The Digital Ink Spot had the pleasure of interviewing, Matthew Stegman. As a self-published author, they lived through a nightmare, only to survive and come out better on the other side. Let's hear what Stegman has to say about his journey though life and self-publishing.
Matthew Stegman: My name is Matthew Stegman, I consider myself a struggling high-functioning, chronic illness suffering, anxiety-riddled creative. I try very hard to have the energy to do. However, not always is it present. I write when I can. When I am inspired, I quickly jot down a note to study and obsess over for days until it finally manifests as more than just a few words neatly tucked away on my phone. I try to set aside time to force myself to write but that doesn't always work. I usually just end up editing the same thing one thousand times over. My work usually takes the shape of crazed monologues that I've mangled and crushed into poetry. What I write is either based on my overwhelming intrusive thoughts, dreams that only half make sense after I'm done trying to describe them, past trauma I'm in the process of trying to resolve, failed relationships or friendships, and anything and everything that occupies my poor over-analytical brain. As to why I chose to become an author, well I suppose it's because I had so much inside of me that I needed to write down. Which sounds cliche. Every author, poet, or creative has things inside of them that they need to express. I am no different in that matter.
The Digital Ink Spot: What brought you to writing and publishing your first collection?
Matthew Stegman: Well, I published my first collection and second at the same time. Which in hindsight wasn't the best idea. I had no launch schedule or plan. I rushed the process (if you consider a two-year timespan rushing) because it needed to be done. I needed them out and about. I needed them to really exist. The choice of mangling my work into two collections (If Anyone Can Hide it, it's Me and Parallel Universe Me Has No Scars) and publishing them was, unrealistically, to seek connection. I started writing them at a very low point, and at that point, all I did was seclude myself and write. After writing enough to compile into a collection, I chose to make it a book. After editing and writing more it had become two books. Hard-luck stories push and shape us, and we all have one or two or three. I had become something unrecognizable and needed to grow. As I grew so did my writing. My writing became less about someone else or what they had done, and more about me and my never-ending search into the catacombs of myself. The former my first collection, the latter my second.
The Digital Ink Spot: Now that you got the first collection out of your system. What made you continue writing? What was your goal after the first collection?
Matthew Stegman: The main goal I guess is to continue to write out all of what needs to come out. I feel the perpetual gnawing in the back of my mind. A beast that demands more from me. I want to continue to write things my readers will relate to. I am absolutely over the moon when I receive reviews and feedback on what someone feels from my writing, or that they feel as if I have entered their mind and wrote down what they felt. In a way that gives me the connection that I so desperately sought after while writing my collections. It gives one a sense of belonging, for me as the author and I'm sure for the reader.
The Digital Ink Spot: What else can readers look forward to from you?
Matthew Stegman: They can look forward to my mind in frenzy, panic, disbelief, and wonder. All compact and written down. I am currently working on a novel but I'm not very far into it. God, I can't tell you how envious I am of those who possess the ability to write out thousands of words a day. Who can manifest chapter after chapter. But alas, my jealously is unimportant. The novel follows a character and their consumption into alcoholic psychosis, as well as the consequences of their actions. The collapse of a life and the lives affected by this collapse. I am excited about it. Even if I mostly stare vividly at the screen typing, backspacing, and typing again. Readers can also keep a lookout for my next poetry chapbook titled Gator Heads & Wind Chimes. Both the novel and chapbook will be available whenever I can convince someone to publish them! Haha!
The Digital Ink Spot: After all, you have lived through, what can you say to others how may be going through have gone through the same type of experience?
Matthew Stegman: As I said, everyone has a story. Everyone has had struggles they have had to overcome. I am no different. I suffer from Crohn's Disease which is a real pain in the ass. It causes me to have very little energy, due to constant inflammation I feel drained every day. I suffer from unresolved trauma that has manifested as terrible coping mechanisms. I have recognized that the desire to want or to live has escaped me most of my life. Right now, I have a choice. I must choose to want to be alive, despite how helpless I have felt. I must push myself to move and act and breathe and want. Even if I suffer from many things destroying me at once, I will strive to want. Despite it being extremely easy to tell you all this, the hard truth is that it will be excruciating. That it has been excruciating. I will have to demand myself to do and become healthier. My advice to others? 1. Be vulnerable. Yeah, I get it, it's hard. But nothing's real if you're closed off to it. 2. Do. You are what you do. Make the choice to do what needs to be done. If it hurts, it's going to hurt until it doesn't. 2. You should do everything you can to help yourself heal. I slip up. I do all the time. What matters is to continue to try. I suffer from both mental and physical things, but the mental is what keeps me from doing everything I can. Just like I chose to write things down, choose to do.
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