Why I became a writer

I could have taken the easy way out. My family has owned successful Italian restaurants for over thirty years. When I was younger, I used to sit in our oversized dark red booths and hear about how my great uncle and Grandpa were good friends with Frank Sinatra. I remember my dad telling me that he worked out in Hollywood with my great uncle one summer at the restaurant my Uncle Sonny used to manage for years called Martonis, and at the end of the summer his reward was a trip on Frank Sinatra’s plane that was flying to Vegas where my dad would hear Elvis in concert. I would hear about how when my Aunt Tisha was a little girl sat on Cary Grant’s lap. I would hear stories about Styx and Damn Yankees from my Uncle Bob, may he rest in peace. He used to do promotions for them ages ago. 

And, recently one of my uncles, who was in the Vietnam War and had married a German woman named Bonita, told me that his ex-wife had a grandpa who was a Nazi. She was poisoned into thinking that everyone was inferior to the German race. She would often tell him in arguments, “You cannot help that you are the way that you are. You’re an American and of Italian decent. You’re not German and Germans are the perfect race.” They used to argue often over that and when she wanted him to stay in Germany with her and wouldn’t let him see his family, his answer to her was a no-brainer; they divorced.

Most people would think it's a no-brainer, why not just fall into the family business. Everything is set up, but if I did that I would be miserable. Now granted working for family has allowed me time to write my YA novel, but would I never run a restaurant. It's not my passion. Writing is. 

Writing doesn't pay well most of the time, but I don't care. It's what I love. I live and breathe for my writing. That's how my uncles feel about the restaurant business. When we had to sell one of the restaurants you could see the devastation in their eyes. Now that's passion and love for what you do. If someone told me to just stop writing, they better have a damn good justification for it. Even then I wouldn't listen. 

I often come across people in the restaurant who are eager to read my book and ask when it will come out. What they don't understand is that writing is also about rewriting. It's about rewriting some more. It's about sending it out to an agent and hoping they love it. It's hoping an editor will love it enough to sign you on as a client and it's hoping you have a fan base that will continue to grow. Otherwise you're just writing for yourself. In any event, even if it takes years, I'm not giving up. It's a persistence game. You don't tell a MLB player to stop playing baseball or a ballet dancer to give up because her feet are too big or her stance is too wide. They wouldn't give up, they'd work harder. That's what I do. Work harder to follow my passion because that is what life is about. Having something to live for and the courage to go after it! 



Happy writing! 



Heather