Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashia Sims. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ashia, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?
As a kid, I was an avid reader. Once I learned how to read, I always had a book nearby. I would devour whole series of books in a matter of months. I grew up during the Pizza Hut Book It! days, and I ate free personal pan pizzas regularly!
Eventually, my love of reading stories expanded to include creating stories of my own. As a fan of horror and science fiction, most of my early writing involved groups of friends going on adventures and encountering scary creatures along the way. And while I enjoyed creative writing thoroughly, I didn’t see it as a practical career path. As with most artistic pursuits, creative writing seemed like something to do for fun and only certain people were able to make money doing it. I didn’t see myself becoming the next great horror author and making a career from it, so I looked for ways to write professionally. This led me to attend Florida A&M University and major in Journalism with a concentration in Public Relations.
I was able to write, and it was tied to a “proper” professional career. And for a while, it worked. I continued to explore my love of horror and science fiction through reading books and watching movies. Eventually, I got into podcasts. But the same feeling that inspired me to start writing when I was a kid returned in earnest. I started penning stories in my downtime, but as my work responsibilities grew, my ability to write lessened. Spending my days problem solving and thinking strategically left my brain wiped at the end of each day.
Determined to restart my creative writing inspiration, I started looking for short story writing prompts. This helped because I could sit down and write a quick story from beginning to end using the prompts as inspiration. I began to feel my creative spark again! One day I stumbled across a website looking for one-sentence horror stories with a promised potential to be awarded a cash prize. I’d entered writing contests in the past but never won, but I decided to take the challenge. I didn’t expect to win anything and was mainly in it for the creative exploration. I sat and thought for a minute, then it came to me. I wrote the sentence, submitted it and went on about my day. I was very pleased with myself and had no expectations that anything else would happen with that very short story.
I was quite surprised to receive an email a few days later. My story had won! Visitors to the platform were able to vote on stories, and my story received the most votes. So, not only had I finally won a writing contest, random people liked my story enough to actually vote on it. I was encouraged by this experience to put more energy into my love of telling stories. And now I have the skills to tell those stories in a variety of ways. I’m still putting pen to paper…well more like fingers to keyboard – but writing nonetheless. I’m also creating video content on my various social media platforms.
As I continue to chart my career path, creative writing and storytelling are an integral part of it, and I have to thank an online audience of strangers for my renewed focus.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
About 10 years ago, a friend and I decided to start a company where we’d teach people about digital storytelling. A few years prior, we’d started a web series that allowed us both to expand our storytelling skills. I was behind the camera, and she was in front of it. When we’d show up to film for the show, we’d get a lot of questions about our approach to telling stories and the equipment we used.
We realized that many people had the desire to tell their own stories but weren’t sure how to go about it. So we started hosting workshops to teach them. In the first few years of doing the workshops, my friend took the lead. She’d taught before and was WAY more comfortable commanding a classroom. I was excited at the thought of helping people through education, but as an introvert, the idea of wrangling students was intimidating. I was glad to be doing it with her.
As I got more comfortable with managing a class of people, I began to truly enjoy educating. It gave me an opportunity to spend my time discussing topics that I found fascinating with people who wanted to learn more about them. I also got the opportunity to tap into my inner researcher. The digital space is one that changes regularly, and you have to stay current to provide the best information to students.
I also realized that when I taught, I used my storytelling skills for educational purposes. This opportunity for storytelling connected with my love of helping others expand their skill set and/or perspective and made education another career path for me to follow. I’ve been following this career path since 2012 and have been able to educate hundreds of students (middle school, high school and college) and working professionals about topics like digital storytelling, social media, communication and business.
When someone is in my classroom or participating in a workshop that I’m facilitating, they can expect lots of anecdotes and real-world examples mixed in with the information that I’m providing. I also believe that every student has a unique perspective to share and do my best to encourage them to do so. If they don’t do it during class discussion, I encourage them to do so in their assignments.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Pay them.
One of the reasons why I didn’t follow my creative aspirations sooner was because I didn’t see it as a viable way to earn a living. The “starving artist” trope was very common in pop culture. I’d see it in television shows with the artsy character that seemed so flaky and had to live off of others. I’d see it in my classes when I’d learn about how some of the great creatives that we were studying died penniless. I quickly realized that fame did not always equal fortune if your fame was tied to creative pursuits.
As I got older, I realized that those tropes were feeding into themselves. Those same kids that were seeing these tropes and hearing these stories were continuing to perpetuate the same tropes as if they were fact. I’ve seen people trying to haggle with artists for the price of their work, calling artists sellouts when they make a lot of money and continuing to tell the next group of kids that being an artist isn’t a viable way to make a living.
It’s only not viable because we don’t respect the creativity and work necessary to make art. We, the people, are society. We have to stop with the “starving artist” trope. We need creativity and art just as much as we need industry and science. And, in fact, creativity, art, industry and science are all quite intertwined. It’s up to us to begin to give the creatives and artists the same respect and compensation we give to those that work in industry and science.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Your 20’s are for finding yourself, but once you reach your 30’s, it’s time to get serious about life.
I’m still unlearning the idea that the only time we have to make change in our lives is when we’re young. That is simply untrue. The way we make change may look different, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do it.
When I was in my 30’s, I realized I had to make a career pivot. I’d been working in TV/Film production for about 10 years and it wasn’t going the way I wanted. I’d hit a wall that required me to move to Los Angeles to continue to pursue that path. I’d looked into making the move, but didn’t have the resources. So I sat down to see how I could take my current set of skills and pivot into a different career. I knew I’d likely start out as entry-level, but I was willing to do it to make a change. I learned about digital strategy which lead me to a career in social media strategy.
It was scary, but I made the change and am happy that I took the risk. Not only did my career pick up it expanded in a wonderful way. Now I share those lessons when I teach.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ashiasims.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashiasims/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashia/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashia
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AshiaSims/
Image Credits
The VLNetwork (@thevlnetwork)