Commitment to the Creative Life

True mastery requires 10,000 hours of consistent effort.

As a psychotherapist, one of the themes that often emerges in my work with patients is commitment. In dealing with relationship issues, for example, the depth of a commitment is tested by fears about the future, questions about trust and fidelity, and concerns about the tension between dependence and independence.

Likewise, patients with children struggle daily with the commitment to the rigors of parenthood: the emotional and financial responsibilities, the sharp changes in life-style, the balancing of one's needs with those of one's child.

For my creative patients, this same level of commitment is required. I believe the relationship a writer, director or actor has with his or her work is analogous to that of any committed relationship, with the same joys and frustrations, pleasures and demands. And, like all relationships, a commitment to one's creative endeavors needs to be nurtured, tended.

What does a commitment to your creative self entail? The same things as a commitment to a mate, a partner, or a child. The following come to mind:

Constancy. You've got to be in it for the long haul. You're not going anywhere. If you're a screenwriter, you'll be at the keyboard tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. If you're an actor, you'll be auditioning, taking classes, constantly building your of craft. This same level of commitment is necessary for directors, composers, designers. As Malcolm Gladwell reported in his recent book Outliers, true mastery requires 10,000 hours of consistent effort.

Resilience. Things aren't always going to go well. There'll be good days and bad ones, great creative experiences and awful ones. The test of any committed relationship is your willingness to accept (and endure) the up's and down's, the disappointments as well as the triumphs. A commitment to the creative life has the same requirement.

Fluidity. "The best laid plans," etc., etc. If something isn't working, you try something else. A long-term commitment to anything requires the ability to learn from mistakes, and to give up cherished notions about the way things "should" be. So too a creative person committed to
his or her craft is both its student and master, learning from wrong turns and stale ideas, trying new approaches; coaxing the work along, yet at the same time following where it leads. This keeps the endeavor fresh, alive, even dangerous sometimes. Which, for someone pursuing a career in Hollywood, is both exciting and nerve-wracking. (The parallels to marriage and parenting are self-explanatory!)

Openness to surprise. A corrolary to fluidity, this aspect of commitment challenges us to be open to surprises: if you're a writer, a sudden twist to a script you've been working on; if you're an actor, an unexpected nuance to a character you thought you "knew." As one of my film director patients described it, it's "Doing all the prep and then waiting for the surprises." (Or, in famed cellist Pablo Casals' words, "Learn the notes and forget about ‘em.") For the real artist, this involves a willingness to welcome a dark, dangerous or comic notion that seems to come to us like a devil's whisper, urging us to pursue it.

An openness to surprise reminds us why we made the commitment in the first place--because the task of creating something from nothing acts upon us as much as we upon it, and the surprise of our own humor, rage, eros and empathy thrills us, fulfills us. A composer friend of mine once said, "We create so that we won't die." An openness to surprise keeps our commitment to the creative act alive.

Patience. A crucial element of commitment. The waiting, with or even without expectation, for the next moment to arrive. Hopeful, watchful, the testing of faith in ourselves and that to which we're committed. A trait as valuable as a good work ethic, an artist's patience is aided by curiosity about what's coming next, and a conviction that it will probably be worth the wait. Because the real test of an artist's commitment is that he or she would rather be there, waiting, working, fretting, than anywhere else.

(On a personal note, this journey of waiting, working and fretting more or less describes the writing, re-writing, and then, ultimately, publication of my first crime novel, Mirror Image. Creating a mystery series character had been a life-long dream of mine, and though at times it seemed as though my protagonist, psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi, would never make it into print, my patience finally paid off. Not because I'm that patient by nature, I assure you. But rather because the writing of that novel was itself an experience I treasured, even when unsure about the eventual outcome of the project.)

Which brings me, finally, to love. The foundation of commitment. Having the faith, endurance or just plain stubborness to stay committed against all odds is meaningless without love. An artist who doesn't love his or her art can't make a real commitment to it; all the struggles, the blocks, the high's and low's, become merely a test of one's will, or ego.

Without love, one can perhaps survive the creative life--maybe even garner some success in the marketplace--but what you're committed to lies elsewhere. Without love, the true joy of creation--that mysterious kinship with your craft, that transcendance of yourself whenever what you've created has literally captured your heart--is rarely felt.

A commitment to the creative life, in the end, means that you accept, with as much grace as you can muster on any given day, its myriad demands and delights, failures and triumphs. Of course, like in any committed relationship, sometimes it seems like you're doing all the giving.

But then, when you least expect it, it gives something back, and you remember again why you love it, its meaning in your life. And, over and above this, you have the sublime experience of allegiance to something other than, and perhaps greater than, yourself.

 

Create Now, Critique Later

How to balance perspective with creative passions

When addressing the life of the creative person in Hollywood—a writer, actor, director, etc.—I often stress the wisdom in taking the “long view” regarding one’s career. In other words, to remember that the ups and downs will smooth out over the years, and that a consistent, long-term commitment to artistic growth and the development of craft is what provides the ultimate satisfaction. However, in another recent column, I also suggested that real creativity only occurs in the here-and-now.

I want to explore this seeming paradox, particularly in light of a therapy session I had recently with a screenwriter patient. She was about a third of the way through a new spec screenplay, one which represented a huge leap in terms of scope and content, and she was in the throes of powerful feelings of doubt and confusion. Would all the elements of plot, character and theme come together successfully? Did she have the talent, stamina and craft to keep at it, when the end was so many months away? What if the whole thing collapsed, half-finished, a painful and fruitless waste of months of work?

“If only I could step back from all of it,” she said. “Get some perspective.”

“You will be able to have perspective,” I said. “When the script is finished. You can see the thing as a whole.”

“Yeah, but I want that perspective now.” She gave me a wry smile, but I knew she was only half-kidding.

As we struggled with her conflicts about the script, I kept thinking of something Kierkegaard said: “Life can only be understood backwards; unfortunately, we have to live it forward.” What he meant is that, in hindsight, the choices and events in our life probably form a recognizable pattern, or possess a kind of thematic logic. But embedded as we are in our moment-to-moment daily life, we haven’t the perspective to fully grasp the implications of decisions, behaviors and events we take part in.

I realized that this was the dilemma for my patient. Embedded in the daily struggle to make this scene work, that character come to life—to create the hoped-for mood and tone as the pages of the screenplay flowed together—she was forced to stay in the here-and-now. The more she took creative risks, the more she mined her own feelings and experiences to give meaning and weight to her characters and scenes, the more fully in the world of the script she dwelt. In other words, she couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

The hell of it is, good writing is only about the trees, not the forest. You’re planting your trees, one at a time, day after day—until, after many weeks or months, you get to stand back and look it over as a whole and say, “So this is what the forest looks like. I’ll be damned.”

The plain fact is, the more fully engaged with your creative process, the less perspective you can have. “The eye cannot see itself,” as the Buddhists say. Now here’s why I think that’s a good thing.

As my patient and I investigated her concerns about the script, it became clear that the perspective she desired was in fact a yearning for control. Her screenplay—which, after all, she was writing on spec—represented a real creative and financial risk. Elements of the story were autobiographical, and intensely painful, and were played out against a large and colorful canvas, spanning decades.

The difficulty of the task daunted her, and exposed her to painful feelings of inadequacy. Even more shaming was the notion that attempting to write a film like this revealed the depth of her pride and grandiosity, traits that were particularly frowned upon in her immediate family.

Given such a set of concerns and associations, who wouldn’t want to have control over the writing? To be absolutely certain that the script was working, the writing was going well, that the finished product would be a critical and financial success. In short, that the end result would justify the pains of its creation.

As my patient worked her way toward this understanding, she saw the inherent contradiction in what she yearned for. If she was going to risk writing the screenplay, which meant living daily with her doubts and fears about it, she’d have to give up the idea of “perspective.” Which, in this case, meant control over the outcome.

“But only in the heat of the writing,” I reminded her. “There does come a time when it’s necessary and appropriate to take perspective, and that’s when the first draft is done. Remember, writing may occur in the here-and-now, but editing takes place in the there-and-then.”

“I know,” she said. “Thank God.”

By session’s end, she was ready to go home and risk planting another tree. For the truly committed creative artist, in Hollywood or elsewhere, that’s as good as it gets.

How to Survive Rejection

At some point early on in a Hollywood career--whether an actor, writer or director--a person has to come to terms with rejection. I ought to know.  Prior to becoming a licensed psychotherapist, I spent 17 years as a screenwriter. Now, in addition to my private practice, I write novels and columns like this, so I certainly have a very clear view of rejection--I hate it.

Occasionally I'll read about some creative type who's apparently so well-adjusted that he sees having his work rejected as just another event, one bead on a long string of similar beads; in other words, the rejection has no more (nor less) meaning than having his work accepted.

I confess, I can only stand back and admire such creatures. And wonder what planet they come from.

Because frankly, when I toiled in the screenwriting vineyards, I wanted people not only to accept what I wrote, but like it. A lot. Hell, I wanted them to love it. (Even while acknowledging the well-known truism that, at a certain level, they could never love it enough...)

On the other hand, having my work rejected was cause for anguish of near-Biblical proportions--the familiar gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, etc. On one such occasion, a friend of mine looked at me and said, somewhat testily, "For God's sake, don't take it personally."

"How should I take it?" I replied. "Impersonally?"

That, in a nutshell, is the paradox of rejection. It isn't intended as personal, but it's impossible not to experience it that way.

Let me give you an example. Years ago, as part of the writing staff on a popular sitcom, I joined the producers in a casting session, auditioning actresses for a guest shot on the show. After seeing about a dozen young women read, we chose one. Later, on my way out of the building, I happened to overhear a couple of the others walking away, dejected.

"I should have dressed differently," one of them said. "My agent's right, I don't dress sexy enough. Next time, I gotta show ‘em the goods."

"I over-played that last part of the scene," said another. "I went for the laugh. I should've played the real emotions she was feeling."

Of course, I'd heard similar laments from actors and actresses before. "If only I'd done this, or that..." "If only I were thinner, prettier..." "If only, if only..."

What made it even more ironic in this case was the fact that we'd cast this particular actress because it was getting close to lunch-time and we were all hungry. As it turned out, all the actresses had been attractive and competent, so we just picked the next one who wasn't taller than the show's star and made tracks for the studio commissary.

Our agenda--in this case, hunger--could never have been known or predicted or prepared for by the other women auditioning.

The same is true for TV and film writers. In my experience, not only is it a mystery why certain good TV pilots or spec screenplays get rejected; often it's a total mystery why they get accepted. I don't have a writer patient who hasn't been perplexed when something he or she considers a lesser work is bought, while something they feel represents their best work is consistently rejected.

As my anecdote about the audition demonstrates, the agenda of the marketplace--the sometimes incomprehensible, ever-changing, and often-maddening needs of studios, networks, producers and agents--is out of your control. And not about you.

Therefore, their rejection--of your spec script, your audition, your short film--is not some injury personally directed at you. However, as I said before, your experience of the rejection is personal. In fact, it can't be anything else.

So let yourself be angry, frustrated, even grief-stricken--after all, as a somewhat kinder friend of mine once remarked, when a painful thing happens, a period of mourning is appropriate.

But now the good news: Since you can't know (or control) the outcome of any story pitch, audition or spec script, you're free to just do your work. Rather than shaping your creative endeavors to please others, or in some effort to latch on to or anticipate the next trend, your best bet is to do what excites and moves you, to make your creative growth the ultimate goal.

In other words, as I wrote in a previous column, "Keep giving them you, until you is what they want."

Which means, stay true to yourself, and keep giving the marketplace your best until it takes it.

Remember, too, that rejection comes and goes, but so does acceptance. For any artist, over the long haul, it's mastery of your craft, wedded to the sheer love of doing it, that sustains.

And, finally, though the powers-that-be can accept or reject your work, you can do something they can't: create.

The plain fact is, you are the sun, and the industry is the moon. It only shines by reflected light.

Gut Check: Living the Writer's Life by Dennis Palumbo

 
Okay, here's the good news, at least from my perspective: my third crime novel, Night Terrors, has just been published by Poisoned Pen Press. It has fine reviews, a promising start on sales, and -- thanks to the publisher's art department -- an extremely cool cover.

So much for the good stuff.

But there's another side to the book's publication. As some of you may know, after a career as a screenwriter (My Favorite Year, Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), I became a licensed psychotherapist specializing in creative issues. For over twenty years now I've counseled writers through the turmoil of early drafts, the terrors of manuscript submission, the perils of publication. I've helped them struggle with writer's block, procrastination and fear. I've consoled them in the face of an agent's neglect, a publisher's rejection, an editor's disrespect and an industry's indifference.

I mean, let's face it: I know the drill.

So how has it been for me, now just another author with a product hitting the marketplace? If anyone should be able to handle the expected pragmatic and emotional challenges, it's me. Right?

Guess again. In the months leading up to my new novel's release, I have (in no particular order) obsessed about the book's title, fantasized one minute about getting on the best-seller's list and then in the next was absolutely convinced that no one would buy it at all, yearned for my agent to be completely devoted to my personal and professional well-being to the exclusion of all else in his life, already mentally answered potential bad reviews with pithy, scathing rejoinders, and felt unloved and unappreciated when a friend even looked like he was anything less than totally thrilled or profoundly moved at the thought of my novel coming out.

Believe me, I could go on, but space doesn't permit. The point is, despite the knowledge and insight gained from long-time careers as both a writer and a therapist, I found myself wrestling with the same dilemmas as every other author.

Why? Because, like it or not, if you're a writer, there's no escaping the writer's life.

As I've learned with the publication of this new novel, when it comes to the feelings, obsessions and just plain worries that accompany any writer's efforts, there's no "Get out of jail free" card. Even when, like me, you've already published a novel previously, as well as a collection of mystery short stories, and even a nonfiction book about -- what else? -- how to deal with the up's and down's of the writer's life!

Which means that regardless of career experience, advancing age and sizeable amounts of therapy, there's no "cure" for the writer's life. As soon as a writer commits to the writing of a thing, he or she embarks on a journey through both an external world of crises and triumphs, and an internal world of feelings and belief systems.

And this is true for all writers, no matter their level of success, no matter how large and loyal their readership. After many years in the literary trenches, on both sides of the battlefield, I can posit with great assurance two simple facts: first, that all successful writers used to be struggling writers; and, second, that the successful ones still struggle. This is not merely philosophical ruminating on my part. As my recent experience with Mirror Image attests, this is the straight dope. One of those hard truths of the creative life. Bedrock.

On the other hand, I've negotiated the psychological rigors of publication about as well as can be expected. As both writer and therapist, I've learned -- and changed -- a lot over the years, and it's definitely made a difference.

The biggest change? Probably this: In many ways, I'm as neurotic and insecure as I ever was. I just don't hassle myself about it anymore. And although that might not be a cure, it's the next best thing.

For Writers, Patience is Still a Virtue

I remember, as a kid, an embroidered sampler my aunt had on her living room wall. It read, "Lord, grant me patience---but hurry!"

I think of this saying often, especially when working in therapy with my writer patients. Not surprising. After all, commercial writing---books, magazines, TV and film---is a present-tense industry. In recent years, its motto has shifted from "What have you done lately?" to "What's next---and make it fast, line two is blinking."

Then there's the pressure, particularly for journalists, of blogging, filing stories as much as five times a day, constantly updating one's Facebook page, Twitters and website. This is not an atmosphere that cultivates patience.

(And not just for professional writers. In such a media-saturated climate of urgency, it's no wonder that Americans, to a great extent, have become impatient with the government's response to our critical economic issues.)

As a result of this current frenzy for speed, for quick results, patience---with oneself, one's work, and, more importantly, one's way of working---is a somewhat devalued commodity. Particularly among those who ought to know better---writers themselves.

Nowadays, few writers are advised to cultivate patience. There's a lot of pressure to just write, to get it out there, to strive mightily to come up with the next high concept ("You got anything like Iron Man?" "We're looking for another Harry Potter-type book." "How about a police procedural show on Mars?"). We live in a competitive, consumerist culture, and there's tremendous urgency to perform.

A virtue like patience---sort of in the same homey, humble category as gumption---can get lost in the manic rush to produce material.

It seems too that the word patience has lost some of its calming assurance, its reference to longevity, endurance, and the slow growth of technical skill. Rather than thinking of it as the quality that enables a writer to explore his or her material, growing more competent by small, even measures, patience has taken on the attributes of a necessary evil. When a writer who's struggling in his career or with his creative process tells me, through clenched teeth, that he knows he "needs more patience," what he's referring to is an arms-folded, foot-tapping-nervously-on-the-floor kind of impatience, waiting for things to get better.

When seen in this way, having patience becomes the sorry equivalent of having to eat your spinach: it's supposed to be good for you---it's a damned virtue, isn't it?---but nobody really likes it.

Patience, then, rather than having a calming, nurturing function, becomes strained, a tortured version of "waiting your turn" until you, too, make it as a writer.

Stephen Levine, a well-regarded meditation teacher, once described the cause of suffering as, simply, "wanting things to be otherwise." I think this is the key to understanding the value of patience for a writer. If a writer thinks she is being patient by, symbolically, gritting her teeth and waiting for "things to be otherwise," then she will in fact only add to her suffering.

Believe me, I understand the temptation to envision patience in this self-defeating manner, given the competitive environment writers of all stripes find themselves in now. Write more, write faster, write funnier, write bigger---these are the admonitions writers hear every day. So I'm probably in the minority when I suggest that writers rethink the concept of patience, not as a virtue one has to swallow, like the aforementioned spinach, but as a qualitative state of mind to be nurtured---for its own sake---in oneself.

Writers, like everyone else in contemporary life, seem in a great rush to "get somewhere." But without truly staying "where you are"---without being with your thoughts, feelings and impulses, and really inhabiting them---what is there about you that can emerge to inform your writing? Getting somewhere is meaningless if the writing that results leaves your authentic self behind.

In the film Chariots of Fire, someone says, regarding Eric Liddle's refusal to race on the Sabbath, that the boy's faith needs to be honored; that the Olympics officials made a mistake when they "sought to sever his running from himself." In the same way, you can't separate the writer from the writing. And you can't know yourself---you the person, you the writer---without patience. Patience encourages and underscores the notion that your career is not only a life-long pursuit, but a daily connection to your experience of living it.

Moreover, patience builds faith in one's craft, because craft results only from the slow accumulation of skill---that is, from the mistakes, the breakthroughs, the false starts, the two-steps-forward-one-step-back rhythm that is the writing life. The cultivation of patience---not as a "waiting for things to change," but as a state in and of itself---leads to awareness and self-acceptance, necessary components of artistic command.

Rather than being in a hurry to get somewhere, writers are better served by exploring more fully where they are now---and that requires patience.

In other words, if I were making a sampler to hang on the wall, mine would read, "Lord, grant me patience---and take Your time about it."

Deadline Dread

Is a writing deadline friend or foe?

Someone once said, "The problem with being a writer is that it's like always having homework due."

Which is as good a starting point as any for a discussion of deadlines, a fact of life in every Hollywood writer's existence. Whether a screenwriter on assignment, a member of a TV series' writing staff, or a struggling writer who's promised his or her agent a terrific new spec pilot, everyone's faced a deadline at some point.

But not every writer views a deadline in the same way. Like most "facts of life," this aspect of writing holds a different meaning for different people. And most of these meanings were formed years ago, embedded in a writer's childhood experiences concerning ideas of expectation and performance.

For many of my creative patients, a deadline is viewed with dread—the same pressure to "deliver the goods" that they experienced in school when homework was due. Or a big final exam was to be given. Or some try-out in team sports. The same fears of failure, the same concern that they would somehow fall short of their own and others' expectations.
 
For some, then and now, a deadline represents the date at which their long-held belief in their own inadequacy and unworthiness is finally confirmed. For these writers, the approaching deadline is like the ticking clock in High Noon, the oncoming asteroid in Armageddon, the hairpin curve up ahead on the tracks in Unstoppable. In short, not a good thing.

We're all familiar with this "deadline dread," and the stereotypical way that most writers cope: namely, procrastination—which can take the form of household chores, distracting social activities, or just anxious fretting. Experienced procrastinators can spend hours "researching" on the Internet, or re-writing again and again the stuff they've managed to produce so far.

The point is, the dread is the same: the potential danger of shaming self-exposure. The fear that once written and handed in, the finished product exposes us as inadequate, untalented or unentitled.

On the other hand, there's a smaller group among my patients for whom a deadline, despite its attendant anxiety, is an absolute must. These writers feel they need the prod of a deadline, or else they'd never finish the work (or even start it!).

While this may seem an acceptable state of affairs, I think it's a good idea to investigate a bit further. Often, there's a kind of "negative reinforcement" in this line of thinking, the meaning being that the writer feels him—or herself to be a lazy, unmotivated slacker who needs to be whipped into compliant productivity by the authority of an imposed deadline.

As one patient of mine, a veteran screenwriter, confessed, "Without a deadline to meet, I'd go all to hell... I mean, I'd just screw around, not accomplishing anything..."

A noted TV sitcom writer in my practice put it this way: "Deadlines just put a big gun to my head... if I don't get the damned thing in on time, BANG!..."

There's a pleasant way to spend the next 20 or 30 years of one's life!

Regardless of how you view deadlines, they offer an opportunity to explore and maybe temper the self-critical, self-shaming ways you might be viewing yourself. When the next deadline for a writing project looms, take some time to investigate your feelings about it. Look under the almost automatic response of anxiety and dread to see what kind of message you're sending yourself.

For example, do you feel the same way with every deadline, or does it change depending on the type of project, the person you're delivering it to, your perceived (or their explicit) level of expectation? How are these ways of experiencing deadlines similar to the ways you felt as a child in your family, a student at school? Whose authority and judgment evoked these feelings the most? Do you experience your project's potential reader—the producer, agent, studio exec, etc.—in some similar way?

By exploring and illuminating these issues, writers can sometimes get the perspective needed to ease the grip that "deadline dread" has on them. Moreover, they can develop coping strategies based on these understandings.

For instance, if you use deadlines as a motivator, but suffer anxiety, you can gain some measure of control by setting a series of private, personal deadlines for yourself—points at which you not only see where you are on the project but also take some time to assess your feelings about it, identify various creative and emotional concerns, and re-group. In other words, become your own authority regarding your writing process, instead of merely being vulnerable to that imposed from outside.

Let's face it. As long as there are TV and film writers—and, hopefully, writing assignments—there'll be deadlines. How we deal with them, how we weave them into the fabric of our working lives, is up to us.

In fact, as I once suggested to a writer/director patient, "You could keep a journal about it... maybe jot down the issues you think deadlines evoke for you..."

"Can I bring it in to show you?" he asked.

"Sure. Our next session, if you'd like."

"Great." He grinned. "A deadline."

Going the Distance

In the early 60's, there was a hot art-house movie called The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. I think of this film sometimes when trying to help my writer patients working on long-form projects---novels, plays, screenplays, etc. The running analogy is a good one, because long-form writing is like running a marathon: it requires endurance, patience, a deep reserve of will power and commitment, and an almost Herculean ability to delay gratification.

(To continue the analogy, other kinds of writing might be likened to sprints---short stories, sitcoms, poems, etc. Sprints require a burst of speed and power, the knock-out punch of a single idea or concept, and a quick build to an explosive finish.)

Where the long-form writer gets in trouble is in believing that he or she can maintain over the length of the project the same vigor and intensity that's brought to a shorter piece. Hence, when the work slows, or gets bogged down in exposition, or drifts off on tangents, the writer panics. His or her confidence flags. Enthusiasm drains away. The unfinished novel or screenplay is, metaphorically speaking, "put away in a drawer," often never to be brought out again.

To avoid this, here are some suggestions to help you "keep on keeping on" during those long, painful stretches that plague anyone writing a big project:

**Pace yourself. As I said, it's a marathon, not a sprint. 16-hour days at the keyboard, living on pizza and Red Bull, may get you through a short piece or re-write that's on deadline, but for a novel or screenplay it's deadly. Hard on your family, your vital organs, and your outlook on life.

**Expect slow spots, things that don't work, and reverses. Long-form story-telling has its own rhythm, in the reading as well as the writing. The reader needs to take a breath, be reminded of plot points, given a break from unending action and/or revelation. This is true for novels as different as The Corrections and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, for screenplays as disperate as The Bourne Identity and As Good As It Gets.

This same rhythm is true for you, the writer. Like any extended trip, the journey through a novel or screenplay involves wrong turns, pleasant surprises off the beaten path, some down time to remind yourself why you're even taking this route---even return visits to places and events to see what further gold can be mined from them. Just keep reminding yourself that you're in this for the long haul, that there'll be good days and bad, pitfalls and peaks of inspiration, and then get on with it.

**Take side-trips. Stop occasionally to write a short piece---an article or essay, an email to the local Op-Ed section, a blog, etc. This gives your long-form muscles some much-needed R & R, and helps flex those short-form ones. Just because you're running a marathon doesn't mean you want to forget how to sprint.

**Don't rush the ending (just to get the damned thing finished). A hard temptation to resist, but you've got to try. There's no sense laboring over a piece for months, or even years, getting the narrative, characters and tone just right, only to rush the thing to its climax because you're so relieved to finally see the end approaching. Let the reader---and you, too---enjoy the fruits of your labor; give yourself the luxury of bringing the same effort and care to making the most out of the conclusion. Do justice
to your characters, your story---and to yourself.

**Finally, when the project is done, expect some post-partum blues. You've lived in the world of your novel, play or screenplay so long, it's familiar, the known. Despite its myriad problems and headaches, it's what you've called home for a long time. Believe me, after bitching about it the whole time you've been writing it, when it's finally finished...you'll miss it.

Which is why, as hard as it is to write a long-form piece, as vehemently as you swear that you'll never do it again, pretty soon you'll start thinking about a new one.

It's like the end of a long, painful relationship. You swear to anyone who'll listen that you'll never fall in love again. You don't want the grief, the false hopes, all the drama. Then, one day, you see someone in a bookstore, or at a party, and you say, "Hmmmm..."

It's kinda like that.

Dennis Palumbo Talks To “Written By”

The Writer Behind the Writer’s Life

Writers seek out Dennis Palumbo. Extravagantly successful writers. Down-and-out writers. Wanna-bees. All economic levels and ages and genders hajj to his Sherman Oaks office. They come for many reasons–writer’s block, overnight fame and fortune, anonymity, deadline dread–but ultimately they’re seeking the same objective: to release the writer within.

That’s why one of Palumbo’s books is titled Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). Partially a collection of his Written By “The Writer’s Life” columns and partially new material, this is not a how-to guidebook offering insider tips on “making it.” It’s a view from the trenches, yes, but its point-of-view is about empowering you. The person who writes. Who must write. No wonder Palumbo concludes his book, “You. And your writing. That’s all there is. That’s all there needs to be. So go. Write.”

Palumbo should know. Before becoming a licensed psychotherapist, he co-wrote the screenplay for My Favorite Year, authored the novel City Wars, and scripted numerous television shows. He talks as well as he writes.

Richard Stayton: Why did you make a career change from writing full-time to primarily being a therapist?

Dennis Palumbo: It mostly came out of my own experience in therapy as a client and enjoying the process. I started volunteering at a psych clinic. I’d always been interested in psychology and philosophy, and I was going through some personal issues of my own. I spent more and more time doing this volunteer work. And I was working on a film for Redford’s company about a mountain-climber. As a result of the research, I ended up climbing mountains and traveling all around the world and living in Nepal for three months. And I really had a little bit of a Razor’s Edge experience where I wanted to change my life. But I still wasn’t clear I wanted to do it. I was taking classes. I was earning credits. This was like 1984, ’85. But still I was writing pilots, rewriting movies, taking meetings.

RS: And selling?

DP: Oh, yes, making a living. One thing about a freelance writer, once you get your price to a certain level, there’s enough room to have a whole other career. And one day I was having lunch with a producer at Le Dome. He was talking about a movie that he wanted me to do, and I kept looking at my watch because I was gonna be late to this psychiatric hospital where I was leading a group of schizophrenics doing psychodrama. After, as I was racing out, I realized I was bored with the meeting and couldn’t wait to get to the hospital. That was my “Road to Damascus” kind of moment where I realized I wanted to change my life and focus on being a therapist.

Also, I was reawakening my interest in prose writing, having less interest in where American movies were going. I’d been alone in a room for 15 years, and I liked the idea of working with other people. And now I have the best of both worlds. My writing’s gone back to being something that I love, like it was when I was in college. My day gig is being a therapist. The icing on the cake is when I write something. If people like it, great; if they don’t, bummer. But there are no meetings. Nobody else touches it. It’s totally mine: the column, articles. I’m writing a novel. I’m halfway through it, and I’m back to a kind of authorship without the filters that I used to have in all those meetings.

RS: What do you mean by filters?

DP: Producers, executives, directors who want rewrites or whatever. But both writing and therapy are using two different parts of myself, one of which will not get used if I’m just doing the other one. I need both. I need the interaction with others that I get from being a therapist. And I need access to my private creative voice that I get from being a writer. My own psychological terrain is interesting to me. And talking with people about what they’re concerned about and how they struggle with it makes me feel part of the human condition in a way that’s very gratifying to me.

RS: When writers come to you, what are usually the reasons?

DP: The number one reason is either procrastination or writer’s block. Invariably, a person’s creative struggles, whether it’s procrastination or fear of rejection or whatever, are so inexorably entwined with their personal life that the work ends up taking a two-pronged effect. We end up doing both. If a person is struggling with writer’s block, and we learn a little about his family of origin and how his relationships are going now, we learn what function the writer’s block is serving in his life. And so I use the therapy to get under those issues, to illuminate them and explore them and then shed light on why they might be blocked as a result of these kinds of issues. That helps writers move away from the meaning they tend to give it, which is, “I’m blocked because I’m not any good. I’m blocked because I don’t have enough willpower. I procrastinate because I’m afraid.” The negative self-talk that accompanies writer’s block and procrastination. What’s so striking about most of the blocks we have is that they tend to have a psychologically protective function. If you experienced enormous pressure as a child to succeed at a high level, your procrastination might be a way your organism protects you from a fear of shameful exposure when you finally put the stuff in the hands of a reader. Meanwhile you’re angry at it. You think it’s an adversary, but that “adversarial” part of you thinks, But I’m watching out for you. And so understanding that conflict helps depathologize your writing struggles. Because every writer struggles with blocks and fears of rejection. I think it only means that you’re a writer. What a lot of people don’t understand is that these struggles don’t say anything about you.

RS: No value judgments allowed.

DP: Right, most of the time we have the painful responses that everyone has. If you’re writing a story, you’re gonna get stuck sometimes. If you submit a piece of material, you’re gonna get rejected. The painful feelings that you get when you get rejected are normal; the meaning you give to that rejection is what needs to be looked at. “If it’s rejected, my dad was right about me all along. If it’s rejected, it means I must not be any good.” And human beings experience things like rejection very personally. There’s no other way to experience them. But we have to challenge the meaning we give to them. And those meanings tend to be developed over our life based on how we were attuned to our experiences of rejection and pain when we were young. And the meanings our family gave to it.

RS: So in therapy you go back with writers to their childhood?

DP: Often. Now, the thing about writers is that they’re so therapized. They’ve been in therapy for years, and they’ll lay out a lot of their family dynamics for me. But as I always say, “Insight’s the booby-prize of therapy.” That means change doesn’t come from insight. You need insight and awareness to understand what’s going on. But change comes from courage, the risk of challenging those meanings everyday. If you’re someone who believes, for example, that if you get angry you’re a bad person, then you could have all the insight in the world as to where that comes from when you were a child. But every day you’re going to have to risk showing a little anger and seeing that people around you don’t fall over dead. And until you challenge that as an adult and go, “Wow, I got angry, and my loved ones still love me. Nobody thinks I’m a killer, and it doesn’t mean I’m a terrible person.” Until you challenge that in the here and now, you’re not gonna change.

RS: Some believe therapy is bad for a writer. What is your answer to that?

DP: The traditional stereotypical view is, “Oh, my neuroses cause my writing, so if I cure my neuroses, I won’t write anymore.” But my experience is: There is no cure. It’s a mistake to think that there is some perfectible you in the future freed of conflict and problems. And if that happens, you won’t write anymore. The conflicts and sensitivities that drive a person to write are with us forever. They’re what make us who we are, and they’re what make us writers. What therapy can do is help us have access to that with fewer roadblocks. Many successful writers have been in therapy and what the therapy has helped them do is stay more on track with their writing. But they’re still writing about the same painful crap they always did; they just get more pages down. It’s a mistake to think the raw materials of my life, which are the source of my writing, will be transformed in some kind of way, that the painful experiences of my life will no longer be experienced by me as painful. Yes, they will. It’s just that you’ll be able to write about them with fewer roadblocks, with less procrastination, with less shame.

RS: The writers get past procrastination and writer’s block. Then do they stay with you or do they move on?

DP: I have patients I’ve seen for five and six years, and some two or three months. Some I’ve developed a therapeutic relationship with, and every time they have a big project, they call me and come in and get support for three or four months while they’re doing that project, and then move on. Traditionally, we work through what the presenting problem is in their work as a writer, and we move on to issues in their life: anxiety, depression, their relationships. The thing about writers and all creative people is their job is so inexorably wound up in who they are and not as easy to separate. A creative person struggles, and the vehicle that they think is the way out is their creative work. It’s so intertwined.

RS: Do writers come to you with basic business problems?

DP: Not for business advice, but they might come to me with, “I’m frozen in the writer’s room. I’m afraid to open my mouth.” A lot of writers come to me needing help dealing with performance anxiety on pitching either in the room with other writers or going to pitch in a network or at a studio. Oftentimes we’ll do role-play. What in that scenario is the danger? Usually there’s some danger of shameful self-exposure. When someone has performance anxiety around pitching, usually shame’s in there somewhere, or high expectations.

RS: And do you play the role of the exec?

DP: Sometimes that’s the way we do it. Sometimes I might ask the person to have a conversation with themselves, play both parts, as to what he’s afraid of. One of the things that usually happens–not always, but usually–is we find out that the writer is projecting one or another of the parent figures onto that executive. Same with agents. It’s so important for writers to realize their agent is not their parent. Hollywood is the worst place in the world to find an approving parent. And people come from all over the country here just for that fact. They want validation. It’s a horrible place to come. For 20 years everybody has made fun of Sally Field for getting her Oscar and saying, “You like me! You really like me!” I thought it was the only truthful statement a creative person has ever made at an awards presentation. It was the absolute naked truth. And that’s the validation. Of course, the response in the business is massive denial. Someone asked Clint Eastwood, “What will you say if you get an Oscar for Unforgiven?” And he said, “Well, I’m not gonna stand up there and go, ‘You like me! You really like me!’” I thought to myself, “Ladies and gentlemen, Denial 101.” Because that’s exactly what he felt. And there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way.

RS: Are there different seasons of problems for writers?

DP: Yes. Staffing season is a really tough time. And the last couple of TV staffing seasons have been brutal, just brutal. It’s been a real affront to more-experienced writers. One of the traditional complaints in my practice is that just when a writer gets really good at what he or she knows how to do, ageism starts to creep in. And it’s very powerful dealing with that. As a mature person myself–I’m going to turn 50 in March–it’s just so shortsighted on the part of the industry. I do a couple things on the ageism problem. Number one, I support and commiserate with them. Number two, I challenge the idea that it’s a defect in themselves. And number three, I try to get them to see that in the long run, only a benign relationship with themselves and their writing talent is the source of any satisfaction they’re going to have. In other words, they do have to keep giving them “you,” until “you” is what they want. You can’t make yourself 10 years younger. You can only reinvent yourself to a certain extent. There may be other places you need to go with your talent, whether it’s play writing or novel writing, but you can’t sabotage your talent by trying to write something that is younger than you are. You have to acknowledge where you are with your age.

RS: Do you have writers coming to you from their 20s? What’s the reverse of ageism?

DP: They’re all terrified. I have a number of showrunners. I have a couple of young writer-directors, like the new hot guys. And they’re terrified. They’re aware of their youth. They cover it in public and in their workplace with a kind of persona that is very confident, very aggressive and assertive, but in the privacy of the consulting room, they’re terrified by their youth, the work that has gone before, the expectation. They know about all the other young wonders. Very few of the young wonders have maintained a 25-year career like Steven Spielberg. Very few people have done that. “What’s gonna happen? I fooled them. I’m fraudulent. This is a hat trick.”

RS: What do you tell them?

DP: It’s not so much what I tell them. It’s how we explore together how they deal with that fear. There’s no magic pill to vanish fear, but there are tools to coexist with our fears. To realize that fears are understandable, that growth and craft is the best way to coexist with those fears, to develop a benign and supportive relationship with the practice of the art. Not to buy into the idea that you have to be a big superstar, but that you’re going to be in this for the long haul. The key to that is to be good at your job and to get better at your craft. And that results from consistency and mining your own personal experience and following your authentic voice, which means sometimes you’ll be in favor and sometimes you’ll be out of favor. So in the long run you can’t know what people are going to think of you. Your job, in a funny kind of way, is to not pay attention to your life.



by Richard Stayton, from the Dec/Jan 2001 issue of “Written By”

The “Mean Streets” of Pittsburgh

by Dennis Palumbo

What do the recent films Unstoppable, The Dark Knight Rises, and Jack Reacher have in common? They were all primarily shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and environs. Why? Probably because of its undoubted cinematic appeal. Pittsburgh has a sprawling network of ethnic neighborhoods, steep hills and rolling streets, venerable buildings and parks, and the famous Three Rivers. Not to mention some handsome tax breaks provided by the state for today’s filmmakers.

These same vivid, colorful traits (minus the tax breaks) hold true for a spate of recent novels, particularly mysteries and thrillers, set in the Steel City. Authors such as Kathleen George, Thomas Lipinksi, and K.C. Constantine have made good use of Western Pennsylvania’s unique flavors and tints, and of the cluster of small, industrially-depleted towns that surround the urban core.

I must admit, I’m prejudiced about Pittsburgh as a setting for mysterious goings-on. I was born and raised there, and graduated from Pitt. Though I’ve lived in Los Angeles for many years, the city still exerts a powerful pull on my memory. Which is why, when deciding on a setting for my own series of mystery thrillers, I chose my home town.

But not just for nostalgia’s sake. Pittsburgh’s an amazing place, an amalgam of old and new, a shot-and-a-beer town colliding with the Information Age. The steel mills I used to toil in during summers between college semesters are all gone; in their place are sleek, modern buildings where software designers and MBAs work. Run-down sections of the city have been gentrified, with the higher real estate values and tony shops that signify such startling changes. With its huge financial endowments—-from such fabled families as the Mellons, Carnegies, and Heinzs—-Pittsburgh’s become known as much for its state-of-the-art universities, museums and hospitals as for its sports teams. As well as its innovation. For example, it’s currently the world’s pioneer in nanotechnology.
In many ways, it truly represents the transformation of blue collar into white collar. Except that the vestiges of the old Pittsburgh I grew up in are still felt around the edges, still apparent in the weathered turn-of-the-century buildings, the ethnic neighborhoods, the immigrant values and loyalties.

Traits I know about all too well. As a child, my parents were horrified when they learned that, during lunch at school, I’d often trade my homemade fried eggplant sandwiches for more “American” peanut butter-and-jelly. Now, an adult visitor to Pittsburgh will find gentrified, trendy restaurants where similar classic Italian food is highly prized (and over-priced).

As mentioned, I worked for two summers at J&L Steel Works, part of seventeen miles of steel mills that no longer exist. Along with my fellow students, I wore the traditional yellow hard hat that marked me as a newbie. And made us a much more convenient target for the soda bottles, tuna fish cans and other refuse dropped on us from above by the crane operators. Part of the blue-collar way of life in the mill back in the sixties, as were the ethnically-separated work crews and the occasional visits by Teamsters, unloading “misplaced” goods from the backs of trucks. Then there were the longed-for breaks from the mill’s relentless heat, when, having fallen into an uneasy truce, we college kids and veteran mill hunks sat together on the tar-paper roof, overlooking the Monongahela River, drinking Cokes and listening to Pirates games on transistor radios.




For better or worse, that Pittsburgh, like its steel mills, is pretty much gone. No better example comes to mind than when my mother’s brain tumor was removed last year by a radical new surgery in a world-famous hospital unit, one of whose previous patients was the Dalai Lama. Part of a complex of new buildings—like so many springing up in the urban core—whose construction required the demolition of the older ones which had stood before.

No matter how welcomed or needed, change comes with a psychic cost. This is as true for a city as it is for an individual. I believe it’s certainly true for Pittsburgh. And it’s this tension between old and new, darkness and light, that makes it a fascinating place, and a great environment for a murder mystery.

As more and more authors are beginning to discover, as they lead their characters down the mean streets of Pittsburgh...

Skyline image via photographer Justin Merriman's blog.  Image of Larimer neighborhood via ninety hoods. Steel mill image via Sean Posey's urban photoessay for Rustwire.

Reposted From Criminal Element

Getting Out of Your Own Way

For an artist, "being yourself" may be simple, but it's not easy.

I want to talk about the most important thing a creative person must know how to do---which, for lack of a better phrase, is just to get out of his or her own way. Or as cellist Pablo Casals said, about playing music well, “Learn the notes and forget about ‘em.”

Simple, isn’t it? You have a story to tell, plot beats to tell it, characters to live it, and the will to create it. (You may even have a deal to deliver it.) All you have to do is get out of the way and let the creativity “happen.”

See? Simple, right? Not exactly. Because, as a former teacher of mine once remarked, “It may be simple, but it ain’t easy.”

For years, as a Hollywood screenwriter, I struggled to “get out of my own way,” without really understanding what that meant. The phrase always had a kind of down-home, common-sense, don’t-make-such-a-big-deal-out-of-it quality that I was often frustrated with myself for my difficulty in achieving it.

As it’s generally understood, “getting out of your own way” implies somehow putting aside the anxieties and doubts,ego concerns and career pressures, “mental blocks” and “critical inner voices”---pick your favorite pet term---that stand between you and the effortless flow of work. As though, if you just did enough therapy, or meditated deeply enough, or visualized sincerely enough, or manifested enough positive energy, you could disavow all the “stuff” that gets in the way of your creativity.

If only, in other words, you were different than who you are.

Because the simple fact is, we do bring our “stuff” to our creative endeavors, “stuff” that runs the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime, the irritating to the overwhelming. Some artists can’t get past their fear of failure; some struggle with a nagging sense of inadequacy regarding their talent; some feel the pressure of being unknown and thus feeling powerless. (Or even, ironically, the reverse: Norman Mailer once talked of the feeling of creative paralysis that came over him after he’d achieved fame. “It wasn’t just me sitting down to write,” he said. “It was Norman Mailer sitting down to write. I had to live up to him.”)

Add to that the relationship issues, financial pressures, marketplace fluctuations, and sense of isolation that creative types must contend with on a daily basis---and suddenly the amount of “stuff” you’re supposed to put aside in order to “get out of your own way” starts to feel like a veritable mountain of personal baggage.

That’s because it is. Each of us lugs around enough baggage to warrant the name Samsonite. It’s the trait we share with every other human being. Our “stuff” is who we are. Our hopes and fears, faith and doubt, empathy and envy, loves and hatreds and fantasies and habits and prejudices and favorite movies and the way we tie our shoes and whether we like asparagus and on and on and on. That’s us. Human beings.

One particular subset of human beings, creative artists, have all the same “stuff” as the rest of the tribe. Except for the need and desire to create art out of it. We may produce stories or screenplays. Or films or TV pilots. Or novels, poems, and songs. But what all artists, regardless of approach, really do is try to make sense of their “stuff.” In a language or medium or form that is understandable to the audience. In other words, “stuff” talking to “stuff.”

Now comes the paradox. If I, the artist, get out of my own way---that is, put my “stuff” aside so I can create---what’s left to explore creatively? My “stuff” is the raw materials of my work.

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and just say it: there is nothing but stuff. Which is great, because that means I’ll never run out of raw material. As long as I’m a human being, I have an inexhaustible supply.

I began this column by stating that the most important thing an artist had to do was get out of his or her own way. Haven’t I just challenged this statement? No. I’m only challenging the conventional view of what that means.

Let me explain: From my perspective, a creative artist who invites all of who he or she is into the mix---who sits down to work engulfed in “stuff,” yet doesn’t give these thoughts and feelings a negative connotation; who in fact strives to accept and integrate whatever thoughts and feelings emerge---this artist has truly gotten out of his or her own way.

From this standpoint, it’s only by labeling a thought or feeling as either good or bad, productive or harmful, that you’re actually getting in your own way. Restricting your creative flow.

Getting out of your own way means being with who you are, moment to moment, whether you like it or not. Whether or not it’s easy or comfortable, familiar or disturbing. And then creating from that place.

As I said, simple but not easy.

My Favorite Quotes to Inspire Creativity

During my many years spent as a Hollywood screenwriter, and now during my even longer tenure as a psychotherapist who treats people in the entertainment industry, I’ve come across a number of inspirational quotes concerning the creative act. Though usually short, often humorous or frankly rueful, the wisdom underlying these quotes derives from the long years of sweat, blood and tears that obviously gave rise to them.

Whether you're a writer, actor, director, composer or designer—and whether you're a veteran or just starting your career—I believe there's much to value in the sayings below. Proving once again that truth, like so many other things, often comes in small packages.
 
 “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki

“All serious daring starts from within.” Eudora Welty

“Faith and doubt, both are needed, not as antagonists but working side by side, to take us around the unknown curve.”  Lillian Smith

“How do I work? I grope.”  Albert Einstein

“To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for everyone—that is genius.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I work when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”

Peter De Vries

“There is only one type of story in the world—your story.”  Ray Bradbury

“I have known happiness, for I have done good work.”  Robert Louis Stevenson

“Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking.”  Antonio Machado

“Only the disciplined are free.”  James C. Penney

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”  James Joyce

“Plainly speaking, there is no such thing as certainty. There are only people who are certain.”

Charles Levourier

“It is not your obligation to complete your work, but you are not at liberty to quit.”

The Talmud

“When the last dime is gone, I’ll sit out on the curb with a pencil and a ten-cent notebook, and start the whole thing all over again.”  Preston Sturges

“I yam what I yam.”  Popeye

The Theft of Time

Stolen Time by HeDyna on Flickr

A particularly arrogant film producer once said to me, "I could be a writer, too, if I only had the time."

Which implied, I guess, that if he didn't have to attend meetings, deal with studios, manage production budgets--in other words, if he didn't have a real job--he too could just sit around, effortlessly knocking out compelling narratives and crafting pithy dialogue.

Yet for most writers, time is exactly that thing they can't seem to get enough of. Certainly not without carving it out for themselves, strenuously hewing a private space for their writing from a dense forest of financial and familial duties. Most writers understand that they must somehow demand the time to write; that, in many ways, writing is a "job" like any other, requiring diligence, constancy and commitment. But getting others to understand this is not always so easy.

Robert Frost said that the one thing all nations on earth share is a fear that a member of the family will want to be a writer. There are a lot of reasons for this, from parental concern about a child's ability to earn a living, to legitimate desires to spare the would-be writer the heartbreak of rejection and disappointment, to irrational fears about the aberrant life-style that writers are stereotypically known to indulge. Next to announcing that you want to be an actor, proclaiming your ambition to write is guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of parents, siblings, and spouses. Especially spouses with whom you've had children.

The pressure to provide for a family is acute for most people, but even more so for writers, often struggling with both the difficulties of their craft and the insecurity and fickleness of the marketplace. Finding time to write is hard enough when you have a writing job--on staff at a TV series, say, or developing a screenplay for a studio. At least then you can justify the time spent away from the family, lost in your thoughts, scribbling notes on coffee shop menus, banging away at the keyboard at all hours.

But if you have a non-writing job, some 9-to-5 gig to pay the bills, any time you might need for writing, for pursuing a writing career, seems a selfish luxury. It's time seemingly owed to personal obligations, to the tasks of running a home and raising a family. In such cases, "demanding" time for your writing carries with it the possibility of frequent relationship strife, as well as a significant burden of guilt.

In my private practice, many of my writer clients deal with this guilt constantly. They feel an obligation both to the demands of their creative ambitions and to those of their families. Even when their spouse or partner goes along with their need for time and solitude, many of them still feel guilty. Often it increases the pressure to achieve quick financial success. It affects their decisions about what kinds of things they should write. It makes them feel that every second spent writing must "count."

More than one writer has said to me, "What if my script doesn't sell? I've spent all this time doing it, obsessing over it. I've been distracted and impatient with my kids. Totally unavailable to my wife. What if it all turns out to be for nothing?"

Sometimes the fissures in the relationship at home become wide enough to cause panic. "I've made a deal with my husband," another writer once told me. "If this spec doesn't sell, I'll give it up. I mean, how long can I keep doing this, banging my head against the wall? I'm not getting any younger. And I don't want to lose my marriage."

Even successful writers, those who make a living at their craft, find it difficult to continually justify to loved ones their need for private time. "Unless my kids hear the keyboard clicking," one noted screenwriter confided in me, "they feel okay interrupting me. You ever try to explain to a four-year-old that you're working, when all you're doing is staring at the ceiling? Hell, sometimes I have a hard time convincing myself."

Regardless of the degree of success, or the amount of material a writer churns out, at some level most writers feel ambivalent about the time they need for writing. I think some of this is cultural, in that society validates us in terms of our contribution to the maintenance of its institutions, or to the welfare of others. After all, we know what doctors and lawyers and teachers and firefighters do. We value and honor parenting, working for social justice, volunteering for Greenpeace.

On the other hand, how writers (and other artists) contribute to society is often misunderstood, if considered at all. Their function as story-tellers, explicators of the human condition, champions of our hopes and yearnings, is routinely under-appreciated. At this macro level, it's hard for the individual struggling writer, just trying to turn out a decent "According to Jim" spec, to justify his or her need for large amounts of private time.

More oppressive than this cultural bias against our feeling entitled to take time for writing are the lessons we learned as children about our intrinsic lovability and sense of worth. In many families, children are reared to be suspicious of their creative instincts, to concentrate instead on interests that will pay known dividends in the "real world." When I was a kid, spurred by my middle-class parents to achieve, the career options laid out for me were pretty specific: doctor, lawyer, engineer, or--the usual fallback position for a Catholic--priest. Predictably, my subsequent decision to pursue writing as a profession caused huge familial strife.

These kinds of messages leave a lasting impression, as I see every day with the writers in my practice. Taking time for yourself to write, to pursue seemingly nebulous artistic ambitions--especially in the face of real family obligations--feels selfish, unwarranted, and impractical.

And for a very good reason: writing is selfish, unwarranted and impractical. As a career option, it's highly dubious. The risks are high. Success is uncertain. And this is all true even if you happen to be talented and hard-working. (If you're not, magnify the difficulties accordingly.)

Therefore, the last thing a writer should try to do is "sell" the wisdom and virtue of his or her ambition to mates, children or parents. In my experience, it's far more important that you accept your desire to write, and to own this desire as your birthright. Or, if you prefer, as your particular blessing or curse. The point is, for whatever reason, you want to write. Need to write.

Which means, I believe, that you have a responsibility to your writing talent. A responsibility that co-exists with that which you have to your loved ones. In other words, sometimes your need for time to write will clash with the needs of your family.

Is there a one-size-fits-all solution to this dilemma?

No. Every writer has to negotiate the context of his or her life. Every writer has to balance the requirements of writing with the needs of others. This means conflict, heartfelt discussion, and, hopefully, compromise. This also means that sometimes the writer feels guilty--which, like envy or desperation, is just another of the psychological burdens borne by every writer I've ever known.

The good news in all this is that when you do take the time to write, when you make this a consistent and unwavering part of your daily life, you're honoring the gift of your creativity. Standing up for the legitimacy and integrity of your ambitions.

It's more than just taking your writing seriously.

It's owning who you really are.

Three Hard Truths About Writing

The First Hard Truth

Writing is a craft, as well as an art, and that craft takes time to develop. Forget genius, forget inspiration. It takes time measured not in weeks or months, but years. Hemingway said, "Write a million words." He wasn't kidding.

The Second Hard Truth

Every time a writer sits down to write, it's new.

A wise writer knows this, and revels in it. So that, ultimately, regardless of your years of experience as a writer, or your level of success, you come to the blank page (or screen) with anticipation for what you'll discover, in effect, as a beginner.

To quote Suzuki's famous advice; "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind, there are few."

The Third Hard Truth

Writing carries no guarantees. 

You can never know how a piece of writing will turn out --
whether it'll be any good, whether anyone will like it, whether it will ever be sold. Writing, to put it flatly, is all about risk.


 

Therapist By Day, Crime Writer By Night

Doing therapy and writing mystery novels go hand-in-hand.

I must admit, I’ve had an interesting career journey. For many years I was a Hollywood screenwriter, after which I became a licensed psychotherapist specializing in treating creative types in the entertainment community. Now, after 24 years listening to hundreds of people’s most intimate stories, I’ve fulfilled a life-long dream and begun a series of crime novels.

The first, Mirror Image, featuring psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi, appeared in 2010 from Poisoned Pen Press. The sequel, Fever Dream, came out in November, 2011. The next Rinaldi thriller, Night Terrors, will appear in late spring of 2013.

Which begs the question: what, if anything, does a Hollywood psychotherapist and a suspense novelist have in common? Actually, quite a bit.

For both a therapist and a crime novelist, it’s the mystery of character itself that intrigues, puzzles, and continually surprises. As a therapist, I’ve borne witness to the awful suffering, painful revelations and admirable courage of my patients—many of whom have survived unbelievable abuse, neglect and loss. Not to mention those whose lives have been marred by substance use, violence, and severe mental illness.
  
How people cope with these issues and events, how well or poorly they meet these challenges, goes directly to the heart of the therapeutic experience. My job as their therapist is to help identify self-destructive patterns of behavior, and to empower them by providing tools to address these patterns and, hopefully, alter them.

So much for my day job. Moonlighting as a suspense novelist, I find myself doing pretty much the same thing with my fictional characters. As a mystery writer, I believe that crime stems from strong emotions, and strong emotions stem from conflict. Kind of like life. Which means the secret to crafting satisfying thrillers lies in exploring who your characters are (as opposed to who they say they are), what it is they want (or think they need), and the lengths to which they’ll go to get it.

Moreover, using my experience as a licensed psychotherapist, I’ve woven many of the situations and people I’ve encountered into my crime novels. People like a particularly interesting patient I once met at the psychiatric hospital where I did my clinical internship. Now, many years later, he’s the inspiration for my hero’s best friend, a paranoid schizophrenic named Noah Frye. Much like this patient from long ago, the Noah of my novels is funny, combative, and achingly aware of the reality of his situation.

I’ve used other aspects of my life experience as well. For example, although my practice is in Los Angeles, the novels take place in Pittsburgh, my home town. In addition, the series hero, a psychologist named Daniel Rinaldi who specializes in treating the victims of violent crime, shares a similar background to my own—from his Italian heritage to his love of jazz to his teenage years spent working in the Steel City’s sprawling produce yards.

(Though, as each novel’s narrative hurtles Rinaldi into a vortex of murder and conspiracy, he reveals himself to be a lot braver and more resourceful than I am!)

But there’s another connection between my role as a therapist and my role as a mystery writer. Like the therapist, the crime novelist swims in an ocean of envy, greed, regret, and desire. As a therapist does, the crime novelist must relate to his or her characters. Must be able to understand and empathize with their wants and needs. Must, in fact, go inside their heads and think as they think, feel as they must feel.

Since most of my patients are in the entertainment industry—writers, actors, directors, etc.—they present a broad canvas of creative passions, lofty ambitions, wild yearnings and devastating defeats. They love and hate deeply, with an artist’s fervor, and this extends beyond career considerations into the most intimate aspects of their personal lives.

So too the crime novelist must create and endow his or her characters with out-sized passions, hopes and dreams. How else can things go so awry in their lives? How else can things lead, as if inevitably, to treachery, blackmail, murder?

All the things, in other words, that make reading a crime novel so satisfying!

Fact Into Fiction

The Crime Writers' Chronicle

all about crime writing and the crime writer's life

Dennis Palumbo ends his stunning book WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT with a quote by screenwriter Frederick Raphael: "Work is... having pages in the evening that weren't there in the morning."

And his own words: "You. And Your writing. That's all there is. That's all there needs to be. So go. Write!"

If I were doing a book on "Writing," I'd want to say everything Dennis says. Both a gifted writer and a well-known psychotherapist, Dennis tackles the weighty issues that confront every serious writer: Rejection, solitude, fear, isolation, struggles, envy, tumult, joy and triumph! This book is not a manual for the neophyte. Or a person who toys with the art. Rather, it is like going to your own personal guru, who is experienced both as a fellow writer and as a wise shrink.

Informed, compassionate and funny, Dennis gives you the confidence that you ARE on the right track, ARE okay and all WILL be well!

That all your agony on this journey IS worth it!

That you have a compassionate friend, a steady guide and a wise companion - that you are NOT alone!

Author of acclaimed crime novels MIRROR IMAGE, FEVER DREAMS and NIGHT TERRORS ( Poisoned Pen Press), a collection of short stories, FROM CRIME TO CRIME ( Tallfellow Press), Dennis has been a Hollywood screen writer for popular series, including "My Favorite Year" and "Welcome Back, Kotter," short fiction in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Strand, articles in the NYT, the LAT, The Lancet, Psychology Today and the Huffington Post. He has been named UCLA "Outstanding Teacher of the Year"!

Today, as a licensed psychotherapist, he works with established screen writers, directors and novelists, often dealing with issues of anxiety, depression and relationship difficulties.

He has stated "The most challenging aspect of crime/mystery writing is the plotting—making sure there are enough twists and turns!" ( Sound familiar, dear friends?)

He makes us feel "If you seek wisdom, sample every tent in the bazaar!"

We are never too smart, gifted, clever, famous, well-published—to think we are above seeking good advice!(From many years in the challenging world of crime writing—as reader, reviewer, writer—I'm always on the lookout for a superior teacher on how to write better or how to navigate the Slippery Slope of Writing Fiction!)

In Dennis Palumbo I've found a writer who is sage, inspired, experienced, exceptional.

I can't wait to begin his new crime novel, NIGHT TERRORS, that sits beside me as I write this page.

Please welcome Dennis Palumbo to our esteemed blog - Crime Writers Chronicle!

Thelma Jacqueline Straw

---

In my latest Daniel Rinaldi mystery, NIGHT TERRORS (Poisoned Pen Press), the Pittsburgh psychologist and trauma expert is asked by the FBI to treat one of their recently-retired profilers. After a twenty year career inside the minds of the most infamous serial killers, Special Agent Lyle Barnes can no longer sleep through the night. He’s tormented by a cascade of horrifying images, along with intense feelings of dread and imminent danger. Until, sweat-soaked, heart pounding, he wakes up screaming...

He’s not alone. Once considered primarily a pediatric diagnosis, more and more adults are currently being treated for night terrors. Why the upsurge in night terrors in adults? Most clinicians—including therapists like myself—are blaming the increased uncertainty of contemporary life. The economy, terrorism. Even natural disasters, like tsunamis, earthquakes, and super-storms. The daily anxiety suppressed by adults during waking life, now invading their sleep.

And since science hasn’t yet discovered what exactly causes night terrors, treating it can be quite difficult. In my novel, Rinaldi’s approach is to get the retired FBI agent to open up about his years as a profiler. His thousands of hours of contact with the most heinous and notorious serial killers. Since Barnes’ work was his life, Rinaldi believes that the best way to address his nocturnal demons is to get him to open up about the real-life demons with whom he spent most of his career.

Not an easy task, since Lyle Barnes is also the target of an unknown assassin who’s already killed three others on a seemingly-random hit-list...

***

As it happens, I got the idea for the fictional narrative of NIGHT TERRORS from reading about the real-life sleep disorder in a clinical journal. In my dual careers as both a therapist and crime writer, the worlds of psychotherapy and mystery fiction are often equally intertwined.

Take, for example, an institutionalized patient I knew called Angie. All the other patients called her Angie the Android. She was a deeply delusional teenage girl who believed she was actually a machine. Like Pinocchio, her biggest and only dream was to become a real person.

I met Angie the very first week of my internship at a private psychiatric hospital in West L.A. She was one of dozens of schizophrenic patients I worked with at this final stage of my training to be a psychotherapist. It was a thrilling, challenging, enlightening and ultimately humbling period of years. (Even though my former career as a Hollywood screenwriter, working with various film producers and network executives, had already given me valuable experience dealing with psychotics.)

Of course, my internship at the private hospital took place many, many years ago. Now I’m a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, but I’ve woven some of the situations and people I encountered during my clinical training—people like Angie—into my series of crime novels. In fact, it was the opportunity to blend aspects of both my clinical experience and personal biography that prompted me to create the series in the first place.

For starters, my protagonist, Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, is a psychologist. And, although my internship was in Los Angeles, the novel takes place in Pittsburgh, my home town. Moreover, Rinaldi shares a similar background to my own—from his Italian heritage to his love of jazz to his teenage years spent working in the Steel City’s sprawling produce yards. (However, unlike me, he’s a former amateur boxer, and, in general, a lot braver and more resourceful than I am!)

But it’s my clinical experience that most influences my writing, that (hopefully) helps ground my stories and characters in reality. For example, Rinaldi’s best friend, Noah Frye, is a paranoid schizophrenic, his delusions tempered by medication (when he stays on it). Foul-mouthed, funny, and disconcertingly intuitive, this character is based on another real patient with whom I worked.

However, it isn’t just my experience as a therapist that informs some of the material in my crime novels. It’s also the emotions, conflicts and confusions that accompanied my career transition from screenwriter to psychotherapist. To say it was a rocky journey would be an understatement. For one thing, it wasn’t a decision that came easily. Or quickly. After almost 16 years as a Hollywood writer, the idea of changing careers—involving graduate school, years of supervised internships, and the difficulties of setting up a clinical practice—seemed… well… crazy. Frankly, I was so unsure about it that I kept the fact that I’d gone back to school a secret from all but a select group of friends. (It didn’t help that most of them thought I was crazy, too.)

In a similar way, my psychologist hero, Daniel Rinaldi, goes through an emotional upheaval before finding his calling. Though what happens to him is much more painful and life-shattering than merely deciding to change careers. My decision was the result of years of ruminating, of debating the pros and cons. His was in response to a single, overwhelming event—one that leads to his becoming a trauma specialist, treating the victims of violent crime.

No question, what makes the writing of this series so engaging for me is that I’m able to weave together aspects of my clinical training at a psychiatric facility, my current experience in private practice, and the police procedural details of a mystery thriller.

Which is why I knew from the very beginning that the protagonist of my series was going to be a therapist. But not merely because I am one, too.

Let me explain: some years back, I did a Commentary for NPR’s “All Things Considered” in which I lamented the depiction of male therapists in today’s TV shows and film.

In fact, I referenced two iconic images, from two memorable films: In Now, Voyager, kindly therapist Claude Rains walks in the garden with troubled patient Bette Davis. He’s paternal, insightful, and obviously knows what’s good for her.

In The Three Faces of Eve, Lee J. Cobb helps Joanne Woodward parse out the three distinct personalities tormenting her. Like Claude Rains before him, he’s a model of the patriarchal culture, a therapist of unquestionable motives and unimpeachable authority. One of the good guys.

Which raises the question: how did we get from there to Hannibal Lecter?

Because, I testily pointed out, with rare exceptions that’s where we are. And I still think this is true. Whether in print, in film or on TV, male therapists are serving more and more as convenient villains. Instead of being caretakers, they’re portrayed as troubled, predatory, even psychotic. It seems that every other mystery best-seller or Hollywood horror film features a demented shrink. Not to mention TV shows like Law and Order: SVU and the CSI franchises, where a male psychologist or psychiatrist is as liable to be the bad guy as any garden-variety contract killer or spurned lover.

Now I know enough to be skeptical about pop culture’s notion of any profession, but I can’t help wondering what’s going on. How did the image of male therapist go from father figure to the most likely suspect?

Maybe this change simply reflects one that’s occurred in the culture at large. After all, the past forty years has seen a challenge to the whole idea of male authority. In terms of image, professors, doctors and scientists of the male persuation have suddenly gone from being saints to sinners. Same with therapists. No wonder today’s crime novelists, TV and film writers find them irresistable as villains. All that education, respectibility and power, turned to the Dark Side.

But it isn’t just society’s growing mistrust of male authority that turned Lee J. Cobb’s gray suit and pipe into Anthony Hopkins’ face muzzle and leather restraints. After all, the world’s a pretty treacherous, confusing place nowadays. Our most sturdy institutions—government, the church, education—traditionally headed by men, seem to be letting us down. It’s no different with therapy. Whether fairly or not, I believe the way in which male therapists are portrayed in popular fiction reflects a similar disenchantment with both the profession in general, and its male practitioners in particular.

The truth is, nowadays—much like priests—male therapists suffer from the failed expectations of a disillusioned public. Which is why I wanted my series hero to be a therapist. Flawed, yes. Troubled, stubborn, and with a temper. But someone trying desperately to make a difference. To help others on the path to healing, even if only as a way to come to some kind of peace himself.

I guess what I’m saying is, if Daniel Rinaldi’s mission as a therapist is to treat those crippled by trauma, my mission as a writer is to help resuscitate the image of the mental health professional. Particularly male. Particularly in today’s harsh, cynical world.

Which brings me, by an admittedly circuitous route, back to Angie the Android. Believe it or not, we’re all a bit like Angie. We all want, in both our lives and our work, to be real. Authentic. For most writers I know, myself included, it is—as it was for Angie—our biggest and only dream.

That’s why I’m grateful I got to know her, all those years ago. As I am all the patients with whom I’ve been privileged to work since then. Just as I’m grateful for my lifetime of experiences, both personal and professional. Because everything we’ve ever done informs who we are, how we think, what we write.

The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg once said that our main job in life is to track our consciousness. That’s certainly true for patients in therapy. But I believe it’s also true for those of us who feel the need not only to keep track, but to write it down…

Dennis Palumbo

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