The biggest emotional challenge of being a writer is willing myself to do the writing.
If I don’t just do it, I can’t accomplish any goals.
So within that I guess there has to be depression, lack of motivation, anxiety, a feeling of being overwhelmed, a sort of paralysis arising out of choosing what to do next resulting with doing nothing.
Books About Writing that Help Me
Physical exercise and occasional meditation certainly relieves the anxiety. I don’t read encouraging books but reading books, especially in the genre I am trying to write in, help.
Reading books on how to write – some of them in particular – are very helpful. Stephen King’s, How Fiction Works by James Wood, and Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas have been particularly inspiring, enough so that I will read a few pages and then go write. Reading helps writing big time.
Music is more of a distraction than a coping mechanism. Exercise is perhaps the practice that is most consistently helpful, not just for writing but for just getting the motivation to get anything done. In this time of the pandemic, I find that some days, if I do not compel myself to exercise, sometimes I get very little done in an entire day.
Exercises That Help Keep Me Writing
If I said I had physical challenges, I would just be making an excuse. I was born December 26, 1940, so I’m going to have aches and pains, but I don’t have any physical reason not to write.
I just started Pilates, to go along with having a trainer once a week (FaceTime) and doing Zumba (online these days), walking, going to the gym downstairs (when no one else is there), stretching.
My diet most people think would be terrible. I eat red meat at least once a day, but healthy stuff too. I make pesto often and eat it with a spoon. I avoid gluten, sugar and other carbs by trying not to have them in my kitchen.
I Do Wonder Why I Keep Writing
I think the key to my creativity is paying attention to what I observe, which somehow is retained, and then something triggers the synaptic impulses that result in connections that I bring to the page. That’s first draft stuff.
I do wonder why I keep writing. I think, I’m not proud of this, that I have something to say or preserve that may be important and, I admit, I hope people will notice me.
The odd thing is that a lot of that is about my life and what I’ve observed. I think of myself as an under the radar person but I’ve been at important events and spend time with accomplished or famous people – Sort of like Forest Gump or Zelig – and I have had some amazing experiences.
Maybe that is what I should be writing about.
Book Marketing Events That Have Helped Increase Sales
My publicist, by scheduling readings and some interviews, and my publisher, helped me get a head start [on marketing].
Since then I have been getting book clubs to read my book, including a few prestigious ones, and I join them by Zoom on the day The Best People is discussed. Also, I love the interaction and have even been reacquainted with some people I haven’t seen for many years.
Being a Goodreads special of the day was clearly the most successful = 1,700 eBooks in one day. My publisher pulled that off. The most consistent one has been reminding people I know that I have a novel published.
It Took 23 Years to Turn My Novel Into a Real, Readable Novel
These days, life isn’t so busy. When I first started my novel, it took 23 years to turn it into a real readable good novel. I had primary responsibilities – work, being a parent, community service, etc. I worked on the book from time to time.
I got serious about it when I had fewer responsibilities and began using editors, taking classes and turning what was a good story into a pretty good novel.
Advice for a Young Writer: Expose Yourself to Experience
Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Take classes. Join writing groups. Listen listen, listen.
Your writing will come from your experiences blended into your imagination. The more exposure you have, the richer your treasure chest to draw from.
Jot down things you think you’ll never forget, because you will forget.
* * *
Marc Grossberg is an observer and a listener. He has a passion for his family, friends and clients, and for books that entertain and provoke him. He has practiced law in his native Houston for over fifty years. He has somehow overcome being a Board Certified tax lawyer and one of the Best Lawyers in America © to write The Best People.
Marc is a proud product of the Houston public schools, The University of Houston and The University of Texas School of Law. He lives in the NOW and goes wherever his “green light” tells him the intersection might be interesting.
He has three daughters and eight grandchildren who have been totally excited and supportive of his late-blooming life as an author. They’ve all been to at least one reading, some as many as seven.
For more information on Marc and his work, please see his website, or connect with him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or check out his article on the online magazine Tablet.
The Best People: Paddy Moran, a former cop from Brooklyn, is a newly licensed attorney in Houston with dreams and aspirations to make it big. He survives early rough bumps and ethical challenges. Then, through networking, he lands two high-profile clients. With his brash moxie and brilliant legal strategy, he gets outstanding outcomes that put him on the success trajectory to the upper echelons of the city’s divorce bar. But, faced with difficult choices in high-stakes litigation, will he balance his thirst for recognition and respect with his sense of right and wrong?
The Best People also follows Pilar Galt, a sensuous, intelligent single mother from the Houston barrios, for whom a temp assignment evolves into a relationship with the richest man in town. Her path intersects with Paddy’s and eventually converges during a pivotal time in her life when she must overcome self-destructive tendencies to survive.
A legal drama and social satire set after Enron and before the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, The Best People portrays a Houston as it is, a glitzy meritocracy populated with larger-than-life characters. It is the landscape where the country-club and café-society sets clash amidst clever legal maneuvering, big law firm politics, a Ponzi scheme and judicial corruption.
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, and anywhere books are sold.