Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

“I'm in Washington Square Park wishing I could write a poem, the poem that would help. Poetry doesn't help, money helps. I know I don't believe that. What to do. Observe, observe, observe. It is my new mission to lay back and observe. Put less of myself out there and listen more.”

That's memoirist Janice Erlbaum writing a blog entry in 2005, reflecting on life changes that would ultimately bring her in contact with a teenaged runaway named Sam. (She had just finished her first book, Girlbomb.

Erlbaum would keep writing as she came closer and closer to this troubled girl, and that journey is recorded in her new memoir, Have You Found Her.

Today, Erlbaum explains how she ended up becoming a writer and how she supported herself over the course of her career--all the nitty-gritty detail that can help a fledgling writers think about their own lives.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
While writing and living this book, you also maintained a freelance career. This can be a very difficult lifestyle for a writer. How did you hold your life together, both financially and emotionally, during those early years before your first book was published?

Janice Erlbaum:
Most of my freelancing involved my books, and my steady gig as a columnist for BUST magazine, and thank god for that – I’m terrible at pitching articles and drumming up piecework. Continue reading...

 

I’d already sold Girlbomb by the time I quit my steady day job and started writing Have You Found Her, so I had a little bit of cash in the bank from the first book and the advance on the second one.

I’m also lucky enough to be one half of a solvent couple, sharing living expenses with my partner Bill, which cuts down on financial stress. And, as I mention in the book, my father helped me to buy the apartment we live in, which further cut our expenses.

I feel like that’s one of the dirty little secrets of writing professionally – I know from surveying my peers that many people who are able to devote themselves to full-time writing can only do so because they get some financial assistance from their families.

And almost all of the people I went to grad school with were there on their families’ dimes. I’m not saying I’m proud to have taken support from my dad – I’d be much prouder of my success if I’d been fully self-sufficient, as I was for much of my adult life – but I am happy to admit it, when the opportunity arises, because I’m grateful for the relief it afforded me, and because so many other writers who’ve had the same advantage don’t admit it.