I get that question a lot. I’m sure all comic book writers do, but I suspect I may get it even more right now since I’m still so new to the game. It wasn’t that long ago that I was on the other side of the table at signings, so I guess some of you folks figure that I might have some sort of special insight (scary thought). I did a signing last month, and it seemed to me that 9 out of 10 people who came to talk to me asked that same question: how do I break in? I’m not complaining about anybody asking that. I always try my best to give anybody who asks a pretty detailed answer. But what bothers me is that I’ve never had anybody come up and ask me, How do I become a better writer? How do I become good enough to break into comics? Now if I meet you at a signing, I have no idea if you’re a good writer or not, and just to protect myself legally I can’t read any of your pitches or unpublished work to find out if you’re good or not. But just the law of averages says that not everyone who comes up and asks me how to break into comics is actually a good enough writer to do so.

Back when I was in college, writing sappy love poems and ridiculously convoluted short-stories, I didn’t know too much about any one thing in particular (except maybe Prince’s discography and the life and times of Jim Morrison), but I was at least self-aware enough to know that I wasn’t a good enough writer yet that I warranted being published. I think it’s always easy to play that game where you look at some writer whose work you don’t particularly like and say, Hey, I can do that better than that guy. But it’s a lot harder to take a long hard look at your own work and really ask yourself: am I good enough? Sure, maybe I was the best writer in my little high school, and yeah, my friends and family all think I’m great, but when I compare my work to that of a published professional, are they in the same league?

I remember years ago I went to a writer’s conference where I was looking forward to meeting some of the writers who were appearing and getting their advice on writing (highlight was getting to shake hands with Ray Bradbury). But I remember feeling like most of the struggling writers like me who were there were only interested in learning about how to get published. They figured they’d already written the next great American novel, and they just wanted to know how to get an agent, how to get in print. They didn’t seem to even be entertaining the possibility that maybe their novel just wasn’t any good. I always assumed that if I just got competent enough as a writer, eventually the “breaking in” thing would somehow take care of itself. To that end, I wrote reams and reams of some of the worst stories and most meandering, hopeless attempts at novels that have ever been put to paper. That may not seem very productive at first glance, but ask most any writer and they’ll tell you it definitely is. Writing is like most anything else, where you learn by doing, by failing and learning from your mistakes. And it’s almost like there’s a set number of mistakes you have to make before you’ll ever have any chance of actually writing something decent.

So if you wanna know how to break into comics, I guess my advice to you is just, “Write.” Focus on your writing. Find that story you were born to tell and work your ass off on it. Judge your work harshly. Write and re-write. Always re-write. Create a story that you can honestly say you’d pay to read if you saw it on the shelf.

If you can do that, then the hard part is over, and once you go to break in, it’ll seem easy by comparison.

Good luck.