Steve Albrecht

How did you become a writer?

I was a bookish child, so having skipped a grade and not being very big, all types of literature were my companions. My parents were big readers and my dad was an aerospace engineer and a skilled writer. They always bought me books, took me to the library every weekend, and encouraged my short stories. I sent crime stories to the Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen magazines in the 70s, when I was about 12 or 13, to no avail. I went to the University of San Diego and as an English major, I thought I knew how to write. Outside of college, I learned that comparing and contrasting the literary themes of Chaucer’s General Prologue was not going to be needed everyday. When I was working as a San Diego Police officer, I started writing a monthly column on officer safety for the Police Officers Association newspaper. I wrote that column for 14 years. That gave me the discipline to freelance to other police and specialty magazines. I left police work after my workplace violence book, Ticking Bombs, started to gain momentum in 1999, which was right after the tragedy at Columbine.    

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

I still have the mystery novels I read as a kid and a young adult, including Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser. I re-read Mark Twain’s works and consider him and Ernest Hemingway to be two of our greatest American writers. Twain’s use of sly humor and Hemingway’s power and brevity had a big impact on my writing style. I re-read Roughing It and the Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn books from Twain and The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms from Hemingway every few years. On the modern side, I envy Sebastian Junger’s machismo on the page and Jon Krakauer’s take-you-there skill. I’ll grudgingly admit I learned something from every book editor I ever worked with; the best being my father, Karl Albrecht. We co-wrote several books together and he taught me early not to write in the passive voice, a bad habit I developed in college. My dad wrote an entire book in E-Prime, which is the absence of the verb form to be. He continues to be my biggest influence, especially with his ability to organize an entire book before he begins, which I do for each of mine as well.

When and where do you write?

I have an office in San Diego where it’s quiet and I can think. I have a table fountain and with some classical music I can write for long stretches on my Mac, while photos of Twain and Hemingway stare down at me. I also work out of my home on an ancient Windows XP computer with an old version of Word, which works just fine. My usual habit with book deadlines is to go to a cabin we have in the eastern San Diego mountains and write to completion for a week. The cabin schedule is quite Spartan: get up, write, eat, short nap, write, hike for an hour, eat, write, sleep, repeat, for a week. It sounds noble but it’s mostly because I procrastinate when the book deadline is months away and then I have to crash it to finish on time. A lot of genius words don’t make it into the final manuscript. Cutting chapters is not a bad thing.  

What are you working on now?

I have written several books for police officers over the last 25 years, and I just finished my last officer safety book this week. Patrol Cop will be out next year and that will be the end of my writings for cops. I write a blog for PsychologyToday.com, which I find rewarding. My topic area is in their “Law and Crime” section, which is fun because I’m not a lawyer or a psychologist, so I can write about crooks, human conflict, workplace violence, and school violence issues, which are my primary training workshop subjects. I enjoy the blog process and do two or so a month at about 1000 words each. People don’t want to read stuff that goes on forever. I find the people who write vicious comments about my blogs to be tedious since they never argue from a position of facts, only their sourness. I’m also finishing a niche book for the American Library Association on library security. Most people don’t realize how tough it is in our libraries, with the aggressive homeless, thieves, sexual predators looking for kids, mentally ill patrons, and entitled people who give the library staff a hard time. They really have to be part-time social workers as well as full-time information providers.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Once, for about 18 months and it was agony. I had a contract to write a small book on business ethics (never an easy subject) and one to write for the popular Complete Idiot’s Guide series on customer service. I had to send back both contracts — and the advance money — with my apologies that I just had nothing in the tank. Going back to writing articles broke me of the block and I learned to trust my notes on what I want to write about. They don’t have to be perfect, but they do give me a place to start instead of a blank screen.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I’ve had lots of people tell me their life story would make a great book. Fortunately for all of us, that’s as far as the conversation went. I believe you know you have the talent to write fairly early. I teach business writing workshops and some people enjoy them and others find it a miserable experience. I’m not convinced the desire to write can be taught, although we can all improve our techniques. Real writers write and when they aren’t writing they are thinking about writing. I have a tattoo on my inner left bicep that says, “Cacoethes scribendi,” loosely translated to mean “the burning desire to write.” I can see it every day as I type.     

Steve Albrecht is based in San Diego and has written professionally since 1985. He co-wrote Ticking Bombs in 1994, which was one of the first business books on workplace violence, and featured his prison interview with a double workplace murderer. Steve worked for the San Diego Police Department for 15 years and retired to write and teach. He holds a doctorate in Business Administration; an M.A. in Security Management; a B.S. in Psychology; and a B.A. in English. His 10 business books include Added Value Negotiating; Service! Service! Service!; The Timeless Leader; Fear and Violence on the Job; and Tough Training Topics. His six books for law enforcement include Streetwork; Surviving Street Patrol; and Contact & Cover. He is finishing his first police novel.

Caryl Avery

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer by default. De fault was my mother’s. Well, partly.

I always loved writing, even as a kid. I started writing parodies and light verse (which I’m pretty sure back then I called “funny poems”) when I was around 10, and stopped when I was 11 or 12. Because whenever I wrote something that my mother found amusing, she would say, “Ca, go get your poem and read it to Mrs. Pianin,” the neighbor four houses down. I’d be mortified, but the more I protested, the more she insisted. Out of self-protection, I hung up my yellow No. 2 pencil.

Although writing always came naturally to me, I never contemplated it as a career until I had to: After throwing in the towel on art history (too low paying) and on practicing psychotherapy (too depressing), I realized I needed a job that would be “just right.” When I asked myself what I could do, the only thing I could think of was write.

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

Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, e. e. cummings, Don Marquis, W. S. Gilbert, Tom Lehrer, Franklin P. Adams, E. B. White, Edward Lear, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Noel Coward, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Anonymous.

While flirting with the idea of becoming a writer, I had the good fortune to discover On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which in 1976 had just been published. I was so stunned that a book on writing could be so engaging that I instantly knew that was the career for me. With each expanded edition, I seized the occasion to reread it beginning to end, and each time it was like running into an old love. If you haven’t read it, you’re in for a treat. You might want to follow it with The Writer Who Stayed, a compilation of Zinsser’s weekly essays published on the website of The American Scholar. (“Zinsser on Friday” won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Digital Commentary. He was 87.)

In addition to William Zinsser (with whom I had the pleasure of spending an hour last fall), four other teachers—who couldn’t have been more different—helped make me the writer I am: Miss Dillback, my seventh grade English teacher at Valley Stream South High School, who was scary strict but who hammered grammar into my head so I’d never forget it. Sandra Berwind, Professor Emeritus of English at Bryn Mawr College, who as my Freshman Comp instructor introduced the concept of critical thinking. (She was the toughest and most generous teacher I ever had.) My former boss and medical editor at the Globe (yup, the supermarket tabloid—we all start somewhere), who did the same for not thinking when you have to research and write two medical stories a day. (He: “Caryl, what are you doing?” Me: “I’m thinking.” He: “In this business, you don’t think; you write.”) And the late, great Phyllis Starr Wilson, founder of Self Magazine, who taught me as an editor and writer how to let go of articles: (“Remember, 90 percent of people read this stuff sitting on the toilet.”)

When and where do you write?

I write mostly in my head, often on the bus. Then when I get to my office, I transcribe these noodlings—quick, before they disappear. If ideas or turns of phrase pop into my mind as I’m trying to fall asleep, I force myself to get out of bed to write them down (usually as notes on my iPhone). Otherwise, forget sleeping.

What are you working on now?

I’m adding some finishing touches to Eggs Benedict Arnold, a book of culinary light verse, and putting together a team of investors and producers for CUTS: An Uplifting Musical, an irreverent parody revue that skewers plastic surgery and our national obsession with looking young and beautiful. A developmental production recently played to sold-out houses at The York Theatre in New York. For a sneak peek at four songs from the show’s initial presentation, visit www.carylavery.com, click on CUTS, then Preview. Or Google “Joan Rivers from CUTS” to see international singing sensation Christina Bianco’s version of the song.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I’ve experienced it, sure, but it hasn’t made me suffer. Writer’s block is a writer’s best friend; it tells you you don’t know where you’re going. (“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) Once you figure that out, you’re home free. Writer’s block simply saves you the trouble of writing until you do.

What’s your advice to new writers?

1. Write with your ear.

2. Run your work by a few people you trust who are smarter than you.

3. Pay attention to criticisms, but not to proposed solutions.

4. Remember that the urge to edit other people’s copy is greater than the urge to procreate. Your work is your baby. Don’t sell it down the river.

5. Make sure that everything you write has one elegant sentence.

6. Evolve. Try new forms.

7. Don’t write near a refrigerator.

Caryl Avery (www.carylavery.com) has been an award-winning journalist, magazine editor, advertising copywriter, poet, and creative writer for over 30 years. In addition to an eight-year stint as senior editor/psychology director at Self Magazine, she has written extensively for more than 20 consumer magazines, including Self, Glamour, Vogue, Ladies Home Journal, New York Magazine, American Health, Psychology Today, and Reader’s Digest, as well as for such websites as Women’s Voices for Change.  In recent years she has put her experience as psychologist, writer, and editor to work as a creative marketer/advertising copywriter in the cosmetic industry. After a decade as Executive Editor at Clinique, where she wrote national advertising for more than 75 countries, she set up shop in New York where she provides marketing direction, branding, advertising and website copy to a variety of consumer product companies and ad agencies.

In addition, she has returned to two old loves—light verse and lyric writing. Her poems have been featured in Light Quarterly, Alimentum, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, The Classical Outlook, womensvoicesforchange.org, and anthologized in More Women’s Wicked Wit. Plus, she is nearing completion of Eggs Benedict Arnold, a book of culinary light verse. Her parody revue CUTS: An Uplifting Musical about plastic surgery and everything else we do to look young and beautiful has had a successful developmental run in New York and is gearing up for a commercial production.

Amy Klein

How did you become a writer?

I was an avid reader as a kid, always sneaking books under my desk in school. For my 12th birthday, I got a subscription to "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine," and loved the tight short stories. (While my friends were reading "Seventeen.")

But I didn't know one could "be" a writer -- it wasn't a profession ever discussed in my conservative community (Doctor, lawyer, accountant, were). In high school, I wrote a lot of humorous essays, and was the humor editor of my yearbook. I started journaling in college, where my English professor was a "real" writer. I became an English major with a creative writing concentration. But I was not familiar with memoir and personal essays, so I kept trying to write fiction that was really thinly-veiled memoir. At age 25 I took a job with a newspaper, and have been a journalist ever since, although my favorite form is the personal essay. 

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

I think books were my biggest influences in life. As a kid I devoured every series from Nancy Drew to The Three Investigators to Lois Duncan's science fiction, then embarassingly, Sweet Dreams, before moving on to Ludlum and Follett. I was always enamored of humor writing, like Mad Magazine, Mark Leyner and Dave Barry.

I only discovered memoir writing later in life -- even though that's what I am. I did an MFA at Antioch University and fell in love with non-traditional memoirs and essay collections like Girl Walks Into a Bar, Safekeeping, Lying, Seasons of the Body, The Bill From My Father, and later, I Was Told There'd Be Cake and of course, Wild, by Cheryl Strayed.

There is one book I wish I'd written: The Big Love by Sarah Dunn, a seemingly light love story that really gets into the mind of someone raised religious.

When and where do you write?

I write every weekday, although I'm not very disciplined on my own stuff but I usuallly have a deadline for someone, as I make my living as a freelance writer. I really love to work at cafes around the city. There's something about the bustle around me I find stimulating. I seem to be the only writer in the world without a Mac, so maybe I'm undercover? I like to meet up with writer friends and work together but separately. I still hope to find that "magic schedule" that writers like Stephen King talk about -- with his 2000-a--word day minimum, but I'm much more willy nilly.

What are you working on now?

Right now I am hoping to turn my Fertility Diary column at the Times into a memoir, although I'm waiting for my happy baby ending. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I suffer a unique form of writer's block: working on too many things at once. When I get nervous about something I'm writing, I just start something else, or pitch another article somewhere else. As a journalist, it really works in my favor, because I can publish a lot of different pieces on a lot of different subjects. But it's not so helpful for longform, which requires more discipline. 

When I do get real writer's block -- i.e., I'm sitting in front of the computer and don't know where to go with the piece, I think it means I've gone off in the wrong direction. As I humorously wrote in my Draft piece about "Kill Your Darlings," your darlings might just be that amazing lede in an article or a great scene that's just sending to a dead end. That kind of writer's block usually works itself out if you take a step back and ask what's really wrong. If you backtrack, you'll figure it out.

What’s your advice to new writers?

As a journalist, I would tell you to pick a field you love and focus on it -- I wrote about religion for many years but then I realized I didn't care about it so much anymore, so I started writing about health, arts and culture.

If you are writing memoir or essay, I would really advise people to write in journals. There is something about taking great notes on your life that later on helps provide the details for a great story. 

Inasmuch that I was kidding about writer's workshops in my New York Times piece (and not everyone got that I was joking), I've been in workshops for the last decade and find them invaluable. It helps to hear your work read aloud, it helps to have critiques, and it helps to keep rewriting. One of my MFA teachers said, "Novels are not written, they're rewritten."

Bio: I've been a journalist and essayist for the last 20 years, and today mostly write about health, arts & culture and travel. I write the "Fertility Diary" column for The New York Times Motherlode blog. My work has been published in Slate, Salon, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers and other places.

My Website: www.KleinsLines.com. Follow: @amydklein.