We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Matthew D’Abate a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Matthew, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Professionally, probably not until true adulthood. But personally, I was reading by 3, on my way to my first short ‘story’ by 13, and then long form narrative fiction by my late 20’s. It’s been quite the journey, and not necessarily in the university structure. I don’t believe that people can learn to be artists. But I do believe that people can learn to harness their already present talent and can be coached about the inevitable challenges and pitfalls that come along with the ‘artist’ life.

Matthew, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Writing has always been with me…and that would be primarily in creating fiction. My Mother, a single parent, had little choices in raising a very precocious son on her own. However, once my Mother discovered my adoration and excitement over reading books, she saw this as a through-line for my education. Boy, was she right. I became addicted to reading two, three books a week. But the idea that I could even write my own stories appeared nearly impossible. At the age of eight years old, I attempted my first piece of fiction and never looked back. 40 years later, those ‘10,000’ hours have been achieved and I got the receipts and the scars to prove it.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Nothing hurts a new writer like rejection. We actually take it personally. The largest misnomer regarding the creative arts is separating business from the creative pursuit. Young writers must understand that writing is a business. Trends do exist. Who really wanted another vampire story directly after the “Twilight” series was released? No one. This was a tough truth I had to swallow. Yes, being creative and thorough is key, but to ignore the market place is a tragic mistake. At the beginning, I cared about the rejection slips. Not anymore. It’s a new world now. We don’t need the larger conglomerates to make a career for ourselves and get our products out to the public. It is truly a unique time to be a creator – and one, I’d argue, benefits the artist.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

We’re dealing with two very opposite powers out there in the creative business world that many philosophers have tried to explain. The two binary forces could be considered The Apollonian Impulse versus The Dionysian Impulse. That’s a fancy way of saying you need both a measured, business approach to the creative arts and the unbridled freedom to decisions – hence the business man vs. the artist. I think there is just as much creativity that exists within business as I do about the creative process. This ‘meeting in the middle’ is the only way a new and interesting product can come into fruition. It’s about balance. Creativity alone is fire. To get the product edited and ready for the public takes order and control. Finding that intersection can be challenging, but is totally possible – and any great work needs both to be created and released.

Do you love short stories? Any one can write and submit short stories for free to Literate Sunday, the world’s only anonymous short story group. Send an email to :  ([email protected])

Contact Info:

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• Twitter: https://twitter.com/killthecatradio
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0aF1EzyuK5szMvoAvPEx-Q

Image Credits
All photos by Matthew D’Abate.