by Christopher James
Part One
I
always wanted to be a writer. Or, more accurately, I wanted to be an “author.”
I feel a little silly saying “author” because it reminds me of the child I was
back then. I was odd at five. Smart, yes, but too shy to raise my hand in class
when I needed to pee, so I had more than one disaster. Good at sports, probably
from running to reach the loo before it was too late! I remember having many
friends, but also spending time alone, chasing butterflies and trying to walk
with shoes on the wrong feet. Odd, right? And I must’ve read constantly.
I
got a Mickey Mouse annual, full of comic-strips, letters to Donald and EuroDisneyland
adverts. It had a do-it-yourself frontispiece – a space to draw your favourite
character and some questions. What’s your name? How old are you? What do you
want to be when you grow up? I don’t recall my favorite character (I feel like
saying Goofy, but suspect it was Pluto. We later had a dog called Pluto). But I
remember my answer to that last question. “Author,” written in a handwriting
that’s barely improved in the thirty years since.
I
found the annual some time later, when I was moving into teenagehood and
starting to think more seriously about my future, and I saw that answer, “author,”
and I thought YES! That’s exactly
what I want to be. Nailed it aged five! And it’s been with me from then till
now.
Part Two
Of course, wanting to
be a writer and wanting to write are not one and the same. I didn’t write a
lot. Zadie Smith once described being told that Ian McEwan wrote only fifteen
words a day. That seems impossible to reconcile with his fairly prodigious
output, and I don’t think it’s true, but for years I wrote even less than that.
Fifteen words a day? Ha! Who had time for that hard labour? Nevertheless,
whenever people asked what I wanted to be, I still said the same thing. A
writer.
There were exceptions
to my fourteen-or-less-words-a-day days. I spent a year in Central America and
wrote constantly, a terrible spewing of handwritten nonsense, tiny cramped-up
letters that wouldn’t fill my already-heavy backpack with any more notebooks. I
finished a novel, since disappeared, about a hopeful plot to destroy
manufactured pop, and started another, also disappeared, about god-knows-what. I
wrote without reflecting back on what I’d written, and learned nothing. I was
writing, but I still wasn’t a writer – I was a notebook-filler.
Back in London, I got
a real job and the notebooks disappeared, and I waited for the day I’d wake up,
look in the mirror, and magically be perfect at all this. About then, the Times (the newspaper) ran a competition for
a love story in 300 words. I’d never written anything so short, but I gave it a
go with a story about a man who spray-painted a love message to the woman
leaving him, on a bridge where she’d see it every day. The same night, another
man jumped from the bridge, and the world thought the message came from him. I
called the story “Amore Eterno,” and it won third place. I was ecstatic!
They published it
(the fools!) in the paper, meaning people all over the country could read it. Someone
then told me about this website called Zoetrope, where writers workshopped
stories, and this thing called Flash Fiction, stories in under 1000 words, and,
buoyed by my national success, I thought that this was something I could do.
Something that could really teach me how to write.
Part
Three
So began an
apprenticeship. I ‘met’ writers like Randall Brown and Kuzhali Manickavel! I
slowly improved. Slowly got published. Now I was writing every day, or almost
every day, and learning what worked and what didn’t.
Sometimes it was
hard. I learnt to care less about rejection slips! Sometimes it was rewarding.
I had pieces picked up by Smokelong, by
McSweeney’s
Internet Tendency, by Matter
Press. I won a few prizes, with Camera
Obscura, with Tin
House. I discovered some amazing writers,
and a new way of reading.
At the same time I
moved to Indonesia. I stopped drinking so much, stopped taking drugs on the
weekend, met a nice girl. I made more time to write, finally acknowledging that
this writing dream wasn’t Just Going To Happen. I had to make it happen. I
dedicated myself to it. And it was working. I was becoming a writer.
Then one day – I think
it was Idul Fitri - I started an online magazine. I’d half-heartedly thought about
doing this before, but on this particular day I did it. There were personal reasons
– it would help take my writing to the next level. But there were other reasons
too. It was a time when many magazines I loved were starting to charge for
submissions, and when it felt harder for writers to take risks on what they
sent out. I wanted a venue that encouraged risks.
I opened a Wordpress
thingy. I started a Facebook wadjamacallit, and invited thousands of people (sorry!).
I announced a call for submissions. In honour of my favourite animal, beautiful
and dangerous, I called the magazine Jellyfish
Review. It would only
publish flash.
Part
Four
Jellyfish
Review is now blossoming into a bit of a
minor success. We’ve published stories by incredible writers, including Elaine
Chiew, Beverly Jackson, Sara Lippmann, Len Kuntz and Gay Degani. We have
stories by even more incredible writers lined up. We’re developing our own
style, unique and unpredictable.
I spend hours every
day working on it. Reading submissions, formatting stories, choosing artwork,
promoting the magazine, keeping everything ticking. It’s hard work, but
wonderful.
For the first time
ever, I think I’ve found something I want to do even more than being a writer. And I love it. I finally know what I
want to be when I grow up.
Christopher James lives, works and writes in
Jakarta, Indonesia. He has previously been published online in many venues,
including Tin House, McSweeney’s,
Smokelong, and Wigleaf. He is the
editor of Jellyfish Review.
4 comments:
Thoroughly enjoyed this! and I love the Jellyfish Review <3
Interesting fellow, this creative mind behind Jellyfish Review. Thanks for sharing your journey.
This is funny and irreverent. I love to hear about the lives behind the decisions. May the jellyfish of our waters keep stinging with regularity or at least 15 times a day!
Thanks you guys for reading. Love Christopher and the fact we met through Zoetrope.
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