Guest Author: Nancy Holzner

5 January 2010 Jackie LE Guests, Nancy Holzner 27

I am excited to welcome Nancy Holzner to Literary Escapism today. Nancy is the author of the fabulous book, Deadtown, and this is one book everyone should be checking out.

They call it Deadtown: the city’s quarantined section for its inhuman and undead residents. Most humans stay far from its borders — but Victory Vaughn, Boston’s only professional demon slayer, isn’t exactly human…

Vicky’s demanding job keeping the city safe from all manner of monsters is one reason her relationship with workaholic lawyer (and werewolf) Alexander Kane is in constant limbo. Throw in a foolhardy zombie apprentice, a mysterious demon-plagued client, and a suspicious research facility that’s taken an unwelcome interest in her family, and Vicky’s love life has as much of a pulse as Deadtown’s citizens.

But now Vicky’s got bigger things to worry about. The Hellion who murdered her father ten years ago has somehow broken through Boston’s magical protections. The Hellion is a ruthless force of destruction with a personal grudge against Vicky, and she’s the only one who can stop the demon before it destroys the city and everyone in it.

Doesn’t this sound good? Want to read an excerpt? If it does, stick around as we’re giving away a copy at the end.
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Not long ago I was speaking to some college writing classes about (what else?) writing. One student asked a question that has stuck with me: “How did you know you were a writer?” Something about the way she phrased her question—or maybe it was the look on her face or the tone of her voice—made me realize she was asking something entirely different, that she was asking how she could find out whether she might be a writer.

People who want to write sometimes feel that they need outside validation, that someone has to give them permission, before they can begin. No one asks dentists, “How did you know you were a dentist?” Same thing goes for accountants, engineers, librarians, and zookeepers. We might ask, “Why did you choose that job?” but we assume that a combination of interest, training, and experience is what led them to where they are now.

Interest, training, and experience. It’s really no different for writers. But for someone hoping to become a writer, it can feel different. It can feel like you need some kind of sign to give you the green light to go ahead and write. Writing feels like a risky activity unless you somehow already know you’re a writer.

So how do you know?

I’ve heard other writers answer this question by saying that they can’t not write. Writing is a compulsion that won’t leave them alone. I understand what they mean, but that’s not my story.

I’ve always been a reader. My mom tells me that I was picking words out of newspaper ads by the time I was three. Because I loved to read, it didn’t take long for me to try my hand at writing. I was enchanted by stories and wanted to create my own. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I wrote frequently—poems, stories, plays, thoughts. In college, though, my focus changed. I started thinking about careers. I switched from English major to pre-med and then back to English. I worked at sharpening my analytical and critical writing skills as I thought about becoming an academic.

I gave up writing for pleasure. I gave up creative writing entirely.

When I say I gave it up, I mean for years. I got married, had a daughter, went to graduate school. I earned my PhD in English and got an assistant professorship. Later, I derailed myself from the tenure track and found other work: teacher, college admissions counselor, copyeditor, corporate trainer—although much of that work revolved around writing, none of it was writing.

I’d still get nudges to create stories. But I was really good ignoring them, burying them under a mountain of other things to do. There were always papers to grade, clothes to wash, meetings to attend, dinners to make. I could “not write.” And I did “not write.” During this time, the last thing I would have called myself was a writer. I was a mom, a wife, an academic, a teacher, an editor. But I didn’t know that I was a writer. I thought perhaps I wasn’t.

During those years, I’d catch myself creating scenes in my head. I never wrote them down. But I’d make mental sketches of moments from my day: taking the dog for a walk, working on a craft project with my daughter, recasting a lunchtime conversation with a colleague. Eventually, the scenes stretched into stories, which I’d plot out (still just in my head). The stories started to interest me, and eventually I began to pay attention to the nudges and started trying to figure out how to write them down.

For me, the nudges alone weren’t enough. I had to make a conscious choice to write. Writing takes patience, persistence, and work. A lot of work. Choosing to write means choosing all of that, even in the face of rejection, criticism, and indifference. Because if you choose writing, you choose those things, too. But I became a writer when I made that choice.

And I think that’s the answer to that student’s question, the one she stated and the one she was really asking. When I kept coming back to the page, day after day, to tell the stories I felt increasingly compelled to tell, that’s when I knew I was a writer. Now, I might say that I can’t not write. But it hasn’t always been that way. I had to work to get here. Writers write. If you want to know whether you’re a writer, that’s what you need to do. It’s that simple. And that complicated.
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Contest Time!  Nancy is offering up a copy of her new release, Deadtown.  In order to get your hands on one of these puppies, all you have to do is answer her question: Think of something you’ve chosen to do. How did you decide it was right for you? International entries are welcome, but shipping may be delayed a little!

As always, there’s more ways of getting your name in the hat:

  • +1 for each place you post about today’s contest on your blog, social network, or anywhere you can. Digg it, stumble it, twit it, share it with the world. Wherever you share it, make sure you add a link to it along with your answer.
  • +1 to any review you comment on, however, comments must be meaningful. Just give me the title of the review and I’ll be able to figure it out from there.
  • +1 Join the Literary Escapism Facebook page and/or follow LE on Twitter
  • +1 subscribe to Literary Escapism – either via a reader or email (see the RSS button at the bottom of the sidebar)
  • +10 purchase any novel through LE’s Amazon store sometime during this contest and send a copy of the receipt VIA email for your purchase to: myjaxon AT gmail DOT com. Each purchase is worth ten entries, but it has to be through the LE Amazon Link.

The contest will stay open until January 12th, at which time I’ll determine the winner with help from the Research Randomizer and the List Randomizer.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

24 Comments

  1. I chose to tattoo an infinity symbol on my ankle. I thought about it for a long time and wanted something that could not be taken away from me, like my love for my husband. A ring can be lost, his life can even be ended… but as long as I am alive I will be able to see that tattoo and know my love for him is forever.

    I have added your contest to my Daily Contest Bar & my Side Bar

    I am a friend on Facebook (Miranda Dee Lawrence Whitman) & on twitter (@mindymiranda)

    I am also subscribed through email.

    Happy Tuesday *wink*

  2. Hi, Nancy! Great post, I started thinking on what made me decide to be a nurse and honestly, I can’t quite pinpoint the exact reason why.. I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t want to be a nurse! :)

  4. I’m not really good at deciding what is right for me…I still haven’t figured myself out enough to do that, so I just do what I do and hope that it is right.

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  5. I was wondering what kind of variety we might get in the answers to this question, and you guys don’t disappoint. :)

    @Miranda: Your tattoo sounds cool and I love your reason for getting it!

    @Wendy: My best friend from high school was the same way. She always knew she wanted to be a nurse, she pursued that career, and she’s done it successfully for years now. Sometimes you just know.

    @INCiDeNT: Great answer. That kind of focus is so necessary to succeed as a writer.

    @Raelena: You know, there’s a heck of a lot to be said for going with the flow. When you find something that feels right, you’ll know it.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts, all!

  8. My husband is in the military and at one point we were separated for six months. I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I quit my job, packed up the kids, and joined him in the new city. We left all of our friends and family behind. I knew it was the right decision when my children stopped crying for their daddy every night. It was worked out in the end and we love where we are living now (except for the excessive amount of snow we get every winter).

    +1 email subscriber

    +1 posted your contest on my blog: http://curlingupbythefire.blogspot.com

  9. @Arantza: That’s a good feeling, when the doubts go away. It sounds like you keep moving forward through those doubts, too.

    @Stephanie N: It was brave of you to make that leap, and you gave me shivers when you wrote “I knew it was the right decision when my children stopped crying for their daddy every night.” (I live in the Snow Belt, too, but I don’t mean that kind of shivers!)

  10. Something that I have chosen to do for me, would be the path that I took for my graduate studies.

    My family wanted me to be a teacher or to go in science, but I found that I love the arts programs bring offered and especially the East Asian Studies program.

    So during my undergraduate and the entrance to the graduate program, I had to make the choice on whether I would do as my family dictated, or follow my heart to do research.

    I chose to follow what I love to study, and I am now in a research program that has a heavy base in social activism. I am finding that I have a growing interest in power relations, and migrant labour. So when I read your book, i found that I could relate alot of what I am studying to situations in the book. For example, how zombies are seens as not deserving of rights because they are different ect.

    Thanks!

    A

  12. I suppose like many women, I decided to have children.

    I thought about it for a long time but then when I saw how good with kids my husband was, I realised that I wanted my own as well.

    Best decision I ever made !

  14. Upon graduating from university, there was a lot of pressure to go back to grad school and get my Masters (especially with the horrible economic downturn)…but I knew I wasn’t ready for that. I was burnt out from too many years of non-stop academia and too many sleepless nights. So I decided to try my hand at finding a job and lowering my sleep debt instead, haha. I don’t regret that decision one bit; I can always get back on the academic track a bit later, if that’s what I want to do.

    +1 Follower on Twitter
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  15. @A. Perreca: It can be hard to take a different path than the one your family wants for you, but it’s so important to find something you love to do. Cool that you saw themes related to your studies in Deadtown. I used to teach a course called Heroes and Monsters where we looked (among other things) at the marginalization of the “other” as monstrous. So Deadtown does have that in its background, although I’ll admit I hadn’t thought about that explicitly until I read your comment.

    @RKCharron: Commitment is essential. During those years I wasn’t writing, I know that if I’d believed that “real” writers felt an irresistable compulsion to write, I would’ve felt like I’d failed before I ever got started. Of course writers feel an urge to write, but in my experience I had to affirm that urge with a conscious decision to try. Glad you found my post helpful!

    @Carol Thompson: I feel the same way about my wonderful daughter. :)

    @Mystica: It sounds like your focus has led you to make a real difference in kids’ lives. Good for you–and for them.

    @Julie: Smart choice. Grad school can be a wonderful experience IF you’re lined up with it. And sometimes the best way to get lined up is exactly what you did–step away from the whole academic rat race for a while. If you decide to go, you’ll do it because you’re ready. If you don’t, you didn’t need to go, anyway. And paying off the sleep debt sounds like an excellent idea. (I need to work on that one!)

  16. Thanks for the great post Nancy. I’ve been seeing a lot about your book lately and I think it’s one I would enjoy – and rightly so!!

    After having my first child, I decided to go back to work – which was hard when you have a cute baby at home, but I knew it was what I needed to do. Then several months later, my situation changed and I ended up quitting. Now this was doubly hard because a) it was my dream job – a librarian and b) because my department had recently lost a few employees and I was leaving them short-staffed. But after making my decision, I knew it was better for me to stay home with my son and have since started volunteering at the library, which has really helped me keep my sanity!!

  17. Deciding to quit work and stay at home. As my middle child was nearing graduation from college, I realized that in 8 short years my baby would be leaving for college and my nest was going to be empty. I had spent 30 years working and my kids childhoods had slipped away( I had one child 29, one 21, and one 13. I don’t regret working as this meant we were able to give all our kids a chance to go to a good college but I felt like a lot of their childhood had slipped by in a blur.

    +1 to any review commited on “Dead Hunger” and “Carrie Lofty”

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  18. Wonderful interview, and some great advise. I still don’t entirely know how I became an engineer. It just kind of happened….:)

    ?+2 for each place you post about today’s contest on your blog, social network,
    facebook – http://www.facebook.com/hcreely?ref=profile

    twitter – http://twitter.com/Heatwave316/status/7467673014

    ?+1 Join the Literary Escapism Facebook page and/or follow LE on Twitter – joined both

    ?+1 subscribe to Literary Escapism – either via a reader or email (see the RSS button at the bottom of the sidebar)- already subscribed

  19. I chose to stay in New Orleans after Katrina. A lot of friends moved away and after living in Orlando for a few weeks after the hurricane I saw how nice it was elsewhere. Looking back now 4 years later, I’m happy I decided to stay, I don’t think I would be happy living anywhere else.

    +1 constest sidebar here
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    Thanks!

  20. I have chosen to base my career in Medicine .I have always loved the sciences and never thought of doing any business related subjects. When I was a child , I wanted to be a doctor.

    +1 Linked on my Facebook page Facebook

    +1 I joined the Literary Escapism Facebook page
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