We caught up with the brilliant and insightful J. B. Velasquez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
J. B., we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
The truth is, I’m not very confident. Some people think I am, but they can’t see what I feel, only what I do. You don’t have to have confidence to do a thing. If it’s something that you care about, you can’t wait around to feel confident about it before you do it. That’s where a lot of people get stuck. They expect to feel confident before they decide to put in the effort, and for some, that feeling may never come and then they’re just waiting around to feel a certain way instead of living their lives. Confidence is something you get after you do the thing, not before. So any confidence I feel is because I went ahead and did it.
As far as self-esteem goes, I don’t pay much attention to that. It used to come from how I compared myself to other people. It’s an evaluation–a judgement. I’m trying to learn to let go of judgement and that includes judgement of my self. I’m no better or worse than anyone else. We’re all perfectly imperfect and that’s good enough for me.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
People have told me I’m a great writer for most of my life. Unfortunately, I never actually considered it as a career. I always wanted to write a book, but I never made the time. It wasn’t until 2020 when I was in the hospital with Covid that I made a pact with myself that if I ever got out of the hospital, I was going to finally write that book. So I did.
My goal was to write a book–that is, one book. But it’s kind of like getting a tattoo–you can’t just stop at one. So I wrote second one and now I’m writing a third. I finally found my thing and there is no end in sight. My only regret is not starting sooner.
The novels that are currently available are Tourist Trapped, a metaphysical portal fantasy, and Every Last One: The Rise of Sylvia Boone, a dystopian adventure novel. My next novel is called Sleepers and is scheduled to release in 2026. It’s kind of a mashup between the show Severance and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. I can’t be pigeonholed into any one genre. Genre is secondary for me. What matters most is the expression of ideas and shared humanity.
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 don’t have any special training in creative writing. Like I said, people have always recognized this talent in me so it wasn’t anything I had to work too hard at. I think what’s more important than skill, which is something anyone can learn, is the willingness to put in the effort and to stick with it. The writing life is full of rejection and disappointment and frustration. You have to develop a pretty thick skin and you have to be willing to keep going even when you feel like a failure. I think they call that grit.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I had a heart attack at 42. Someone told me back then that there’s a good chance I’d have another one within 5 years time, and that one could be fatal. That’s been in the back of my mind ever since. I’m 50 now. So far so good. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve spent the last decade thinking this was my last decade. How have I spent it? Raising my two kids, who are 12 and 13 now. I’d love to say, I’d spend my last decade traveling the world, but what kind of parent would I be if I did that? So I decided to become a writer. That way I could create my own worlds and still be here for my kids.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jbvelasquez.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_jbvelasquez/
- Other: Substack: https://jbvelasquez.substack.com
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J. B. Velasquez
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