Ask the Author: Geoffrey Douglas
Answered Questions (6)
Geoffrey Douglas
My most recent book is a collection of published stories. The idea came simply out of desire for posterity. Other books generally have risen out of my curiosity over some public event -- with the exception of my first one, "Class," a family memoir.
Geoffrey Douglas
A deadline helps. Financial need helps. Those aside, I have to just sit down and plow through those early doubts and all the distractions that come with them.
Geoffrey Douglas
I'm working, off and on, on a book I've been trying to get right for 20 years - a fictional memoir about a journalist in Atlantic City in the 1980s, a time of unbelievable richness, greed, and change.
Geoffrey Douglas
Read. Write. Don't quit. Dream. Begin again.
Geoffrey Douglas
I guess the best thing is that you know, every minute, that you're working only for yourself at least to start with. That allows a degree of honesty you won't find in the larger world/marketplace. There is the need of course to be aware of your audience, but not to be dictated by your sense of who they are. Your vision, if it's truthfully yours, should be all that directs you. Let the rest take care of itself.
Now for the flip side - what's the WORST thing about being a writer? The solitude can be hell, but it's an inalterable condition. Then there is the certainty that you're a failure - that you'd sooner be splitting atoms than trying to write a book. You can't imagine how you ever did it before or that you'll ever do it again, at least not successfully. So, I guess what I'm talking about here are the two demons that haunt me most -- loneliness and self-doubt.
All this aside, when asked why I chose to write for a living, I can only offer one honest answer: There's nothing in the world I'd rather do (or am very good at.)
Now for the flip side - what's the WORST thing about being a writer? The solitude can be hell, but it's an inalterable condition. Then there is the certainty that you're a failure - that you'd sooner be splitting atoms than trying to write a book. You can't imagine how you ever did it before or that you'll ever do it again, at least not successfully. So, I guess what I'm talking about here are the two demons that haunt me most -- loneliness and self-doubt.
All this aside, when asked why I chose to write for a living, I can only offer one honest answer: There's nothing in the world I'd rather do (or am very good at.)
Geoffrey Douglas
I have writer's block every day -- it's just a question of writing through it. If you have an idea or a feeling, and you want to write about it badly enough the first thing you do is just start writing - take your editor-self off your shoulder and stop caring about what comes out. The more effectively you do that, the easier it will become I promise you.
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