Describe your desk
A two to three foot horseshoe shaped pile of paper around my computer screen. A clean desk is confirmation of a sick mind. A messy desk is confirmation of commitment to a task/goal regardless of distraction from ants eating crumbs, spiders eating ants, fuzzy gray coffee mugs, blinking message lights on the answering machine from collection companies regarding buried unopened bills, or the fact that I can't find my car keys... oh wait, found them... now wondering how they ended up on a picture hook, hmmm... what happen to that picture? Whatever, back to writing my story...
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
To answer that question, YES, vividly; I will never forget it. Over 20 years ago, I started writing a humorous annual Witz Family Holiday Newsletter and received some unsolicited but very helpful advice. One of wife’s grand old aunts mailed my holiday letter back to me… each sentence had every kind of English 101 corrections...spelling, punctuation, grammar… ALL WRITTEN IN RED INK! I was not only embarrassed and upset for months, my whimsical artsy heart had been ripped out, I was demoralized, devastated. However, when I pulled that corrected letter out eleven months later, I relived that moment of envelop opening... until I re-read the letter. She was 110% correct, it was first-draft unedited awful! My anger morphed into embarrassment and my ego was muted. THAT’S when I took my writing seriously. From that date forward, I never again sent out any of my writing anywhere to anyone without exhaustive editing and polishing.
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