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.
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Genre – Thriller
Rating – R
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