About Jennifer   | Ask JenniferHow did you go from being a self-published author to being published by Doubleday/Broadway?I self-published both Butcher and Mangler after fruitless agent searches. The reviews I got on various websites gave me good ammunition when I went out again with Vampire. While seeking an agent, I did what everyone does: Wrote a query letter, sent whole manuscripts or partials/synopses to those who requested them, then waited for the right person to bite. Once I had an agent, the rest was easy. She put the books up for auction and got a very good deal for me. Have you always wanted to be a writer?No, I ve always been a writer. (Remind me to tell you about the mystery story I wrote in seventh grade, featuring an arch villain named wait for it Larry.) I wrote an epic poem about having my tonsils out when I was five. I used to give my cousin nightmares by making up stories about a killer washing machine. I wrote and produced comic bits for the college radio station, penned an absurdist play which (predictably) made no sense, wrote a screenplay about aliens with no genitals called The Stranger (sorry Mr. Camus, you can t copyright titles). After I moved to L.A. I wrote spec sitcom scripts, spec film comedies, a spec film noir set in Texas (which I still quite like, inspired by Blood Simple.) There s never been a time when I wasn t writing something. And I agree with Stephen King who said, A professional writer is just an amateur who didn t give up. Took me a lot longer than Stephen to hit my stride, but hey. Why do you have a pen name?Because the first Smiths on the planet evidently bred like rabbits. As a writer, you have to market yourself, and I didn t think that having the second most common name in North America was the right way to do it. (Jones is #1!) There s nothing wrong with the name Smith, of course, as long as you have some kind of catchy forename/s that makes it memorable: Alexis Smith, Martin Cruz Smith, Anna Nicole Smith. . . I didn t have that. Could have made something up, I suppose, but then I d still be filed among all those other Smiths on the shelves. Think of all the writers we refer to by their last names: Hemingway, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Salinger and imagine the confusion that would ensue if they had been Ernest Smith, William Smith, William Smith, J.D. Smith. . . You see the problem? This makes sense to me, but I still get people looking at me cross-eyed when they learn I have a pen name. I ve even been asked, What does your husband call you? as if I woke up one day and announced to my husband of a decade: Henceforth, I shall be known as Jennifer. Nope, hubby and everyone else who knows me calls me by my given name. What advice do you have for young writers?Same advice as I have for writers of any age: 1) Stick with it. 2) Read books on writing and take courses on writing. 3) ABW: Always Be Writing. 4) Write what pleases you. 5) Be original. 6) Get (and take gracefully) all the criticism you can get, preferably from other writers. If you have some pressing question, please write me and I'll answer it! Click here to send me an email! |
