Jonathan Sherwood has written about science and scientists for research universities for more than two decades, and written fiction for much longer. He holds a bachelors in science writing from Cornell University and a masters in English from the University of Rochester. His fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, and others, and has been translated into Chinese, Czech, and Polish.
How long have you been writing and what got you started?
I’ve always written fiction. When I was quite young, my mother was working on her masters in English. For my bedtime stories, she read her homework books to me and we’d talk them over. I think she was unconsciously training me to take apart fiction at a pretty young age, and to me, that was normal.
In sixth grade, we had “composition time” every month. We each had to write something—I forget the context—and then read it aloud to the class. I wrote science fiction stories, often involving my classmates as characters, and the feedback was so positive from my friends that I really never stopped writing from that point on.
I say I never stopped writing, but in fact, I did. For fifteen years. After I spent my twenties trying desperately to be a serious literary writer, I reevaluated what was important to me and came to understand that speculative fiction was what was really important to me. I wrote a novelette called “Under the Graying Sea,” and was very fortunate that Asimov’s picked it up. I wrote several more pieces, but before I could try in earnest to find them a home, I enrolled in business school to get my masters in business to provide for my new family. After the MBA came helping to found a startup business, and my time was not my own for many, many years.
That lasted until last year. A friend of mine and I were talking about passions in life, and why we pursue the activities we love to do. I had been saying “I’m a writer, and I’ll write again someday” for so long that I suddenly questioned if I should be saying “I was a writer, and it was wonderful.” After all, I hadn’t written anything in more than a decade. Why? If you’re passionate about something, you find the time to do it, right? If you’re not doing it, it must not really be that important to you.
That’s not entirely true, and to any new or struggling writers out there, I think it’s important that you understand that adage is not true.
In my own case, I had to really think about why I ever wrote, and why I ever enjoyed it, and I came to the somewhat surprising conclusion that A) I love building and creating things, and B) I want to share the wonders that I see in the world with others.
With that realization, I began writing again on January 18th, 2021. I wrote in my journal about how I was just going to write for the joy of it, and would likely never publish anything and would certainly never write a novel, but I was happy to just create and share by whatever means I happened upon. I flipped open a science magazine, randomly stuck my finger on an article about orbital mechanics, and started writing aimlessly about it. That turned into the story “Each Separate Star” that was picked up by Analog a few months later. Flash forward a year and I’m a member of SFWA, sold half a dozen stories and just completed my first novel. All unplanned, and all because I decided not to worry about the publication process or accolades or anything other than just writing for the joy of it.
What is your favorite type of fiction and who are your favorite authors?
I’ve referred to my writing as the child of Ray Bradbury and Henry Miller. I grew up reading everything Bradbury wrote, and in college I voraciously read Miller. They’re very different authors, but I find them fascinating and I think I see all life through a Bradbury-Miller filter now.
“Rain” is an homage of sorts to Bradbury and his way of seeing a potentially disturbing world through the naive eyes of a young boy.
As to my favorite type of fiction: I love all kinds of fiction, but I’m particularly drawn to speculative fiction, and science fiction in particular. I love the intricacies of exploring “being human” that literary fiction focuses on, but I also like it when it resides in a setting that lets me explore the wonders of the world around us. Fiction is a means to explore “the human condition,” as one of my writing professors once told her class, but what if you’re a clone? That changes the human condition somewhat. To what? What changes? Understanding that helps you understand the human condition from another angle, and that is ultimately what I’m drawn to in fiction.
What tips do you have for finding time to write?
Given that I stopped writing for fifteen years, I’m a bit of a failure in this regard, but I can tell you how I managed to restart. A good desk, a good monitor, noise-canceling headphones, and an alarm to get me up at 5:00am. There’s something about being utterly alone in those dark hours that lets me focus.
That said, I wrote “Under the Graying Sea” almost entirely on a Palm Pilot whenever I had a few spare moments. I wrote one scene in a doctor’s office waiting room while my wife was having hand surgery. I was trying to write an emotionally crucial scene while the guy next to me was talking loudly on the phone about how his girlfriend was at that moment receiving breast implants. Suffice to say that scene needed to be rewritten.
Time is hard to come by. Don’t berate yourself for not finding enough of it to write. Write when you can. It should be a joy, not a task.
Are you an outliner or discovery writer? Or somewhere in between?
I’m an extreme plotter, but I find writing by discovery is actually more fun.
I usually start the composition process at the end and work backward. I find a neat idea that I want to explore and think about an emotion I feel when I think about it. For instance, I have a story coming out in July in Asimov’s called “Retrocausality,” which is about quantum entanglement and how one way we can explain entanglement is that particles can retroactively influence each other in time. I find that fascinating, and so I came up with a situation where someone is facing an issue that has to do with that, and then I work out how they got into that situation.
I think very hard about the ending—what do I want the reader to feel when the finish the story? What do I want them to be thinking about afterward? And then I design a story that will get the reader to that ending scene. Once I have that laid out, I simply follow my outline and try to write each sentence as well as I can to evoke what I need in that ending.
How do you deal with rejections?
Rejections absolutely suck. It doesn’t matter how many you get or how many successes you’ve had, a rejection feels like someone telling you you’re not good enough. I’ve done two things to deal with rejections.
One: Whenever I submit something, I line up the next submission for that piece. If I get a rejection, I’ve already done all the research and I know exactly where the piece is going next. Usually, the piece is off to the next publication in five minutes, and the sting of rejection is replaced by the renewed excitement of your submission being read by someone new.
Two: I try to think of the whole process of publishing as a science experiment. When a scientist runs a test, she may get a null result. That may not be as exciting as having your hypothesis supported, but she’s made a discovery nonetheless. She is getting closer to the truth. Likewise, I try to think of the submission/publication process as an experiment to discover where a story is going to live. I think of it as if you have a hundred pots of varied soil and you have a seed. You put the seed in Pot #1, and it doesn’t grow, so you put it in Pot #2. At some point, you find the soil the seed will grow in, and when it does, you’re happy because you found where it belongs.
Do you ever get criticism from family or friends who don’t understand your passion?
No. I’m blessed with an amazing family that has supported me every step of the way. There have been some times when I’ve concentrated too much on the writing to the exclusion of other things, and I’ve been reminded about that, but for the most part, my family has been nothing but cheerleaders for me. My wife is an excellent editor, and she reads everything I write before I try to publish it. Her talent and support are the foundations on which any of my success is built.
Do you participate in any online or in-person critique or writing groups?
I have a pair of critique groups and a number of writers I informally share works in progress with, as well as a few beta readers.
I can’t stress enough how valuable a good critique group is. I rely on my groups to spot problems I can’t see and to help me understand my shortcomings. The conversations we have about the intricacies of writing are what really help you hone your craft. I bring my pieces to the groups when I feel I can’t make them any better, and they can show you where the hidden faults lie and how they might be fixed. As good as any writer is, you’re always reading something from just a single perspective, so I strongly encourage every writer to find a supportive, critical writing group. It’s the fastest way to grow.
What are your writing goals for the next twelve months?
I hope to begin shopping for a literary agent for my novel around June. It would be fantastic to have a publisher in the next twelve months, but that’s pushing it. I’ll likely write more short stories over the summer before starting in on the next novel in the fall.
What are your writing goals for the next five years?
I’d love to have a few novels in publication and enough of a readership that a publisher wants more. I’m not a speed writer, so one novel a year is likely to be the fastest it’ll happen, and I really love short stories, so I plan to write and sell five or six of those each year as well.
Is there anything you’d like to plug? Feel free to share a link.
I have a website, www.JonathanSherwood.com, where anyone can see what stories are being published and information about the novel’s progress. From there you can find my twitter feed twitter.com/jonathsherwood and blog jonathansherwood.blogspot.com for any updates.
