Dreams of Becoming an Author
The dream began in 1948, long before I was born. That was the year my mother resolved to escape poverty and illiteracy. Living with her family in a “Grapes of Wrath” tent encampment in California, too destitute for shoes, she quit school where she’d been an advanced student, and married at age sixteen to escape the grinding poverty. (The backstory here is a historical novel I’m currently writing).
In the 1920’s my grandfather, from a wealthy Jewish family in Israel, came to America to be educated in a Catholic University. I don’t know why this happened, but I suspect he got into trouble in his homeland. Anyway, during his studies he fell in love with an Irish nun. When a priest found them making love in a barn, a struggle ensued and my grandfather shot and killed the priest. Grandpa Paul and grandma Fanny (the Irish nun) remained on the run the rest of their lives together, living in the swamps of Louisiana in a two-bedroom hut on stilts. Over the years, Grandma gave birth to thirteen children (two sets of twins) while Grandpa drank himself to death.
After Grandpa Paul died the family moved to California. My mother escaped the impoverished living conditions of the camp by marrying my father whose family from Oklahoma was part of the Dust Bowl migration, who followed the hallowed ground of route 66 to the San Juaquin Valley in search of agricultural work during the Great Depression. Fate landed both families in the same encampment where my parents grew up together in their early teens. My father had the courage to enlist in the Army at age seventeen, become a veteran of the Korean War and return to marry my mother.
“…when she found a scrap of poetry I’d written at age eleven she exclaimed, ‘You’re a writer!’ Just like that the seed was planted and my fledgling identity was born.”
Eager to take advantage of her new life as a newlywed living on a military base my mother frequented public libraries and in a few years read all the literary classics—several times, and studied poetry. Later she immersed herself in art through oil painting. Though her classical education was self-taught, she was inquisitive and continued as a voracious reader all her life in a wide variety of genres. Thus, my story begins…when she found a scrap of poetry I’d written at age eleven she exclaimed, “You’re a writer!” Just like that the seed was planted and my fledgling identity was born.
As the youngest of three siblings, I was probably least likely to succeed. My early childhood produced a serious of obstacles in my development. Thankfully, like my mother, I was blessed with a high IQ which saved my life on more than one occasion.
The first four years my family lived on an Air Force Base in Bitburg, Germany where a German lady became my caregiver and I learned to speak fluent German. Returning to the states and living in Arizona I struggled with reading and writing. As bad luck would have it, I also contracted scarlet fever and missed three months of third grade. The following year I suffered a brain injury from a bicycle accident while living in New York state when I was ten which left me with retrieval issues. The files in my mind no longer had identifying pathways. Finding names for things, people or events was like staring up at a sky-high row of books and saying, “I know it’s here somewhere.” Thankfully, over time, I forged new neural pathways and have managed to be the first in my family to graduate from university and become a successful author.
The question is, how? For anyone who achieves their dreams the answer will always be perseverance. Ignore the lucky few who are “discovered” their first attempt. Here’s my story…
I started writing fiction at age nineteen, but felt I needed life experience, so after spending six years helping run a family business, I entered college as an older return student (in my late twenties). I studied art and literature in London for six months. Then switched from an English major to journalism. Intending to become a war correspondent I attended a seminar in Berlin. While there I drove into the war regions of Croatia. My companions and I (two freelance reporters) traveled over the mountains in a rented car to the Adriatic coast on the only road still open where the day before journalists were striped, the car stolen and the female journalist raped. During our journey we were stopped at roadblocks and body searched, held up at gunpoint upon stumbling into a Croatian National Guard’s secret ammunition depot and hid in the woods from Serbian tank caravans. Along the way I interviewed dozens of refugees, the president of the Red Cross and the Croatian National Guard and wrote my feature story which received a prestigious award.
I also wrote as a crime writer for the Fresno Bee. At the time Fresno was a haven for gangs who dominated the city. I called it Gotham City as citizens were daily car jacked, shot and killed at fast foods, and grocery stores held up in broad daylight by groups of AK-47 carrying bandits. I was personally held up at gun point at a stop sign. All fodder for a future thriller author. I was sixty when my debut novel published and I learned a few things along the way.
“…sometimes life gets in the way, but that is no excuse to give up the dream.”
First, sometimes life gets in the way, but that is no excuse to give up the dream. My husband died in a car accident when my daughters were very young not long after I graduated college. I made a personal decision to put aside my journalism career and stay home with my children. Raising two toddlers alone was a challenge. I didn’t have much help, so I also didn’t have much sleep. The first five years there simply wasn’t time to write, but I did study writing. I also researched a couple of novels and spent time in critique groups honing my fiction writing skills. All the reading, writing and studying I did during those years established the foundation for the writer I would become.
Second, finish what you start. While in college I had acquired both a journalism degree and a degree in literature so I had the advantage of research skills and writing skills. What I didn’t have was enough stick-to-it-ness or maybe just belief in myself. In other words, if you start a writing project, even if you don’t think it’s your best work, finish it anyway! You can’t find an agent or a publisher with unfinished work. I began several novels over the course of thirty years—that’s a long time—and I never finished one of them. I’ve gone back and read them and I believe all of them were publishable if I’d only finished!
A Desperate Place by Jennifer Greer (Crooked Lane)
Third, rejection is a part of life. It’s a big part of writing life so get used to it. Fortunately, my skills as a journalist also taught me that all my little word darlings can be murdered by an editor and I will still live. Newspaper editors don’t care about your carefully chosen words—they freely hack away with no regard for your delicate feelings. Years of this taught me perseverance and to always keep the reader in mind. So, hundreds of rejection notes from both editors and agents did not crush my dream of becoming an author. Did I pull away and lick my wounds sometimes? Yes, but not for long. Expect rejection because it’s just a stepping-stone to success.
Over the years I have set up writing stations in garages, bedrooms, kitchens and closets (where I am now). I’ve written on trains, planes and automobiles, in the early morning hours and the middle of the night, during my kid’s ice-skating lessons, pool parties, beach visits, hospital stays and so on. The truth is, where there’s a will, there’s a way. If you want a literary agent submit your best work and keep submitting it, because sooner or later the answer will be yes. Within a week of sending my query for A Desperate Place (the only manuscript I ever finished) to Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group, he asked to read it. Suddenly I had an amazing literary agent who sold my novel a couple of weeks later! The dream of becoming a published author had finally come true.
Jennifer Greer began her writing career as a journalist. She graduated from California State University, Fresno with a degree in journalism and worked as a crime reporter for the Fresno Bee. Interested in foreign affairs, she traveled to Russia in the late 80s and lived in London studying art and literature. While abroad she traveled into the war regions of Croatia and wrote an award winning article on the women and children refugees. She lives on the Oregon Coast. A Desperate Place is her first novel.