Brad Meltzer

How did you become a writer?

I was coming out of the University of Michigan and I had a job offer from the man who used to run Games magazine. He told me, “If you love the job, you’ll stay. If you hate it, you’ll leave a year later with some money in your pocket.” Since I had some debt to pay off, that seemed like a fair deal. So I moved all my stuff to Boston. But when I got there, the publisher left the magazine. (Surprise!) The whole reason I went there was to work for him. I thought I’d wrecked my life. I had no idea what to do. So I did what all of us would do in that situation. I said, “I’m gonna write a novel.” And I just started writing. Every day, I just fell more and more in love with the process.

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

Agatha Christie, Judy Blume, thousands of comic books, and Ms. Sheila Spicer, who did this: In ninth grade my English teacher, Sheila Spicer, told me I was in the wrong class.

“You can write,” she said.

From there, she tried to move me to the honors class, but because of a conflict in my schedule, the honors class wasn’t an option. So she took me aside and told me: “For this entire year, I want you to ignore everything I do at the blackboard. Ignore all the homework assignments I give. Ignore all the discussions. Instead, you’re going to sit here and do the honors work.”

And I did.

What she was really saying was: You’ll thank me later.

A decade later, when my first novel, The Tenth Justice, was published, I went back to Ms. Spicer’s class and knocked on the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked, not recognizing me. (Of course she didn’t recognize me; the last time she saw me, I had a full head of hair.)

“My name is Brad Meltzer,” I told her, handing her a copy of my first novel. “And I wrote this book for you.”

Within seconds, she was crying. When I asked her why, she told me she was thinking about retiring because she didn't feel she was having an impact anymore.

“Are you kidding?” I asked. “You have thirty students. We have only one teacher.”

As I look back on it, Ms. Spicer was the first person who ever told me I could write. Meeting her--having her be my English teacher--was of the most important moments of my life. She made me love Shakespeare by forcing me to read Romeo & Juliet out loud (she made me read Romeo, and made the girl I had a crush on read Juliet). She taught me how to compose a proper essay. And it was thanks to her belief in me that I eventually found the internal strength to become a writer.

But what I’m most proud of is that I got to be there at her eventual retirement party. I owe her forever. And when I saw her, I realized there’s always more she’ll teach me. I’ll forever be her student.

Oh, and that ninth grade crush who read the part of Juliet? I married her.

When and where do you write?

At home in a small office. I start around 9:30 or 10am and go until I have nothing left. It’s like squeezing a sponge dry. Sometimes that’s 4pm, sometimes it’s later. But I always try to end for dinner with my kids.

What are you working on now?

The kids books and the next thriller. We’ve done I Am Albert Einstein…I Am Amelia Earhart…and July 14, we’re doing I Am Lucille Ball. Then in September, it’s I Am Helen Keller, which has real braille in the book. The goal isn’t to just a few books. We want to help you build a library of real heroes for your kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Only if that means: “Have you had days where it’s coming out sucky?”

What’s your advice to new writers?

Stories aren’t what did happen. They’re what could happen.

Writing a book is like building a sandcastle a grain of sand at a time.

After the ending, writing seems easy. Remember that at the beginning.

The most authentic story you’ll ever tell is your own story.

The X-factor on every page is whether the writer loves what they’re doing.

The more it hurts, the more you need to use it in a book.

The best revenge is the artful truth.

You’re not a writer until you think it sucks.

Grab them by the throat or they’re going elsewhere.

It’s okay to admit it’s hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Write, write, write, write, bang head against wall, write some more.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone else will be.

As a friend told me: Everyone gets three exclamation points in their life. That’s it.

When you get a bad review, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaDdj42HdPo

FInally:  

1)  Write your book.

2)  Rewrite it.

3)  See rule 2.

4)  Don’t let anyone tell you No. Submit it. You’ll get rejections. I got 24 rejections on my first book, and there were only 20 publishers at the time. But keep going.

 5) See rule 4. And see it again. And again. All it takes is one person to say Yes. Don’t let anyone tell you No.

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and seven other bestselling thrillers including The Tenth Justice, Dead Even, The First Counsel, The Millionaires, The Zero Game, The Book of Lies, and The Fifth Assassin. His newest novel The President’s Shadow is just out from Grand Central Publishing. 
In addition to his fiction, Brad is one of the only authors to ever have books on the bestseller list for Non- Fiction (History Decoded), Advice (Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter), Children’s Books (I Am Amelia Earhart, I Am Abraham Lincoln, I Am Albert Einstein and I Am Rosa Parks) and even comic books (Justice League of America), for which he won the prestigious Eisner Award. He is also the host of “Brad Meltzer’s Lost History” on H2 and “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded” on the History Channel. The Hollywood Reporter recently put him on their list of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. 
His other non-fiction books, Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter, are collections of heroes – from Jim Henson to Sally Ride — that he’s been working on since the day his kids were born. His newest nonfiction
is History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. 
He’s also one of the co-creators of the TV show, Jack & Bobby.

Susan Marsh

How did you become a writer?

From an early age, I was interested in words and how they sounded together, especially rhymes and rhythm. I think this is true for most kids but we abandon childish things as we grow, and a simple love of the way language sounds is often one of them. I started writing poetry in the 6th grade, and when I had a few poems published at age 20 or so, I thought maybe this is something I can do. I worked for decades to understand how to write well, and am still learning. I think of myself as a perpetual apprentice.

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

I guess I’d have to include my 6th grade teacher on this list, since she was the first to praise something I wrote and it surprised me. It encouraged me in a way that is memorable.

I am less drawn to individual writers than to specific parts of their body of work. For example, Edward Abbey has a wonderful essay on Glen Canyon (since drowned by Lake Powell) in Desert Solitaire. Ivan Doig is a perennial favorite of mine, and I especially love This House of Sky. Mary Oliver is a poet but I love her books of prose most of all. Blue Pastures is a favorite, and her books about prosody have taught me much about writing both poetry and prose. Also along those lines, Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town is an excellent resource for poets and prose writers alike.

When and where do you write?

I have a small office area in my home where the computer is, and I like to write there in early morning. Ideally, and when I am working hard on a particular project, I will works from around 7 am to 10 or 11. Getting a bit done before I start the rest of my day lets me feel a sense of accomplishment, so I attend to what is most important to me first. I also carry notebooks everywhere. Coffee shops, the library, and a log in the woods are all good places to write for me. Sometimes I jot ideas and observations, other times I spend an hour writing a scene of dialogue.

What are you working on now?

I am co-author of a forthcoming non-fiction book, Too Special to Drill, which is a case study about how a group of citizens achieved an environmental victory in Wyoming’s Hoback River basin. We are working on the final revision, having gotten feedback from our publisher and readers, so that will be my emphasis for the coming months. I have two novels in the works, one nearly done and the other just beginning. I recently gave myself the assignment to write a poem a day for a month, which I did in February. This gave me a lot of material to work on later, and some of these poems have evolved into what I might call finished.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don’t call it that. When I have periods of not writing it’s because I need to take in, not keep putting out material. I think this phase, while frustrating at times, is necessary. That’s one reason I carry a notebook, I never know when an idea will come up on that novel I set aside weeks ago. Or an unforeseen solution to a niggling problem. I do think it helps me to have multiple projects going. Novels and other long stories seem to require periods of rest, so I can go back and look at them anew. I think as long as I am writing something, whether in a journal or notebook, an article for a non-profit’s newsletter, or editing someone else’s draft work, I am not experiencing writer’s block.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I can only say from my own experience that it helps to keep a beginner’s mind about it, and practice a form of rigorous relaxation. By that I mean, don’t take your novice writing too seriously. I used to take myself and my work so seriously that I couldn’t handle criticism and thought that any flaw in a truly bad poem was a reflection on me. It was hard to get over the sting of some poorly delivered critiques in order to see the truth in them.

Don’t be hard on yourself, but keep working, learning and having fun with it. Commit to a certain time each day, your date with yourself to play with language. It can be a half hour – you can get a lot done in that amount of time, if you can focus. Surprise yourself, discover a meaning in your work that you didn’t expect. Those little moments of insight when things suddenly come together are what make writing a joy. And don’t apologize for making time for this work. It is not an idle hobby. Be serious about your craft and commitment to it, but not so serious about your ego.

Susan Marsh is an award-winning writer living in Jackson, Wyoming. She worked for the U.S. Forest Service for over thirty years. With degrees in geology and landscape architecture and a lifelong interest in creative writing, she has combined her interests into a body of work that explores the relationship of humans to wild country. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Orion, North American Review, and Fourth Genre, and anthologies such as Solo (Seal Press, 2005), and A Mile in Her Boots (Solas House, 2006). Her books include Stories of the Wild (The Murie Center, 2001), The Wild Wyoming Range (Laguna Wilderness Press, 2013), War Creek (MP Publishing, 2014) and A Hunger for High Country (Oregon State University Press, 2014). www.slmarsh.com

John Byrne Cooke

How did you become a writer?

Through genes and osmosis. My father, Alistair Cooke, was a writer -- a journalist who filed a daily piece for decades for the Guardian (the Manchester Guardian, when he began), as well as a writer of books. But I wasn't set on following in his footsteps while I was growing up. I learned to type at an early age and my first stories were often taken from movies I'd seen, written out in my own prose. While I was in college at Harvard I joined the Cambridge, Mass., based old-time and bluegrass band, the Charles River Valley Boys, and was very happy to be a musician in the height of the folk music boom. I got involved in filmmaking when I worked with D.A. Pennebaker as a member of his crew, filming the Monterey Pop Festival.

Writing came back into the picture through filmmaking. A friend had an idea for an off-the-wall independent film to be shot in 16mm. He needed a script to help find funding. I got my hands on a genuine feature-film screenplay and with that guide to the formatting and style of screenwriting, I came up with a rough script, really an extended outline. I wrote three original screenplays in the '70s and moved to L.A. to try my hand at the movie business. I got an agent and some writing jobs -- some rewrites and adaptations -- but I kept missing the brass ring of having something I wrote go into production. One day I was having lunch with my lawyer and he said "Have you thought of writing 'The Snowblind Moon' [one of my original screenplays] as a novel?" I had thought of it, but the fact that he supported the idea was catalytic. "The Snowblind Moon" became my first novel. Two more historical novels of the West followed, in which I put fictional characters in the midst of real historical events and true historical characters. I guess the pull of the real history was strong. I published my first book of nonfiction in 2007, "Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism." My latest, also nonficton, also historical, is in a very different vein. "On the Road with Janis Joplin" is my memoir of being Janis's road manager for the last three years of her life.

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

Good writing and good stories. For "The Snowblind Moon," James Clavell was an influence and an inspiration, because he is a master of shifting point of view, especially among characters who are from radically different cultures and world views. It's a good thing no one ever told me you shouldn't write a first novel with shifting points of view. I planned "The Snowblind Moon" that way from the start, I studied the best, and only one editor to whom we submitted very early on suggested I redraft the story from a single point of view. My agent wisely said "This is one man's opinion." We submitted elsewhere and no one else raised the same objection again.

Above all, good storytelling and good writing inspire me and bad writing puts me off.

When and where do you write?

In the morning. Every day. Seven days a week. After breakfast I take a walk to get some oxygen into my brain. I come home, sit down, and write. Once I had a publishing deal for "The Snowblind Moon" (based on 250 pages and an outline of the rest), I was on a deadline to submit a complete draft. I wrote ten pages each day before I allowed myself to quit for lunch. Sometimes lunch was late. The novel came in over 300,000 words. (You could publish epic novels in the '80s!) I've never since equaled that pace. I think Anne Lamott's advice that you give yourself "small assignments" is good. She recommends 300 words a day. If you ask of yourself 300 words a day and you write 900, you've had a great day. If you ask 1000 and you write 900, you've had a bad day. But you got the same amount of work done! This is why Lamott's advice is good: succeed at meeting the small assignments, have a lot of good days, and it keeps you going.

What are you working on now?

Another nonfiction book about another strong, independent woman. A lot like Janis Joplin in some ways. I can't say more because she is a historical figure, public domain, so I'll keep her name to myself until the book is done and under contract.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I've run into any number of problems in writing my novels and nonfiction works, but the way to get past them is to keep on writing. A screenwriter friend in L.A. put this sign on the wall over her desk: "Write the first draft for yourself." I modified that to "A rough draft is better than no draft." All this advice is intended to keep you from thinking that every new page has to be perfect. Just write. In "Living the Writer's Life," Natalie Goldberg recommends you keep your fingers moving on the keyboard, even if you write gibberish. One of my best tricks, for fiction, when I'm feeling stuck, is to jump ahead to the next scene with dialogue and write it very fast, letting the dialogue between (or among) the characters just flow. The characters say things you never planned and reveal things about themselves and the story that help it move forward.

Let me put it this way: I don't believe in writer's block, and I suggest you don't either.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Pay attention to the language! Re-read books you love and admire and _study_ the writing. How does the writer involve you in the narrative? How does the novelist make you care about the characters? How does she make you want to know What Happens Next? Above all, learn to write simple, straightforward, declarative prose. You can't do anything fancier until you can do that. Don't start a sentence with a dependent clause. Avoid clichés, avoid Latinisms ("prior to" instead of "before"), avoid pretentious words and phrases. They won't impress anyone worth impressing. Careless, sloppy, second and third-rate prose that falls into all the bad habits of the present moment isn't worth anyone's time. The ability to write well may be in part an inherent talent, but writing can be studied! And much can be learned.

The film director-writer Richard Brooks advised, "Humor. Character. Conflict. So get on with it!" (Note that he put humor first! Without it, life isn't worth a hill of beans.)

ON THE ROAD WITH JANIS JOPLIN by John Byrne Cooke

www.johnbyrnecooke.com/ftb.html