Meet Theoden Humphrey

We recently connected with Theoden Humphrey and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Theoden with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
It’s difficult for me to call what I do a work ethic, because one thing I know is that despite all the writing I have done, I am still only — “only” — a self-published author. I should also probably address the question about overcoming imposter syndrome here, because that’s another aspect of this. But since I haven’t reached the specific marker of success I originally focused on, namely being picked up by a literary agent and having my book produced by one of the traditional legacy publishing houses, I don’t know that my writing is what it should be in terms of my identity. Am I really a writer? Even after every agent I have queried has rejected my work? I know that writers write — always — and that is what makes us into writers; and I frequently find myself deciding that I have failed to write enough, to write often enough, to write creatively enough, to write eloquently enough, to write thoughtfully enough, to just be enough, and that lack is why I have failed. (There’s that imposter syndrome.) I am a high school English teacher for my paycheck job, and I put so much time and energy into that, that my writing has always sat in second place, with the exceptions of only a few days when I really get rolling on something and spend hours on end writing it. So what kind of writer doesn’t write? Or at least doesn’t write enough?

But at the same time: what is enough? I have been writing regularly and consistently, purposefully and insistently, for half my life now; in that time I have written five full novels, most of two others, and so many essays and blog posts and book reviews that I think my total word count, not counting the novels, has now topped two million words. Is that enough? It seems, to me, like a lot of work. When I also realize that my novels have been completed in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2018, and 2019, that actually seems like pretty consistent writing. So I guess I do have a work ethic. And when I look back at what I have written, I realize that most of it is quite good; and so my imposter syndrome is just that: a deception that was inflicted on me (because “imposter” comes from the Latin for “impose”), unfortunately by me, but still, only a deception. I’m a writer. I’m a good writer.

But am I good enough? Am I writer enough?

My work ethic comes from a desire to prove that, that I am a writer and a good one, despite not having achieved the goals I set for myself when I first set out to be the next Stephen King or Piers Anthony. I am not those men, any more than I am a failure; but I want to prove to myself and to everyone else that I am the writer I believe I am and say I am: and so I keep writing. Whenever I think that I have failed as a writer, that I am only a teacher (which is a fine thing, of which I am proud, but still not the thing I wanted to be or want to consider myself), then I write, and the thought goes away. Or, if I may quote Vincent van Gogh, whose work I just saw at an immersive experience this past weekend, “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” I went home from that exhibit and, deeply inspired, I wrote for several hours, and finished a chapter of my sixth novel.

Because writers write.

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 am a storyteller, first. I don’t just believe, I know, that humans create the world we live in through our perceptions and observations of reality around us, and those perceptions and observations are shaped by the stories we tell about them. I don’t understand our world, or the people who are in it, and I want to; so I tell stories to make sense of us. I don’t understand myself, and so my stories are frequently about myself, in one way or another; but because my world is not the same one that everyone else inhabits, I don’t want to just write about myself: and so I write about time-traveling pirates, and monstrous man-eating ghouls, and people who can shape reality with their dreams. I suppose that makes me a fantasy writer; but my fantasy novels are not escapes from reality: they are closer to an intensified reality, one that is distilled into essential facts and experiences, and then launched into the “real” world, which is the larger setting for all of my fantasy novels. A world that has more magic than the one we inhabit — but not more than the stories we tell ourselves about that world. So I don’t know that what I write is fantasy — but I hope it is magical. I hope it is mythical.

When I am not telling stories about the world, I am trying to understand the stories I see and hear and read from the world and my fellow denizens of it; that I do with my blogs and essays, which are generally not fiction, but rather social commentary and literary analysis and so on, often about my professed professional profession, which is teaching high school English. And sometimes I tell stories about this world, too, though they are decidedly not fantasy. Other than when I compared the public education system to the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. Or suggested turning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into a floating pirate island nation. Those writings might be fantasy.

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 I am very empathetic, observant, understanding: I am good at understanding people, why they do what they do, how they feel about what they do, and how their actions and words reflect what they are thinking and feeling and wanting. I am endlessly fascinated by people, at the same time, because I just cannot understand why people do what they do, or how they feel about what they do, or what they could possibly be thinking and feeling and wanting, that made them choose particular actions and words. The disconnect between what I can understand and what I can’t is what keeps me trying to bring all the second group into the first. And thinking as much about that as I do, makes me better able to create characters who act in ways that make sense — and that don’t, as well. I am a passionate lover of words and language, and that keeps me wanting to use just the right word in just the right place at just the right time — or as Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” I am always looking to bring the lightning, and when I think I have done it — rarely, but I think I have — are my proudest moments.
My last important quality is that I want to help. My mom is one of the kindest people I’ve ever known; she’s been a nurse for 50 years, and that doesn’t come close to describing everything she does to help people. I carry that same drive — though not to the same degree — and for me, it pushes me to teach my students better, and to use words and stories to make the world more understandable, and more survivable, for my fellow humans. And maybe even a little more enjoyable, sometimes.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Okay look: you can’t ask a writer and English teacher to pick just one book, or only a few nuggets of wisdom. I have lists. Not literal lists, because the other quality I inherited or learned from my mother is being deeply disorganized; but the more I think about this, the more examples I think of. But here are the top three.

The first important book for me was Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. It wasn’t the inspiration for wanting to be a writer; that was Stephen King and Piers Anthony, along with J.R.R. Tolkien (Big shock, considering my name) and Lloyd Alexander. But Fahrenheit was the book that showed me that writing could change the world. That writing could change a person who wasn’t even looking to change, who maybe isn’t even a reader; that a story written in less than a month could last for almost a century, and still be one of the most influential works in our culture; and that a spark of an idea could catch fire. I’ve taught that book more than 50 times, and I can’t possibly count all of the nuggets of wisdom I have found in it — so I’ll leave it at the things that Bradbury showed me with his book about firemen burning books, and burning everything else along with them. (Also the best present I’ve ever received, and my proudest possession, is a signed limited edition copy of Fahrenheit 451 that my wife got me when we were first dating.)
The second important book is Lamb, by Christopher Moore. Moore is one of the funniest people writing in the world today, and Lamb is his novel about the life of Jesus Christ. It is fascinating to me because while he fills the book with jokes, often very silly jokes, he is still able to take this very sensitive topic and treat it with genuine respect and curiosity and love. It’s an amazing accomplishment. Also, in his foreword, Moore wrote a sentence that has been burned into my brain ever since I first saw it: “All books point to perfection, either by what they are or by what they are not.” Someday I’m going to write a sentence like that. Someday.

The third important book for me is The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. This is, simply, the best book I’ve ever read. It’s the most impressive, the most beautifully written, and the most effective and affecting book in my reading life. It’s the book that really showed me how far writing and storytelling can go: and the one that is so much better than I could ever, ever write that it made me comfortable with the knowledge that I can’t reach the pinnacle — so I no longer try. I just write as well as I can, and leave the perfect brilliance for authors like Ms. Roy. (Also, the book taught me that the small things are everything, and that everything can change in a day.)

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Book covers by Toni DeBiasi

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is often the x-factor that differentiates between mild and wild success. The stories of

Productivity
Beating Burnout

Often the key to having massive impact is the ability to keep going when others

Leadership Development
Finding Your Why

Not knowing why you are going wherever it is that you are going sounds silly,