Judith Freeman

How did you become a writer?

In my late teens I took a literature class from a man named Roger Blakely at Macalester College. It was the only literature class I’ve ever taken, and in it I made my first real discovery of books (I didn’t read much as a child, nor was I read to, there were few books in the house where I grew up and reading wasn’t emphasized). At that moment, in Roger Blakely’s class, I fell so in love with fiction I realized this is what I want to do: I want to tell stories, to write books. I taught myself to write by reading and studying various authors in an attempt to learn how to put together a story. Like Chandler, I believe you learn to write by studying and emulating other authors. It took twenty years of working odd jobs and trying to write in my spare time, but I finally published by first book, a collection of stories, when I was 39 years old. 

Name your writing influences.

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Ubervilles thrilled me when I first read it---that sense of landscape, those deep moral/religious questions, his well-drawn characters, the portrayal of the rural world as a kind of “character” itself. In his work I could see all the complexities of the human condition, how there were no easy answers, how novelists work the gray areas, how important it was to set a scene and draw a reader into another world. Willa Cather was important to me also, she wrote about what I felt was my landscape---the West. Ditto Stegner. William Trevor, Alice Munro, and Joy Williams are my short story masters. Muriel Spark early on, later Virgina Woolf. I admire Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s stories very much. Cormac McCarthy is someone I continue to learn from.  

When and where do you write?

I write in the mornings, for three or four hours, sitting in an Eames chair in the living room of my apartment in L.A., working with a Mont Blanc fountain pen and spiral notebooks. I wrote my first four books directly onto the computer: the last two have been written in long hand for a first draft. I like the way my brain and hand seem so directly connected when I write in longhand, how the story seems to flow forward like the ink flowing onto the paper. I feel I descend into some deeper imaginative space without the Machine. I love going to the computer later and entering what I’ve written.  I tend to write a few chapters in long hand and then enter them into the computer, then go back to moving the story forward in long hand, but I try not to change too much when I put the work into the computer. I’ve found sometimes “first is best,” and I like having that original draft to work with. I also write at a ranch my husband and I own in Idaho, in a little two-room schoolhouse that’s been converted into my study: I can write equally well in the city or the country. All I need is to be settled in my own space, and the quiet and dedicated time to focus. I don’t write in hotel rooms or on airplanes.

What are you working on now?

Some short stories. Also revising a non-fiction book on jazz and noir that came out of my interest in Raymond Chandler and L.A.

Have you ever suffered from writing block? 

No. Just a lot of uncertainty!

What’s your advice to new writers?

Understand that it takes a lot of time and dedication to write anything good. The most important thing is to just keep writing. Study and emulate writers you admire. Write what you really want to write. Don’t get too fancy with the language, be clear and true. Remember there are many subjects other than yourself you can draw on: you don’t have to write what you know, you can write what you’re passionate about. The life of Chekov can make a novel, as well as your own experience. Research can be a writer’s best friend.

Judith Freeman is the author of a collection of short stories (Family Attractions), four novels (including The Chinchilla Farm and Red Water), and one work of non-fiction, The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, named one of the ten best books of 2007 by Newsweek magazine. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction in 1996, and for the last ten years has taught in the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC.

Constance Hale

How did you become a writer?

My first ambition was to be a ballerina (elementary school). Then I wanted to be Robert Coles—go around and interview poor people and tell the stories of their lives (high school). Then I wanted to be a gynecologist, then a clinical psychologist (early college). I worked very hard at writing term papers, but by college had only written one very sweet poem in iambic tetrameter, and one embarrassing play. I had a crisis in college (partly a result of moving from a shack on the beach in Hawaii to a gothic dorm at Princeton and all that that entailed). Keeping a journal saved me. I was rejected the first time I applied to be in a poetry class, but then was taken in when Charles Wright came to teach during my junior year at Princeton. I started to find my voice. In my twenties I wrote short stories and solo dramatic monologues (performed in bad coffeehouses in San Francisco), in my thirties I got a master’s degree in Journalism and worked at newspapers, and since then I’ve written all kinds of stuff—travel essays, social commentary, personal narratives, political news, books on writing, children’s picture books. I am still on the long and twisting path of “becoming” a writer.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.)

It starts at home. My parents found us unusual books, read to us, and gave us imaginative space. My father went so far as to send us the Sunday comics and a cassette of his voice reading them when he was in Korea with the Army. Storytelling was honored. I went to Punahou School in Honolulu (Barack Obama’s alma mater) and had unusual writing teachers. They cared about my thinking, they showed me how to craft sentences, they encouraged me, they held me to high standards. My history teacher gave me the only D+ of my life and the only A+. My professors at Princeton, especially Carol Rosen, Lawrence Lipking, and Uli Knoepflmacher, respected my ideas and indulged me when I wanted to ask impertinent questions and explore odd corners of English Literature. And my professors at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism helped me find my place in the world of nonfiction. Influential books: Ring-a-ling (a book of Eastern European songs set to watercolors), Green Eggs and Ham, Eloise, Babar, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca, The Pearl, The Sun Also Rises, The Plague, The Poems of Robert Frost, Hamlet, King Lear, Mrs. Dalloway, Lolita, The Ten Thousand Things. Favorite writers: Leo Lionni, Dr. Seuss, Earnest Hemingway, Adrienne Rich, William Carlos Williams, W. S. Merwin, Susan Orlean, Adam Gopnik, Junot Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Jon Lee Anderson, Janet Malcolm. (To name the ones I get the most inspiration from.)

When and where do you write?

For early mornings and weekends, I sit in a huge studio on the ground floor of my house that looks out into the garden. It has an L-shaped desk made by my husband from recovered Douglas Fir, my grandmother’s Steinway baby grand, most of my books, an “ego wall” (a bookshelf holding everything I’ve every published or edited), a bed for naps, a reading chair, and beautiful art. Weekday afternoons and evenings, I also have a small sunny office at the San Francisco Writers Grotto, a community of 90 writers who share a space with 32 offices and some big public rooms. I have just the right balance of solitude, beauty, stimulation, and company. Early mornings are for reading and imaginative musing—sometimes on paper. Late morning till early evening is for work, and the computer: my books, articles, Web site, and email.

I’ve written an essay about “total risk, freedom, discipline,” the linchpins of my somewhat unusual process: http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/total-risk-freedom-discipline/

What are you working on now?

I am writing a series of lessons for the New York Times’ Opinionator site on the craft of sentences, as well as preparing a new edition of Sin and Syntax for publication in late 2013. I’ll also write some pieces to complement the publication of my book Vex, Hex, Smash, and Smooch in fall 2012. But I’m also researching for a piece of narrative journalism set in Hawaii and dealing with some hot political, social, and cultural issues. Thinking about an essay for a literary magazine.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Who hasn’t?

What’s your advice to new writers?

I’ve written an essay with advice on how to break in: http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/breaking-in/. If you want to write you have to read and read, but more importantly you need to write and write and write and write. Try different genres, stretch in new ways. Find sympathetic editors and stick with them. Nothing is more discouraging than a small-minded, short-sighted, petty editor, and the world is filled with them. Seek magnanimity and generosity—and pay it back in kind.

Constance Hale is a San Francisco-based nonfiction writer. She is the author of three books on writing and literary style: Wired Style, Sin and Syntax, and Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch. Her articles and essays have appeared in newspapers like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Examiner, as well as magazines as varied as The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Wired, Health, Honolulu, and Afar. Full bio: http://www.sinandsyntax.com/bio/

Mike Elgan

How did you become a writer?

After college, I got a job as a reporter with a local newspaper company in Santa Barbara, California. That job gave me the opportunity to write all kinds of things, from obituaries to political stories to opinion pieces.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

My first (and longest-lasting) job in technology writing was at Windows Magazine. I had a great boss, Fred Langa, who mentored me and taught me a lot about writing. We also had a great staff, and many of us were talking about writing constantly. I've also been influenced by Strunk and White (while at UCLA), as well as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Christopher Hitchens, George Will and countless others. I've learned one or two things each from hundreds of columnists and writers.

When and where do you write?

I have a desk in my living room with a big iMac on it. That's where I do most of my writing. I also have a laptop and an iPad, both of which I enjoy writing on at coffee shops. I write almost every day, and almost all day, if you include blogging.

What are you working on now?

I have five opinion column deadlines a week, plus I post between three and fifteen blog posts a day. My wife and I are working on a diet and health book.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Sort of. But it's gotten better with time. Nowadays I'm pretty good at bringing in my intuition to figure out what point of view or opinion or angle I want to take. Once I have that, the words flow unblocked.  

What’s your advice to new writers?

Originality is the most important thing, which is why you should avoid clichés, idioms and other commonly used words and phrases. Just talk plainly and say what's true. It's impossible to be too clear.

Writing is nothing more than organized thinking captured in written language. The thinking is what matters most. When you are thinking about what you'll write, you're actually engaged in the craft of writing -- you're doing the most important part of writing. So write in the shower. Write while you're falling asleep. Write all the time, guard your attention and don't let anyone steal it while you're writing, even if you're not typing. 

Emotion creates memory and reader affinity. Humor is emotion and often the most powerful one. Don't tell jokes. Expose the humor of reality and truth. 

Blogging is a powerful learning tool because your readers will teach you to anticipate what they're going to be confused about, disagree with and what they like and don't like. You can use that anticipation to write better. 

Bio: I'm a Silicon Valley-based writer, columnist and blogger, covering technology and culture. My work appears all over the place, most frequently Computerworld, Datamation, Cult of Mac, PC World, InfoWorld, MacWorld, CIO Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and The CMO Site.