Do you want to be a writer but are hesitant to try because you haven't taken any writing classes? Wondering if you need to have a degree in order to write?

Guess what? You don't have to have a writing education to be a writer.

I don't have one and have been published dozens of times. And today's interviewee is the same way.

You Don't Need a Writing Degree to be a Writer

Today we're talking to Justin Boote about how he became a writer when he didn't have any formal writing education. The short story: reading is your education and persistence pays off.

Justin decided to write one day, so he did. He decided he needed feedback from other writers. So he got it. He decided he wanted to be published, so he sent his stories to magazines and anthologies. It's as simple as that! No education needed.

Read on for a look at the entire process Justin went through to become a writer and how his writing career is going now!

Meet Justin Boote

Justin Boote is an Englishman who's been living in Barcelona for over twenty years working as a waiter in a busy, centrical restaurant. He has been writing short horror stories for four years and in this time, has published around thirty short stories in diverse magazines and anthologies, including his first semi-pro story in Scare Street Publishing.

His short novella, Badass, published by Terror Tract, is also available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback, as is his first collection of stories, Love Wanes, Fear is Forever.

When he’s not writing, he likes to harass his cat, Loki, and spend long, addictive hours playing Candy Crush.

You can catch up with him on Facebook.

How Justin Got Into Writing

Welcome, Justin! I’ve known you for a long time and I’m super excited you’ve released your first book! Can you give me a bit of your background? You don't have a formal writing education, so how did you get into writing?

Hi, and thanks for having me! Let’s see. Out here in Barcelona where I’ve been living the last twenty-five years, I’ve been writing for just over four years.

About six years ago I was living alone with no TV, so I was reading a lot. Then, one day I had an idea for a story. I wrote it using pen and paper. Then had another idea. That was that until some two years later.

I mentioned my writing to a friend, and she said she’d like to read them, so I translated them into Spanish, showed her, and she loved them! She said I should write more.

So I did! I bought myself a laptop, then discovered a writing contest at a forum called The Write Practice. Haven’t looked back since!

Why horror?

For me, since my earliest memories, horror has always been my thing. I remember watching the old Hammer movies with my mother when I was about ten or eleven. I started reading Stephen King’s novels at the same age.

Then, at about the same time, I saw a two-part vampire movie called Salem’s Lot, based on Stephen King’s novel. That did it! I recall watching it, my hand covering my eyes and peering through the tiniest of gaps until Mum sent me off to bed.

I was terrified but loved it at the same time—the sensation of being “safely terrified.” Wasn’t the case when alone in bed, though . . . I guess I’ve been looking for that buzz ever since, which is why I love “jump scare” movies, too. So for me, horror is all I know.

You've been published a ton since you started writing four years ago. How many publications are you up to now?

Yep! Since starting to write, I have now written around one hundred and sixty short stories, two novellas, and a novel, which I’m in the process of editing now.

To date, I’ve published a novelette called Badass through Terror Tract Publishing, and about thirty short stories, some of which ended up in my latest collection. Just today I received an acceptance for my fourth story for a semi-pro paying magazine, so that’s a huge bonus!

Editor's note: Short story markets pay in a variety of ways: flat rate; contributor copy/copies; nothing at all; per word. Very few do royalty shares. “Semi-pro” means a market that pays somewhere between three and five cents per word. Above five cents is considered a “pro” market.

Get to Know Justin's Work

Speaking of your published work, you just released a short story collection. Can you tell me a bit about Love Wanes, Fear is Forever? Why did you decide to release a collection now?

Now? I should have published this two years ago! Back then, I had about sixty stories in my files and figured it was time.

But I kept dawdling around, first trying to find publishers to send the collection to, then something else would come up so I'd forget all about it, and so on. Also, being utterly useless around computers, trying to upload everything to Amazon and self-publish just wasn’t going to happen.

But now with COVID and being stuck at home, I figured that with all this free time on my hands. If I don’t do it now, I never will! I still had to pay someone to do all the formatting and cover, though!

So, the collection is twelve stories and four micro-fiction trilogies, the majority previously published in other magazines, that I consider among my favourites, and all centered around the idea of fear. I think each character in the stories has some flaw or weakness that makes them vulnerable to their particular nemesis, be it bugs, monsters, the dark, whatever; hence the title.

Nothing too gory, just good old scary and weird stories!

On Finding Story Ideas

We both write horror, and I have to admit something: I’ve always been a bit jealous of your story ideas! They’re always so creative and you’re incredibly prolific. So, even though I hate this question (and most writers do), I’m going to ask it anyway. Where do you get your ideas?

Ah, yes. The inevitable question! Ideas.

To be honest I wish I had more ideas. Very often I’m down to my last story idea and nothing else to fall back on, so I have to go looking for them. Newspapers, movies, events that have happened to me or a friend which I can exaggerate or twist and turn to make a story.

I have a “story idea” file on my laptop where very often it might be a simple sentence. “Person discovers dead body in basement,” for example. So I’ll sit and stare at that sentence and try and figure out a story for it.

I often go to YouTube and read the “Ten Scariest . . .,” for example, take something from each and turn it into a story.

Some time ago, I left home to go for coffee and newspaper and overheard two elderly women talking. One said, “Hi, Mrs. __, I see you’re dressed all in black today. Did someone die?” Immediately, before the other could even respond, I imagined her turning around and saying, “Yes, your husband!” So, sometimes, ideas cme from the most unlikely of sources!

On Being a Writer Without a Writing Education

When we talked before this interview, you expressed some hesitation on “teaching” writing because you don’t have a formal writing education. Which we both know isn’t really necessary to get published! And look how many short stories you’ve sold!

What was it like when you first got started? Pretend you’re back there, years ago, and walk me through the steps you took to start putting pen to paper and then to find publications. What was it like making that decision to put your work out there for the first time?

Yes, I am not a good teacher of writing because I’ve never taken any course, and still don’t understand many of the technical terms and “rules.” Semicolon or em-dash? I have not the slightest idea!

I once Googled “how to use a semicolon.” The answer was even more complicated! Something about two separate clauses. Okay, so what’s a clause?!!

So, for me, if it looks about right, that’ll do! If the story is for a more important magazine, I send it to an editor anyway, first.

So, obviously, when I first started writing I had even less idea about point of view, active/passive voice, etc, but thankfully, those in The Write Practice were patient enough to help and point out errors and POV changes and so on. At that time I would get a story idea and just go for it, no idea about how it might end—I’ll worry about that when I get there!

So really, no conscious thought about what I was doing—just write the story, post it to The Write Practice Pro, then wait for the feedback.

For that same reason—a complete lack of embarrassment!—within months of starting, I began to Google around magazines to submit them, too. Once they’d been written, I thought, “okay, what now? What do we do with them?” Just seemed logical to try to get them published somewhere.

Again, I had no idea of the concept of non-paying markets versus semi-pro or professional markets. Any market I found open to submissions, off it went!

Naturally, I got many, many rejections, but just kept trying until I got my first acceptance about six months later, which just happened to be for the first story I ever wrote all those years ago (but obviously re-written)!

So, through speaking to others, I slowly learned the concepts of formatting, which markets might be a good fit or not. As I often say to those at The Write Practice Pro who are wary about submitting their stories for fear of ridicule, if your story is rejected, you will not go to prison; no one will turn up on your doorstep and beat you up; you will not become the laughingstock of the literary world. All you’ll get is a simple “thanks, but no thanks,” and that’s it. So you send it off somewhere else.

I’ve never cried over a rejection, never thrown a party because of an acceptance. I just tick it off and look for the next. Selling short stories is never going to pay the bills!

Did you ever feel you were at a disadvantage because you didn’t have a formal education in writing?

Yes, and I still do. A natural part of being a writer-as with most arts-is self-doubt. With so many great authors out there, what chance have I got? Me, who can’t tell a comma from a colon? Surely editors will take one look at my grammatic mess and reject instantly.

And while in some cases this is true—they told me—it still never stopped me. I like writing, and once the story is done, I have to do something with it.

Having said all that, I have also been told that I am by far NOT the worst they’ve seen. Many of my stories need editing, but not that much. I always felt that way about submitting to semi-pro paying markets, too, who will reject at the first sign of a typo. But I keep at it.

As an example of self-doubt, this morning a semi-pro paying market accepted my fourth story—pending edits!—and my immediate reaction was wondering if I’m the only person who submits! Something must be wrong! 

The Realities of Being a Writer

About how many rejections would you say you get a year? After all this time, does it still sting when you get one? On a related note, how many stories do you think you send out a year?

The number of rejections is relative to how many markets I can find where my stories might fit. Sometimes there are lots of submission calls; other times I can go weeks without submitting anything.

But to hazard a guess, I would say about forty rejections a year. Sometimes fifty, sometimes thirty. At any given moment I usually have about seven or eight stories “out there.”

The only time it “stings” me is when I get a long series of rejections, which immediately wakes up Mr. Self-Doubt again, or if I write a story for a specific magazine and they reject it. Especially when I’ve been waiting months for a response. But as I said earlier, depression might last at most ten minutes, then it’s forgotten about. Same with acceptances.

So, having said all that, I don’t keep a tidy database on my laptop; I use a notebook and pen, but I guess on average I might send out about a hundred stories a year.

What's Next for Justin

Future plans? I’m still waiting on a novel from you! Are you going to finally pull that trigger?

I have a novel! And two novellas that are all tied in as a series. Right now, after about a year sitting in my files, I’ve decided it’s time to get them done. Once the first is ready to submit—hopefully this month—then I’ll work on the others.

I always said I would never write a novel because a) all the editing involved, and b) I get bored with them very quickly. One I’ve been through it twice that’s it, I’m fed up with it and want it gone! 

As for future projects, my publisher of Badass, which is a serial killer novelette, suggested that the three other long serial killer supernatural stories I have should be put together as a collection titled Serial. I’m in the process of editing them as well, so hopefully in about three months' time we’ll publish them.

After that will be another collection around March 2021 if I can’t find a publisher for it.

And of course, I'm just pumping out the short stories and finding homes for them in the meantime. I don’t expect to write another novel unless someone pays me well to do so!

Other writing tips

What’s the worst part of the writing process for you and how do you overcome that?

The worst part of writing is directly related to not wanting to write novels—the editing. I find it impossible to remove/add large chunks of a story—I get confused, so I make sure the first draft is as tight as possible, contrary to popular advice. A read-through, tighten up a few sentences here and there and that’s that. Ready to go.

Also, something I hate, and it happens almost every time, is getting this brilliant idea for a story, jumping in, then about half-way through this sinking sensation that it’s not going as well as I thought it might! Sometimes the struggle is my writing ability to convert images to words; other times it just feels like any other story I’ve read a dozen times—lacking originality. Mr. Self-Doubt also “helps” in that department.

So I overcome it by trying not to think about whether a story's any good or not. Just get it done and get rid of it!

Not being able to think of an ending when I get there is pretty annoying, too! Especially if I’ve just spent weeks getting there! I have many unfinished stories on my files for that very reason.

Any other writing tips you’d like to share, specifically for newbie writers?

Tips? I made a very big mistake when I started out. I would read Stephen King’s short stories (among others) and think, “I can write as good as that! That story wasn’t complicated or anything! In fact, I think I can do better!”

Then, I’d read through mine . . .

Don’t compare yourself to the greats. Becoming a full-time author is akin to winning the lottery. So write for you, develop your own voice and style and don’t try and be someone else. It’s good to study their techniques, but you will always come off second best (unless you’re one of those 0.0001% who actually do win the lottery!).

Always finish every story you start. Even if you have a brilliant idea that just can’t wait any longer. Chances are that other story will disappear into hiding, never to see the light of day.

Join a writing group or find beta readers. A fresh set of eyes is amazingly helpful. People will pick up on things you might never have thought of—sometimes the slightest, silliest of things.

Lastly, I think it’s good to know the basic rules of writing, but don’t follow them too strictly. Rules are more like guidelines. Yes, you can use adverbs, passive voice, tell, not show. It's knowing when and how; there’s no law that says you can’t. Just write your story as you want to tell it, not how others tell you to do so.

And that’s it!

Don't Let A Lack of Writing Education Stop You from Being a Writer

Here's what you need to be a writer:

1. Read everything, and especially read in your genre.
2. Write. Write all the time.
3. Persistence. Send your stories out to publications!

Justin's story of becoming a writer is like so many (including mine): read, write, publish, repeat! No formal education needed.

Thanks to Justin for agreeing to talk with me! Here's where you can find his collection!

Do you have a formal writing education? If not, have you been letting that hold you back from being a writer? Let me know in the comments!