We recently connected with Amanda Clay and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I consider myself fortunate in that I am somebody who has known what they wanted to do for a living since I was a child. Writing was always a passion for me, an outlet from the chaotic outside world. Because I’ve always had a passion for writing, I’ve spent my entire life practicing. From the moment I could put thoughts into words, I was drafting thoughts in my notebook, writing epic tales about my classmates, and circulating short stories that sometimes got me in trouble in school.

I went on to study English and Journalism in college, followed up by a Masters Degree in Media Research. I never stopped writing creatively this entire time, but inevitably like so many other artists, I had a difficult time envisioning how I was ever going to make a living. I submitted some short stories here and there to magazines. I crafted query letters to agents that I never sent. I wrote novel after novel, sometimes getting up the courage to share with friends and family close to me.

But still, I lacked the courage to really go after what I wanted. It’s one thing to create cute short stories as a kid, and another to grow into a professional author who creates work people will actually pay for. And I didn’t see a path forward. While I knew what I wanted to do, I was saddled with a fixed mindset that chasing your dreams was somehow something other people did.

Fast forward to the end of graduate school when I was writing my thesis. This research project ended up being 400 pages long. I passed the thesis board with flying colors and was named graduate student of the year for my class. It got me thinking–If I could spend three years researching, writing, and getting published on this obscure social science topic, what was stopping me from writing that novel?

I dedicated the next few years to drilling down on the craft of writing fiction. I was working a demanding corporate job, but I squeezed in writing on my lunch break, after dinner, sometimes even at the crack of dawn. I read books on the craft. I read voraciously in the genres I wanted to write in. I started attending local writing meetups, and finally some bigger conferences. It was there that I saw that people every day, just like me, were hacking it out, learning, listening and finally making it to the coveted world of published author.

I published my first book at 31. For some people, this might sound like I accomplished a lot very young. But, in many ways, I feel like I took the long way. In some ways, that book was 25 years in the making, ever since a little girl in kindergarten crafted her first story about a dog and a cat going to the store.

How could I have sped that up? I think so much of it boils down to having the courage to dare and try. Had I believed in myself a little more early on, maybe I would’ve gone after the dream younger. But hindsight is 2020, isn’t that what they say?

Advice I would give to other young writers is to be brave. We live in a world now where it’s easier than ever to create content and deliver it to the masses. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to learn. Very few have a home run right out of the gate. Failure is all part of the learning process. Failure should be fun! It’s the best way to learn.

Don’t be afraid to fail, believe you can do it, and know that you have to learn. It’s OK if you don’t know everything from day one. Read, study, practice, and make friends with people in your industry.

Amanda, 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?

I write mysteries and thrillers under both Amanda J. Clay and Amanda Traylor–Clay writes more high-stakes thrillers and Traylor writes more slow burn domestic suspense/noir.

I’ve been a published author for seven years now and publish my work both independently and through a small publisher. My work is available on Amazon worldwide and I released my first two audiobooks this year.

I started out as a self-published author, which I love! We are so lucky to live in today’s world where creating and distributing content to your target audience is easier than ever. After a couple years I decided I wanted to branch out into different facets of this ever changing industry. So I began working with an agent, and then a small publisher. I truly believe the best approach to this industry is to open to the many opportunities available to writers and to not be stuck in one way of doing things.

It took me a while to find my voice, I will admit. I started out writing Young Adult Dystopian, then dabbled in romance. Both of which were fun genres, but never quite felt right. And then a couple of years ago I found my true calling in writing thrillers. I had always been a murder mystery junkie and realized that’s where my heart really was.

One of the things you’ll always find in my books is incredibly strong female characters. They’re not always perfect, and sometimes they’re even hard to like. But they are always capable, whether through physical strength, intelligence, survival against all odds, or overcoming trauma. I write women with flaws, with dark pasts, who strive to do good in the world.

I don’t hold back in tackling tough subjects, either. I deal with murder, yes, but also organized crime, human trafficking, addiction, abuse, and sexual trauma. My characters face and overcome tough real-world issues.

I balance nail-biting entertainment with emotional gut punches. It’s not always popular, but I’m proud that I’m not afraid to have an authentic voice in my writing.

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?

To start, I want to say I dislike the notion that some people are creative and some people aren’t. I think anyone has the capability to create. I think some people just choose to live in a creative space. They choose to nurture the muse.

That being said, some of us do have more artistic brains than others, it’s true.  And it is difficult sometimes for those who spend their day working in straighter lines to understand the creative process. Just ask my ex-military now business executive husband what it’s like to live with a full-time artist!

One thing that might be difficult for non-creatives to understand is how closely connected we are to our work. Everybody suffers from self-doubt and insecurities in their job, I’m sure. But there is an added layer when it is work that you have created from scratch by pulling energy from the depths of your soul. Writing a book takes so much from you, it becomes a piece of you. And its success or failure then becomes a reflection on you personally. It becomes nearly impossible to separate yourself from this creation.

Sometimes I think the creative process in general can also seem baffling to people on the outside. Everybody’s process is different so I can only speak to myself. But there are times simply staring out the window counts as working for me. They are days when nothing tangible actually gets done, all the work is coming together in the back of my mind. There are days you stare at the computer screen and cannot for the life of you physically will your hands to type anything. There are days you simply drink wine and listen to creative playlists.

And then there are days that inspiration comes at you like a broken dam, flooding your mind with more creative genius than you know what to do with. You can go on a binge, furiously typing for 16 hours straight, skipping sleep, skipping meals, forgetting to pee.

When I am on a creative binge, everything else in my life takes a backseat. There can literally be no room in my brain for anything other than a project in front of me. I’m notorious for putting my car keys in random places and forgetting about them or not even noticing that my toddler’s toys have literally created a gauntlet through the house.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are more resources for writers these days than I could even count. It’s an incredible, and sometimes overwhelming, thing to behold. The community of writers is vast, inclusive, and extremely accessible to those just starting out.

I didn’t necessarily know this in the beginning, however. I was shy about my writing endeavors as a young adult. My insecurity led me to not talk about it much. I didn’t have a lot of creatives in my immediate circle at the time, and I always felt that my ambitions would be frowned upon. That people would give me that, “oh that’s cute, but don’t quit your day job,” kind of feedback.

But once I made the decision to dedicate my life to this creative journey, I discovered this whole other world of people just like me creating podcasts, forming meetups, meeting all over the country at conferences and retreats. Nearly every close friend I’ve made in the last five or six years is another creator. When I discovered this world of other writers, it was like I found a whole new me. I felt a little bit like Elsa at the end of Frozen Two. I am found!

To drill it down, the biggest resources that helped me on my journey were:
Podcast
Writers conferences
Local writer chapters where I could connect with other writers like me in person in my daily life

Contact Info:

• Website: amandajclay.com
• Instagram: amandajclayauthor
• Facebook: amandajclayauthor
• Other: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B00QEEAJ20

Image Credits
Amanda J. Clay Books