Ask the Author: Jeff Pollak
Answered Questions (6)
Jeff Pollak
This is one question I can't answer. I hate to admit it because it's an omen if I do, but (keep this to yourself, please!) I have not yet experienced writer's block.
Jeff Pollak
I'm amazed by certain more or less magical things that happen during the writing process. One of these is that I got to know my main characters so well that they started talking to me while I wrote First Second Coming, usually to tell me what was really going on in the chapter I was writing, as distinct from what my outline indicated. Another is the number of incredible circumstances that took place while writing, such as a number of things I wrote about that later took place in the real world. Most of all, though, meeting and befriending other authors has enriched my life.
Jeff Pollak
Learn the craft of writing through attendance at writers' conferences, searching online advice websites, reading books on writing and joining critique groups. Don't worry about writing "bad" work, your writing will improve the more you learn and practice. Read fiction in various genres as much as you can and takes notice of the author's style to see if it might fit yours, and to learn the tricks of the trade. Don't worry about publishing until you've written something good enough to be published.
Jeff Pollak
I have just begun research for the sequel to First Second Coming.
Jeff Pollak
If you watch legal dramas on TV or in movies you might think that trial lawyers do nothing but try cases every day. However, much more writing takes place than arguing in court. When I decided to retire, I wanted to do something that would allow me to continue to write. Since I've always been an avid reader, the idea of writing fiction came to mind and was immediately recognized as the right thing for me to do.
Jeff Pollak
The basic idea for First Second Coming came to me on 9/11 as a random toss-away thought while I watched the World Trade Center collapse on TV. Along with others in my law firm, we'd done an annual seminar at the WTC every May for many years before this. I also had clients in the building. That connection, and my upbringing in New York City, brought about the idea that planet earth needed a new God, someone akin to a corporate turnaround specialist. Some fourteen years later, when I started to write fiction, this idea returned to me as the seed for First Second Coming.
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