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The Writer's Life Series, #1 - Idea to Bookshelf

The Writer's Life series, a spring tradition offered by NWU Boston at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and moderated by Charles Coe, kicked off this year with "Idea to Bookshelf," detailing real life challenges such as finding time to write while managing a job, working at establishing an emotional support system, and educating oneself about not just the creative aspects of the writer's life, but about what is necessary in regard to the business of writing. If there was a theme that echoed in each of their presentations it was the advice that one shouldn't be fooled into thinking that the writer's life is glamorous, but rather it is essential to recognize the hard work involved even after a book is published.

Joanne Skerett, a writer with an M.B.A. rather than an M.F.A., approached her first book, She Who Shops, with a realistic market analysis. "I had to compromise a bit to get it out there," she told the audience, recognizing that "not everyone is willing to do that." Her advice was to "ask yourself the question, 'Do I want to write something that's going to get picked up [by a publisher] and sold or do I want to hold out?' Be willing to be flexible if you can be."

Jeanette Angell said she worked for an escort service and her book Call Girl is an account of that experience. She worked, too, as an adjunct to supplement her income and she now owns an editing service. Emphasizing changes in the publishing industry that make it nearly impossible to survive on income from a published book alone, she said that right now, even after publishing four novels and another non-fiction book in addition to her two memoirs, "without my editing business I wouldn't be eating."

Vyvyane Loh, whose Breaking the Tongue is based on the historical facts of the fall of Singapore to the Japanese during World War II, offered her "rules" for getting published and read. She advised writers not to get lost in research and quoted Pulitzer Prize winners Edward P. Jones and Geraldine Brooks on the subject. According to Loh, Jones has said that "research is overrated," and Brooks believes that 'research should be dictated by the writing."

Loh, who quit her full time job in medicine to attend the Warren Wilson College M.F.A. Program for Writers, says that Rule #2 is: "Apply butt to chair." Writing is "often seen as a glamorous profession and it isn't. Butt hurts," she said.

While writing her novel she taught aerobics and spinning. She described sitting in her car writing on index cards, shuffling them, picking out one section to work on and "writing twenty minutes -- ten minutes --whatever. That's how a book gets made. Find a way to get butt in chair," she advised.

Rule #3 in the Loh coda is a different stage, when a writer needs to "hit the street. Get off your butt." She suggested a good idea is setting aside a business time or business day every week, when you can get involved in things like the process of interviewing agents in order to "get the best deal you can find for your book." She said, "The truth is, if you're going to survive, you'll have to deal with the business end of it."

In the discussion following the panel presentations, both Skerett and Angell emphasized the importance of learning the business aspects of the writing life. Skerett said, "It's a job. The part of it you like to do, work at just as hard as the writing."

-- Reported by Mary Bonina

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