Clint Sabom works as Special Projects Coordinator for Dabel Brothers Publishing, where he does a little bit of everything. He is currently writing a graphic novel for late 2017 release, managing several projects, and maintaining the company’s digital creative content. His latest effort with Dabel Brothers is a kickstarter campaign for a graphic novel adapation of best-selling fantasy author Michael J. Sullivan’s The Death of Dulgath. The kickstarter is live here.
What is most difficult about writing?
Integrating it with the rest of my life. Years ago, I lived at silent monastery for a period of time, and after, decided to write a memoir about it. I got so consumed with the writing that the rest of my life just seemed like an inconvenient intrusion. Things began to go wrong in bizarre ways. Since then, I’ve been a little superstitious about process. It seems as if the Muse must have you all to herself… so she begins to destroy any and all competing elements.
What is your philosophy of failure?
What am I trying to win? Maybe labeling things as “success” or “failure” is the only real failure. It’s hard to measure the value of events and choices, given all the variables at play in this crazy world. Early in my twenties I began reading books of mystics who talked about “not knowing” and “being comfortable with uncertainty.” That sort of thing really sunk in, perhaps too much. My response to life is a genuine, “I don’t know.” I try to accept what happens and accept that I am not equipped to know whether it is a good thing or whether it is a bad thing…in art and in life.
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a writer?
Taking things too personally for too long, thinking my own feelings were heavy truths. Self-consciousness. I wish I could have maintained a perspective from the start that I was just one creative person trying to do something creative and get paid for it.
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a person?
Indecision. Again and again. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I still don’t. I don’t know what to do about anything. I mean, after I finish answering these questions, then what?
What is your best failure story?
Like every other writer, I have received too many rejections to count, or to even remember for that matter. At first, every rejection felt awful. I would be angry, or sad. But at some point – and I can’t remember exactly when it happened – at some point the rejections stopped having an emotional impact. It was like I had built up an immunity. And, paradoxically, that’s when my luck began to change.
