Creator Interview: Shea Sullivan
Jun. 15th, 2026 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
duckprintspress
Get to know Shea Sullivan, a creator who has been working with Duck Prints Press since our first anthology! Shea is an author and artist, a member of the Press staff, an editor, and helps with guest blog posts and other similar projects.
Biography: Shea Sullivan is a middle-aged, life-long creative living in upstate New York. As a late-blooming queer person, she enjoys writing about complex characters coming into themselves and finding comfort in being exactly who they are.
Shea’s day jobs in computer programming and middle management have molded her into the patient, sarcastic, big-hearted, frustrated human she is today, but it’s what she does outside the 9-5 that really excites her. When she’s not writing, she can be found painting, napping, making quilts, roller skating, supporting local businesses (especially allllll the coffee shops), or waxing philosophical with friends.
Link: Personal Website
Projects:
- The Tangled Threads of Our Hearts (on Patreon and in our forthcoming anthology Duxxx in a Row)
- Taken at Sea (on Patreon)
- The Riddle (available as a postcard-sized and 8-by-10 art print)
- Add Magic to Taste (contributing author)
- Aim For The Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers” (contributing author)
- A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (contributing author)
- Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories (editor)
- Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales (contributing artist and editor) (forthcoming)
- Beyond the Galactic Tide (editor) (forthcoming)
An Interview with Shea Sullivan!
When and why did you begin creating?
I couldn’t say. I’ve written stories since I was tiny. There have been times away from it, but I always return to stories. They are a unique frustration, challenge, and reward.
Art is different. I drew a little bit when I was young but I found it very frustrating that I didn’t have natural talent: ie, I wasn’t perfect out of the gate. I came back to it in 2018 or so.
The more I create, the more I WANT to create, the more things I want to try out. I just created my first podfic. I’ve made quilts. I like to cook. Creation is a vital part of the human condition, and I’m embracing the hell out of that.
How did you pick the name you create under?
My name has ties to my fandom name, which I’ve had for over 20 years, so it’s an homage to that. The rest just sounded good. Sometimes that all it takes! At one point I thought I would separate out all my different creations: the T rated from the E rated, the art from the writing, all with different names… But it feels like a lot of effort. I think, in theory, it’s good to have people out there who admit they don’t have a singular focus.
What do you consider to be your strengths as a creator?
I think I’m better at shorter, punchier writing, and I feel good about my ability to dig into a character and understand their motivations, so their choices feel like a natural extension of themselves. I also really enjoy studying and working on structure, so that thematically, a story works well and has a consistent thread. I’m getting better at editing with these things in mind, so my stories are always getting stronger.
As an artist, I’m still very ‘young.’ I think my real strength is that I love it, and I keep practicing, and I have a pretty good sense of where I’ve gone wrong.
Overall, I’m trying to be better at taking feedback, because I know it makes me better! And being on the editor side of things has really helped me understand where that’s coming from, so I think I get better at taking and integrating feedback with every submission.
What do you consider to be your weaknesses as a creator?
sweats
Well. On the one hand, everything, but on the other, I know that I can’t compare myself to my favorite creators and say that I fall short of them.
I think that struggling to take feedback and integrate it has been a weakness, and I’m working on that, now.
I find it hard to focus on any project or media type for a long period of time, and this is a real struggle because it means that my progress is very stop-and-go, and then, as I move from project to project, I lose time and progress because the iterations are interrupted. However, this is also a good thing, because every type of creation feeds every other type, and I learn a lot that I CAN transfer to the next project, even if I do have to take time to get back to speed. I mostly accept that this is how my brain works, but it can be very frustrating.
With writing, I think my lack of iteration holds me back. I get a decent first draft, but it’s hard for me to rewrite it more than once, and so I find it hard to reach a fine polish.
With art, I need to work on composition and accurate figures, especially in more interesting poses. I’m always thinking about composition, contrast, interest, and while I have decent ideas on how to improve it, the technical ability isn’t there quite yet.
I recognize a lot of weaknesses in my work, but I also recognize that I’m getting better, and that my progress is always going to be slower than people who are able to concentrate on one form. Accepting where I am helps me work on the weaknesses without getting down on myself.
What do the phrases “writer’s block” or “art block” mean to you?
I have, more with art than writing, a block on finishing pieces I’m excited about because I have a fear of ruining them, I think. I don’t want to close down the potential of what it COULD be by making it something inferior. Done is better than perfect, and my head knows it, but my heart is holding out for perfection. Or maybe the other way around.
Writer’s block is so much about expectations, deadlines, getting into my own head about how something will be received before I’ve completed it. The more pressure is on, the harder it is to finish.
I think all blocks are just grasping, at their core. I kind of think all the things that hold us back are that: trying to control things that aren’t ours to control.
Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?
I could write about process forever, but I’ll try to summarize it, here.
I’m a planster. For short stories, I tend to have a good sense of where I’m going, but not necessarily how I’m going to get there. Once in a while I’ll just be stuck on a single moment or scene, but most of the time, it’s a general sense of the arc of the story, and I have to fill it in to make the ending feel natural. I write the story based on the idea, and then, often, it turns out that’s not what the story was about. When I read it back, the core character change, or story arc, or fallout, is not what I’d intended at all. I love when that happens, it feels like I took a side road and came upon a beautiful pond with water lilies.
The rewrite is where I dial in on that new information, that new reason for the story. The first draft is where I usually, by the end, understand what the story really wants to be about.
I don’t always rewrite. Often, I just tweak. I’ll rewrite a scene or two, change transitions, and update awkward sentences.
For novels… well, if I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know. But I have used the snowflake method before, just for a bit of a sketch, and that has been the most helpful process so far.
Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?
I think anytime I have a favorite it’s because I feel like I explored something in an interesting, engaging way. I’m thinking of a specific fanfic that used a crack premise to explore a character’s self-loathing, and to help them process it. It was heartfelt and it had a weight to it that I liked, and some moments that made me really emotional.
For Duck Prints, I wrote a story in the anthology, A Truth Universally Acknowledged. That story, A Constant, Fearful Longing, has a specific Austen-esque voice, and a specific and challenging character shift. I love the language use and the way the character changes in small increments throughout the story. It was very challenging to write, I scrapped another version that was too complicated and wrote this one. Making the story lighter on plot created a lot of space and allowed for a deeper exploration of each moment.
Which of your own creations is your least favorite? Why?
There is a lot of writing (and art) that isn’t my favorite. Typically, they’re the pieces where I’m learning. I’m trying to execute something I’m not completely sure how to do, yet, and I fail for a while. That’s learning. That’s growing. I mean, the result isn’t my favorite, but that doesn’t really matter. I have to practice to get good, there really is no other way. Talent means nothing to me. Practice is the only thing that’s gotten me anywhere, and it improves me as a person, so… Yeah, the pieces aren’t my favorite, but they’re just sort of–the proof that I’m doing the work on the way to a better creation.
Okay, well, actually, there is one piece I have that is published (I won’t tell you which one!) that I’m unhappy with because it was tentative. I couldn’t sink into the characters because I was writing in an environment I wasn’t familiar with, and my research didn’t give me a comfort level that made any of it feel natural. I felt like I was one word away from showing my ignorance as every turn. And that piece is weak because I was afraid of showing my lack of skill and knowledge, and every sentence in that piece tells the reader that. They say write what you know, and I think this is what they mean. Know enough not to be tentative. If you’re not comfortable with the subject matter, you cannot fool your readers into thinking you are.
Describe your ideal creation space.
Comfortable, cozy and ergonomic! I haven’t found it yet, but I’m on the hunt!
What are your favorite tropes?
I love a two-person love triangle, a case of ‘I want you desperately but I must resist’, and mutual pining. Honestly, I love a million tropes, and there is basically nothing that can’t be done in a way I enjoy, even if I don’t typically like it. I’m easy for good writing, what can I say?
If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?
Creating things is about two things, as far as I can tell: doing the thing, and living a life that feeds the thing. So, if you want to write, you need to write things down. Don’t think about them for years until they’re perfect, don’t wait to watch the right tutorial: write it down. Do it again. When you’re tired and run down and have run out of ideas, go do something that feeds your brain with something new. Have a deep conversation with a friend, read a book (not a craft book on ‘how-to’), watch a documentary, go down a weird wiki rabbithole, visit a new place, learn a new skill.
The spark comes from living. The skill comes from doing. There’s a lot you can do to hone a craft, but those are the only things you need to actually create and get better.
Beyond that, from a writing perspective, nothing has leveled me up like reading a lot of other peoples’ first drafts, and then their second and third drafts, etc. Other peoples’ stories, their mistakes and blind spots, are much easier to see than your own. Through that lens, you can see where you can level up. A writer’s group is invaluable in this way, and I highly recommend it.
What motivates you to create?
I would love to say I create in a vacuum, that I create for myself and nothing else matters. But, even when I am creating something incredibly personal that is changing me (and this happens… not infrequently, but not every time), I’m still making it to share.
I went to a retreat, once, and came out of it so full of peace and equinimity that I didn’t create anything for two months. I had no need to. I had nothing to prove, nothing to explore, I was just very happy, being.
Creating for me is often about expressing something personal, but it’s creating something personal as a way of connecting with other people. Offering a shared experience. And sometimes, it’s not so much the personal as it is meeting a challenge (writing to a prompt or a call for submission). Doing something hard just to work through the puzzle of it. Explore the way it all fits together, what works and what doesn’t. Finding satisfying ways to fit the pieces together. And then, yeah, showing it to other people. Hopefully getting some recognition that I did something good or clever or fitting.
How do you maintain your work/life balance? How do you fit creating around your other responsibilities, time commitments, and challenges, such as job(s), family, and disabilities?
I have a chronic illness and it doesn’t affect me in ways that other people recognize, but it exhausts me fairly regularly. I can go months where I’m exhausted, messy, overwhelmed and experience brain fog. I have a full time job, and just getting through the day there is more than enough to keep me busy on most days. So, I fit in creation where I can. Just as my inability to focus on one project or type of work for too long causes problems with my creative process, so does my disease. I’ve had to just accept that it will happen, and I try to communicate about it clearly when there are deadlines coming up.
Balance is not about applying myself in equal percentages. At any point in life, something will require more of me than other things. Sometimes my health takes 80% of my energy, and the job takes the rest. And sometimes I don’t know if I’m in a place where I need to work harder to get through a block, or take it easy. It’s just testing it out, every time. Take a nap and see if it’s any better. Work through it and see if it’s any worse. Accept that my body won’t always let me do all the things I want to do, and neither will my mind (that fickle beast), and so I just have to work with them both, challenge them from time to time, and apply myself where the largest percentage of me in that day or hour.
Last week I didn’t do a single dish. My sink piled up. Because that couldn’t be the priority. Balance is based on my priorities and responsibilities. That’s different for everyone. I do what I have to for the marathon, not the sprint. I keep your body and mind as healthy as I can to support doing what I want to do for as long as I can. The time for creation comes and goes and comes again. It always comes again.
