Nicholas Tampio

How did you become a writer?
I wrote a short college thesis, a short MA thesis, and a short doctoral thesis. It was not until I started the tenure clock that I began to think day and night about writing. I read Stephen King's On Writing and Eviatar Zerubavel's The Clockwork Muse, and they both emphasized the importance of getting in a writing routine. Now, if I go more than a few days without writing, I become irritable. I need to write to be happy. 

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
The writer who I aspire to emulate is Saul Bellow. I love the precision of The Adventures of Augie March. Visualize something, and then use the right words to help other people see your vision. Bellow was a master of describing a cold winter night in Chicago, chasing lizards in Mexico, or washing dogs for rich people. How did Saul Bellow get a job on the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago? I don't know, but whoever chose him made a wise decision, because there is a philosophy in the care with which he uses words to capture the wondrous in the ordinary. 

When and where do you write?
I wake up, drink coffee, putz about for a bit, and then sit at my desk for a few hours. I go for a walk if it is sunny, or workout at home if it is not, and then I put in an afternoon shift. Writing includes reading, taking notes, outlining, editing, reviewing other people's work, and correspondence. 

What are you working on now?
I have just sent a book about teaching political theory to Edward Elgar. I am waiting to hear back from another press about a proposal for my next book. For maybe the first time in my adult life, I don't have any pressing writing assignments. I am teaching, hiking, cooking, and spending time with my family until the next path reveals itself.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
Not really. I often write in a conversation with authors whom I'm reading. Sometimes, I apply their ideas to new contexts, or build upon what they are doing, and sometimes I challenge their thesis. As long as I'm reading and moving in the world, my mind is filled with ideas for pieces. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I was panicking while writing my first book, and my stepfather told me about the time he had to clean out my grandfather's garage and he just had to clean one shelf at a time. As long as you have an outline and write a few paragraphs a day, you can finish the article or the book. 

What’s your advice to new writers?
Write out the steps on a sheet of paper. Read these books and articles. Write an outline. Draft a paper by this date. Share it with these people. Revise it by this date. Submit it. Making lists is a way to manage the anxiety of completing a large project. 

Nicholas Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University. He has written books on Kant's legacy in contemporary political theory, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, two books on the Common Core, and his forthcoming book is on teaching political theory. He has written widely-shared articles on the videogame Fortnite, the problem with teaching grit, how vaccine mandates violate civil liberties and harm democratic life, and the advantages to having embodied experiences rather than watching them on screens.

Paul Zeidman

How did you become a writer?

I think I’ve always been a writer. Started with fiction, dabbled in one-act plays, then went all-out on screenwriting. I get a real kick out of telling stories, and especially love to spin a ripping yarn. There’s nothing like taking your reader/audience on a rollercoaster ride they can’t wait to get on again.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Writers: John Steinbeck, Ernest Lehman, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Lord & Miller, the writers for The Jack Benny Show and Rocky & Bullwinkle. Teachers: Mr. Truitt (film) and Mr. Fisher (fiction) from high school. I also really enjoy old pulp fiction stories like The Shadow and Doc Savage

When and where do you write? 

Because my day job ends at noon, I’ll usually set aside some time in the afternoon to write, and into the evening if possible. Also depends on what else I’ve got going on. Even if I can only crank out one page for that day, that's still one page more than I had when the day started. Most of the time I’ll work in my home office, but if I’m going somewhere that might involve waiting (doctor’s office, meeting somebody for coffee and they’re running late, etc.), I’ll bring a pen and notebook to work on whatever project I’m working on at the time.

What are you working on now? 

Splitting time between a new draft of an animated fantasy-comedy spec and working with a producer on the story for their microbudget feature project. 

I’m also working on publishing a collection of the Q&As I’ve done over the years. Looking at sometime later this year.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Lots of times. It’s frustrating, but I’ve found the best way to overcome it is to either work on something else, or step away and do something entirely unrelated to writing. You never know when inspiration will hit; more often than not it’s when you’re not actively writing. What’s also been a huge help has been to take the dog for a walk. I can’t explain why, but simply taking the dog out for a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood has yielded some great results.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t be boring. Write something you would want to see. Write as if ink costs $1,000 an ounce.

What’s your advice to new writers?

IT’S A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT. Things will take much, much longer than you think (or want) to happen. Be patient. Keep trying to get better. Read scripts! Get to know other writers. Don’t hesitate to share your good news and congratulate others on theirs, and offer sympathy and understanding for when things don’t work out. This is an extremely tough business to break into - disappointment, heartbreak and frustration are everyday occurrences. It’s not enough to be thick-skinned; you need to be bulletproof. 

Paul Zeidman is an award-winning screenwriter based in San Francisco who loves to create a ripping yarn that grabs the viewer and takes them on a rollercoaster ride of thrills and excitement that they can’t wait to experience again. He’s also a notoriously meticulous script editor and proofreader, with the ability to spot a rogue comma or misspelled word at a hundred paces (give or take 99 paces). When not writing, rewriting, or reading scripts, he enjoys watching movies, reading books in multiple genres, running somewhat long distances, and trying new recipes in the kitchen, along with making what could possibly be the best pecan pie west of the Mississippi. Check out his screenwriting blog Maximum Z at http://maximumz.blog or follow him on Twitter, @maximum_z.

Isaac Fellman

How did you become a writer?

Well, like a lot of writers, I'm mentally ill. To become a writer, you need drive and you need practice, and the drive to escape something -- whether it's inside your brain or outside -- is a great way to make sure you get the practice. But pure escapism will only get you so far. You'll burn out that way, and run out of ideas, and you won't learn to build a practice. At a certain point, we have to learn to care for ourselves in ways other than writing, so that writing can be a sustainable lifelong practice. It's like how a singer needs to learn not to force their voice through their throat, but instead to use their whole body to support the sound. We become writers by learning to support it.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

I didn't seek out teachers when I was young. The problem was that I was confident in what I wanted to do, but not skilled enough to bring it across. When people didn't get it and suggested that I write differently, I would just go off and practice, certain that I could make them understand if I just got good enough at writing my way. This is a very slow and lonely way to do it. But that was the person I was in my twenties and early thirties -- patient, but painfully rigid in my thinking. 

That said, I definitely had writers who influenced me, my favorites being Scott Fitzgerald and Vladimir Nabokov, who were also memorably patient but rigid in their thinking. Both of them have a brilliant sense of rhythm; they compose in the wildest time signatures, which to me is the hardest thing to learn. Ursula Le Guin came a little later, a writer who really shines in the rhythm of how the chapters themselves are juxtaposed, as well as on a sentence level. And then I learned from Fyodor Dostoevsky and Helen DeWitt that there aren't any rules about perspective or sentence-level usage, or what's "important' in a scene, so long as you can impose its rightness and importance on the reader. The influences on how I think about character are mostly fanfic writers, but that's an aspect of my reading and writing that I prefer to keep private.

When and where do you write?

I don't have the discipline to write before work; I write in the evening after dinner, almost always at home on the couch. It's easier to write when you're comfortable, although writing at my desk is sometimes fun if I want to feel like the guy from Sunset Boulevard. I write most days. I take a day or two off per week.

What are you working on now?

A gay historical novel about a 19th-century naval tragedy. I wanted to work in a gay literary tradition; I've done more lesbian work and bi work and trans work, but a lot of my queer influences are gay men.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

All the time. It's another word for exhaustion and burnout. You can force your way past it, but you'll pay for that later. Take the day. Just like you don't save any time by darting in and out of traffic, you don't save any time by throwing yourself against your problems, as opposed to sitting with them in the background.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Write the book you actually want to write, not the book you feel you should write. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don't forget that your heroes are just people, and not a different kind of person from you, either. All the masterpieces of literature were written by people who struggled with their jobs, their relationships, and the unreliability of their bodies and minds. All of those people were tired and distracted. You can be like them. Since you share their very common problems, you already are like them.

Isaac Fellman is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The Breath of the Sun and the upcoming novella The Two Doctors Górski. His newest book is Dead Collections, about an archivist who is a vampire. Isaac is an archivist, but not a vampire.