Meet Jason Pchajek

We were lucky to catch up with Jason Pchajek recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Fortunately I’ve always been a creative person, so on some level it’s fairly easy for me to keep that alive.

For me, it almost always goes back to when I was a kid at the family cottage. Every summer my family would pack up and head out to there to spend time together. Unfortunately being a kid who loved video games and spent a lot of time on my computer, we didn’t have a t.v. or internet out there–to this day we still don’t actually–so I needed to find something for myself to do.

Luckily for me, I also loved reading, and at the time there was a small store in town that sold used books for a few cents to a couple dollars, and that was a perfect paradise for me.

Just imagine, you’re 12 or 13 and absolutely LOVE reading, and you’re standing there with five bucks in your pocket. The air is still, rays of light are piercing through the gloom to illuminate the rows of books you’ve never heard of, and you’re about to embark on a bunch of new adventures. It was heaven.

So, once I’d exhausted the stack of books I’d packed with me, I’d raid the store in town for a few that interested me. Weeks of nothing but reading.

Then, eventually, those would run out too, and I’d resort to doing the only thing that made sense to do next.

I started writing my own stories.

So to make a long story short, I’ve always said that to be a good writer you need to also be a good reader. But you can’t just read the genres or authors you personally like. You need to open yourself up to new ideas, different narratives, diverse perspectives to not just understand what’s out there in the market, but what they trying to say and how those ideas and narratives are created.

To make sure I keep my creativity alive, I’m constantly consuming. Reading new books, listening to podcasts, playing video games, anything to keep new ideas floating through my head.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’ve said it in a few different interviews, but for my entire life I wanted to be an author.

It was always a goal to publish a novel and have it on store shelves. How many copies sold was never a consideration, it was always about doing the thing. It was enough to just have someone take a chance on something I’d written, and invest their time and money into getting it on store shelves.

Then it happened. The crew over at Turnstone Press thought my novel BOUNTY showed promise, took the project on, and worked hard with me to refine it and put it out into the world.

There’s something special about having the ability to create stories in this way. To create people and worlds from your mind and nurture them into being almost living breathing things, and then to share that with an audience is at times both terrifying and thrilling. When BOUNTY hit store shelves I was incredibly self-conscious. Here was this story that I’d been working on for years, at first on my own writing the initial drafts, and then with my editor and publisher to get it ready for “prime time”, and suddenly it was out there in the wild for any random stranger in a bookstore to pick up and read.

Now I’ve been able to continue my writing journey, starting a whole new second career of sorts. Currently I’m working with my publisher on the sequel to BOUNTY, shopping around a fantasy heist novel called “A House of Wolves” to agents, working on a fantasy romance novel tentatively called “Crowfeeder”, and preparing for a few major conventions this summer where I’ve been asked to be a panelist and speaker. If only that 12-year-old me standing in a dusty used book store in small-town Manitoba could see me now.

It really is an exciting time!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

First and foremost is my creativity. It was something my parents nurtured throughout my life, always supporting creative endeavors, whether it be music, literature, or my schoolwork, they always wanted to make sure I kept and open mind and felt the freedom to be creative. Writing is an inherently creative field, and that provided a bedrock to getting me started and continuing on this strange journey.

Next, would probably be my writing skills themselves. I was lucky enough to get paid to write long before I wrote BOUNTY. In university I worked at the student newspaper as a sports reporter and then as the sports editor, where I was able to not only hone my writing skills, but learned how to edit and work within tight deadlines. Sports is a unique beast when it comes to being a reporter, and you’re under the gun to produce articles quickly, often to be published within the hour of a game or press conference finishing. So not only did I have to be a good writer, I had to be a FAST writer while doing it.

Then, finally, I think my consistency is a major component to the early success I’ve enjoyed in this journey. I fully subscribe to the Stephen King approach to writing. Being a writer with a full-time job, I need to take the time I’m given each day to write and make to most of it, so for me that comes down to setting my daily writing goal for a project and sticking to it. Even on days where it’s hard, or I don’t feel like I’ve done a good enough job, getting words down on the page is what matters. It can all be refined and punched up on subsequent drafts.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

I think I’ve mentioned it in previous interviews, but “On Writing” by Stephen King changed my life. When I was first beginning to write “BOUNTY”, and decided that it was the project I was going to try and take all the way, I was given the book as a gift and it has defined how I approach the craft of writing. Everyone is different, obviously, but for me the process that King uses to write his books works perfectly for me. Particularly his approach to staying consistent.

Though an important nugget from the book to highlight would be that you should first write with the door closed, and then with the door open.

What King is referring to is that your first draft should be something written for you. Something that you would want to read, or the story you want to tell, how you want to tell it. Then, your second draft should be the one you write for an audience. How do you approach getting this narrative across to people who don’t know all the inner workings like you do?

Something else that’s important to take from the book is that everyone’s approach to the craft of writing is different. Some people like to make detailed outlines, others like to allow the narrative to evolve on its own. Some people prefer consistent daily goals, while others write when and how much they’re able. Every approach is valid, and it comes down at the end of the day to what works for you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jasonpchajekwriting.com/
• Instagram: @jasonpchajek
• Twitter: @jasonpchajek
• Other: Bluesky: @jasonpchajek.bsky.social
  Tik Tok: jasonpchajek

Image Credits

John Luke