About Phillip Frey:
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where I performed as a child actor at The Cleveland Playhouse. The day after I graduated high school I moved to Los Angeles and attended Los Angeles City College’s Theater Arts Department, performing in many of their plays while also performing in local theater.
I then moved to New York where I performed with Joe Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival, followed by The Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center. With a change of interest I wrote, directed, and edited 3 short films, all of which had international showings, including The New York Film Festival.
With yet another change of interest I returned to Los Angeles to become a produced screenwriter. And now more recently I have turned to narrative fiction with the books “Dangerous Times” and “Hym and Hur,” and a collection of short stories.
What inspires you to write?
Good question. It may be the challenge, kind of like being excited about doing a jigsaw puzzle. I suppose this sounds academic, but I enjoy the struggle of coming with the exact words, structuring a sentence properly, keeping it all clear and simple. In addition, even though I may not need some of this, I like to imagine what the lighting is like, what the sounds are like, what the characters are wearing—what are their characteristics and how they speak is always needed.
Also, my mother was a writer, a freelance journalist. It was her doing, getting me to read and write. She had always wished to write a novel but never did. Maybe in some psychological way I’ve been driven to bring her wish to fruition.
As far as pure inspiration goes, I suppose it comes from having characters in mind, wanting to bring them to life, and then sitting down finally and writing that first sentence.
Tell us about your writing process.
A long time ago I took the advice of playwright Tennessee Williams and it’s worked for me. Set a daily start time, then sit there, same time each and every day for a chosen number of hours. If nothing happens on paper during your set work time, it doesn’t matter. Just stare at the blank page, daydream about hot fudge sundaes, maybe even daydream about what you’re trying to say on paper. The important thing is not to get up and run from it. Whether or not a single word is written, the mind is still working. The writing hours are never wasted. Once you have a first sentence down, more will follow.
For Tennessee it was 4 hours; for me too, in the early morning, though I usually return later in the day to do some editing. The reason I get up very early to work is because there are no interruptions—no one else is awake.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
There are times I ask the characters what it is they’re trying to say. This is an exercise that helps dig up the subtext of their dialogue. I don’t write outlines, so there are times I don’t know what the next chapter is. I can hear and see the characters sitting around waiting and discussing how to move forward. The reason I don’t write outlines is for the sake of the unpredictable. When the story is moving forward the characters tell me where to go.
What advice would you give other writers?
A long time ago I took the advice of playwright Tennessee Williams and it’s worked for me. Set a daily start time, then sit there, same time each and every day for a chosen number of hours. If nothing happens on paper during your set work time, it doesn’t matter. Just stare at the blank page, daydream about hot fudge sundaes, maybe even daydream about what you’re trying to say on paper. The important thing is not to get up and run from it. Whether or not a single word is written, the mind is still working. The writing hours are never wasted. Once you have a first sentence down, more will follow.
For Tennessee it was 4 hours; for me too, in the early morning, though I usually return later in the day to do some rewriting. The reason I get up very early to work is because there are no interruptions—no one else is awake..
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I queried literary agents for a year and then gave up on them. I then decided to self-publish through Smashwords (I also posted on Amazon). The problem with agents reading the first page or first chapter is their lack of trust, trusting that the story will have a captivating, uphill climb. I remember reading John le Carré’s “A Perfect Spy,” which was a bestseller. If he had been an unknown writer, no agent in the world would have signed him. During near the first hundred pages of this long book I had no idea what was going on. But then it turned out to be a really good book.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I have no idea, but I guess because of the way things are going, there will come the day when we’ll have only one U.S. print publisher.
What genres do you write?: crime, fantasy, humor
What formats are your books in?: eBook
Website(s)
Link To Phillip Frey Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on Smashwords
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