Deanne Stillman

How did you become a writer?

I've been writing since I was a little girl. My father and I would sit in his office and he'd read his favorite books out loud. We marvelled at the writing, and we'd make up characters and write short stories and plays together. Soon I found myself writing on my own and submitting things to Mad Magazine. I sent in pieces under the name "Dean Stillman" because I noticed that only boys were writing for them. They didn't publish my work, but I had an early experience with letters that said "not right for us." My father continued to encourage me and I kept writing and when my parents got divorced, I continued to write - by then it was a refuge and a calling. It all went from there.

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

I have many...Melville, Mary Austin, Jim Harrison, Wallace Stegner, Rick Bass, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Mailer; Capote, Peter Matthiessen, Cormac McCarthy, scripture, Native American myths, John Coltrane/Alice Coltrane, Guns and Roses, Janis Joplin, drums...

When and where do you write?

Usually in the morning as soon as I wake up...sometimes in a baseball stadium, even with all of the noise. The crack of the bat is centering, sort of like a shofar's call...watching baseball on TV has the same effect; I always love announcers calling the game...

What are you working on now?

It's a secret.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Sure...yoga helps me move through it; some of the positions are literally about going as far as you're comfortable going and then pushing a bit more. Talking to Joshua trees - or listening to them - is always beneficial, not just for writer's block, but in general. When all else fails, I'll have a glass of champagne.That has nothing to do with writer's block but why not?  

What’s your advice to new writers?

Listen to your own voice and don't take polls.

Deanne Stillman's latest book is Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History. Rolling Stone calls it "a must-read for the summer" and it has received excellent reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and the Denver Post. She also wrote Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, an LA Times "best book 08" and winner of the California Book Award silver medal for nonfiction, and Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, an LA Times "best book 01" and praised by Hunter Thompson as "a strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." It was recently published in a new, updated edition. 

Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis

How did you become a writer?

JD: I wish I could say that from the time I was little I filled up notebooks full of dreadful stories and poems. The truth is that when I was eight my parents divorced (don’t worry, I’m resigned to it) and my mother moved us to New York. Summers I visited my father in Los Angeles. In those days he was working with a writing partner in his apartment freelancing shows like Bachelor Father and McHale’s Navy. When he was out, I’d go to his Royal portable and pull out whatever script he was working on, slip in a clean sheet of canary yellow paper and type exactly what he’d written. I remember thinking this was what I want to do. Of course it was years and years before I worked up enough courage to try something of my own.

PD: I had a much more difficult time than Jeffrey did in becoming a writer because I didn’t have the luxury of divorced parents. I did it the old fashioned way…as a doctoral student they told me I had to publish stuff or I’d never work in an academic town again. There’s an old joke…when asked at a party about his occupation, a guy answered I’m an editor for an educational publisher…my job is to edit out the interesting parts. I got tired of academic writing, started developing my own voice. After having published 20 books, I’m pretty good at recognizing it, but I don’t know how the 43 people who’ve bought my books over the years feel about it. I find writing for movies and TV much more fun.

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

PD: I have been lucky over the years to have had many friends with critical voices providing great, though sometimes harsh, criticism that has helped me immensely. I really miss them and sometimes wonder what they’re up to. My favorite novelist is Vladamir Nabokov. I’ve also been a big fan of Theatre of the Absurd and revere Eugene Ionesco. I also love everything I’ve seen and read by Harold Pinter. When it comes to screenwriters, that’s easy for me. My two favorites are Woody Allen and William Goldman. My printer doesn’t have enough ink for me to make an exhaustive list, but at the risk of embarrassing him…Jeffrey has made the cut.

JD: I have been fortunate enough to have had three great teachers. My Dad was a writer and producer who started in the 40’s writing for MGM and went on to produce The Odd Couple and Bewitched. He looked at all my drafts before I turned them in. In graduate school at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop I studied with Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road. Finally, I studied for several years with Neil Simon’s brother Danny who Woody Allen credits with teaching him how to write. From all three I learned that plot is meaningless. What counts are great characters, conflict and a story that moves. I also learned that complacency is dangerous. There is always more to do and more to learn.

         I recommend reading lots of short fiction and plays. I’ve learned a lot about compression and character arc from Mamet, Richard Russo (who writes both amazing movies and Pulitzer Prize-winning novels), Elaine May, the late great and sadly overlooked Irwin Shaw and Wendy Wasserstein. Let’s not leave out Chekov. I read and reread Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond scripts regularly. For my money there is no writer working today as good as Aaron Sorkin. He has what all writers should hope to develop: a unique voice.

When and where do you write?

JD: In a perfect world (the summer) I like to write from 9:30 a.m. until 2 and feel I did a decent day’s work. But who lives in a perfect world? Because I work at a university I’ve learned to write at night but I can’t say it’s an optimal time.  I can rewrite pretty much anywhere but when I’m composing I’m afraid I’m one of those unfortunate people who has to be alone in his office, who can’t have iTunes on or be switching between the page and Google. I write first drafts on paper with the computer off. I have incredible hearing, especially for things I don’t want to hear.  A conversation two flights up and four rooms over can set me back a precious half hour. It has to be deadly silent. Morgue-like. Crypt-like. In my house it rarely is which probably accounts for my Herculean output over the years.

PD: I marvel at people who sit in coffee shops and restaurants, especially outdoor ones with their laptops and keep their eyes on the screen for long periods of time. When there is any noise, movement or a pulse anywhere near me, there’s not enough Ritalin or Adderall in the world to combat my ADD. Once I’m in a quiet environment, I’m a happy guy and have no constraints. Mornings, late at night…or in between. I’m currently involved with writing six book manuscripts and a mini-series. I’m always in the mood for working on one of them.

What are you working on now?

PD: The current project range from a book about using principles from the psychology of persuasion to make presentations to a mini-series about a 19th century musician. As Jeffrey mentioned, he and I have limited our current work to three book manuscripts, but as soon as they are close to done…there’ll be more. I love writing alone and I love working with friends. There is nothing more wonderful than a dynamic collaboration where the result is something you’re proud of that you know you couldn’t have ever done alone.

JD: I’m writing short stories and completing a full-length play. I am also working on developing a short story into a feature. But for real fun Peter and I are working on three book projects together. Aside from the fact that he’s been telling me the same jokes every day for six years, it’s wonderful to spitball with him. Develop projects. He has skills I couldn’t develop if I had two lifetimes to do it but at the same time he allows me to do the things I do well. Note to Writers: The only kind of partner worth having is one who has different skills than you do.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

JD: You’re kidding with this question, right? The only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t is my partner, bless his heart. You’ll have to ask him his secret. For me it’s all about letting go of trying to be “good.” I block when I try to write well. One secret I’ve discovered and that I pass along to my students is to allow myself to write my rough draft in any order in comes to me. I don’t wait for order. I’d be waiting forever. What order you write a piece doesn’t matter because no one is going to see it, you can stitch it together later. That’s what rewriting is for.

PD: If I said “yes” I’d be making a liar out of Jeffrey…I could never do that. What I’m good at is writing a lot of stuff I don’t like. Sometimes I think that a block would be preferable. Thank the Lord for editing.

What’s your advice to new writers?

PD: Grow old writing. The advice I give to new writers is to never judge a first draft (unless it’s great…which it almost never is…). New writers look at the first pass at a project, find problems and then degrade themselves. Jeffrey and I joke about our first draft being the third edit. I’m a compulsive editor. I have an idea about what my writing should be like. I keep editing until all of it does. I think this is the secret to good writing mixed with an additional step of marrying rich.

JD: Read. Write. Rewrite. Go to movies, go to plays, go to museums. Sit in a Starbuck’s and write down what people are saying. Get a notebook…nothing fancy; nothing that will feel like it is too good to write in. Make notes on everything. Carry around a voice recorder. Listen. When you read screenplays and teleplays read early drafts not shooting scripts. Write despite what you feel about your work. It’s only your opinion. Maybe you shouldn’t feel you know enough to assume it stinks.

         I believe it was Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Body Heat) who said that being a writer is like having homework for the rest of your life. That is some of the best advice I’ve ever heard.

Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis provide readers a unique glimpse into the intelligent and quirky inner workings of the comedic mind with their book Show Me the Funny! At the Writers Table with Hollywood’s Top Comedy Writers. The book presents 28 top comedy screenwriters from the revered figures of television's “Golden Age” to today's favorite movie jokesters. Desberg is a joke writer, California State University Dominguez Hills professor and a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in the area of stage fright. Davis is a produced screenwriter, playwright and the Screenwriting Department Chair and associate professor of film and TV writing at Loyola Marymount University. Find out more information by visiting www.smtfo.com or ‘like’ them on Facebook.com/SMTFfans or follow them on Twitter @ShowMeFun2.

Frank Partnoy

How did you become a writer?

By contractually obligating myself to do so. I worked in Morgan Stanley’s derivatives group during the 1990s. After I left, I decided I had to tell the story of how people in that group had gleefully ripped off clients. I contacted Michael Lewis, the writer, who put me in touch with his agent, who put me in touch with W.W. Norton, and within a week I had a book deal for F.I.A.S.C.O.– and suddenly I was a writer.

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

Through my early 20s I was more of a reader than a writer. As a child, I loved fantasy, especially Tolkien. I read every Hardy Boys book. I read most of Stephen King. After high school, I became obsessed with William Gaddis and read a lot of experimental fiction. I also began reading The Economist regularly. I was a math major so I was attracted to the crisp precision of the writing there. I was probably a little too fixated on Strunk and White at the time, but I was interested in well-ordered writing and I read a bunch of writing manuals even though I didn’t write much. There’s a math geek for you.

         After law school, I clerked for Judge Michael Mukasey in New York. He suggested I read George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” carefully, which I did – along with most of Orwell’s essays. Then, for a year, the judge line-edited the memos and draft opinions I wrote, and showed me how to be more precise and transparent. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to learn from numerous superb editors: Andrew Franklin at Profile, Star Lawrence at Norton, John Sterling at Henry Holt, Clive Priddle and Niki Papadopoulos at Public Affairs, and my superstar agent, Theresa Park. They are all genius teachers.

When and where do you write?

Mostly at my home in San Diego. My yellow lab, Fletch, lies at my feet and encourages me. I don’t write at a particular time. It comes in bursts; I’ll often go a week or so without writing a word.

What are you working on now?

I go back and forth between writing trade books and publishing academic work (i.e., stuff no one reads). I’m now entering an academic phase, with several research projects on financial market regulation: riveting stuff like the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the loss causation requirement in securities class actions. But while I’m up in the ivory tower, I also think about my next trade press book: I read, take notes, and do a few interviews. Right now, I’m considering two topics: epistemology and American football. My wife prefers the former. I just know she does. (Yes, I like book topics that generate bad jokes, WAIT being the most extreme so far.)

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really, except with beginning paragraphs. I tend to write, rewrite, stare at – and hate – the introduction the entire time I’m working on a book. I obsess about it. I yell at the first paragraph. I despise the first word. And then, when I’ve nearly finished the last chapter, I go back to the beginning, delete it all, and write something fresh. I love slaughtering those evil words at the end.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Have some unique experiences before you start writing. Learn something no other writer knows. Develop expertise. Then, start specific and narrow. Write what you uniquely know.

Frank Partnoy is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance at the University of San Diego. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation. He is a frequent media commentator and has written dozens of essays for The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The New York Review of Books. His books include F.I.A.S.C.O., Infectious Greed, The Match King, and, most recently, WAIT: The Art and Science of Delay.