Are You Roger?
Before you try answering that question, which is no doubt a complete riddle to you, a few hints would be in order.
The first hint is this: I am a writer who has a new book that will be coming out in March entitled Roger Should Have Said Yes.
Okay, that takes care of the “Roger” part of the question.
Hint number two is that obviously I am a writer and will be writing about things that concern writers and their attempts to gain a foothold in the profession.
My career as a writer, like many others, began in Paris, France. So many people since the 1920s have settled on this city as the residence of the muse for writing. Some names that come to mind are Ernest Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein, that other Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and countless others. Their names alone became god-like for mobs of aspiring writers to follow. Countless numbers of would-be authors have flocked to Paris up to the very present, all hoping to walk in the footsteps of the literary deities. Most all end up at Shakespeare & Company, the vintage English-language bookstore near the banks of the River Seine, to render their homage to sanctified nostalgia.
I was not one of them. My going to Paris and what followed after I got there was more of an accident than anything else. I have often thought (and expressed in my writing) that we let fate make most of our decisions for us.
Before I go any further, I should state that my mother, if she had had her way when I was in the decision-making process of where I should head in life, was totally convinced that I should get a good job with the post office because they paid well and had a good pension. I, of course, thought otherwise or else these paragraphs would never have been written.
For hint number three, we’ll jump to the present. I have written over 30 screenplays and four published books as well as a dozen produced plays. This leads me to tell you that writing is a difficult row to hoe. My mother, on the other hand, would have filed it under her saying, “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.”
No hint number four exists except to say that in upcoming blogs all will be revealed—especially about a guy named Roger. You will get valuable but firm information about the art of playwriting, screenwriting and novel writing. My tidbits will not attempt to make joining the ranks of the published and produced sound easy. In fact my reflections just might jolt you out of that mental rose garden you’ve been cultivating since you first heard about the writing profession. Your dreams about becoming a writer most likely arrived via your high school English teacher and her trusty literary anthology of student prose and poetry—which was a guaranteed parent pleaser.
Anyway, we are several blogs away from your being able to answer the question, “Are You A Roger?” One thing is certain though, when you finally find all about Roger, you will then have the opportunity to answer that question. See you again shortly.
