Jason Headley

How did you become a writer?

I just started writing. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t need to ask anyone’s permission. You just sit down, start writing, start making mistakes, start learning from those mistakes. And hopefully, along the way, you get a little better at it.

The first time I ever got paid to write was as a copywriter in advertising. I had been working in the mail room and the Creative Directors took a liking to me and decided to give me a chance. So I’ve been paying the bills as a writer, of sorts, ever since.

As far as narrative writing goes, one day I just sat down and decided to try writing a novel. Then I adapted that into a screenplay. Then I wrote some more screenplays. I just keep writing. I find I learn a lot about myself and how I view the world when I force myself to really organize my thoughts around a specific story. So that keeps me coming back for more.

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

Richard Russo. Kurt Vonnegut. George Carlin. David Letterman. Leonard Cohen. Monty Python. Raymond Carver. Michael Arndt.

When and where do you write?

I don’t have any real routine. When I’m working on something, I try to stay on it. Try to write every day if I can. But I also try to pay attention to when I need to step away and solve some story problems in a way other than just bashing at a keyboard. 

I have an office in my house. So I pretty exclusively write there. Almost always at night. Or in the evening, at least. I find it easier to concentrate when the phone isn’t going to ring or an email isn’t going to demand immediate attention.

What are you working on now?

I have a feature screenplay that I’m working to shoot. It’s finished, but I’ll still be poking at it here and there right up until we shoot the scenes.

I’m also working on some new versions of my “At the Bar” series that are going to be on television. Kind of an interesting sponsorship opportunity. Those are fun to write. The tone is so specific that it’s a good repository for strange ideas that pass through my mind that wouldn’t really fit anywhere else.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Writer’s block, to me, is just a story problem. If I don’t know where my story is going, or why, then I find myself having trouble writing. So I try to recognize that and get down to the core problem. Do some more outlining. Try to figure out if I’ve painted myself into a corner somewhere along the way.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write. And finish things. Don’t let yourself get bored by an idea after the initial thrill of it passes. Writing isn’t the act of turning words into sentences. It’s the act of turning ideas into stories. Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. So go all the way to the end. Then go back and fix things and make it better. Don’t stop in the middle because you think your story is no good. You might be right. But there’s a zero percent chance it will get better if you quit.

Jason Headley's short films have been featured on NBC's TODAY Show, the front page of Reddit, the front page of Funny or Die, chosen as a Finalist for the Comedy Central/NYTVF competition, a Vimeo Staff Pick, official selections of the Mill Valley Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival, and the Best of Shorts programs at the Carmel Arts & Film Festival. His short "It's Not About the Nail" has over 10 million views and counting.

Coming from a long line of yarn-spinners and bullshitters, Jason began his storytelling career in earnest with the publication of his novel, Small Town Odds. His screenplays have made the Quarterfinals of the Nicholl Fellowship, the second round of consideration for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and the quarter- and semifinals of other national competitions. Fun fact: Jason is more handsome in real life than he is on camera, but he's still not actually handsome.

Cressida Connolly

How did you become a writer?

Although I’d always written fragments of stories and overheard conversations in notebooks, it didn’t occur to me that these might be signs of becoming a writer until I was in my early twenties. Then I moved out of London to a farm in the countryside and began to write more purposefully.

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

Poetry was my first love and if I had to choose ten books to take to a desert island, probably half of them would be poetry: Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Tennyson, Shakespeare’s sonnets. I love short stories and especially American writers of the form: Scott Fitzgerald’s beautiful clear language and lovely sentences and John Updike, too. I very much admire William Trevor and Alice Munro. I love Elizabeth Bowen. And George Orwell’s rules for writers are indispensable.

When and where do you write?

In the mornings as soon after breakfast as I can. Sometimes in my kitchen, sometimes in my study. I pace around a lot between paragraphs. A lot of my last novel was written in my car, because my sister was sick with lung cancer and I didn’t want to disturb her by clattering around downstairs.

What are you working on now?

A novel about three sisters. It’s about betrayal: the sister who you think is the nice one turns out to be the worst. They’re awful! It’s very enjoyable to write.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Well, I’ve only published three books in over twenty years. That was partly because of bringing up three children and partly down to being blocked.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read. Read as much as you can, across as many different kinds of work as you can. When a book is especially vivid to you, take some time to consider why that is and whether it has something you’d like to incorporate into your own writing.  

I believe that artists need three things: talent, industry and self belief. If you have at least two of these, you’ll be OK. The most successful writers have all three.

Cressida Connolly is the prize-winning author of a novel, My Former Heart and a short story collection, The Happiest Days. Her acclaimed life of 1920’s Bohemians the Garman family is called The Rare and the Beautiful. Cressida also reviews extensively. She is married and lives on a farm in England.

Noah benShea

How did you become a writer?

Born to a blue-collar family in Toronto, early on I wanted to become a doctor because that was what bright Jewish boys were told would be a crowning achievement. My capacity with language, I simply took as a throw away talent that got me invited to sit shot-gun in the car with the boys so I could chat up the girls. Years later I would learn the Irish witticism: “A writer is only a failed talker.”

By my junior year in college, chemistry was not holding my interest and a romantic interest in poetry and the poet’s life had me in its grasp. Again, I loved women and women loved poets. And I was off to the races.

On reflection of life spent at the races: Be cautious about what we do to seduce others because in the process we often seduce ourselves. Or, the first person every salesman always sells is himself.

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

Writers: T,S. Eliot, Donne, ee Cummings, Blake, Dylan Thomas. Books: The Bible, Jung, Zen literature, Buber, Siddhartha. Teachers:  1) John McManmon – a great, great 18th century prof at UCLA, poor Irish who went in and left “the Hood,” and dear friend across time who challenged me and challenged me again. 2) Carlos Castaneda was introduced to me when a book of poetry I had written, “Don’t Call It Anything” came out and won the Schull Poetry Prize. Carlos was a grad student in Anthro at UCLA, and I was an Asst. Dean of Students. The Anthro dept. thought Carolos was too close to his subject, Don Juan, the Mexican brujo, and didn’t know what to do with him. One month later, Carlos was on the cover of Look Mag, and he and I had a great laugh. His teacher, Don Juan always said, “Follow the path with a heart.”  The no B.S. teachings of John and the follow the heart of Carlos/Don Juan played major themes in my holding the course and compass in my work.

Other: My parents. My mother doesn’t fall into any category but was a category on her own. She opened my feminine side, the side that allows me to see the whole house if you leave your window up six inches. She was brilliant and an ethicist posting up small signs around our house reminding us “It’s nice to be important but more important to be nice.” Not bad for a woman orphaned at birth, working full time in a butcher shop when she was fourteen, and never graduating from high school who went on the head up the Credit Dept. at major department stores. My father, who told me early on that God had gifted me but I wasn’t to use those gifts just to get my head further down in the trough. My great tragedy was his early death from ALS. My great gift was his love of life and people. Thanks Dad.

When and where do you write?

I have worked in coffee shops, in cars, with background noise becoming white noise and ommmmm. But most of the time I work very early in the morning at home. I wrote several of my books from 3 or 4 in the morning until about 7. And then made my kids breakfast. Now, I can write at any time, as long as I have quieted my ego and got out of my own way. I scribble notes to myself all the time. My character Jacob in my JACOB THE BAKER books is similar in that way. Except I am the one with character flaws.

What are you working on now?

I write almost every day, with the exception of the Sabbath. I am working on another JACOB book, blogs, columns, and posting stuff up in shorthand always. When people tell me they are bored, I am amazed. If I had a dozen lives I couldn’t imagine being bored. When my kids were little, I would tell them: “If you’re bored and feeling flat, look inside – that’s where it’s at.” Doggerel, perhaps, but Auntie Mame had it right, “Life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving.”

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Nope. Written some stuff that best serves as kindling but no blocks.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I’m often asked this question after I give a talk or am cornered on a plane. And my answer remains the same after all these years. “Write one page every day for two years. Then throw away half of it, and you have a book.” “Every day?” they ask, astonished. “Yep, every day. Being a writer isn’t something you do only when your girlfriend leaves you, and you’re sitting in front of a fireplace on a rainy night.”

Someone like Ben Hecht or of that ilk once said, “A writer is someone who sits down to work and prays for the phone to ring.”

You’ve got to be driven to write - particularly in my case beginning as a poet. Poets never had to worry about selling out because there was no one buying. And if you’re looking for strokes, stroke on. A poet is someone who throws rose petals over the Grand Canyon and learns not to wait for the echo. And a great writer is a poet running a marathon.

Noah benShea -  www.NoahbenShea.com

Bullet Point Bio

• North American poet philosopher.

• The international best selling author of 23 books translated into 18 languages.

• Syndicated column contributor NY Times Regional newspapers Nominated for The Pulitzer Prize.

• Spoken to the Library of Congress, included in the Congressional Record.

• Published by Oxford University Press and World Bible Society in Jerusalem.

• Dean, UCLA at age 22, at 30 a Fellow at several esteemed “think tanks,” Visiting Professor of Philosophy University of California SF Med School, Philosopher in Resident Dept of Internal Medicine Cottage Health Hospitals, Santa Barbara.

• Private advisor to corporate and political leaders, Ethicist for Sansum Diabetes Research Institute, nominated for the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas that Improve the World Order, National Laureate for the ALS Association.

• Noah benShea National PBS Special airs in 150 cities in 2009-2010.

• 2009 – present National Philosopher for Foundations Recovery Network, Nashville, Tenn.

• 2012 – present Executive Director, THE JUSTICE PROJECT / Making A Difference – Sage Publishing, Inc.