We were lucky to catch up with Jerico Olivari recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jerico, 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?
Developing confidence and self-esteem is a complicated journey, you’ll find more often than not that taking steps backwards is part of going forward. While I’m still working on mine, I will argue that what has helped is offering to read or edit for friends, as well as joining groups with other writers. Comparing yourself to others can be scary, and frankly, useless if everyone has different styles or genre. However, artists often feel like they haven’t done enough or they’ll never be good enough. When you have a published writer tell you – yes, I still get lots of notes, or a friend say, I want to write a book but I don’t know where to start. You realize you’ve done more than you give yourself credit for, which can boost your self-esteem in the process.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Teaching is what I do for work, writing is what I do as a hobby I hope will lead to a career. Currently, I have this book written that people really like, but I have personally put so much into it that it’s hard to market. So I had this idea to film a “tourist infomercial” since it takes place in a Utopia. I’ll be working with my friend Richard Rogers who has his page on SkyCorp, and my friend who is on a popular reality TV show, but I’m keeping her name out for now. Once we have that video, I’ll be able to self-publish the book and continue to make a name for myself.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Reading is perhaps more important than writing. That sounds like some backwards generic zen lesson, but it’s true. By reading, you’re able to see how writers use their words, and the pace of those words, to tell a story. Pacing is very important because a lot of young writers want to stubbornly open up their world with a lot of description (guilty of this too). When you pick up a book, however, you’ll see how fast you get thrown into the world and how much the writer/editor have trusted you to understand the story. Reading can also give you insight into the tropes of your genre, can help with new words, and just overall give you a pastime that feels forgotten.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
My current challenge is getting a literary agent. I’ve always asked myself, if I wrote the most sure-fire perfect novel, what would be my next step? If you’re a basketball player and suddenly you can’t miss from three, you’d go to any open workout or gym to showcase your skills. Writing doesn’t have the luxury of that, people aren’t meeting in bookstores and yelling their words at each other – though maybe we should? You have to market yourself, as well as your baby. That could mean writing half a book or the whole thing, but suddenly finding yourself in the space of an e-mail to pitch it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jericoolivari.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theunclejerry/
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jericowrites
Image Credits
Book cover by David Rose Main photograph (me in a suit) by Melissa Montoya
