Sunday, August 25, 2013

Author Interview – DA Serra

How has your upbringing influenced your writing? I was raised partly in a small bucolic northern New Jersey town, and partly near the Pacific Ocean in a Southern California.  These were two very different environments and I learned a great deal about how place informs a person’s worldview, which has subsequently influenced my characterizations.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? I cannot recall a time when I didn’t consider myself a writer.

When and why did you begin writing? I wrote my first poem when I was eight years old.  It was about the Statue of Liberty.  I was not a prodigy – the poem was awful.

When did you first know you could be a writer? It took me a long time to commit to writing as a way of life and not simply a personality trait.  I tried numerous other jobs while always writing on the side.  Then, I got “down-sized” while working at an advertising agency in New York City.  I was about twenty-five years old.  I decided I needed to figure out how to actually making a living as a writer.  I knew all of the steady work was in Los Angeles and so I moved there and began screenwriting.

What inspires you to write and why? I don’t know where the desire to write originates.  One would think self-preservation would kick-in and guide an intelligent person in a kinder direction, since the rejections are brutal and often from editors/agents who can barely put a sentence together. Recently, I was told by a prestigious agent that my new book had “too many ideas for her”.  Ah…okay.

Of course, those comments never hurt the way a negative comment that suddenly rings true hurts.

What genre are you most comfortable writing? My writing friends have been known to call me a stem cell writer.  Where many of them specialize in particular genres or formats, I have had assignments in nearly every genre: comedy, horror, drama, thriller, docu-drama, children’s, and in all categories:  fiction, non-fiction, adaptation…I am most happy when switching around.

Who or what influenced your writing once you began? In the beginning, it was all about getting paid.  I needed to support myself first.  I understood that very practical exigency, and so I was influenced to write what I believed would sell.  Later on, I began to do more of what appealed to me.  Not surprisingly, when you must make money writing, the drive to turn-out pages is enhanced, and so I do not think that was a negative at all.  While I was creatively frustrated at the time it taught me so much, and it has influenced the way I work ever after.

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general? The most challenging element is always plot.  Character-specific dialogue comes effortlessly to me once the character exists.  I have no problem with argot or education appropriate word order.  I can easily speak from a well-defined character’s place and voice.  I’ve been known to agonize over plot.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – R

More details about the author & the book

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