IamA Writer that turned my blog about a pronoun into a bestselling book called I Wrote This For You - AMA!

Hi Iain, I'm such a huge fan of everything you've written, and can credit you with having helped me get through so much in my life. Every time I reread your books (which way is more often than I'd like to admit), I find new ways to connect to them and have them help me work through things. Especially right now, while I'm in the lowest time of my life, your words are one of the only things constant and comforting.
So my questions is, what books or authors have this effect on you, or do you find your comfort in writing as opposed to reading other works? And thank you so much for everything you've created, for in a way, it's saved me.

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Ablom. I read it in college, around the time I first got a big scare about my father dying - he was sick most of my life with Multiple Sclerosis and when the threat of him dying became very real, that book offered me a lot of comfort. He ended up living another 15 years and I gave it back to him as an audio book (he couldn't read by that point) as a gift right before he went.

The album August & Everything After by The Counting Crows. Considering Bob Dylan just won the Nobel, I think it's ok to answer with music in this instance. There's this complete innocence in the music, a kind of purity in the lyrics and I believe it's the kind of album you only get to write once.

There's some kind of genius in the writing.

Thank you for your kind words, and for reading.

I love Mitch Albom! Great book :) 5 People you meet in Heaven is great too. Have you read/seen it?

I have, I thought it was great! I still need to read his latest, I think it's called Faith?

Thank you for your wonderful work! It has helped me through so many tough times in my life to not give up hope. What poem means the most to you? Like if you had to pick one to represent you and your work, what would it be?

I'm in my mid 30's and it's kind of this strange nexus point in the middle of life - my father died about 2 years ago and my daughter was born 4 months ago. People are dying, people are being born, the friends I thought I'd have forever are gone, and what 'normal' or 'forever' actually is seems to change too fast for me. So right now this one:

"I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it’s about to end. And if you’re never going to see someone again, it’ll shine brightly and both of you can be polite and say, “It was nice to have you in my life while I did, good luck with everything that happens after now.” And maybe if you’re never going to eat at the same restaurant again, it’ll shine and you can order everything off the menu you’ve never tried. Maybe, if someone’s about to buy your car, the light will shine and you can take it for one last spin. Maybe, if you’re with a group of friends who’ll never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you’ll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper, “This was so good. Oh my God, this was so good.”"

What inspired The Circus is Cheaper When it Rains? Have you ever noticed your poem The Blue Lines goes well with Masks by Shel Silverstein?

You should know that the more I explain where things come from, the less magical they'll appear.

I wrote that about a girl I was seeing that I also worked with. The job stopped being fun and I got quickly disillusioned by it - she was the best reason I could see to keep coming in every morning.

I know only too well how those two poems go together and after I read Shel's I almost deleted it - I don't know why we both chose blue, maybe because blue just seems like an alien colour. I had a dream about someone covered in the blue lines you might find in a note book and it came from there.

Where did the title (of Circus) come from?

I'm glad you didn't delete it! I think they complement each other well. It's even more thought-provoking when you consider the meaning behind both together

I think it was useful because when you're young, a circus is something magical and as you get older, it loses that luster, you discover that the elephants are mistreated and it spoke to being disillusioned. The local circus when I was growing up was actually cheaper when it rained.

A Counting Crows theme. It's Raining in Baltimore. A reminder that Chelsea exists, too, Iain. Adam Duritz didn't release it outside Live Across A Wire.

Chelsea is great, and they've got some amazing singles - Colourblind, Angles of The Silence, Long December, Millers Angels and so on - but they've never been able to put together an entire album as well as August & Everything After. "You have your entire life to put together your first album and only a few years to make your second." You can hear Adam Durtiz's entire life on that first album.

I agree. In a thousand albums. You know, I've listened to August and Everything After for a hell of a long time. I really wanted to feed you a lot of music. I love this song from Recovering the Satellites. It's a horrible pang of regret I feel that, you know, after this exchange, I will never talk to you again. You've the locus of a body of correspondence, like I am - was - and untouchable in that immensity, in the busy-busy crash of the everyday.

I'm around and hopefully I will be for a while - it's a good song.

As a struggling writer, there seems to be a whole bunch of shit between 1) posting awesome content on the internet and 2) having anyone actually read it. No one seems to be able to fill in the blank between those two. Do you mind trying?

Sure, I can try from my perspective of what worked and how I got here.

In the first year of the blog we had, according to google analytics, about 10 readers a day if we were lucky. Once we got 100 readers in one day and that blew my mind. At some point, someone shared something of ours on tumblr, and it got a few thousand shares. Then it shot up. Then we put a Facebook page up and we had a few hundred fans. A few months later, it became a few thousand. Now it's at around 72 000 I think. There were little spikes here and there but otherwise, it's a few people a day.

Basically: There is no overnight success unless you're the guy who wrote The Martian and I guarantee you even he wrote a hell of a lot before he wrote that. Specifically in terms of building an audience, you have to forget about it and just let it tick over in the background. Keep making stuff and if you can, keep it as regular as possible.

People will read something of yours, go looking for more of it (which is why you should be building that archive of stuff for them to find) and come back for more of it, if it's predictably available.

TLDR: Make stuff regularly, share it, repeat and don't be in a hurry.

In the first year of the blog we had, according to google analytics, about 10 readers

Thanks for the answer. Curious how you got to ten readers a day? I've known people who've blogged for years and would kill for even that.

Edit: just to clarify. In my experience, the jump from 0 readers to 10 a day is the hardest part. Any tips for that process?

If I remember correctly, a friend shared a link to it on her equally small blog.

If I were to start again today, I would share whatever I was doing on my own personal Facebook page, and hope that friends and friends of friends saw something in it. Start a twitter page and post links to what you're doing, be descriptive so people searching for specific keywords come across what you're doing.

I'm nervous of 'networking writing' as in getting in touch with other writers who do similar things and agreeing to crosspost whatever you do, it just seems very disingenuous and I worry that that, the act of including one another constantly in your blogging and tweeting and 'shouting each other out', becomes too much of a focus. In short, fuck networking, focus on making great stuff regularly - that's been my approach. Someone smarter than me once said, "Let the joy be in the hunt." Which basically means you have to try and enjoy the process as much as possible because for a long time, that's all there is.

In that vein, here is my 10-reader blog. :)

http://wendria.blogspot.com/

16 years! Well done! It's strange to see a blogger blog these days, considering anything contemporary is done on wordpress.

Thanks! I started on geocities lol.

I'm sad to say I hadn't heard of you before, but I adore your writing and am now following you on Twitter.

I remember geocities, but I can't remember what... "neighborhood?" (There were neighborhoods weren't there?) I was in. Thanks!

People LOVE you. On their recommendations, I just ordered your book from Amazon. I haven't bought a physical book in a few years. I'm kind of excited!!

I am too! And not just because you paid for my next cup of coffee! Thank you!

great answer, thanks

It's a pleasure, good luck to you, hang in there and keep going. Ninja from Die Antword used to hang out at the same parties as me in Cape Town, back when he was still calling himself Max Normal, about 10 years before him and his wife became "Die Antword" - I remember him saying in an interview when asked about his overnight success, "If it's an overnight success, it's an overnight success 10 years in the making." It's been about 10 years since we started the blog. My point is, start now, and keep your eyes on the thing directly in front of you - ignore the rest, it comes if you're persistent.

Hi Iain !

I remember you telling how it all started with you writing it for your teacher who passed away. What made you do it ? What was the bond like ?

I always manage to find an over lingering sadness in most of your posts. Is that the feeling you connect most with ?

What's your favourite sentence out of all you have written ?

Last, what would you advice to someone who is full of thoughts in his head but unable to put it on paper ?

Thank you so much for doing this.

There's a recent interview with me here where I talk about my interaction with him but in terms of what the bond was like, he was an island of non-conformity in a very conservative environment. I went to a whites only, boys only school, that was nearly 100 years old by the time I got there. My nickname was 'Satan' because I was more than a little different. He was the only teacher who had time for me. He'd tell us stories about being in art collectives, about travelling across Europe in an old Beetle, just this crazy stuff that was very at odds with the environment. He restored my faith in humanity when I had very little.

I think sadness is an emotion that often drives me to write, I've struggled with depression quite a lot and while this has been very successful for me, it's also always functioned as a kind of therapy. I find that once I can articulate what I'm feeling, I don't feel it as much.

My favourite sentence?

It changes but because I've just had a daughter, right now this is resonating with me:

"Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I’ve ever been."

In terms of advice, I started out as a bad writer, and then became a better writer because I was ok with being a bad writer long enough to become a better writer. Don't look at the end goal, just focus on writing something - anything - every day. Also, if your head is full of thoughts but you're struggling to put them down on paper, consider painting, or music. All that's important is that you get it out of your head, the how of it doesn't really matter.

One my favourite pieces of writing is 'The Arrivals Lounge'. I've often gone back and read through it when people die.

Do you have a photograph that you find yourself going back to?

We went through this phase of using really damaged photographs that I really liked, I have a thing for glitchy photos, so anything from that period, in particular this as an example.

Should pronoun be proverb? Otherwise I'm confused as to where a pronoun comes into this.

I'm actually terrified right now that "You" isn't a pronoun and I've actually really forgotten everything I learned in high school english class. In case it is, I mean I write a blog that became a book called "I Wrote This For You" - everything I write is effectively about a "you," the word appears in every piece of prose/poetry I've written and I don't mention age, gender, race or geography at all, ever. This allows the "you" I'm writing to to be applicable to a lot of people, hence "A blog about a pronoun," - You. Does that make sense?

Oh! Yes, it does. I just totally missed that meaning. Thanks for clarifying, and I'm sorry I made you worry. :P

sweating decreases gradually

Did LeAnn Rimes ever actually back down?

She did, the first part of the confrontation was very public but when she realised she was wrong, she apologised and fixed it. I discovered that some famous people have a kind of enterouge dedicated to hating them and there was a brigade of trolls on my twitter timeline for weeks hurling vitriol at her, it was all quite disturbing. I wrote a bit more about it here.

Thanks for that. You're such a genuinely nice person.

Thank you!

Wow! So, did you have to take your book and submit it for consideration? Or did people come to you wanting to publish it? I picked up "I Wrote This For You" at random in Barnes and Noble and I had instant tears in my eyes. Its beautiful.

Thank you so much! I always love hearing that story. We struggled to publish it originally, we had an agent for a while and it got shopped to a lot of big publishers who could see that it was popular but didn't really understand it, so they didn't take us on. Eventually we gave up and at that point, we were contacted by a small Canadian publisher, Central Avenue Publishing, and they've been absolutely amazing to us. They took a chance on us and since then, we've sold more than 160 000 books. To put that in perspective, the average book of poetry will, if it's lucky, sell 500 copies.

Often your writing has a very sombre tone which I really enjoy, but do you ever think that writing makes you a more melancholy person?

It's a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg - I'd say that I was a little melancholy before I started writing and if anything, the writing helps. I did end up in a place in about 2013 where I felt like people expected a certain kind of thing from me and I had to play into that, and so I stopped writing that year and only carried on when I'd dealt with what I was dealing with and could approach my writing from a healthy place again.

I love your poetry in ways I can't even explain. Is there any poets who really inspired you, or really opened your eyes to something?

Thank you! I think in a hundred years time people will remember Richard Siken as a genius, his first book, Crush, is a masterpiece - his second is also brilliant. On the other end of the spectrum, I think Saul Williams is amazing for what he does. Right now, I'm listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series on World War One, and so I'm reading a lot of Wilfred Owen. He's the sort of poet they force you to read in high school but after actually listening in graphic detail to some of the stuff that happened in war, it becomes incredibly powerful.

How did you actually get your book published? My husband has written 3 novels and we need to find out what the next steps are. Thanks.

I think it depends on what you've written and how you want to go about it. The traditional route is to look for agents that are interested in your genre and pursue them, you'll have to submit to a bunch of them as many will say no and you just have to carry on (I didn't go through an agent, this is the feedback and advice I've heard from my circle of writer friends who are published). The second route is to self-publish, there are various different options and platforms that'll let you do that but keep in mind you are on your own in that instance, which means any marketing, editing or design or anything else becomes your responsibility which can be both a blessing and a curse. I wish him luck!

You wrote this for you? I wrote this for you. Sorry, reddit has made me a terrible person. Sounds like I need to pick this up though.

Story of my life!

Well look at it this way. Its probably more well known then you would ever thought it would be and it's probably brightened a lot of people's lives. You yourself kn1ow where it came and the effect it had. It's not something that would have made you money. It is an awesome poem though. 🖒

You're right, and it is quite flattering - however I really do make money off poetry, the sale of poetry books is what pays my rent so if someone likes it but doesn't know that I wrote it, it's a thing.

I just want to thank you for doing what you do. I Wrote This For You has been so comforting to me in good times and in bad.

But since I have to ask you a question or else my comment will get deleted: What would you tell 16 year old you?

"One day, the things you're feeling right now, the things that make you feel alien and different, will pay your bills and connect you to people who feel just like you all over the world. Just wait."

What about most of the photos provokes you to write what you write? How do you find inspiration? I am a person with a lot of anxiety, and for a long time I carried a few of your books around with me in my bag everywhere, because the way you write calms me down almost instantly and makes me feel safe. I love your work so much. Thank you for writing what you do.

So Jon sends me batches of photos and after I've gone through them, they sit at the back of my brain where most of the work gets done, while the front part is focused on admin or trying to keep my daughter interested in a balloon. Eventually - something pops out. In terms of inspiration, you don't really control when you'll be inspired so the best thing you can do is be prepared all the time so that when you are inspired, that inspiration has a place to land. So I carry a notebook and a pen everywhere and I have a giant, epic google document open on both my computers that I add to all the time. Someone will say something, I'll think of two words that sound beautiful together, maybe an entire poem, I'll put it all down - sometimes Jon will send me a picture and I'll know immediately, that's the one I've been looking for. Other times, it happens the other way around. Thank you for your kind words and for reading what I write - I have a lot of anxiety too, we should form a club!

Hi, what's your favourite music album?

I mentioned August & Everything After earlier on, it might be just because I was the right age and it came out at the right time but it's always resonated with me.

Otherwise, recently I'm listening to a lot of Sun Kil Moon, specifically Ghosts Of The Great Highway.

When I'm writing, I like to listen to anything without lyrics, so ambient music like Brian Eno or Harold Budd - or if I require a bit more energy, more distorted ambient music like Tim Hecker or Ben Frost. I like to combine that with something like a random ASMR video as it creates this kind of generative musical experience where what I'm listening to is new every time I listen to it.

Are there any books you can recommend that helped you cope with the passing of your father? Mine passed away almost a year ago now, November 11th actually. I'm still having a rough time dealing with it.

I don't know what actually helps. Tuesdays With Morrie helped while he was alive but more in the way that it explained a way to live that felt good to me, that made what mattered really clear. When someone that close dies, it leaves this kind of steel pole in your mind that just sits there for a really long time and you can be going about your day in your head and every now and again, you hit it and go, "Oh yeah, that happened." and it pulls you out of whatever else you were doing. My father has been gone for two years now, so one year longer than yours, and the anniversary of his death is coming up again in January. It was hard last year but I have a feeling that, even though it'll be hard, it won't be as hard as last year. Feel what you need to feel and don't try to get rid of it too quickly because time seems to be the only thing that works. My best to you and everyone he left behind.

Big fan! How did you come across getting the book deal for I Wrote This For You? It's currently sitting on my table next to me as inspiration for the book I'm working on. I want to be published, but I'm unsure where to even begin...Where should I start?

Honestly, we gave up and then it happened. We spent a year with a literary agent pitching our book to the big publishers and no one was interested. Our agent left us and then, after we basically decided to give up on getting published, someone contacted us out of the blue and we ended up with Central Avenue Publishing - a small publisher in Canada that's been absolutely amazing. I really have no idea how it works, I think you need an agent but I know we didn't have one. I think you just keep trying, that's the best advice I can give. Find the right people for what you're doing and chase them.

Hey I keep meaning to start a blog but I'm nervous that I have to focus on a narrow range of topics and that I have to write in an informal style (as a journalism student, this one's hard to get around). Would you have any tips for a beginner concerning writing and appealing to your audience?

Style is something that develops over time and is influenced by where your writing comes from - the journalism influence isn't a bad thing and it'll make you a better writer than someone starting with nothing. Start writing and as you go, you'll discover your voice, that's the way it works. I look back at the first things I wrote and they don't sound like me, because that was me finding my feet, you just need to go through that process and one day the things you're saying will ring true. That all being said, an informal tone is not something that's required for a blog, depending on what the blog is about. I write poetry on my blog so my tone of voice on my blog is poetic, if you're comfortable in a formal tone of voice, take that into consideration when you're creating your blog. It might not suit a lifestyle blog but if it was focused on corruption in the media, engine parts or global warming, a more formal tone might be better.

In terms of audience, don't chase one. Whatever you're writing, there's an audience for it somewhere, that's the wonderful thing about the world. Be yourself, even if that's formal, and write about the things that excite you, that's where the best writing will come from and it'll make it easier to get up everyday and do it.

I know I'm late, but I wanted to comment anyway to let you know that I am a huge fan of your book I Wrote This For You. I've owned this book for several years now and it has been with me during many major changes in my life. Every time I read your poems they seem to take on a different meaning to me each time. There is always something relatable in your book every time I read it, and it's comforting knowing that my thoughts and feelings can be explained in a more elegant way. Congratulations on your new baby girl. Your poems were there for me when I was pregnant and alone with my daughter and afterwards also. Has becoming a parent inspired any new projects and writing for you?

That's very kind of you, thank you - suprisingly enough I'm not writing much about her, simply because anything I do write doesn't seem to capture all she is, it feels like a weak attempt to hold something so impossibly perfect. She evokes all the right emotions in me and sometimes my wife and I will look at her sleeping and just quietly cry. We had a journey getting here. I am working on something new which isn't related to I Wrote This For You, which I haven't really announced yet but it's something I started a long time ago and I'm hopefully nearing the end of it. I send my best and my thoughts to both you and your daughter, thank you for your kind words again, and for the privilege of allowing my book to keep you company.

What time frame was this book the best selling book?

It debuted at #1 on both iTunes and on Amazon (in the poetry bestseller lists) and continuously appears in the top ten most sold books of poetry on Amazon. On Nielsen, which tracks overall sales online and in book stores, it still features as one of the top selling books of poetry internationally.

Here's a song fragment.

I wanted to say, I've followed your work since about 2008 and I have appreciated it. I was linked it by someone who is important and is gone, I'm sure this whole thing is not new to you (but you'll say it's equally as valid despite that, yeah.) and I admire how you've developed yourself and your capacity to express yourself over the last few years.

Sometimes your expression has been clearer, sometimes it has been murky. It maps your thoughts, hopes and dreams as they wax and wane.

As you move, you let little strands of yourself out, deliberate, and you unlike others have an outlet with which to express these things, delicate and ugly, pretty, and every now and again, powerful enough to matter, and you will be better regarded and better held in contempt by those that have suffered, like you, and suffered for reaching/not reaching out.

My question is, how can you stand living in South Africa when it's so corrupt?

I have really bad imposter syndrome most days so when I say I appreciate it and it matters, it really does, because I still don't expect people to like the things I do, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

That was one hell a ramp-up to that question, I was born in South Africa and it's the only place I've really known. That being said, I've done two successful book tours of America, and we're planning on moving over in about 3 years, when our daughter is a little older. South Africa is beautiful, both in terms of the nature and the people, it's the people at the top that bring everything down unfortunately.

Yeah, I am in Australia and one of my former friends, Shanaaz Adams, was an Australian girl who moved here from South Africa. One of her best friends was shot in the head next to her. The corruption, unlike the money, trickles down.

How does it feel knowing that ZA is [unfairly.] represented by Die Antwoord, the verb 'jackrolling', reverse segregation and this boertjie!

Jack Parow used to work with me! Don't forget Neil Blomkamp of District 9 and Chappie, Elon Musk or Trevor Noah. Or The Dave Mathews Band. And J.R.R Tolkien. And Charlize Theron. We get around.

Here's a song from the latest genre, Vaporwave. The theme is... nostalgia.

Aweh!!! No way! How did you work with him? You know, Australian culture and ZA culture really click in that guy's raps. He's like, you ever played with Pokémon Cards? Know a guy who thinks that if he smokes fancy sounding cigarettes, he's great? Well, listen to me tell you that he's a f_)cking loser and Pokémon Cards are great.

A very small story: a girl called Anneke Vo went to a festival, called Dragon Dreaming, and she passed away tragically due to a drug overdose. But even now, people still quote her blogger - however campy that might be -

"You are not a reflection of those who cannot love you."

We worked in the same business - he was a web designer originally. Thank you for sharing the story.

What makes a book "best selling"?

Selling much more than the average - Amazon has a funny way of making pretty much anything bestselling by breaking everything down into various sub-categories. So you could sell 5 copies in a day and be at the top of the "Outdoor Activities: Gardening: Roses" Best Seller list. My books have been at the top specifically of the iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Nielsen poetry bestseller lists.

Did you create any of these accounts to ask yourself questions?

No but to make sure, you could ask them each individually and that way if I'm lying, you'd make a lot of work for me?

Could you give a shout out to my friend Jonas? He's a huge fan of your work!

Sure, is he on twitter?

Sadly no, but thank you for replying.

Happy to, I can give a shout out to him here but I'm not sure how much it'll mean - Hey Jonas! Thanks for reading my books!

[deleted]

Thank you, I've seen the comment and I see you - thank you. I chose to write my way out of a lot of dark places and I think the writing acts as a kind of map for other people to find their way out too. Did I ever anticipate it? No, never. I'm overwhelmed by the response, even 10 years later. Thank you again for sharing what you've been through, your message is appreciated.

What is your advice for a young adult who would like to write a book detailing her own struggles with depression and anxiety while trying to help others struggling with the same mental illnesses?

I'm no professional, but I've beaten myself up more than anyone in my life; Including the bullies and 'wicked' stepmother. I just want to tell everyone who's ever felt the same hopelessness: "Just hold on. Here's how to silence that demon in the back of your head and LIVE your life instead of worrying about every aspect of it."

Just start writing or talking or however you choose to express yourself. It doesn't matter how many people you reach or what happens with what you do, what's important is that you do it.

In a passionate moment about 8 months ago I put a video on YouTube that was very well received. As I struggle with my own insecurities and ups and downs in my life I find it difficult to share, even though it helps.

There's no pressure but the pressure you put on yourself, create when you can - it should be fun and/or a release, not a burden.