We were lucky to catch up with Jamie Merril recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jamie, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think in life there are multiple ways to be successful, and depending on your definition, you may disagree with me.

By traditional standards, success is typically defined by making lots of money and being famous. I do think a lot of that kind of success is based on hard work, but it’s also a little bit of luck, and that’s really hard to replicate. It’s a lot of “right place, right time” scenarios, or people working for X number of years before someone discovered them (or they lucked out and went viral). It’s nearly impossible to tell someone the right steps to becoming successful in that way, and I believe it to mostly be luck.

For me personally, I like to define success by the number of opportunities I have available at any given time. On top of that, my happiness is a large measure of that success. I consider myself successful if I have the ability to write what and when I want, travel when and where I want, and do the things that bring me joy whenever I want. As of today, I am succeeding in every category, and I am thoroughly happy and “successful”, by my definition! I may never have five million followers or sell ten thousand copies of my books, but as long as I enjoy what I do and love the people around me, I will always be successful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up reading like it was going out of style. I remember sitting in our oversized red armchair in the living room and reading at least two books per day. It was my way of escaping into other worlds. I loved it more than playing video games or watching television. The way authors could bend and shift reality to fit something strange and exciting and new sucked me into the entirety of reading and writing, and I still love it.

I think I was around eight or nine when I started writing poems. I don’t even remember what they were about, now, but I do remember my mother being genuinely impressed by them. I struggled a lot to convey what was going on inside my head. I could picture it, but I struggle with ADHD and dyslexia, so I had issues getting things to come out the way I wanted them to. It took a lot of time perfecting tips and tricks to get my body to work with me instead of against me. Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot better at conveying what’s going on, but it’s a skill that I hope to perfect forever until the day I die.

Last year I woke up and realized that the only way I would fail is if I didn’t try, and so I’ve been writing things that make me happy, and it’s been a gloriously fun adventure that I intend to continue! I’ve struggled a lot with perfectionism, imposter syndrome, burn out, and just overall feeling of not being good enough, but I’ve pushed through, and I’m so glad I have!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

It’s people interpreting what I’ve written in a completely new way that I didn’t expect and/or intend. Honestly, I love seeing people finding pieces of my writing and connecting strings where there wasn’t anything there on purpose. It’s really sweet to see people getting excited about something that I’m also deeply excited about, and being able to share what I love with other people brings me so much joy… it’s hard to put it into words.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I held on to a lot when I was growing up. Whether it was people being mean to me, the neighbor pushing me off the trampoline or telling me I was weird because I didn’t play soccer as a kid… it didn’t matter. I really internalized all of it, and it took me a really long time to realize that I had to let things go. I couldn’t keep holding onto meaningless slices of time that made me sad for no reason.

This is really hard because, in life, we don’t want to forget things, and I’m not condoning just throwing all of the bad away, but I really let everything fester inside me. I held so much resentment and anger, and it was really hard to learn to forgive, let go, and grow up. I think that’s really one of the things that I try to elaborate on in The Druid’s Son. It was a very cathartic book to write, because we can think we’re doing great, but really we’re doing everything for the wrong reason, and we actually need to have a good cry and let some of the bad things go.

Contact Info:

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