Meet S.R. Crickard

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful S.R. Crickard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with S.R. below.

Hi S.R., great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

Starting or breaking a habit is one of the hardest things a person can do. In one sense, you just have to fake it until you make it. Pretend you’re brave every day until it’s no longer pretend. In another sense, we incorporate habits slowly over time.
I didn’t gain traction with my writing until I stopped expecting to take the big risks first, and settled for little risks that built over time. The first risk was joining a writing guild. The second risk was showing my writing to people who would give very honest feedback, even if it didn’t feel good to hear it. It was a risk to keep showing up for criticism. It was a risk to send a short story to a magazine, even though I’d had plenty of rejections. It was a risk to pitch my book to a publisher.
I’d have never made it to that publisher if I hadn’t joined a guild several years prior, and faked being a confident writer until it became true.
Start with the little risks, and when you reach the big ones you’ll be ready.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My most exciting bit of news right now is that my debut novel, Misshelved Magic will be released in November of 2024. It’s about Adelina, an ordinary librarian with no magic who finds a spell book that’s too afraid of the noises behind the shelves to stay in its proper place.
I am a storyteller first and foremost. I think escapism is a very valid need, and that it’s not as passive as we sometimes make it seem.
C.S. Lewis said, “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise, you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” We spend time in stories so that when we face real-world strife, we have those heroes in our psyche.
My brain very much works in metaphor and allegory, and that might be due to my upbringing as a library kid, and in a culture that values the stories of our ancestors. I grew up on stories of great great grandparents who fled wars, survived poverty, and built beautiful lives. These stories were always shared with an understanding that what our forbears overcame, we could too.
There are a few constants in every story I write. There is always some kind of medical professional or healer, someone who can help the characters heal and keep going. I think stories do that. They let us rest for a moment and give us the encouragement to keep going.
My stories also always include characters who find the good, true, and beautiful in unexpected places. Life can lead us down winding roads, but we have to keep our eyes open because joy could be hiding under any rock or behind any tree if we spot it.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think the most important thing you need as a writer is the ability to take criticism from the right people. It’s very tempting when you first start and have your grand idea for a story, to want as many people as possible to read it and tell you how good it is. If you’re a new writer and everyone reading your stories is telling you they are good, you are showing them to the wrong people. Family and friends want to encourage you. More than encouragement it takes being challenged to get better. A good critique reader or writing mentor will point out places you need to improve. Seek out those criticisms and use them to learn.
The second skill is to write like it’s the best story ever written and revise like it’s the worst. First drafts are supposed to be bad. You’re creating the raw material that will be shaped in subsequent drafts. Even the most seasoned author will tell you their first draft was a mess. Embrace it.
The last thing is to slow down. Writing and publishing are a marathon, not a sprint. It’s better to spend years working on your craft, and then putting out the best version of your story, than to put out work that publically receives all the criticism you should have gotten from a critiquer in the early drafts.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?

The readers who will most enjoy my books are women with offbeat humor who enjoy innocent romance and fantasy. A woman who likes a hot beverage and a snowy window with a book is a lady after my own heart and I can’t wait to share Misshelved Magic with all of you.

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Image Credits

Ashley Tabler

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