I've always been a writer. Even when I was just a kid, I was "preparing,"
always checking out different kinds of writing instruments, collecting the
artifacts of writing...took 3 years of typing in high school until I got to
120 wpm...but I didn't start writing until mid-high school, when I finally
decided I had read enough, thought enough about it, and was *ready*.
That day, I started writing finally. I wrote a story I placed with the
school magazine done out of one of the writing classes. The next thing I
wrote ended up in a small outside magazine. Then I began writing and placing
articles and plays and stories....
I took some writing classes in college, but the only ones of value were the
workshops, not the ones where you're taught to write the way the teacher
*wants* you to write. The whole theory of writing is to find your unique
voice; if you surrender that by writing the way somebody else writes, you've
sacrificed the only commodity you had to offer: your unique vision of the
world. In any event, as stated, I was writing and selling long before I took
my first writing class.
Since 1971, I have written 5-10 pages per day (the last 12+ years generally
10 or better) every day of the week, 52 weeks a year, except for my birthday,
christmas, new year's, and my spouse's birthday. On my first trip to
England, I swore I wouldn't write, I'd take some time off; I ended up
sneak-buying a small notepad and, by the time I got back, had outlined my
first novel, later published by Dutton.
I've written over 500 published articles, dozens of published short stories,
12 produced plays, a number of songs recorded here and there (including two
for a prime time ABC special), 2 published novels, 1 published anthology, a
number of screenplays (some made as TV stuff, some not produced), and 145+
produced TV scripts, among other stuff.
I write all the time. It's not what I do, it's what I *am*.
jms |
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