Warren Adler's Blog, page 8

Maria Duffy

I’ve always loved to write. From the time I could hold a pen, I was scribbling words, which were largely illegible but they were stories in my head. As I grew older, I loved to people-watch and listen in on conversations whenever I could. Something as simple as a woman in front of me in a queue talking about her husband working late every night would set the scene for a story of deceit and lies, and I’d rush home to get the words on paper. But my insecurities meant that my writing remained firmly under lock and key, never to be seen by another soul. I wasn’t college educated, I told myself. Who’d want to read anything I’d written? My life continued with a career in the bank and a period of staying at home to rear four children. I had a good life but eventually realised that I’d never feel completely fulfilled until I pursued a career in writing. So I finally plucked up the courage to share my work and within a few months, I’d signed a deal for my first two books to be published. I was forty years old when I saw that first book on the shelves of bookstores and I couldn’t stop crying. It was the most amazing feeling ever. Writing is my go-to place. It’s where I can escape into a world of make-believe and anything is possible. I have written six best-selling books now and just finished my seventh. I still have to pinch myself when I hold one of my books in my hands, remembering the young girl who wrote in secret, thinking she’d never be good enough.

http://www.mariaduffy.ie/

 

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Jonathan Escoffery

I first fell in love with story’s ability to transport, to expand the borders of my reality. I recall crouching beneath my parents’ kitchen counter as a child, losing Sunday afternoons reading. That words printed between book covers could take me to far off worlds, on journeys that left me forever changed, was, to me, nothing short of magic. I also sensed perfection in the economy of these world-altering journeys; their being beautifully bound to fit in my palms. Later, I came to understand that great literature does not simply transport, but that it also helps me understand myself, and that—at its best—it helps me to better articulate my experiences and helps me further understand those of others.

I write in order to think through problems and to attempt to make sense of the world. I write to remember, and to affirm my worldview. There are experiences that I’ve lived through that I’ve yet to see represented or explored in literature, and I write those stories for anyone with similar experiences who might mistake these omissions as an invalidation of their lives. There’s no more worthy way that I could spend my time.

https://jonathanescoffery.com/

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HOW TO BE A WRITER AT ANY AGE

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Lynne M. Spreen

I was always a writer; always kept a journal. I’m sixty-three and I have journals going way back. The oldest was written in the hospital when my son was born. He’s forty now.

After my first divorce I wrote about the house I bought on my own, a chicken coop on a busy highway in a bad part of town. On weekends I’d do laundry and grocery shopping and pay bills and take Danny to T-ball practice and mow and water the lawn and get good and dirty and then shower and change and pour a glass of wine and sit on the porch. I’d write in my journal and watch the sun set across the freeway.

I wrote about my tough new job in management. Back then there weren’t that many women at that level, and I was only twenty-nine, and kind of stupid.

And I wrote about being lonely. Boyfriends didn’t seem to stick.

I got my degree eighteen years after graduating from high school, the first and only one in my family to do so.

Along the way toward my second divorce I was filling up the pages of my journals, but I wrote short stories, too, and a hundred first chapters of a book.

One day an essay of mine appeared in a local magazine. I pulled over to the side of the road and wept.

At fifty-eight I published my first novel, Dakota Blues. It got easier after that.

http://anyshinything.com/

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5 HALLOWEEN READS FROM WARREN ADLER

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Warren Adler’s Teafluencer Interview

Harney: First off, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Warren: I was born in Brooklyn during the Depression. My father was always unemployed and that’s what really spurred me to take control of my own destiny. I never wanted to be dependent on someone else for my happiness and well-being. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 16 years old and I never let that dream fade, no matter what I did for money.

I’m an entrepreneur and always have been. I juggled running my own ad agency and owning multiple radio and TV stations with writing. My first novel wasn’t published until I was 46 years old. 27 of my novels were traditionally published with major publishers, but I later saw the power of digital publishing decades before it became what it is today, and I decided to take back all the rights to my catalog in the early 2000s. My middle son, Jonathan R. Adler, runs Grey Eagle Films, where he has the right to develop all 50 of my novels and hundreds of short stories and plays into films and television series. I’m heading to Rome in November for my stage adaptation of “The War of the Roses.”

Harney: Why is writing your passion?

Warren: I don’t really have an answer to that. Why are we called to pursue any art or craft? What I do know is that I have a burning desire to tell stories. My fiction reveals human truths, no matter how dark and uncomfortable they can be. It’s what we are made of, so it’s important to face it head-on. I have a powerful imagination and memory, which can be both a blessing and a curse.

Harney: Please list your top tips for writers/aspiring authors.

Warren: My number one tip is to learn to cope with rejection. You will get turned down but you can’t ever let someone else’s opinion of your work define you. I’ve been turned down by more people than I can count, but they’re all either in real estate now, or dead. Go figure. Another tip I have is to not share your work with others until it is finished. If you ask ten people what they think of your novel or short story, you’ll get ten opinions back. Don’t let anyone dictate your creative vision. You have only one life, one span of time. Make the most of it. It flies by.

Read the full interview here.

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Meg Mitchell Moore

In seventh grade my English class was assigned to write a short story of some sort. I don’t remember what the specific parameters were. I’m not sure if they were all supposed to be horror stories, but I do remember that I penned something pretty gruesome about a hit-and-run accident on a lonely road one Halloween night. It was probably awful, but my teacher was impressed and had me read mine aloud to the class. When I finished, I remember looking at my classmates and seeing on most of their faces an expression that roughly translated into, “Wow!” It took me a while and some false starts to get around to writing fiction professionally, but in some ways I feel like after that early taste of reading to an audience there was no other option for me. I can’t draw even a little bit—stick figures are a stretch. Can’t sing. Don’t do numbers particularly well. But to be able to use writing to make people feel something they might not have otherwise felt, or to consider a point of view they might not otherwise have considered—well, that feels like both a gift and a responsibility. There’s an oft-repeated Gloria Steinem quote that strikes a particular chord with me: “Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” I don’t know if a lot of people can say that about their chosen career, and I feel incredibly fortunate that I can. I’ll do everything I can do to honor that opportunity.

http://www.megmitchellmoore.com/

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Renee Macalino Rutledge

One of my favorite quotes is: “The creative adult is the child who has survived,” by Ursula K. Le Guin. When you are a child, everything is new, and you respond to it without artifice. It can be more difficult to maintain that sense of wonder and curiosity as you get older, so people push the edges, just to feel alive. Writing is fullness in the quiet, being open to experience, not just when you are in a new or exciting place, but in everyday surroundings. It helps you to see how in fact, everything moves and changes, even those things that seem to stay the same, or that perhaps, it is people who change. It is about looking more deeply, seeing ourselves and others for who we are, and staying awake.

When I was seven, I discovered that poetry could capture what I was feeling (at the time, joy), just as it was, like photographing an emotion in words. I’ve returned to writing repeatedly since then, for different reasons. Essays help me process what I know. Articles are inspired by the world around me, what others do and how they live, and why. Fiction is a combination of it all.

www.reneerutledge.com

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Ann Y.K. Choi

I grew up listening to jokes about corner variety stores being run by Korean immigrant families. But that’s what my family did for 30 years in Canada. Now that many of us have grown up and left our family-run businesses to do other things, I felt compelled to share stories from behind the store counter. I wanted to write about the prostitutes, just barely older than me, who worked our street corner, and about the homeless man with the sparkling blue eyes but no teeth who came in regularly for day-old bread. I also wanted my daughter and future generations to know about the early struggles of Korean-Canadian immigrants – how we rarely ate meals together as a family since someone had to be in the store from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and how we lost count of the number of times we were robbed or harassed by customers.

It’s been incredible to connect with readers and to find out how universal the themes I explore in my writing are, from mother-daughter relationships to confronting personal demons. Sharing our stories, I’ve come to learn, is one of the best ways to foster empathy, increase cultural awareness, and to challenge clichéd portrayals of groups of people not in mainstream books and the media. I often will try to avoid writing, even though I write regularly now. It’s mentally and emotionally demanding work, but the process of writing provides me with the safest space to engage in creative and critical expression.

https://annykchoi.com/

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9 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Write

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