Writing
Eric San Juan
April 21, 2016
We abandon our children quickly. Quite quickly indeed. We conceive of them, nurture them, give birth to them, and set them out into the world … and then we turn our backs on them. It’s just one of those things we do. The project I’m always most excited about is the one I’m working on. The one I most want to talk about is the one still in the works. The best thing I’ve ever done? Still to come. Perpetually. Whatever I just did? Not that interested in it. Don’t really want to talk about it, usually don’t have much to say about it. I’m thinking of the NEXT thing. This is problematic, of course, because you’re supposed to promote your latest thing. You’re supposed…
Read more
Eric San Juan
April 10, 2016
For just under three years, I wrote a craft beer column at the Philly Weekly. I enjoyed it. Each week I’d recommend five excellent craft beers. People read it. Breweries liked it. Fantastic breweries like Firestone Walker, Stone, Founders and Victory took notice. That’s amazing. I got to know some amazing people doing it, and also got to try some fantastic beers. But as is inevitable in the news biz, things change. The column was nixed in late 2015, and I was a beer writer no more. No hard feelings! I love the people at PW and still do. Look forward to doing more work with them (and it’s inevitable that I will). Just sayin’ that my days of saying I was a professional beer writer…
Read more
Eric San Juan
March 7, 2016
When I decided to abandon the world of 9-5 and finally try my hand at living life as a Full-Time Writer™, I was taking a calculated risk. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew money would be tight for at least a year (my planned time to test the experiment). I knew it would take a lot of work to keep myself on task. But I did my research. Crunched the numbers, outlined my plans, set up some safety nets, crossed my fingers and made a wish to the magic wish fairy, and took my pants off as soon as humanly possible. In other words, I did it without the total recklessness that so often defines my major life decisions. Yet there are a…
Read more
Eric San Juan
February 22, 2016
Imagine for a moment that you want to hire chefs to prepare food at your chain of restaurants, but you don’t want to pay those chefs. You want them to volunteer. And when asked why you believe that’s a valid way to do business, this is what you tell people: “If I was paying someone to cook something because I want to draw in customers, that’s not a real authentic way of cooking. When somebody cooks something for us, we know it’s real, we know they want to cook it. It’s not been forced or paid for. I think that’s something to be proud of.” You’d be laughed out of the room, and rightfully so. A few chefs might even be inclined to throat-punch you…
Read more
Eric San Juan
January 14, 2016
Self-publishing a book is a lot of work. Doing it right is a lot more work than doing a book the “legitimate” i.e. traditional way. (I’ve done both.) It’s a lot more work than most writers are willing to do, in fact. It sucks. And sadly, a great deal of self-published authors don’t do the work they should be doing. The number of shoddy, poorly-written, error-filled hackfests on self-pub services are legion. Were they to develop a unified mind they’d form a giant cube and hassle the United Federation of Planets, but alas, they are mostly like me: dudes and ladies who don’t want to lift shit for a living. Which is fine, really. I do it, and by “it” I mean I don’t lift…
Read more
