At this year's 2003 RWA national conference in New York,
the Published Authors' Network's
(PAN's) keynote speaker was
Dennis Palumbo, a writer
whose work includes numerous
television shows, the feature
film My Favorite Year (for
which he was nominated for a
Writers Guild of America
award for Best Screenplay), novels,
articles, and more.
Dennis Palumbo is also a psychotherapist
specializing in creative issues, in
which capacity he's worked with new
and struggling writers as well as
successful screenwriters, novelists, TV
writers, journalists, from the unknown
to the famous. His recent book,
Writing from the Inside Out:
Transforming Your Psychological
Blocks to Release the Writer
Within (John Wiley and Sons),
identifies key problems and offers
approaches, for dealing with everything
from envy to burnout. Instead of
offering tricks and techniques to help
writers overcome perceived personal
defects, his book validates the belief
that who we are as writers-our
feelings, hopes, dreads, fears, fantasies-is
enough. In fact, not only enough, but a
wellspring for our creativity.
Many years ago, back in LA., I worked
with Dennis Palumbo on a television
sitcom. I was the script girl, he
was one of the staff writers.
That was twenty-five years ago,
and the next time I saw him was
when he gave the PAN keynote
address. At the time, I couldn't
help but wonder if he decided to
be a therapist after our
somewhat, well, challenging sitcom
experience, but in reading his bio I've
learned it was his years-long interest
in psychotherapy that evolved into
his second career choice. And, from
romance authors' feedback who
listened to his keynote and read his
book, a great choice that has been.
A few days after the conference, I
asked Dennis if I could follow up
with a brief interview on his talk and his book.
He graciously agreed. Those questions and
answers follow.
Q: During the question and answer
period after your keynote address,
several women asked how to balance
their being the primary person
responsible for care of the home and
raising children while also pursuing a
demanding professional writing career. One woman
said it's different for men with writing careers--they're
allowed to be primarily writers because it's a given
that their wives take care of the rest. For the writers
who didn't attend your keynote, could you summarize
your response?
A: Well, there is a difference for men and women,
in that men--regardless of the changes in
society--are still reinforced and socially-conditioned
to focus their primary energies on career. The
women writers in my practice complain about this
all the time...that they sometimes feel they have to
squeeze their writing in around their duties as
wife and mother. In my experience, the way to
achieve "balance"--whatever that means--is to
challenge yourself to take your work seriously,
and then to educate your family members about
it. Particularly because writing is such a solitary,
inwardly-directed job, a woman writer really has
to carve out a space for herself to work. Which
means she has to take it seriously. As novelist
John Gardner once said, "If you believe that what
you're doing isn't important, you're right."
Q: I read your article on the film
"Adaptation" (published in the LA
Times, January 12, 2003) and I
particularly liked your comment "For as
Charlie [the writer protagonist] comes
to learn, the only way out is to go
further in. Where the pain lives. And
the passion." This seems to dovetail with your advice
on "writers' interruptus" (when unforeseen events
take writers away from their writing). You suggest
that instead of aggravating over the event, use it to
fuel your creativity by writing about it. Please explain
further how taking the time to dig into our own pain
and passion can help an already interrupted,
sidetracked story, especially one that's on a critical
deadline? Isn't that wasting time?
A: Since the raw materials of a writer's life is her
interior world of feelings, it's never a waste of
time to explore this world. When I suggest using
whatever frustrations or other feelings you're
having by investing them back into the writing, I
mean using who you are right now as the
jumping-off point. Rather than saying to yourself, "I'll wait
until I feel better, calmer, more confident, etc.,
before I start writing," I'm advocating you take the
actual feelings you have now and work with them.
Yes, even when on deadline! If you're feeling stuck
and thwarted, find a character in your story who
feels that way and give him or her those feelings.
Either in scenes from your
narrative, or stand-alone scenes--in a
diner, or at a work place--wherein the character gets to
vent or act out these feelings of
yours. Maybe some of what
emerges will work its way back into your story,
maybe not, but at the very least you've moved
past your block and are writing. In the end, I
think writers are better off writing their way out
of problems, than sitting and ruminating about
them....or, worse still, waiting till they "feel
better."
Q: In your book, Writing from
the Inside Out, you discuss how
important the "buddy system" can be
for writers. Could you elaborate on this?
A: Everybody needs a buddy. When
you're a kid, you hold hands with a buddy to cross
the street. You learn to scuba-dive with a buddy.
As a writer, you need a buddy, too--that one
person you trust who really gets you, is
supportive of your goals, who'll listen when you need to
moan and complain. That one person you can call
at some ungodly hour because you think you're a
fraud and a lousy writer and nobody loves you,
and who can get you back up on your feet again.
Usually, this buddy is another writer. Not always,
but I find that only another writer truly
understands the particular perils and joys of a writing life.
Q: A romance author asks, "How do you distinguish
between taking a rest and trying to figure out what you
should be writing, and when you're just running
scared?"
A: Hard to say. I'd guess that if the
"rest" is going on too long, you might
start getting suspicious. Plus, as I said
earlier, I think writers "figure things
out" best by writing, not by
ruminating or doing more research. Even
writing out your concerns about the story or a
character arc, then writing possible answers to
yourself, keeps the process in motion. Writing is
ultimately a dialogue between yourself and that
which is being written, and this dialogue is best
enhanced and enriched by the very act of crafting
sentences, reading these sentences, and writing
more sentences. Pretty low-brow, but there it is.
Q: Another romance writer question: "How much do
you have to 'give up' of yourself to be a writer? Why
does compromise as a creative person sometimes
mean being a doormat?"
A: I'm not sure exactly what
these two questions mean, in
tandem, but it sounds like the
overall question is about the
compromises a creative
person has to make to publish her work in a
commercial marketplace. This is an eons-old question for
artists, and not one about which I possess any
particular wisdom. For one thing, if a writer uses a
term like "doormat" to describe herself, I think
that has as much to do with her own issues-self-
esteem, etc.-than anything required by the
marketplace. However, all successful writing must be
entertaining, and must fit the requirements of the
publisher. Equally true, though, is that what
constitutes "entertaining" changes with the times...as do
the requirements of the publisher. For every
writer I know, maintaining a personal vision within
the context of what publishers are looking for is an
ever-present dilemma. As a writer, it's important
to fight for what's really important to you. It's also
a smart idea to pick these fights carefully.
Q: You've written that writer's block isn't an impasse,
but a good sign. That the block
represents the psychological tension
within the writer. Without going into
therapy, can writers use this
understanding to help them through writer's block?
A: I talk extensively about writer's block in my
book, and don't have the time in this context to get
into all of my thinking about it. But, simply put, I
think of writing blocks as necessary and inevitable
steps along a writer's developmental path--similar
to the developmental steps we go through as we
transition from infancy through childhood through
adolescence to adulthood. Each developmental step
is fraught with terrors and potential risks...and
navigating these problems is necessary to move
through each one.
From my perspective, a writer's block signifies the
tension the writer feels as she is facing the next
upward step in her writing...a growth spurt in craft, or
daring, or personal relevancy. A challenge to dig
deeper, risk more, discard the tried-and-true.
Whatever. What supports this view, I think, is that
after a writer has successfully negotiated the block,
she feels she's a better writer...wiser, more mature,
owning a deeper level of craft and self-awareness.
Plus the growing conviction that when the next
block appears--and it will--she'll be better able to
deal with it.
Q: Thank you, Dennis, for your time.
A: My pleasure.
Colleen Collins's current releases are Too
Close for Comfort (Harlequin Temptation,
August 2003) and Let It Bree and Can't Buy
Me Louie (two-in-one Harlequin Duets,
September 2003). To read more about her books and
enter her contests, go to colleencollins.net.
Reprinted from PikeSpeak, August 2003, the monthly newsletter of the Pikes Peak Writers (a chapter of Romance Writers of America).
Dennis Palumbo from the Inside Out