jesusfigurine asked: How have you gotten where you are today, in regards to your writing? What's involved in your writing process? (Sorry if these are broad questions, I'm just curious, seeing as you're one of the few writers on here who seems to be successful outside of tumblr.)
Working really fucking hard. I know that's as broad as your question, but it's the truth. I've had a perfect storm swirling for the last year or so after an incredibly imperfect life. I've had to work very, very hard to make all of it a good thing. I began writing very early on, when I was about fourteen. My first real thing was co-writing a screenplay with a childhood friend of mine. After we finished that script, it got some attention by a film student whose work we enjoyed. That director went on to be a huge name (many of you may know him for the fan-fiction surrounding him and his roommate) and we worked together until I was about 19. So very early on I learned the ropes of success, money, frustration, and failure. A lot of those last two. When I attended college at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, IA, I learned Transcendental Meditation, which, at the time (I rarely have time to meditate these days, which I really regret) opened up my head to a flood of poetry and prose, which I'd never done before. Only screenplays up till then. That taught me a lot about what I like to write and how I can do it. Finally I went to jail. With plenty of time on my hands, I wrote every day. Letters, songs, poems, short stories. When I was released early for an illegal sentence, I promised myself I'd get my soul back. I'm still in that mode, and may never leave it. I submitted to the PEN American Center's 2012 Prison Writing Contest and won (second-place, fiction). I stayed close in touch with PEN, did a reading in NYC last November. With film and college, I already knew how to make connections and make them work for me (Example: I wasn't originally on the bill for the NYC reading; I had to ask to be put on). Tumblr spotlighted me a while ago, and I guess because nobody else was doing six worders then. It's a niche, and Tumblr likes that, I think. While it's a really cool thing, I'm pretty insular about this blog's success. I don't want to seem like I have a big head when it comes to the Tumblr stuff which was entirely out of my hands. I prefer to discuss the things I had control over. Then--and most importantly--I submit work like crazy. If you don't know what Submishmash is, you're a chump and you're not worth your salt. At this point I'd rather have a hundred stories in a hundred small sites/zines/journals than waste my time and energy trying to get that one big one. I figure it's better to get my name out there in as many different places as possible. It's worked so far. So I'm the 3-act, meditating, ex-con writing guy. It sells itself. But it was hell to go through. My process is different every time, but it almost always involves being alone, which stinks. It's a hellish thing, but I just have to be in a space for a long time so I can get an idea, touch myself, write a bit, get bored, watch a movie, listen to music, write more, touch myself again, smoke a cigarette, get drunk, punch things, finish writing. There's no set rules to do it as much as there is an accidental fermentation.