Hi I’m James B. Vest
I give a unique behind-the-scenes feel and experience to the craft of writing and the life that surrounds it. Helping others by documenting the process of story creation and navigating the process of publication and making a writing life.
I am a writing nerd and fascinated by every aspect of the craft. From creative works to writing for business, marketing and sales. I had such a strong drive to write even before I knew how to put pen to paper, yes I’m that old. To get my ideas out, I’d ask and beg my parents to transcribe my three-year-old ramblings. As it turns out, adults are often busy, so I ended up teaching myself how to read and write so that I’d never lose another story…something that broke my little three-year-old heart.
“Failure is one of the greatest teachers if you allow it.” I hated this quote that my creative writing keystone professor told his class. But, as with age, comes experience and unfortunately for me, it was true. I needed to fail to really explore my interest in writing and discover all the versatile uses for writing. It took me failing to get published to expand my interest and my desire to succeed in writing. Through this failure I found blogging, copywriting, ad-writing, and more. Through this failure, I learned that my creative craft was weak and needed drastic improvement. I found writing groups, guilds, and mentors through failure.
Without my initial failure, and falling flat right out of college, I believe I would’ve petered out as a writer and my craft would be a simple hobby, something that doesn’t keep me awake at night and wake me in the mornings.
Building content, writing white papers, planning email campaigns, blogging, SEO so the writing can be found, affiliate and sales content, are all things that I am passionate about and I wouldn’t have found them if not through failure, improving and feeding my obsession with writing.
I am admittedly late to the world of blogging, only committing to it seriously over the last few years and with many starts, stops, and rebuilds as I found my voice and intention for my blogs. Yes, I said blogs because when I first started it was just Behind the Page. And quickly my original plan was too broad, covering too many aspects of what my original goal was. Thus came Writing Life, keeping the actual behind-the-scenes feel to Behind the Page, while giving an outlet to short-form, less formal content that delves into the lifestyle, daily routine, and happenings of a person living the writing life. Another development came from the story supporter blog, Workbench, where lore notes, story character blogs, and other Easter eggs are put on display for my future readers and building interest in an ongoing project.
If you’re wanting to keep up on Behind the Page and Wandering Writer, please follow the links to get the latest email updates from my site (I promise to only send out the weekly newsletter and nothing more. I don’t like spam as most people). If you’d prefer to follow me on social media, here are my official Facebook pages:
My author Page
Behind the Page Facebook
Wandering Writer Facebook
More social media is on the way. However, I’d prefer to build these first and bring them on Twitter, Instagram, and others in short order.
If you’d like to work with me on building content, website evaluation, or just have questions in general, please see my Offered Services section or email me directly at jbvest@hotmail.com.
James B. Vest 