A LITTLE ABOUT HOW WE GOT INTO WRITING INSTEAD OF A STEADY, PROFITABLE PROFESSION LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE
One of the most commonly asked questions over the years has been about how you get your thoughts and ideas published. Things have changed a lot in the publishing business since our first book came out and even more so since the first article appeared with Jerry’s byline but some things will always remain the same. You’ve got to first sell the sizzle before the steak. Then, that steak had better be pretty damn good.
Jerry was born wanting to write, learning his way around a typewriter at the age of ten and honing his skills at typing with two fingers. He wrote adventure themed short stories in High School, much to the chagrin of his creative writing teacher. In his Latin class he and a friend wrote and performed a one act play based on the characters from the MAN FROM UNCLE series – in Latin. His favorite character was a secret agent named Charles Rivers who, just like Jerry, was cool, debonair and a hit with all the ladies. Unfortunately, Jerry would write a fantastically good action scene where the hero was in a seemingly inescapable situation and then Jerry couldn’t come up with a feasible way for the hero to make his escape. Charles Rivers is still dangling from an elevator cable inside a burning building with a beautiful damsel in distress desperately clinging to his belt -- since 1966.
One of the many part time jobs Jerry had in the 60s and 70s was stringing for a local newspaper. He did feature articles, interviewing people in the health care field, preschool education and local industry. When he couldn’t make an interview fit in with his schedule I did the interview and wrote it under his byline. There was very little money in it but we met some interesting people and learned to ask the right questions and to listen to the answers and then document those answers accurately.
Always a firearms enthusiast, Jerry learned of a job opening at Guns Magazine which at that time was located in Skokie, Illinois. He talked himself into an associate editor’s gig for both Guns and its sister publication Shooting Industry. He learned what it took to put a magazine together from photo selection to editing and spacing and the importance of deadlines. Jerry also learned how to take an article and make it the best it could be. I, working in a public relations department, learned how to put together a small newspaper, complete with cutting and pasting and setting up the pages and taking them to the typesetters. We both learned a lot that, thanks to modern computers, is obsolete today but was the only way then. Am I sounding old?
I’ve mentioned before that Jerry wrote under various pseudonyms in those days as editing for one magazine and writing for others in the same field was not necessarily smiled upon. As long as we got published and the magazine knew the correct name and address to send the check to we were happy. We primarily stayed in the field we were familiar with but started branching out into more diverse magazines and article ideas. By getting out of our “comfort zone” we had to deal with editors who were not impressed with Jerry’s firearms knowledge or with any of the magazines he had up to then written for. We were able to impress one editor with Jerry’s knowledge of adventure themed television shows and turned out an article on guns used by tv heroes such as The Rifleman and Paladin. It was a very popular article for the magazine and we were able to do another piece on cars that were associated with shows. Those two articles were very lucrative and taught us a valuable lesson in finding out what a magazine might like that they hadn’t even thought of and how to sell the idea to them.
Fiction was still the direction Jerry wanted to go with his writing but the money from articles was always appreciated and the writing credits were priceless. We learned that we could stay in vertical interest genres or branch out into the more mainstream magazines. By taking baby steps out of the pond and into the ocean we started building relationships with editors who worked at more conventional magazines. With bigger circulations and better pay for articles came more pressure to try and give more than 100% since we were also being challenged by additional competition. When that competition couldn’t meet their deadline, we would be waiting in the wings ready to go on. That magazine had an empty spot to fill and we were going to fill it.
We all have somewhat different stories to tell about breaking into writing but most authors will agree that it takes thick skin for when the rejections comes your way, perseverance to try again and hard work coupled with some imaginative strategies for your next move up. Add to the list a love of words and a story to tell and you are ready. Oh, and don’t be too anxious to quit the day job!
Tell us what got you started writing.
Sharon