|
Craig Faustus Buck |
|
The Eighteen Questions |
|
18Q |
|
MINISERIES AND MOVIES FOR TELEVISION |
|
Bibliography |
|
Nominate us as a Writer’s Digest 101 Best Web Site.
Email: writersdig@fwpubs.com with as the subject. |
|
The Eighteen Questions and 18Q are trademarks of Fabulist Flash Publishing.
This website, The Eighteen Questions, and 18Q are part of
The Fabulist Flash Publishing Family |
|
Craig’s 18Q |
|
URL |
|
1. Did you choose the writing profession or did it choose you? It chose me. I always enjoyed writing, and language -- especially grammar correction -- was a hot topic of discussion at my childhood dinner table. But it wasn't until I blundered onto a journalistic scoop and saw an opportunity to get it published that I was bitten by the ink bug.
I grew up in L.A., a middle-class hippy who managed to get good grades with a minimal effort. Went to college because I thought it was a mandatory requirement for adulthood. I'm glad I did, but wish I'd taken better advantage of the opportunity. I finished at Antioch College, now defunct. I started writing right out of college and never really did anything else, with the possible exception of a seven-year interruption to create and run an Internet company.
I never knew I wasn't a writer. I still don't know that I am.
I've been described by a nonfiction book editor I worked with as a stylist. 'Nuff said.
I try to find time between extensive procrastinations to focus on a project. I love working on more than one project simultaneously because that gives me another excuse to waste time by trying to decide which one to work on at any given moment. My favorite way to work is to sit down for extended session, from five to ten hours at a throw, with a few ten-minute meal breaks thrown in, and really dig in. But those opportunities are usually unavailable due to family obligations, household chores, and the aforementioned procrastination.
Query, query, query. I established a portfolio of newspaper and magazine clippings, which made it easier to get more magazine gigs. Then I answered some editorial want ads and got hired to work on some nonfiction projects. I repeatedly found that by accepting a copy editing job, I would end up co-editing or ghost-writing the book, so I was indiscriminate. One of the authors who hired me at this time was approached to co-author a nonfiction book with a psychologist and when he heard how meager the advance was, he turned it over to me. That was my first of four pop-psychology books, one of which was a #1 NYT bestseller.
I don't have any. That's why you've never heard of me. Given my choice, I think I'd like to kill myself in some sort of glamorous public display on live global television, then come back to life unscarred and be swept onto the lecture and late-night talk show circuit just as my first book comes out.
Being published. Being produced. Being hired on staff.
Aside from whiskey? More seriously, I'm of the Edison school of inspiration: "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." That's why I like long working sessions. They make me seem like a better writer.
There's no one moment. It happens everytime I stumble upon an unexpected solution to a story problem.
Avoid adverbs and don't let your wife read rough drafts.
I can't repeat it in public.
Getting old and decrepit, which, in TV, that happens at forty.
Keep writing no matter what, but don't starve.
Sleep and eat. Who writes these straight lines?
I devour books in my genre (currently mystery), with occasional departures to spice things up. Lately I've been enjoying Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Mark Haskell Smith, Lynn Hightower and Markus Zusak.
Don't take advice from anyone. Do take advice from everyone. Books about writing are fine to remind you that you need to focus on stakes or conflict or voice or whatever, but no one has a monopoly on truth in this business because everyone is different. It's the difference both between and among us that gives us unique voices. So cherry pick your advice and remember that what may be precious wisdom this week could be next week's dogshit.
I'm currently working on two projects: |
