A Writing Life

A writing life... this one began in the seventies, in high school. I began writing poetry in high school, searching for the perfect words to win the heart of a girl. I ventured into short fiction not long after, primarily lurid, early teen vampire stories.

I carried my love of poetry and prose into college, where I edited the school literary magazine, contributed poetry and short fiction to it, and even participated in a series of professor/student poetry readings. Great experience. And fun. Laughing and talking with professors about what you and he/she wrote is a great way to get beyond their classroom demeanor and find out what makes them tick. One of my favorites turned out to be a fun person to play basketball with, discuss after-college life with, and generally get to know as a scholar, family man, and wonderful person. He has since passed away from cancer.

After undergraduate school, at which I double-majored in English and Communications, I tried hard to put both to work and entered the world of broadcast news. My internship at a high-powered radio news station/low-powered fledgling television station turned into a full-time reporting job after college. I loved the writing, the deadlines, the camaraderie with the old-time reporters, and the chance to try something new: working on the other side of the camera and in post-production.

This lead to my next endeavor, in corporate video. When I moved away from New England to Virginia (to be with my girlfriend, of course), I worked in video production. What began as videography, editing, and lighting turned into directing, producing, and scriptwriting for local DC corporations. Great fun. Here's the deal with working for a smallish company, which I found to be far more interesting than working for a larger one: if you work for the smaller company, you have to lug the equipment. That gets old fast. I don't shy away from physical labor, nor do I have a problem with working hard, but an educated person knows that lugging heavy equipment in and out of buildings, dealing with stairs, spending hours setting up and breaking down, well that just gets old fast... and your body doesn't really appreciate it after a while. During my time in video I had some great friends who were filmmakers. They really inspired me. While creative and proficient with the equipment end of things, they really turned on when telling a story. It was the story that mattered, that got the juices flowing, that showed their inner light. Needless to say, it was contagious. I tried my hand at scriptwriting. I produced a movie script that a friend hawked in Hollywood on a trip there. Frank Stallone read my script... that's my claim to fame there. As much as I enjoyed the video and filmmaking worlds, I really never caught fire for it. So I decided to try something new...

I went back to school, got my master's in English - Writing, and tried my hand at technical writing. This can be a good gig for a while. You learn new things about the high tech world in which we live, you meet lots of smart people, and the various company cultures you experience can be a real kick. But tech writing sucks your imagination after a while.

During my 10-year stint in tech writing I continued to write. I loved the short fiction. Not for publication, but for me. It was great. I attended a workshop in short fiction at the U of Iowa one summer, right after the Mississippi floods (which ran right up to the dorm in which I stayed for the week - unsettling to say the least). I continued to write poetry. And I began to think about longer fiction.

Since moving into Marketing & Communications I have explored long fiction more deeply. I finished my first novel recently and published through Eloquent Books. We'll just see where it goes. I have begun my next novel. I like the process of writing longer fiction, mostly because it gives me more of an opportunity to watch things unfold, do some intensive rewriting, see a bigger picture. That's where I am today. I still write for a living, but it's really changed since the early days...
But I wouldn't change a minute of it all. I've experienced some great variety and some interesting times along the way. I encourage anyone reading this to try everything and see what sticks.

Til next time...