Ask the Author: Rob Volpe
Answered Questions (8)
Rob Volpe
It's a certain mood. If I'm not in the mood in the moment I can put on certain music to get me there.
Rob Volpe
I'm currently reading The Bone Code but will probably start David Sedaris' new book Happy-Go-Lucky soon. Not sure what's after that. Open to suggestions!
Rob Volpe
A close friend of ours died suddenly in June 2020. The immediate family was very secretive and our friend was single. Her chosen family, of which we were part of, had to figure out what happened.
Rob Volpe
Just finishing the audiobook recording for Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time. I've heard early parts of it and I'm really excited, we've also used voice actors to portray some of the real people in interviews that are included in the book - they did an incredible job and it brings the book to life in a whole new vibrant way.
Rob Volpe
Two things: first, I love the creativity of it, being able to craft sentences that elicit emotion or provoke thought. The second is hearing from readers that the book resonated with them or that they liked my work - using words that reflect exactly what I intended the readers response to be after reading the book - the first industry review of my book described it as "compelling, insightful and at times, laugh out loud funny" - that was an incredible feeling!
Rob Volpe
I was giving a presentation to a marketing class as USF here in San Francisco. I was talking about empathy and how important it is to fuel skills we need in both society and in marketing jobs. As part of that, I was sharing some of my experiences doing in-home ethnographic research. The students were riveted. During that talk, a voice inside my head said "this is what you need to write about, you need to share these stories." And a week later I started writing down the stories and that became the start of my book.
Rob Volpe
I had a few different tricks. The first was making sure I was in the zone - listening to the music that got me into a creative space, minimized distractions (no wifi) usually helped. The second would be to just start writing and see where it took me. Other times, I had to step away and ruminate on it until the answer became clear. I remember waking up early one Saturday morning with an "aha" of how to re-structure a chapter and I got out of bed and set to work. Writer's block is real and it is a challenge!
Rob Volpe
Just start writing! I'm finding in conversations with aspiring writers that they think the first words the write will make it into the final manuscript. Or that they need to have the whole thing worked out from the start. That might work for some authors but my experience with Tell Me More About That was one of continual evolution. The structure changed three times during the 5 full manuscript drafts - which is before we got into copy editing and proofing!
So don't stress about what the end product is going to be, just start writing, enjoy the writing and see where it takes you!
So don't stress about what the end product is going to be, just start writing, enjoy the writing and see where it takes you!
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