Fifteen writing facts about me

Here goes. We'll see if I can make fifteen.

1. I don't think I like to write. I'm like others I've heard about. I like to finish.

2. Earliest inkling I had writing talent? Poetry. In third or fourth grade I didn't memorize a poem as I was supposed to have, so in desperation to do the assignment, I wrote a poem. The teacher was impressed, and I had to keep that up all year. Some of the poems were doozies, too.

3. In junior high I was famous (infamous) for parodies and little ditties I wrote to the tune of some popular songs.

4. I took journalism courses in high school.

5. In college I was forced to write a play. The teacher was going to fail me because I hadn't turned it in, nor presented it in class. I was petrified. Another classmate squealed that I had done the assignment but had cold feet about the presentation. Finally, I presented it and did a reading for the class. It was chosen as a "best" One-Act and shelved in the school's library.

6. I spent most of my adult life as an actor and became adept at analyzing stories, screenplays, scripts. I used those skills to direct plays and I also assisted new playwrights in honing and evolving their work.

7. I taught school as well and wrote plays tailored to my students.

8. After recognizing I was being used less as an actor because of my age and the availability of parts for an African-American female actors, I turned back to my first "inklings" and decided to pursue writing as an alternate career. My intention was to write screeenplays. Well, I couldn't find a program that didn't necessitate me attending classes, and I couldn't do that because I often did regional theatre which kept me traveling. I finally found a writing program, a genre focused one, and I thought, well, I'll learn to write--period-- become a skillful writer, and I'll be able to transfer those skills into the writing of screenplays. (Hey, this story is getting too long. It should be numbers, 8,9, 10.) Well, I got into novel writing and am totally blase about writing screenplays now. (Besides, I didn't want to be one of the trillion people in Hollywood with a script under their arm trying to sell it!)

11. Before I graduated with a master's in writing, I had an agent and a two-book deal.

12. Guess what, I got my book optioned for film as well. See, all roads lead to nirvana.

13. I'm writing in third person for the first time and diddling with suspense and writing away from my established series' character. (I consider myself a newbie author, so I haven't tried everything yet, so some forms are new to me.) I've used some of the characters I previously established, however, and this story is told from a different perspective, not Amos Brown's.

14. No. I don't plan to write short stories. I don't really like them much and don't go out of my way to read them.

15. Alternate forms of writing I plan to get under my belt? A play, naturally. And though nobody's asked me to adapt my own book into a screenplay, I may do it anyway, for the practice and see what happens. There, fifteen. And the story of my life. Part I.

Gammy L. Singer