Andrea Askowitz

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer after I failed at saving the world. I was 25 when I went to graduate school in public policy because I wanted to understand the government so I could be a more effective advocate. In grad school I had a teacher, Jill Kasle, who had us write a one-page story in the style of an author. I picked The Bell Jar and really thought I nailed Sylvia Plath. When I first read The Bell Jar I though it was funny although I did get that the narrator was severely depressed. The last time I read it, it didn’t seem as funny, but almost 25 years ago, Plath’s humor and simple style gave me the feeling that I could write too. The same thing happened when I was assigned A Room of One’s Own and was instructed to explain my book in the voice of Virginia Woolf. I understood that the book was a serious essay on the inequality between men and women, but I also thought Woolf was really funny. I still remember the line, "It is the nature of biscuits to be dry and these were biscuits to the core.” Woolf was talking about how bad the food was at women’s colleges versus the food at men’s colleges. After grad school, while looking for a job (not that hard), I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist's Way. She tells you to get rid of people in your life who are crazy-makers. At the time I had a big, unrequited crush on a woman who was a drinker, and to stay away from her, for nine months, I holed up and wrote a novel. The novel is somewhere buried on my computer, but the experience got me started. For about 10 years after that, I worked a few jobs—environmentalist, advocate for homeless people, reproductive rights organizer—and got fired from all of them before I decided, at 35, to take writing seriously. That was 14 years ago.

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

I've had great teachers: Joyce Maynard, Terrie Silverman, Jill Kasle, Peggy Sanday, Cheryl Strayed, Steve Almond, Vikram Chandra, Ann Randolph. The books that have taught me are The Bell Jar, A Room of One’s Own, The Things They Carried, At Home in the World, In Cold Blood, Into Thin Air, Wild, Torch, Tiny Beautiful Things, so many David Sedaris stories, same for Joyce Maynard, and lots and lots of essays both published and ones written by my students for almost ten years.

When and where do you write?

I write in my office, which is the garage of my house. I get to my desk at about 9 a.m., but I’m never in a huge rush. Everyday, I try to write until my kids come home from school at 4:30, but I don’t write everyday.

What are you working on now?

I finished my second memoir currently titled, Attention Whore, which is about a woman who needs lots of attention. The author Kim Severson says the kitchen table is the modern-day tribal fire, the place where people come together to connect. I’m looking for tribal fires everywhere. Sometimes I even start them. The problem is, I’m married to a classic introvert who needs hours of alone-time daily. You know how they say every couple has their fight? Ours is the one where my wife isn’t listening and I want more attention.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I think I might be suffering right now. This is a hard moment because I broke up with my agent. I’m looking for a new agent and at the same time, I polish and re-polish my finished memoir. I know I need to start something new, but the book just needs a little more polish. Also, I’m chicken-shit.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Steve Almond said he got better as a writer by reading bad writing. He was the editor of his college journal, so lots of the submissions weren’t the best. I took that as advice, to put myself in the position of editor, which I do as the teacher and co-producer of the podcast Writing Class Radio.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Get yourself into a writing class or form a writing group. Learn to be a good listener. Figure out what works and what doesn’t in other people's stories so you can identify what works and doesn’t in your own. Also, there’s nothing more motivating than having an audience and deadlines. If you can’t find a group or even if you can, listen to the podcast Writing Class Radio. 

Andrea Askowitz is the author of the memoir My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy (Cleis) and the editor of Badass: True Stories, the Double Album (Lominy Books). Her stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon, xoJane, Brain, Child, AEON, and have aired on NPR and PBS.  She is the founder of the Knight award-winning, true-stories reading series Lip Service. She is also co-producer, teacher and co-host of the podcast Writing Class Radio. Andrea grew up in Miami where she lives with her wife, Victoria, and children Natasha, Sebastian and Beast. Tweet her at @andreaaskowitz. Info at andreaaskowitz.com.

Andrew Crofts

How did you become a writer?

When I left school at 17 I wanted to be freelance and I wanted to have as many different experiences as possible. I wanted to be able to follow my interests, ask a lot of questions, learn a lot, meet a lot of different people and hear a lot of stories. I also wanted to spend a lot of time on my own, thinking and writing. So I did every sort of writing work I could find, earning money wherever I could. I wrote begging letters to every editor and publisher whose address I could find, and submitted my own speculative work at the same time. Eventually people started to respond and eventually they stopped sending rejection letters.

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

I learnt to read with the Paddington Bear books. For comedy I was influenced by P.G. Wodehouse, for lifestyle by Lord Byron. I learnt about the rich from Scott Fitzgerald and the poor from George Orwell and it was the books of Graham Greene, Jan Morris and Paul Theroux that made me want to travel.

When and where do you write?

My study at home is a converted game larder with windows on three sides looking out over the gardens. I work best from lunch time to dinner time.

What are you working on now?

I am working on an American billionaire's business book/biography and am about to start the memoir of a young man who survived the genocide in the Rwanda as a small child after seeing 80 members of his family slaughtered with hammers and machetes. 

I am putting the final touches to a manuscript for a spiritual leader based in Paris and the biography of an Australian who has built an enormously successful company in Saigon. (Graham Greene-land again.) At the same time I am promoting the newly published paperback version of my novella "Secrets of the Italian Gardener".  

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No, never. My theory is that if you get blocked you are not ready to write that book and simply need to do some more thinking or some more research. I always have several projects on the go at any one time anyway.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

"Kill your darlings" - i.e. cut out most of what you write to make sure it is as tight as it can be.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Learn about marketing and how it works. You need to be able to sell yourself and your work - or you will starve.

Andrew Crofts is a ghostwriter and author who has published more than eighty books, a dozen of which were Sunday Times number one bestsellers. He has also guided a number of international clients successfully through the minefield of independent publishing.

Andrew’s name first became known to publishers for the stories he brought them by the otherwise disenfranchised. Travelling all over the world he worked with victims of enforced marriages in North Africa and the Middle East, sex workers in the Far East, orphans in war-torn areas like Croatia and dictatorships like Romania, victims of crimes and abused children everywhere.

The enormous success of these books brought many very different people to his door; first came the celebrities from the worlds of film, music, television and sport, and then the real elite in the form of world leaders and the mysterious, powerful people who finance them, arm them and, in some cases, control them. 

As well as using traditional publishers to reach readers, he has also published his own fiction, most recently “Secrets of the Italian Gardener”, which draws on his experience among the powerful and wealthy.

His books on writing include “Ghostwriting”, (A&C Black) and “The Freelance Writer’s Handbook”, (Piatkus), which has been reprinted eight times over twenty years and “Confessions of a Ghostwriter” (Friday Project)..

Throughout his bestseller, “The Ghost”, Robert Harris quotes Andrew’s book, “Ghostwriting”. Harris’s book went on to become a major movie by the same name, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Ewan McGregor as the eponymous ghost.

Andrew was on the Management Committee of the Society of Authors from 2012 to 2015. He lectures on the subject of making a living from writing at Kingston University and frequently guests at writing workshops, literary festivals and in the media. He blogs regularly on matters pertaining to publishing, self-publishing and writing.

K.M. WEILAND

How did you become a writer?

I started writing when I was twelve and published a small newsletter throughout high school. I independently published my first novel, the western A Man Called Outlaw when I was twenty. But I didn’t really take it seriously as a business until my next book, the medieval historical Behold the Dawn, came out three years later. And now, here I am having published my fourth novel! Storming, my action-adventure aviation novel about a barnstorming pilot in 1920 came out over a year ago.

Stories are like breathing. Life without a story in my head is one-dimensional, stagnant, vapid. I love the life God has given me, but I think I love it better because I’m able to live out so many other lives on the page. I’m more content to be who I am because I’m not trapped in that identity. When I sit down at my computer and put my fingers on the keys, I can be anyone or anything, at any time in history. I write because it’s freedom.

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

As a novelist, I am inspired by countless excellent authors and filmmakers. Specifically, Brent Weeks’s epicness, Margaret Atwood’s prose, and Patrick O’Brian’s sheer genius speak to me and urge me on. As a blogger, I’m inspired by the professionalism and creativity of people such as Joanna Penn, Porter Anderson, and Jody Hedlund.

I love reading authors who are masters of characterization, adept with subtext, and players with their prose. Authors who can put all the puzzle pieces of a story together seamlessly always have something to teach me.

When and where do you write?

It depends on what part of the process I’m immersed in. When I’m outlining, I work longhand in a notebook, which means I can go on the run, away from my computer. Weather permitting, I will go outside.

Right now, I’m in the middle of drafting, so I stay close to the computer, where I can use Scrivener.

Generally, late afternoons are my go-to writing time—from 4-6. I like to save writing until the end of my day to give me something to look forward to.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently in the editing stage on a historical superhero novel called Wayfarer, which is set in Regency England. Having a lot of fun with that!

I’ve also just started the first draft for the sequel to my portal fantasy Dreamlander. It will be called Dreambreaker and goes into what happens as the veil between our world and the world of dreams begins to rupture, and the former “Gifted” Chris Redston, now shorn of his abilities, must struggle back to his lost love, the fierce and conflicted Queen Allara, to help her overcome dangerous international intrigue and discover the truth about their still intertwined destinies—before a mysterious heretic can commit the ultimate abomination of permanently fusing the worlds.

I’m also getting ready to publish a workbook companion to my book Creating Character Arcs.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I like to say I don’t believe in writer’s block—but that is, of course, a bit disingenuous. We all get blocked—either on small plot problems from day to day or majorly when burnout hits. The trick is not making a monster of it. It’s just a mental (and sometimes emotional) challenge to be worked through.

I’ve never experienced long-term writer’s block. I get burned out occasionally, but I accept those times as opportunities to take a break and pamper my brain. It’s all part of the cycle of inspiration.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

If you can not write, don’t. Writing is a rich and rewarding lifestyle, but it can also be full of frustration and depression. If you don’t love what you’re doing so much that you’d do it even no one ever read you, much less pay you, then you may want to rethink subjecting yourself to the rigors of the lifestyle.

What’s your advice to new writers?

So many misconceptions surround the idea of plotting/outlining, and so many writers are afraid it will take the fun right out of writing. But outlining is a valuable and exciting part of the writing process. By planning the story ahead of time, we’re actually paving the way for an easier first draft, which helps us save time, which helps us write with less fear and stress, which helps us produce a better story. Outlining is about exploring everything from character backstory to theme to conflict to plot structure.

K.M. Weiland lives in make-believe worlds, talks to imaginary friends, and survives primarily on chocolate truffles and espresso. She is the IPPY, NIEA, and Lyra Award-winning and internationally published author of Outlining Your Novel, Structuring Your Novel, and Creating Character Arcs. She writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in western Nebraska and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.