and started to write. I didn’t know what I was going to write. I started with a journal, then tried doing some blogs on line.
I wrote some short stories that I never showed anyone. Played around with the idea of doing small press comics again with all my new-found free time.
I started reading post-apocalyptic fiction and found most of it unsatisfactory. The stories would have religious tones that I didn’t agree with, and ridiculous tales. One night I started a short story about two Muslim people lost in a post-apocalyptic America that imploded on itself. The only problem was that the story didn’t stop. Before I knew it there was an entire novel on my hard drive and I didn’t know what to do with it.
A friend of mine had published on Amazon and encouraged me to post it on there. He said the worst thing could be that nobody would buy it and I agreed. I was more frightened that people would read it and then I would have to hear about their opinions. With my previous experience on people’s opinions it was not something I was looking forward to.
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I feel confident that this is the path that will set me straight and show me what my life is supposed to be like.
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To my surprise not only did people buy it, they tended to like it. The feeling is still odd and I tell myself that this is a fluke. I wrote the book for me and me alone. It was the post-apocalyptic novel that I had wanted to read. Something real and sincere, without some right wing message behind it.
The sales from that book paid off my debt and gave me a freedom that I had never enjoyed before. Granted I wasn’t able to quit my day job, but I have been able to explore life outside of my house and enjoy the city that I grew up in.
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Doing what came naturally, and not trying to fulfill some lame fantasy of becoming the creator of the next big superhero worked out better and I put forth a better effort than what I had tried before. I wasn’t meant to be an artist and I accept that now. These days I spend my spare time reading all the books I was supposed to read in high school. My list grows every time I go to the library and stacks of material grow by the week. I know now that the path I am supposed to be on is ahead of me and I look forward to traveling and making more progress as I venture further.
I’m decades behind other people in this field in learning and experience, but with the success I have already made and the doors that have opened, I feel confident that this is the path that will set me straight and show me what my life is supposed to be like.
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Photo: Flickr/José Manuel Ríos Valiente